 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific Story. In the mounting fury of world conflict, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest sea, the drama of the peoples whose destinies at stake in the Pacific War. Here, as another public service, is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. Prophet of the Pacific. I am a dying man. I can do nothing more for either of our two great countries. I have warned America in my books. I now warn you Chinese in words. China's enemies are its historic pacifism, its political corruption, and Japan. We Americans have the same three enemies. Your new republic, China, like ours, can only be preserved in its beauty and freedom by vigilant swords. It is frightening how clearly this crippled little American sees our dangers. I have never been able to understand why he cares so much about China's cause. No, when he is so truly American. Look, Dr. Sun Yacin is talking with him now. Homer Lee has fought for our new Chinese republic, and now at last he has seen his friend Dr. Sun inaugurated as our first president. Look how they talk. Dr. Sun and generally our deep friends. It must strike Dr. Sun to the heart to seem so ill. He knows he can do nothing to help him. And Homer Lee knows that too. They say he and his wife will go back to America soon. He is so ill, so ill. Such a frail little hunchback. And yet such a military genius. Look, there is his wife with him. She is almost leading him. His eyesight is almost gone. And yet he sees things so clearly. As I said down these words now, I recall how ill Homer Lee was when he came back to America. I went out to Santa Monica to see him. We were old friends. I remembered, as I saw him lying there, how he had said while we were in college together. A man never dies until his work is finished. I sat there looking down at his feeble little hunchbacked body and wondered if his work was finished. He had gone one way after our college days and I had gone another. I had become a newspaper man and he had become perhaps the foremost military genius of our time. He had written a book that had frightened millions and stirred a world controversy. His military counsel had been sought by the German Kaiser by Lord Robert's Field Marshal of Britain. And he had been chief military advisor to Dr. Sunja Sen. And yet to me, he was still what we had called him in college. Little scrunch neck. While we were at Stanford University in the late 90s, he hung big military maps on the walls of his room. You're certainly in good spirits today, Homer. Yes, yesterday you were in the dumps. Well, just look at the map. Everything's going well. Who's fighting whom today? The Chinese rebels against the forces of the Manchu Empress. And who's ahead? The Chinese rebels are. See these colored pins here and here? Yeah. Well, these pins here represent the rebels and these represent the forces of the Manchus. What's the purpose of this war, Homer? Why, to free the Chinese from their Manchu rulers. Homer, where do you get all your ideas for these wars? You know, one day you have China and the United States against Germany and Japan. The next day you've got Germany against England. The evidence is all around us that these wars are coming. Oh, Homer, please. They're coming as sure as you're standing there. That's why I've worked out this Civil War campaign against the Manchu Dowager Empress. But what's the purpose? All great careers are carved out by the sword. I'm going to carve out mine that way, too. With the sword? Well, how can you? I mean, uh... My hunchback is no hindrance to me. Remember Byron in Greece? He was clubfooted. Yes, but Byron was a poet in Europe. China will be my Greece. You'll probably get your head cut off in China. Well, they'll have an awfully hard time finding my neck. You'd better forget about China, Homer. No. I'm leaving school. I'm going to China. You're going to China? What for? I'm going to topple the Manchus from their ancient dragon throne. Homer Lee left Stanford. We found out that the China Reform Association in San Francisco had sent to China as a secret military agent. On his way across the Pacific, he kept his eyes open. He made notes on Hawaii and Guam and the Philippines on how they could be attacked and defended. In China, he rallied several thousand ragged pigtail Chinese and marched on the Palace of the Empress Dowager in Peking. Great numbers of white men, women and children were besieged in the compounds and the legation. When the United States troops marched into Peking and the seat was lifted, the defenders of the compounds saw a strange sight. The head of the Chinese volunteers was afraid. Is that a white man there? In the uniform of a Chinese general? Yes, yes, that little hunchback. Yes, he's white. Can he be a real general of the Chinese army? He has the gold star, the emperor, around his neck. If you could call that a neck. And those gold epaulets. Look at the size of them. Look at that sword he's carrying. Quite as big as he is. What is this? The triumphal entry of the victors or a comic opera? Those Chinese following him don't look as if they think it's very comic. Neither does he. Neither does he. Little Scrunchneck had gone to China to choose off the dragon throne. He was heartbroken when the Empress Dowager bought peace from the powers and retained her throne. Alone, he made his way to Hong Kong. There he met a Chinese who had been a student at Stanford with him. I've given up all hope of reforming the Manchu court one. It cannot be done. The Manchus must go. There is a man here tonight that you must meet. He is of the same opinion as you are. That the Chinese must rise against the throne? Yes. He is a Chinese medical student, a Christian. He is the head of a great underground society. It is working day and night for the revolution. Who is he, Wang? His name is Sun Yat-sen. Sun Yat-sen? I think he is here in this group tonight. Do you see him here? Yes. Yes, there he is. Right over there. That man? Yes. Shall I take you over and introduce you? Oh, yes, yes. Let's go over and talk with him. I'd like to learn about him. Doctor Sun Yat-sen, may I present Homer Lee. Mr. Lee, how do you do? How do you do, Dr. Sun? Mr. Lee and I were students together at Stanford University. Oh, yes, at Palo Alto in California. Yes, sir. Dr. Sun, I should like to throw in my lot with you. I believe your ideas will succeed. Thank you. We shall need all the support we can get. Perhaps we can speak more another time. We appreciate your interest and shall be glad to have you attend our meetings. Oh, thank you, Dr. Sun. If you'll excuse me now, I must go. Yes, of course. It was so soon, Homer. Yes, Wang. I'll see you again in a few days. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Wang, who is that little hunchback? A missionary student? Oh, no, Dr. Sun. He is one of the most brilliant, perhaps the most brilliant military genius now alive. What? He is a perfect master of modern warfare. And he has offered to throw in his lot with me? What is his name? His name is Homer Lee. I must talk to him. Come on, perhaps we can catch him. We had difficulty in finding you, Homer. You got away from the meeting so quickly. Oh, yes, sir. I wanted to think. Mr. Lee, in case I should succeed in my movement, and if my countrymen gave me the power to do so, I would make you my chief military advisor. Make me your chief military advisor now, Dr. Sun, and you will succeed. Little Scrunchneck became Sun Yarsen's military advisor, but the secret agents of the Empress trailed them down and stalked them for death. They escaped to Japan, and therefore months they tried to win support for the Chinese revolutionary movement. It seems that every effort we've made here has failed. The influential Japanese have not said no, Dr. Sun. They've simply evaded giving us help, and they will never help us. I'm beginning to understand the Japanese mind. The Japanese do not want a strong, modern, united China. The Japanese do not want any nation, except themselves, to be strong, modern, united. They want to keep other nations weak, disunited, and helpless so that they can conquer them when the time comes. Yes. We should know now what we can expect from the Japanese. Not only your country, Dr. Sun, but my country too. As certainly as we live, China and America must be allies, for Japan is our inevitable enemy. Dr. Sun, I'm going back to America. Homer Lee came back to Los Angeles in his uniform of a Chinese general. We, who were little scrunch-necks friends, were embarrassed, but not Homer. Some of the people around Santa Monica, where he had his house on the beach, scoffed at his stories of what was happening across the Pacific and the part he was playing in it. Particularly, we were amused by what seemed to us his insistence on playing soldier. What are you doing out here, Homer? Organizing your own private little drill company? That's my volunteer army of Chinese students. Army? I lecture them on the arts and sciences of modern warfare. Sergeant O'Banion out there drills them. Sergeant O'Banion? Just step out here on the porch. See him out there? He's a giant of a man. He's a good soldier. The next sergeant of the 4th U.S. Cavalry used to be a captain in the Philippine Constabulary. He can drill a trooper or a tooth with equal efficiency. You must have a couple hundred volunteers out there. More than that. One of these days, I'm going to take them back to China and take over the revolutionary movement. Uh-huh. Costs a lot of money to do that, wouldn't it? Money's no problem. Come into the house. I want you to meet a man. Most of us scoffed until we discovered that some of the most distinguished Chinese of that day had come there to confer with him. Dr. Sun-Ya Sen made the house his official headquarters. Prime Minister Kang Yu Wei lived there in his dazzling Chinese robes. And Prince Liang-Kee Chu dressed in gorgeous silks and with great wealth took up quarters there. Homer talked to them about the aggressor powers rising in the world. My own country here, as your China, is blind to the dangers that lie ahead. America has great prestige. But against the predatory powers, it's defenseless. America and China must be allies against Japan. If the Japanese knock out Manila and Hawaii, they'll come in hordes and overrun the California coast. With that thought in mind, Little Scrunchneck explored the 2,000 miles of the beaches, bays, inlets and mountain passes of the coast. When he was too sick or too weak to struggle through the sand and over the mountains, Big Sergeant O'Banion picked him up and carried him like a child. Put me down, Sergeant. Can you see all right from here, General? Or should we go up higher? No, no, no. Put me down, Sergeant. This is all right. There we are. Thanks. Look at that canyon down there, General. Like a corridor from the beach right up to this pass. We could mount guns in these places, though. There are hundreds of places like this, Sergeant. Oh, let me have my chart, my pencil. Yes, sir. I got them right here in the bag. Thank you. I'll sit down right here. Now, do you really have to draw these maps, General? Well, every one of them tells us something. What they tell us is not good. It's not good. But they are lookalike, General, these mountains. You've drawn maps of all of them. San Gabriel Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, to Hatchapiz and the San Bernardinos. Can you see Japanese swarming ashore and up through these canyons? You would think that they really would. They could. That's why we can't stop, Sergeant, until we've charted every place they might attack. When we finish charting the mountains, we'll chart the Mojave Desert, the other deserts we're in attacking for. I saw a little scrunchneck when he came back from those explorations. He was weary and sick and disconsolate. He was about 31 then, but he seemed much older. He lay on an Indian blanket out in Westlake Park, writing notes and dictating the book that was to blaze in his name around the world. He called his book the Valor of Ignorance and he dictated it to his secretary, Ethel Powers. But you'd better rest for a while now, Mr. Lee. Oh, no, no. It's just that the glare of the sun hurts my eyes. You've got to save your strength, Mr. Lee. Oh, no. Man never dies until his work is finished. You always say that. Well, let's see. Why don't we cover it? Well, you've covered so much the military ambitions of the Japanese, how Hawaii will be the key position in the coming war between the United States and Japan. Let's see how the Japanese will take the Philippines and how the Japanese will try to invade the United States along the coast of Washington and Oregon. Ethel, if the Japanese ever got possession of the coast, they could drive us back over the mountains. The Pacific coast is utterly defenseless against Japanese attack. I shiver to think of it. Well, let's go on. San Francisco can only be defended... The Valor of Ignorance stirred a hornet's nest of controversy. Military men, literary men, pacifists, promoters, soldiers, statesmen were moved by it. It's remarkable. It's wonderful. It's nonsense. It's worth it. I haven't been able to sleep since I read it. I see no way to defend ourselves against Japanese attack unless we begin to arm now. If a great nation like America decides to live in peace, it will be let alone by other countries. There is no likelihood of war with Japan. There is no flaw in it. We have made a colossal mistake, and we must seek to correct this mistake now. It's entertaining reading, but it has given to romantic historical generalization. The Valor of Ignorance is a daring and startling book which every American would do well to ponder. It's nonsense. It's worth it. Controversy. Newspapers picked up Homer's thesis and created a sensation with the yellow peril. The idea that the Japanese would be landing on the coast anytime. But Homer Lee had written not in terms of months or even a few years, but in terms of decades. There's no real reason to be distressed, Mr. Lee. This yellow journalism is obscuring the real situation. But look, the real people who understand what you mean. Military men all over the world praise your book. I know. In Japan it went into 24 editions in one month. It's required reading for all the offices in Japan's military services. It's required reading in the military academies of Russia and Germany. I'm thinking of America, Ethel. It's on the shelves in West Point. Lots of books are on the shelves of West Point, but it's only optional reading. Mr. Lee, it will prove its value. We've got to be patient. Everything can't happen at once. If anyone sustained Little Squenchneck's spirit, it was his secretary. Ethel Powers became Homer's eyes as Big Sergeant O'Banion was his body. And she was right about the valor of ignorance proving its value. Lord Roberts, Field Marshal of England, wrote to Homer and invited him to come to London to work out plans for the defense of England against invasion. Homer declined. But Lord Roberts offered to send his own personal doctor to bring him to London. Then came a personal invitation from the German Kaiser. It's wonderful, Mr. Lee. Yes. Just think. The Kaiser wants to bring you to Germany to see the German war maneuvers. Yes. Don't you want to go? You could go and see Lord Roberts in London, too. Yes, yes, I could. I could see both the British and the German war machines. Maybe I could get the German and British governments to back Sonja Sen. And maybe you could see that famous eye doctor in Germany while you were there. We'll go, Ethel. We'll go. While we're there, we can gather material for my next book. We? Yes, we, Ethel. You helped me so much with the valor of ignorance. And I want you to share everything that comes of it. Ethel, would you marry me? So they were married. Ethel Powers and Little Scrunchneck. They sailed to Europe in the spring of 1910. And back from Germany came reports of their visit. I hear snow bigger than a dwarf sitting up there in that carriage. Smaller than he looks. The Kaiser had the carriage specially fitted with high cushions so that he could see. Yeah, but look how he watches to manoeuvres his expression. Oh, he vermin's nothing. You see how he watches the artillery. He is an odd sight in that full-west uniform of a general. His body does not matter. The Kaiser has opened every political and military door to him. Yeah, look at him watch our cavalry. The Germans were right. Oma missed nothing. He saw more than the German military machine. He saw through the surface graciousness of the German character. You mean that these things are characters of the German race, Oma? I do. The German naturally is warlike and ungodly and brutal. Don't you mean just their leaders? Their leaders are characteristic of the German people. They are all one. Then he went to London. He worked with Lord Roberts for months on plans to prevent the invasion of England. He'd seen the German war machine. He'd studied the German mind. Now he applied his knowledge and his genius to Britain's problem and wrote, By the invasion and investment of the British Isles themselves, Can Germany hope to destroy the British Empire? Oh, Homer, there's a Chinese here to see you. A Chinese? Yes, one of your agents here in London. Well, let's talk with him. All right. He's waiting at the door. Won't you come in, please? Thank you. We have received work from China generally. Yes? The artillery and engineering corps at Wuchang has gone over to the revolutionists. What? The revolutionists have taken Wuchang and Hangyang with its steel mills and arches. It's come. It's come, Ethel. Yes. The Chinese revolution has come. The province of Hubei has seceded from the Manchu rule. Ethel, we must cable to Sun Yacen in America immediately. Ask him to join us. We're going back to China. As your physician, my advice to you, General Lee, Is that you forgo your journey to China at this time. But this is what I've been waiting for all my life. You're a very sick man. This time, the Manchus will be toppled off the dragon throne. Well, let's not go now, Homer. We can go when you're better. If you go now, General Lee, it may cost you your life. Man never dies until his work is finished. Little Scrunchneck went anyway. He and Ethel. Dr. Sun Yacen met them in Marseille, and they sailed for Shanghai. Ethel took care of him, and throughout the 30-day voyage, he wrote feverishly to finish his new book, The Day of the Saxon, the threat of Germany to the British Empire. And when he was not writing, his cabin was littered with maps of China. For now, he was again Lieutenant General of China's armies, and he was working out his campaign against the Manchu throne. You should not be up on deck here, General Lee. Oh, this salt air invigorates me. You've worked out your three people's principles, Dr. Sun? Yes, but they were probably better expressed by your Abraham Lincoln, government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The principles are the same. And we can't fail to achieve them this time. You have your campaign planned? Every detail. Our strange miss is that you and American should be sailing with me back to fight for my China. Our China, Dr. Sun. One day, America will need China as an ally against Japan. We shall perhaps need each other against Japan. Oh, excuse me, Dr. Sun. Homer, you shouldn't be out in this raw weather. Come on inside, please. Mrs. Lee always treats me like a weakling. Come on, then. Go inside. The shadows were lengthening our little scrunch neck by the time they got to China. He dragged his little 88-pound body till he could drag it no further. Then they carried him in a palanquin and almost helpless. He led his army against the Manchus until they were swept from the throne. At Nanking, he saw his friend, Dr. Sun Yacen, inaugurated as the first president of the New Republic of China. Congratulations, my deepest congratulations to you, Dr. Sun. Thank you, General. Do you know the song the band just played? I know. It was God be with you till we meet again, wasn't it? Yes. The first part of our task is done. I cannot express all that China owes you, generally. I must give you one last word of warning, Dr. Sun. Free China will die unless there arises from her the militant spirit of another martial monk. And if he does not come, Republic or no, the hour of your ancient kingdom has come. I know, General. A great fight lies ahead. But why do you say a last word of warning? Because I am going back to America. The darkness is closing in on me. Don't say that, Homer. You must go back and rest. I wish that I could go back with you to your beach house in Santa Monica. Goodbye, Dr. Sun. Goodbye, General Lee. Goodbye. Goodbye, Dr. Sun. Take my arm, Homer. I'll leave the way. Yes. The darkness was closing in on the frail little hunchback. He was almost blind, and his valiant heart was failing. They carried him aboard ship on a stretcher and brought him home to California. I saw him in those last days at Santa Monica. His feeble little hunchbacked body lying there as if it were not real. We talked about our college days. We didn't really talk much. Most of what we meant was in what we didn't say. But I remember how he looked up at me and said, Must I die? Not knowing if my work is finished. Well, the life in his struggling heart flickered out. In the 36th year of his life, the darkness closed in on him. A little scrunch neck. In the hushed, eloquent hours before the last words were said over him, his poor little body laid rest in his resplendent uniform with his long sword at peace at his side. But even as he lay there, forever past the pain and the anguish of the wars he had studied all his days, his words were coming true. He had seen with almost mystic insight forces were already at work in the world, spawning World War I and as it sequels World War II. The distant drums were throbbing and two years after his death, Germany was at England's throat. The world was engulfed in World War I. Twenty years later, Adolf Hitler was to steal two paragraphs from the Valor of Ignorance and put them into his own book, Mein Kampf. And thirty years later, the Japanese were to strike at Hawaii, were to invade the Philippines at precisely the place he had foreseen, were to sweep like a mighty tidal wave of destruction through the Pacific, and were to be fought by China and America as allies. Bahoma Lee, with his failing eyes, had seen far beyond the vision of mortal man. You have been listening to The Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations as a public service to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-court of life in the Pacific Basin. A reprint of this Pacific Story program is available at the cost of ten cents. Send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The story is written and directed by Arnold Marquis. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso. The role of Homer Lee was played by Edgar Barrier. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.