Monday, Sep. 04, 1933

Silk Suitor

One fine morning in 1858, a sweet infant boy, Gosuke Katakura, was born in the ancient empire of Japan. In that same year because a New Englander, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, had burst into the Bay of Yedo with four gunboats, the first commercial treaty between Japan and the U. S. was signed. If Gosuke's honorable father ever thought of any connection between the two events, he certainly did not conceive that the result would be 1) Gosuke becoming a multimillionaire; 2) Gosuke becoming peer of Japan; 3) Gosuke at the age of 75 going, in a silk suit, as suitor to the gunboat country.

So it fell out. For in 1877 Gosuke and his two brothers formed Katakura Gumi (Co.) to manufacture silk in an obscure village on the shores of beautiful Lake Suwa. The silk business grew, slowly at first, then more swiftly as the countrymen of Commodore Perry came to desire more and more silk. U. S. silk consumption swelled from 80,000 bales in 1900 to 500,000 bales in 1929, of which the U. S. took 73%. This was wealth to the Kata-kura brothers. In 1920 they recapitalized their company at 52,000,000 yen, gave it a more resounding name: Katakura Seishi Boseki Kabushiki Kaisha (Katakura Raw-Silk, Spun Silk Manufacturing Co. Ltd.). Today it is one of the largest and oldest silk reeling firms in the world. It is a huge producer of pedigreed silkworm eggs, has 28 silkworm moths each lay her eggs neatly in one of 28 squares on a card, sells 2,000,000 such cards a year to farmers who rear silk worms. It has 58 silk filatures with 20,000 reeling basins at each of which a girl carefully unwinds cocoons, and it has three spun-silk mills. Its annual output is nearly 100,000 bales of raw silk and 1,000,000 lb. of spun silk yarn-nearly one-sixth of Japan's total output.

The Katakura family still owns 60% of the company's stock, but Gosuke, who is president of the company, is no longer named Katakura. He married a daughter of the prominent Imai family and since there were no sons in his family took his wife's name according to custom. The deficiency of sons was promptly remedied. Today Gosuke Imai has two sons and two daughters, by one of his sons is the proud ancestor of six grandsons.

As silk made Mr. Imai rich (today he is a tycoon of banking and insurance as well), so it also made him important. For silk represents one-third to one-half of Japan's exports, and 40% of Japan's farmers raise silkworms. Therefore Mr. Imai was long ago elected to the Japanese parliament as representative of the silk industry. A few years ago he felt that it was time for him to retire, but when word of his intention reached the Emperor, Mr. Imai was promptly made a member of the house of peers (senator) for life.

Cause of Senator Imai setting out as a silk suitor was Depression in the silk industry. In 1923 (after the Japanese earthquake) silk touched a high of $10.20 a pound. From then till 1930 it remained mostly in the $5-$7 range, but Depression put it on the skids. In the winter of 1931 when silk fell to $1.91 a pound Japan went off gold-but silk prices still went down. In June 1932 they touched $1.21. Last March silk was selling at $1.10. U. S. silk mills were operating at only about 55% of normal. Then came threat of inflation. The silk mills bought and manufactured hastily. In June silk prices mounted to $2.25. It looked as if Mr. Imai's industry would soon be back on its feet, but public purchasing did not keep pace. Silk prices flopped to $1.70.

Well aware that silk could make a permanent comeback only by regaining its market, spry Gosuke Imai as president of the Japan Filatures Association decided to forget his years, to woo America in the name of silk. With seven fellow ambassadors he landed at San Francisco four weeks ago. All were clad from head to foot in silk--silk suits, silk shirts, silk shorts, silk socks, silk everything save shoes. Their chief object was to persuade U. S. males to wear suits of heavy silk, rlbbed weaves, diagonals, failles (which at present prices could be made for $40 to $50 apiece), thereby to open a new market for Japan silk.

Untired by his activities in Chicago, Senator Imai then led his compatriots to the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, prepared to hobnob with his great customers, Paolino Gerli, Emil J. Stehli, Ward Cheney, E. Irving Hanson (Mallinson silks), Paul C. Debry (Duplan silks) and many another.

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