PAPERS BURNT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20634, 9 December 1941, Page 5

PAPERS BURNT

JAPANESE EMBASSY CONSUL DOUBTS POWER ROUND-UP OF ALIENS (Reed. Dec. 9, 10 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 1. A crowd watched the Japanese Embassy staff at Washington burn official papers in the Embassy yard and then scuttle into the building as the spectators yelled: “Come on out.” The documents were destroyed within an hour of the start of war. The police arrived as the crowd became restless and dispersed them. The State Department announced that it had taken all the necessary steps to protect official Japanese establishments and officials in the United States.

Japanese sources said that Admiral -Nomura and Mr. Kurusu were astounded by the Japanese attack on America.

The special Japanese envoy, Mr. Kurusu, obtained reservations to fly from New York to San Francisco last night. Mr. Kihachiro Ohmori, the actingJapanese Consul-General said it wa's questionable how long Japan could continue the war with thq United States.

“The people of Japan do not want war but there are some excitable peoplp to cause it,” he added. Espionage Act Invoked

The War Department invoked the 1917 Espionage Act against the publication of secret military information. It is announced from Seattle that the army authorities have cancelled all commercial telephone calls to Alaska. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Henry Morgenthau, has closed the United States borders to Japanese nationals and has imposed a strict ban on any financial transactions by Japanese aliens Mr. Morgenthau also Invoked the vital provisions of the Trading With the Enemy Act 1917 to prevent any commerce communication with Japan or her allies.

Federal agents are prepared to seize every Japanese national who is regarded as potentially dangerous. At Norfolk, Virginia, the site of one of the largest naval bases on the Atlantic coast, all Japanese were arrested. About 9.3,000 Japanese registered under the alien registration law last year, 41,000 of whom are in Hawaii.

The Mayor of New York, Mr. F. H. La Guardia, announced that he had ordered all Japanese nationals throughout the city to remain in their homes until their status was established by the Federal Government. BERLIN VERSION (Reed. Dec. 9, noon.) LONDON, Dec. 8. The Berlin radio, for the first time commenting on the Japanese attack, said: “It is the result of Mr. Roosevelt’s warmongering. Thus this warmonger No. 1 has at last achieved his aim and brought war to his people.” The Berlin radio reported a big naval engagement between the Japanese and the British and American fleets in the western Pacific in which the United States battleship West Virginia was sunk and the battleship Oklahoma set on fire and three other American warships hit. The Domei news agency claims that the Oklahoma was sunk at Pearl Harbour.