Journey To The Missouri

Author’s Preface

THIS BOOK tells of the critical period leading up to the surrender of Japan in September, 1945. It is largely based upon first-hand experience of that stirring drama which was both painful and poignant. A proud nation stood at the crossroads of life and death. By accepting defeat for the first time in her long history she chose to live. It was only after a prolonged struggle between the contending forces that this choice was finally made. The issue was an intensely grave one, involving as it did a possible loss of men and material beyond the power of arithmetic to compute. In fact the capitulation of Japan saved the lives of several million men. How, then, was Japan brought to her knees to sue for peace?

I have tried to set down the facts as I know them in the way of a dispassionate historian, but in unguarded moments my emotion, all the stronger for suppression, may, I fear, have betrayed me. History devoid of emotion is no better than a marionette show, since after all it must deal with a human drama chequered with the joys and sorrows of the players who strut and fret their hour upon its stage. History is, I hold, idle letters written upon perishable pages but for the exultations and sufferings of those human creatures who give it life. However, I do not pretend to be a playwright. I am a humble mason whose self-appointed task is to erect a modest cenotaph to the vanished empire whose glory and grandeur are now forever consigned to the realm of memory.

The lines of Rossetti,

"War that shatters her slain

And peace that grinds them as grain,"

have never been more true than today. We have learned anew, victors and vanquished alike, that the sword and slaughter do not solve the woes and wants of mankind. For even as victory crowns the victor so shall it crucify him. Still more so in the atomic age. We Japanese who have drained to the dregs the bitterness of defeat should naturally be the first to redeem the world’s lost sanity. Now we have taken the resolve to renounce the cult of the sword and to embrace the creed of peace. We desire to atone for our past sins by hewing stones for the service of humanity—to build a city of light on the hill, a light unto the world.

Under the guidance of General MacArthur the occupation has attained a brilliant success. Thanks to him Japan is no longer a desperate traveler lost in deep forests between two twilights. At last an era of hope has dawned for her. Slowly but surely a new Japan is emerging. The light that illumines her path is the same light that guides the footsteps of mankind in its march toward the goal of an enduring peace. Let all the nations, great and small, unite in the harmony of the simple prayer for a warless world. Let there be no more wars to end war. Let Japan’s surrender be the end of the last war on this earth.

The first chapter records my personal impression of the ceremony of surrender on board the U.S.S. Missouri. If the style is somewhat emotional, it is because I could not help being emotional.

The second chapter will, I hope, serve as an introduction to the narrative which follows. I try in it to describe briefly the contest between the forces for war and those for peace. This is a sort of prologue to the drama.

The main story is unfolded in the rest of the book.

I

A Date with Destiny

1

AS HE SIGNED his name he paused for a moment looking inquiringly up at me. I consulted my wrist watch: four minutes past nine. Deliberately he put the time down, 0904, after his name, Mamoru Shigemitsu, written in Japanese in a masterful hand. It was on board the United States battleship Missouri. The instrument of formal surrender had just been signed by the principal Japanese delegate.

At 9:04 A.M. September 2, 1945, the hostilities between Japan and the Allied powers officially came to an end.

Long desired and long delayed, peace had returned at last to the shattered world. Guns ceased roaring, soldiers halted in midmarch, the stupendous struggle was over. With the capitulation of Japan the global war was finally brought to its dramatic close.

What I witnessed there as one of the members of the Japanese delegation will live long in my memory. It will, I believe, remain one of the most memorable dates in world history, hardly to be surpassed in importance by any other. It is a landmark on the highroad to freedom and progress because it marks the rebirth of a nation redeemed from the bondage of misgovernment through a paralyzing defeat.

For more than a decade the Japanese people were forced to live a sequestered life ignorant of trend and tendency in the world outside, yoked to the power of darkness under the uncontested domination of the military clique. Then they were rudely awakened from the torpor of years to hard realities. Since her entrance into the community of nations some ninety years ago Japan has always been a hungry guest. Poor in resources, her narrow archipelago could not support her teeming millions, frugal though they were and industrious. She felt, therefore, that she was confronted with the alternatives: expand or explode. And she expanded. Her rapid rise, which was truly phenomenal, she owed to costly victories in two wars, one over China, sleeping giant of the day, in 1895, the other over Russia, of famed imperial might, in 1905. These naturally paved the way for the gradual ascendance of the military. When the world-wide depression set in, in 1930 Japan found herself in sore straits, denied access to overseas markets and materials as other countries, eager to save their own economies, did not scruple to close their doors in the face of the hungry guest, now hungrier than ever. The swelling tide of unrest in Europe which attended Hitler’s advent to power, itself a violent reaction to economic hardships, coincided with and contributed toward the rise of the Japanese militarists who asserted their energetic leadership in quest of a place in the sun. Embarking upon their far-reaching design, they recklessly set fire to the tinderbox, first seizing Manchuria and then invading China, and inadvertently kindled a universal conflagration. The younger officers were, at the same time, bent upon reforming the national structure politically and economically. They molded national thought into a martial cast, and in order to facilitate their program of domestic revolution, followed a course designed to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels. Giddy minds theirs were, indeed, for the gullible, unthinking mass meekly accepted the lead of the jingoists who advocated an expansionist policy in open challenge to the Western powers. There ensued an alliance with the Axis powers which inevitably complicated the already strained relations with the United States and Great Britain. A false oracle, it would seem, prophesied easy conquest for the brainless warriors, and they plunged the nation into a catastrophic war. Like a bubble the empire expanded and, expanding, exploded.

Certainly, however, nothing was further removed from the thought of the common people than to wage a war upon the great democracies. They were like the proverbial stray sheep who were shepherded to destruction by the cunning of a wolf in sheep’s clothing; dupes of a subtle deception. Hollow expectation throve on their pampered ignorance. The military made the most of it and imposed their iron grip upon the people who little suspected that they were regarded as ready cannon fodder. Defeat brought disillusionment and salvation. Gone forever are the pride and pageantry of the once formidable army, vanished the glory and grandeur of the once invincible navy. The edgeless sword drops from the despots’ hands. Veil by veil the past evil and errors are unveiled to the mortified people. Scene by scene the bygone sin and shame are disclosed to the remorseful nation. In deep sorrow the humbled country prays on suppliant knees for atonement.

And now in place of the torn banner of the deposed tyrants a new standard is hopefully raised and from the dust of the outworn creed a new faith emerges. Hope replaces fear. Freedom drives away oppression. A nation is again made free.

September 2 thus commemorates the rebirth of a nation prostrate from defeat yet groping for light—light to lead its people back once again to the blessed way of peace. Japan has renounced the path of aggression and aggrandizement in order to plod the arduous road to concord and conciliation. She has exchanged her sword for a spade. With the spade she will cultivate a new land of hope. For by fulfilling the terms of the Potsdam Declaration she aspires to enhance the cause of peace based on the ideals of freedom. She will strive to contribute her share, let it be ever so humble, toward promoting an enduring peace, hoping to regain the respect of other nations which she so foolishly forfeited. But when will the hungry guest, now on the verge of starvation, be admitted to the lighted hall where the family of nations is gathered for a friendly feast? Will it be her fate to remain an outsider? Knocking and still knocking, will she be left an outcast, unheeded and uncared for at the bolted door? Indeed this day, her doomsday, which closes a long account of nothings paid with loss, is at once a day of retribution and resurrection, a date with destiny portentous for the future.

What a hard road for the Allies it was too, this road to victory, paved with unnumbered lives of fallen men. Row upon row of crosses erected to the memory of soldiers on those Pacific islands, the sprinkled isles, lily on lily, that o’er-lace the sea, are the price America paid for V–J Day. And the heavier the price the greater naturally is the emotion felt by the Americans on this occasion. This applies in divers degrees to the rest of the Allies, the British Empire, China, and several others besides. It was a day of humiliation for us, the vanquished, a day of jubilation for them, the victorious. Ours were tears and tribulation, theirs triumph and tumult.

Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! Boom, cannons, all your jubilations boom! Clash out, merry bells, from every rocking steeple. For the victors celebrate their victory and perhaps are not even conscious that all is not solved.

With Japan eliminated from the arena, there now prevails a sudden vacuum in the Far East, creating vast uncertainties and engendering international unrest. China, legitimate heir to Japan’s position, is yet undelivered from the throes of an interminable civil war. The United States, emerging victorious, now exerts her supreme influence over Japan, conquered foe of yesterday and willing friend of tomorrow. This in itself is a situation brought about by the irresistible force of history which unleashed the youthful energy of America on a career of expansion toward the Pacific, where Providence decreed she should exert a predominant influence. A new balance of power will emerge from the prevalent confusion; but whatever its pattern, the destiny of the United States must be inseparably wrought into the tapestry of Asiatic imponderables.

2

It was a surprisingly cool day for early September. The sky was dull gray with clouds hanging low. We left Tokyo at about five o’clock in the morning. There were nine of us, three each from the Foreign Office, and the War and Navy departments, besides the two delegates, Shigemitsu, the foreign minister, representing the government, and General Umezu, chief of staff of the Army, representing the Supreme Command. With the two delegates leading the procession, our cars moved at full speed along the battered and bumpy road to Yokohama. By the highway we could see only miles and miles of debris and destruction where once there had flourished busy towns with numbers of munition factories. The desolation was enough to freeze the heart. But these hollow ruins were perhaps a fit prelude to the drama in which we were about to take part—for were we not sorrowing men come to seek a tomb for a fallen empire? They were also a grim reminder that the nation had been snatched from impending annihilation. For were not these scenes of havoc a sufficient warning? The waste of war and the ignominy of surrender woven together in my mind produced a strange fabric of grief and sorrow. There were few men on the road and probably none recognized us. Our journey had been kept wholly secret lest extremists attempt to impede us by violence.

To begin with, there was much difficulty in selecting the delegates. Nobody wanted to volunteer for the odious duty. The prime minister, Prince Higashikuni, was considered unsuitable because he was the Emperor’s uncle. Next choice fell on Prince Konoye who was vice premier and the real power in the government, but he shunned the ordeal. Finally the mission was assigned to Foreign Minister Shigemitsu.¹ On accepting the imperial command to sign the surrender document as principal delegate, he confided to me what a mark of sovereign’s confidence he felt it to be. Shigemitsu who had served twice before as foreign minister, in the latter period of the Tojo cabinet and throughout the succeeding Koiso cabinet, is a man of confirmed peaceful views. During his twelve months’ tenure of office he did his utmost to prepare for an early termination of the war. His efforts, in which I assisted him to the best of my ability, were, in fact, powerfully instrumental in expediting the restoration of peace. Thus there was reason to believe that, unlike others who evaded the mission as unbearably onerous, Shigemitsu regarded it as a painful but profitable task. He was determined to make this day of national mortification the starting point for a renewed pilgrimage toward the dim and distant goal of a peaceful state. If this day marked a journey’s end, it must also signify a journey’s beginning. The traveler to grief must be replaced by the traveler to glory.

Not so with General Umezu² who reluctantly accepted the appointment as the second delegate. As will be explained later, Umezu had opposed surrender up to the last moment. He was a soldier born to command and not to sue. When he was recommended for the mission, so it is reported, he grew white with anger and replied that if it was forced upon him he would instantly commit harakiri. It required the Emperor’s personal persuasion to make him execute the duties with a good grace.

It may now sound somewhat overprotective, but as precautions were then deemed necessary the appointment of the two delegates was not made known to the press until the last moment. Though the names of the nine persons who accompanied them had been communicated to and approved by the Allied authorities, they were not published at all, in compliance with the wishes of the military. Such, indeed, was the temper of the times.

The party reached Yokohama in less than an hour. The spearhead of the Eighth Army had landed there that day. Sentries with gleaming bayonets were guarding the streets through which we rode slowly to the port area. The flags were removed from the hoods of our cars and the officers left their swords at the office of the prefectural governor where we rested a while. We had thus furled the banner and ungirt the sword. Diplomats without flag and soldiers without sword, morose and silent we continued the journey to the quay.

There were four destroyers with white placards hung on their masts, A, B, C, D. We boarded B, the Lansdown, a ship which had seen meritorious service in the battle of the Pacific. As the destroyer pushed out of the harbor we saw in the offing line on line of gray warships, both heavy and light, anchored in a majestic array. This was the mighty pageant of the Allied navies that so lately went forth into battle, now holding back their swift thunder and floating like calm seabirds on the waters. A spirit of festivity pervaded the atmosphere.

After about an hour’s cruise the destroyer stopped in full view of the battleship Missouri which lay anchored some eighteen miles off shore. The huge 45,000-ton vessel towered above the rest of the proud squadron. High on the mast the Stars and Stripes fluttered in the wind. This was the very flag that had been hoisted on the White House on the day of Pearl Harbor. It had been unfurled in Casablanca, Rome, and Berlin, celebrating each time the victorious entry of the American forces. As we approached the battleship in a motor launch our eyes were caught by rows of sailors lining the rails, a shining multitude in their uniforms of immaculate white.

3

We climbed the gangway, Shigemitsu leading the way, limping heavily with his cane. He walks on a wooden leg, having had his left leg blown off in a bomb outrage in Shanghai some fifteen years ago. It was as if he took each step with a groan and the rest of us echoed it with a sigh. As the eleven of us climbed onto the quarter-deck on the starboard side we formed in three short rows facing the representatives of the Allied powers across a table covered with green cloth on which were placed the white documents of surrender. The quarter-deck was lively with color, red, gold, brown, and olive, the decorations and ribbons on the variegated uniforms of the Allied representatives. There were also row upon row of American admirals and generals in somber khaki. But what added to the animation of the scene was the war corespondents who, monkeylike, clung precariously to every point of vantage. Evidently scaffolding had been erected for the convenience of the cameramen who were working frantically at their job. The gallery of spectators seemed numberless, crowding every inch of available space on the giant ship: on the mast, the smokestacks, the gun turrets—on everything and everywhere.

As we appeared on the scene, we were, I felt, being subjected to the torture of the pillory. A million eyes seemed to beat on us with the million shafts of a rattling storm of arrows barbed with fire. I felt them sink into my body with a sharp physical pain. Never had I realized that staring eyes could hurt so much.

We waited a few minutes, standing in the public gaze like penitent boys awaiting the dreaded schoolmaster. I tried to preserve the dignity of defeat but it was difficult and every minute seemed to contain ages. I looked up and saw painted on the wall nearby several miniature Rising Suns, our flag, evidently corresponding to the planes and submarines shot down or sunk by the gun crews of the battleship. As I tried to count these marks a lump rose in my throat and tears quickly gathered in my eyes, flooding them. I could hardly bear the sight. Heroes of unwritten stories, these were young boys who defied death gaily and gallantly, manning the daily thinning ranks of the suicide corps. They were like cherry blossoms, emblems of our national character, swiftly blooming into riotous beauty and falling just as quickly. What do they see today, looking down on the scene of our surrender?

My thought was interrupted by General MacArthur, supreme commander for the Allied powers, who walked briskly from the interior of the ship and stepped to the microphones placed by the table. As he began to deliver the opening address, I felt considerably surprised; it was our understanding that there would be no speech. I was all ears not to miss a word. Rare union of soldier and statesman, the general stood firmly erect above the others. Fully utilizing the qualities of his sonorous voice, he began:

We are gathered here, representative of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored. The issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies, have been determined on the battlefields of the world and hence are not for our discussion or debate. Nor is it for us here to meet, representing as we do a majority of the peoples of the earth, in a spirit of distrust, malice or hatred.

Each syllable of his words made an indelible impression upon my mind. It was a speech fit to adorn a great occasion when mankind stood in the presence of history. Listening intently, I gazed as everybody did at the speaker and saw the white paper in his hands tremble in the wind. That enhanced the sense of drama, emotion now visibly overflowing the rapt audience.

The address continued, interspersed only by the busy clicks of the newsmen’s cameras.

But rather it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone benefits the sacred purposes we are about to serve, committing all our people unreservedly to faithful compliance with the understanding they are here formally to assume.

It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past—a world founded upon faith and understanding—a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish—for freedom, tolerance and justice.

The terms and conditions upon which the surrender of the Japanese Imperial Forces is here to be given and accepted are contained in the instrument of surrender now before you.

As Supreme Commander for the Allied powers, I announce it my firm purpose, in the tradition of the countries I represent, to proceed in the discharge of my responsibilities with justice and tolerance, while taking all necessary dispositions to insure that the terms of surrender are fully, promptly and faithfully complied with.

What stirring eloquence and what a noble vision! Here is the victor announcing the verdict to the prostrate enemy. He can exact his pound of flesh if he so chooses. He can impose a humiliating penalty if he so desires. And yet he pleads for freedom, tolerance, and justice. For me, who expected the worst humiliation, this was a complete surprise. I was thrilled beyond words, spellbound, thunderstruck. For the living heroes and dead martyrs of the war this speech was a wreath of undying flowers.

Perhaps not since I listened to Briand on the rostrum of the League of Nations years ago have I heard such eloquence. This narrow quarter-deck was now transformed into an altar of peace far higher than the proud platform once erected at Geneva. As MacArthur’s words sailed on wings over wind and wave to the far corners of the globe, nations gathered to offer profound gratitude to the Lord of all being, throned afar, for the return of peace, earnestly praying for its preservation.

In a few minutes’ time the speech was over and the supreme commander, with a stern gesture, invited the Japanese delegates to sign the instrument of surrender. Shigemitsu signed first, followed by Umezu. It was eight minutes past nine when MacArthur put his signature to the documents. Other representatives of the Allied powers followed suit, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, in that order. As I saw them step up to the table one after another I could not help wondering anew how it was that Japan, a poor country, had had the temerity to wage war against the combination of so many powerful nations. Indeed, it was Japan against the whole world. We had fought valiantly with the rage and fury of Satan storming the iron walls of Heaven, setting our gallant army against the armies of an immeasurable host of adversaries, commanding, as they did, the resources of the world. The contest was unequal from the first. The adventure was a product of brains fired by sheer madness. Like Satan’s doomed legions, we fell from Heaven through chaos headlong into Hell.

We might have stood firm, yet we fell. On this day of judgment as we came pleading guilty to the bar, we must, I told myself, steep ourselves in immutable determination to regain the lost Paradise.

When the Soviet delegates advanced, with gold epaulettes and red-striped trousers, I felt some sense of irony in recalling the circumstances in which our government solicited the good offices of the Soviet Union in arranging peace with the United States and Great Britain. But far keener was my regret as I watched the Chinese representative affix his signature to our surrender. It was a piece of deep malice on the part of fortune that even to this day China and Japan, two sister nations who should be trusted friends, should stand face to face as victor and vanquished. And today, while defeated Japan strides forward on the road to democracy, victorious China still remains a house divided against itself, repeating her chronic civil disturbances. The termination of war only served to accentuate China’s internal feud which has been aggravated by the armed struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Unless Japan and China see eye to eye, embracing each other in truly sisterly affection, the future of Asia is bound to be gloomy, which in turn will adversely affect the general stabilizing of the world.

When all the representatives had finished signing, MacArthur stepped forward and announced slowly: Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always. He then faced our delegation and said curtly, These proceedings are closed. We withdrew, filing out in the order of our arrival.

At that moment the skies parted and the sun shone brightly through the layers of clouds. A steady drone above now became a deafening roar and an armada of airplanes paraded into sight, sweeping over the warships. Four hundred B-29’s and 1,500 carrier planes joined in the aerial pageant in a final salute. The ceremony was over.

4

Sitting in the gun room of the destroyer on the way back to the port, I heard the radio announce the broadcast of the supreme commander to the States:

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death—the seas bear only commerce—men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed and in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.

As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear; when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that He has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mould victory.

We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.

A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concept of war.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliance, balances of power, Leagues of Nations all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war.

The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advance in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

We stand in Tokyo today reminiscent of our countryman, Commodore Perry ninety-two years ago. His purpose was to bring to Japan an era of enlightenment and progress by lifting the veil of isolation to the friendship, trade and commerce of the world. But alas the knowledge thereby gained of Western science was forged into an instrument of oppression and human enslavement. Freedom of expression, freedom of action, even freedom of thought were denied through suppression of liberal education, through appeal to superstition and through the application of force.

We are committed by the Potsdam Declaration of principles to see that the Japanese people are liberated from this condition of slavery. It is my purpose to implement this commitment just as rapidly as the armed forces are demobilized and the other essential steps taken to neutralize the war potential. The energy of the Japanese race, if properly directed, will enable expansion vertically rather than horizontally. If the talents of the race are turned into constructive channels, the country can lift itself from its present deplorable state into a position of dignity.

To the Pacific basin has come the vista of a new emancipated world. Today, freedom is on the offensive, democracy is on the march. Today, in Asia as well as in Europe, unshackled peoples are tasting the full sweetness of liberty, the relief from fear.

In the Philippines, America has evolved a modern era for this new free world of Asia. In the Philippines, America has demonstrated that peoples of the east and peoples of the west may walk side by side in mutual respect and with mutual benefit. The history of our sovereignty there has now the full confidence of the East.

And so, my fellow-countrymen, today I report to you that your sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully with the calm, deliberate, determined fighting spirit of the American soldier and sailor based upon a tradition of historical trait, as against the fanaticism of an enemy supported only by mythological fiction, their spiritual strength and power has brought us through to victory. They are homeward bound—take care of them.

MacArthur is a man of peace. Never has the truth of the line peace hath her victories no less renown’d than war been more eloquently demonstrated. Is it not rare good fortune, I asked myself, that a man of such caliber and character should have been designated as the supreme commander who will shape the destiny of Japan? Does he not say that the energy of the Japanese race, if properly directed, will enable expansion vertically rather than horizontally? Does he not also predict that If the talents of the race are turned into constructive channels, the country can lift itself from its present deplorable state into a position of dignity? We must be grateful for this recognition and in gratitude must pledge our best efforts to vindicate the truth of this prediction.

MacArthur included a timely reference to Commodore Perry’s visit to these shores. On the U.S.S. Missouri near the deck where the ceremony had just taken place I had seen encased in the white wall a faded flag. It was the old flag that flew from the mast of Perry’s flagship Powhattan when ninety-two years ago he first knocked at the door of Japan, then a hermit nation. Now it paid a return visit as if to witness the subsequent vicissitudes of the island empire. Japan, awakened by Perry’s black ships, rose speedily to the position of a major power, surprising the world by her spectacular achievements. In a brief span of time she became a naval power surpassed only by the United States and Great Britain and enjoyed immense prestige as a recognized leader of the Asiatic nations. Now prostrate in defeat, she greets once again the flag of Commodore Perry. If Perry’s spirit is embodied in this flag, does it not call upon us to sweep away the militarism that caused our downfall and urge us to open wide our doors once again to external intercourse—this time to repair and restore our national fortunes by assimilating and acquiring not aggressive militarism but democratic ways? In accepting defeat under this historic flag we must not idly deplore the irretrievable past but rise to our full stature to cope with the manifold difficulties that confront us, in order to resuscitate and rebuild the nation on democratic principles. We beg to be judged not by our past deserts but by what we will deserve in the future. MacArthur’s address still vibrant in my ears seemed to exhort our people to join efforts in that work of reconstruction and rehabilitation which must commence at once.

While