Will Rogers: A Political Life

Ten. Journey to the Brink of War

Ten  Journey to the Brink of War P icking up the newspaper one morning in September 1931, Will Rogers read that a Japanese army of twenty thousand troops had invaded China and quickly captured a seven-hundred-mile stretch of Manchuria. Knowing the Far East was filled with quarreling nations, each trying to dominate the region, Rogers feared that the latest incident could touch off a major war. “Japan has been trying to match a war with China for years,” he wrote at the time. “Looks like they finally made it. Russia is rehearsing to get in. This Manchuria must be a pretty valuable country.”1 American officials viewed the invasion with alarm, as they feared the Japanese planned other conquests in the region, particularly an invasion of the U.S.-held Philippines. When the Manchurian attack occurred, Secretary of War Pat Hurley was in the Philippines making an inspection of the islands. He too worried about Japanese intentions in the Far East.2 On his way back to Washington he stopped in California to visit with Rogers at his Santa Monica ranch. Rogers and Hurley, who also was born in Indian Territory, were close friends from the old days. The two men had first met in 1898 when working as cowhands on a ranch in Texas.3 Since then Hurley had had an impressive career as a colonel in World War I, a successful attorney practicing in Oklahoma , and a powerful Republican politician. After the war he became wealthy through oil exploration and real estate investments. President Hoover appointed him assistant secretary of war in 1929 and promoted him to secretary eight months later after the death of James William Good. Hurley had traveled to the Philippines to determine if the United States should grant the islands independence, concluding afterward that the islands were neither ready for self-government nor able to defend themselves. Rogers disagreed with his friend, arguing that the Philippines deserved independence . “Let people do their own way and have their own form of Government ,” he wrote in 1924. “We haven’t got any business in the Philippines. We are not such a howling success running our own Government.”4 Two years later Rogers had not changed his mind. “We are in wrong with them now. Why we don’t give ’em to them, and come on home and get our little Army together, and pass a law to never let them leave the country again.”5 One of the nation’s most outspoken isolationists, Rogers believed the United StatesshouldavoidanyconflictbetweenChinaandJapan,writingthat“America could hunt all over the world and not find a better fight to keep out of.”6 At the ranch meeting on October 21, Hurley told Rogers the Philippines were vulnerable to an attack by Japan. Since the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, Japanese economic, political, and military interests in the Far East had grown more threatening to the United States. The invasion of Manchuria only heightened Hurley’s worries. “Wouldent Japan pounce on [the Philippines] and take ’em over the very day we got out?” Rogers asked. “No!” Hurley replied. “Not till maby the following morning.”7 Even though Rogers favored Philippine independence, he conceded that the islands were incapable of defending themselves. If Japan invaded the Philippines, he wrote, they would “have a Crop planted before we could get a Feet [sic] across that Ocean.”8 During their meeting at the ranch, the two men agreed that Rogers would make a last-minute trip to the Far East, stopping in Japan and then traveling on to Manchuria to observe the hostilities. Hurley complained he was not getting a complete picture of the Manchurian situation from the State Department, confiding to Rogers that he was “not permitted to correspond with State Department officials outside of the territorial limits of the United Will Rogers [ 190 ] States.”9 He needed someone he could trust to enter the war zone, get a better understanding of Japanese intentions in the Far East, and determine the strength of Chinese resolve to defend their territory. Hurley also was concerned about how nearby Russia would react to the Japanese invasion. Like Japan, Russia coveted resource-rich Manchuria and already had significant economic interests in the area, including ownership of the southern branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway.10 Hurley feared Manchuria could be the spark Journey to the Brink of War [ 191...