If American commanders in Chinese waters lose their heads as the majority of the American newspapers seem, to have lost theirs over the Nanking crisis this country will be involved in a war in China whose outcome will be very different from that of the Boxer outbreak 25 years ago.

Headlines telling of wholesale murder and rapine and emphasizing the danger to American womanhood have somehow been concocted from stories which contain little more than accounts of riot, some destruction of property, and the death of one American. The Transcript, after calling attention to Cantonese "insolence" wonders why the U. S. warships have not used their guns on the Nationalists before. All this flaming and rather tawdry blustering is not only shallow but dangerous as well if it is communicated to a State Department which is not particularly noted for solid good sense under the administration of Mr. Kellogg.

The situation at Nanking is admittedly serious. Americans who would have been herded out of the city three weeks ago but for the incompetence of the American authorities there have been caught in the street fighting between Nationalist advance guards and retiring Northerners. That it is the fault of U. S. authorities that they are so caught does not alter the apprehension felt for their safety. But they have not been massacred, General Chiang Kai Shek has promised to guarantee their safety, and according to late advices last night many of them had already reached places of refuge under the protection of United States warships.

The Cantonese government has so far displayed a very definite willingness to cooperate as far as possible with Europeans in China, but it will be unable to prevent the transformation of anti foreign feeling into anti-foreign action which will sweep every Westerner from the country if any act of war like the proposed bombardment of Cantonese positions is committed. No justification for such an, act now exists nor is it likely to exist in the future if the American government and its representatives keep level-headed.