A Loss

There are few posts harder to fill properly than important diplomatic posts, for they demand both ability of an unusual kind and personality. The Secretary of State has reason to be thankful when an embassy is suitably filled, and he has reason to sorrow when a post that has been well filled falls vacant.

There are few U. S. embassies that have been better filled than that at Tokyo since last fall. It was slightly less than a year ago that Mr. Coolidge named Edgar Addison Bancroft, Ambassador to Japan (TIME, Sept. 8). The new Ambassador was a Chicago lawyer who had never before held public office. He had been attorney for several railways--the Santa Fe, the Chicago & Western Indiana--and for the International Harvester Co. He had come into prominence in 1894 when he procured an injunction against the railway strikers who had tied up almost all the railways entering Chicago, and afterwards helped to send Eugene V. Debs, strike leader, to prison for six months. A few years ago he was appointed Chairman of the Chicago Race Commission following the race riots in Chicago--a work which he performed with outstanding ability.

Mr. Bancroft took his Japan post last November. He was thrust at once into a situation tense with another race problem, into a country where racial ill-will was running strong because of the U. S. Immigration Act of 1924. Then, if ever, he had a difficult task.

Last week, having held office some eight months, he died. He suffered an attack of what appeared to be indigestion, later diagnosed as duodenal ulcer. Medical advice was cabled from Washington. He seemed to be recovering, when an intestinal hemorrhage brought about his death.

The feeling in Japan was extraordinary. Even the most anti-American press had what appeared to be genuine praise for him, his personality, his kindness, his open-mindedness. The phrase that he had "endeared himself to the Japanese" was used repeatedly. Short as his service was, it had been signally successful.

Japan offered to send his body to this country aboard the cruiser Tama. President Coolidge expressed regret that was more than formal to the late Ambassador's nearest relative* --his brother, Frederick Bancroft, the historian.

*Mr. Bancroft was a childless widower.