1937.10.13 “Americans Get Out!”
by Lucius Curtis “Lute” Pease, Jr. (1869 -1963)
16 x 18 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection
Pease was a cartoonist for the Newark Evening News from 1914 to 1954 and received the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. He was a miner in Alaska for 5 years before beginning a career in art. He was an illustrator for the Oregonian and famously interviewed Mark Twain. From his retirement in 1954 until his death in 1963, he devoted himself to fostering his skills as a painter of portraits and landscapes.
In 1937, before America's entry into the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged all US citizens to evacuate China as the Second Sino-Japanese War escalated.
In September 1937, the Japanese had launched a major invasion of China, and the US government feared for the safety of its citizens in the conflict zone. President Roosevelt explicitly stated that Americans in China had been "strongly urged to get out," and anyone who chose to remain did so at their own risk. Many Americans in China, particularly missionaries and business people, protested the warning. They saw their work as important and resented the implication that they were in an "awful mess." In the months that followed, official diplomatic records show the gradual withdrawal of non-essential American civilians. The US government developed formal plans for the evacuation of its citizens from the country.
Key events and dates in 1937:
July 1937: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the start of the war between China and Japan near Beijing.
August 1937: The Battle of Shanghai began, bringing intense and widespread fighting to the commercial city where many Americans resided. In mid-August, the US government urged non-essential American civilians, particularly women and children, to evacuate. For example, on August 17, over 400 American women and children left Shanghai aboard the SS President Jefferson.
The US State Department issued formal, emergency-level warnings for Americans to leave danger zones in China on October 13, 1937.
November 1937: As Japanese forces closed in on the Chinese capital of Nanking, US officials urged all remaining civilians to leave. On November 22, the American ambassador and other diplomats evacuated Nanking by boarding a US Navy vessel.
December 1937: The situation worsened with the Japanese attack on the USS Panay, an American gunboat on the Yangtze River. This attack and the horrific Nanking Massacre that followed cemented the urgent and escalating danger for foreigners in China.
