793.94/11493: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 6—4 p.m.]
1098. I learn this evening from officials of the Municipal Council, and it is also reported in the press, that at about 7 o’clock this morning [Page 771] Japanese police or gendarmerie accompanied by Japanese in plain clothes drove in motor cars to the Great Eastern Hotel in the Wing On Building on Nanking Road, entered the hotel and arrested three Chinese men and one Chinese woman, took them by motor car to Hongkew, there questioned them for about an hour, and finally released them and sent them back to the hotel. The Japanese did not communicate with or notify the municipal police.
- 2.
- It would seem that the Japanese are taking action exactly in accordance with the 4th point of the memorandum handed to the Commissioner of Police by Colonel Kusumoto as reported in my number 1086, December 4, 4 p.m.
- 3.
- The Council will report the matter to the Senior Consul. Council officials have inquired of me whether it would be possible to have patrols of foreign troops within the Settlement to prevent such incidents. I have replied that I do not believe such use of American troops would be approved.85
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Tokyo.
- The Secretary of State replied in telegram No. 619, December 7, 11 a.m., agreeing that “such a use of American Marines is not within the purview of the mission of those troops.”↩