Murderous Mustards

Two Japanese, each of medium height, each with a heavily wrinkled face, small clipped white mustache and a nearly bald head, put on their sleeping kimonos in the official residence of the Premier of Japan one dark and snowy night last week, laid their heads upon pillows of hard wood and went to sleep.

Sprinting through the snow shortly before 5 A. M. went a group of resolute figures in the mustard-colored uniform of the Japanese Army, lugging with them a few machine guns. They dashed through the Premier's gates and with rifle butts stove in the Premier's door. Rushing in they found a Japanese of medium height with a heavily wrinkled face, small clipped white mustache and nearly bald head whose sleeping kimono flapped about his knees in the wintry gusts from the broken door.

Screamed one of the mustards: "Premier Admiral Keisuke Okada, we have come to execute you! Politics must be purified."

Confusion was complete as to exactly what next occurred. Some said there was a rattle of machine guns as Wrinkle-Face bolted, then sprawled dead. Other "eye witnesses" told of a bland and bold acquiescence in the "execution" by Wrinkle-Face, who quietly walked out into the garden and stood up to a firing squad which shot him down. In either case mortally wounded Wrinkle-Face collapsed in a great splotch of his blood upon the snow, and one of the mustards threw a piece of matting over the corpse which was soon covered by the falling flakes.

Other mustards with guns had meanwhile burst into the home of 81-year-old and proverbially lucky Finance Minister Korekiyo Takahashi. To compare him with Secretary of the U. S. Treasury Andrew William Mellon at the zenith of that statesman's fame as "The Greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton" would not be far off the mark. As Mr. Takahashi's son, who works in Manhattan, said last week, "Father was always trying to balance the Japanese budget even when we were still little children." Tall and vigorous, emphatically the Great Takahashi, this elder statesman leaped up from his wooden pillow as the mustards broke into his bedroom and shrilled bravely, "What are you trying to do?"

For answer a Japanese officer's heavy sword then & there hacked, slashed and butchered the greatest Japanese Finance Minister in all history.

Still other young mustards with machine guns had by this time burst into the bed chamber of Viscount Makoto Saito, Lord Keeper of the sacred Privy Seal of His Imperial Majesty the Son of Heaven, Emperor Hirohito. Old Saito had been a valiant admiral and from 1932 to 1934 was Premier of Japan. Two machine guns now poked their snouts in his direction and youthful mustards were at the triggers.

"Shoot me first!" screamed Viscountess Saito darting forward and clapping her hand over the muzzle of the nearest machine gun. Instantly both trigger fingers clenched and the double roar of ZUG-ZUG-ZUG began. Bloody was the brave Viscountess' hand as her lord, the Admiral and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal crumpled and died under the murderous fusillade.

Even the Genro. Scouring Tokyo and suburban resorts, more mustards slew the Inspector General of Military Education, jovial General Jotaro Watanabe. They gravely wounded the Son of Heaven's Grand Chamberlain, doughty Admiral Kantaro Suzuki. They set fire to a beach hotel from which had escaped venerable Count Nobuaki Makino, for many years Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and one of the very few Japanese whom constant duty and association have brought humanly close to the Divine Emperor.

The young mustards were after still more exalted human game. Their ambition was to machine-gun none other than "The Last of the Genro," or long-venerated Elder Statesmen who were responsible with Japan's late, great Emperor Meiji for opening up the Empire, mechanizing it and making Japan a Great Power. The last of the Genro is 86-year-old Prince Kimmochi Saionji, outwardly a very gentle old man who asks thoughtful questions of the greatest living Japanese and never makes any comment or suggestions himself except to the Son of Heaven.

If His Majesty's ancestress, the Sun Goddess, who is supposed to be the constant celestial Protectress of the Empire, can look into the hearts of wicked Japanese and warn good Japanese of their foul intentions, Prince Saionji inevitably would be one of the first to be warned. Some secret source, human or divine, tipped off Japan's Exalted Octogenarian. From his rustic villa at Okitsu in a speeding motor car Prince Saionji raced through night and snow to nearby Shizuoka where he was guarded by 100 police who kept the secret from murderous mustards.

Mysteries. Tokyo has one of the world's most up-to-date Metropolitan Police Buildings, a modernistic affair especially built to resist sudden attack. Yet (Continued on page 25) by dawn, without a shot having been fired in attack or defense, it was in the hands of young mustards.

The headquarters of Japan's General Staff, with its bombproof and gas-proof centre, its direct wires to every military garrison in the Empire, has never been considered exactly unguarded or defenseless. Yet by dawn it, too, had quietly filled up with mustards.

Before most Japanese were awake the nerve centres of their capital were thus in the hands of some 1,000 Army men, of whom the two highest in rank were one Captain Teruzo Ando and one Captain Shiro Nonaka. The dastards were most considerate of foreigners, not a single one of whom was molested in all Japan during last week's amazing 81 hours.

With the business centres of Tokyo, the cream of the swank embassy district and an increasing number of Japanese public buildings in their hands, the young Army mustards did not swagger, did not strut. Their informal eating and drinking place was soon the Sanno Hotel. When a white correspondent asked daringly if he might come in and look around, a mustard sergeant nodded and smiled, "Certainly. I regret that you cannot book a room, however."

Every telephone in Tokyo was dead, every street car still, and amid the snow Japanese soldiers with their greatcoats buttoned over the divisional numbers on their collars looked all alike. Scared as rabbits, Japanese civilians learned by grapevine rumor that, if a coat blew open revealing its wearer to be of the First or Third Regiment of the Tokyo Division, he was probably one of the dastards and not a regular army man. With the Empire cut off from the world as Japanese censors clamped down on cables and radio, the August Land of the Rising Sun or Dai Nippon (as Japanese poetically call their Empire) faced the World with a blank wall of sheer Mystery. In Washington the State Department, for all the erudition of its Far East Section, knew nothing for certain, was as much out of contact with Joseph Clark Grew as though he had been U. S. Ambassador to the Moon instead of Ambassador to Japan. The Department busied itself writing a note to express the grief of the Roosevelt Administration at the death of Premier Okada.

"This Incident." Japanese listeners heard the War Office Radio announce that the Premier had been "killed" (not "assassinated") and the official broadcast continued in so moderate a vein that Japanese censors later passed dispatches in which it was called an "implied defense" of the killers. They, according to the War Office, "decided to rise for the purpose of removing corrupt elements around the throne who, they considered, should be charged with the crime of destroying national policy, in co-operation with Admiral Okada, the Premier, senior military and financial factions and bureaucrats, at this juncture when Japan, is confronted with various difficulties.

"The officers concerned say in their manifesto that their purpose was to protect national policy, thus fulfilling their duty to the throne."

Not since Adolf Hitler dismissed in a few broadcast phrases the butchering of scores of Germans in his "blood purge'' has there been a broadcast so scandalous. The Japanese War Department seemed to wish to make known to the public the vague excuses of bloody rebels for monstrous killings as though the motives of such dastards might be worthy of respect.

"By Command of the Emperor." Not only last week but at all times the Imperial Palace of the Son of Heaven, standing in great wooded gardens encircled by high stone walls and a deep moat in Tokyo, is cut off from any newsy intercourse with the rest of the world. Into this sanctuary bolted the surviving members of the Japanese Cabinet and every subject of sufficient consequence to rate such proximity to the Son of Heaven.

His Majesty is a weak-eyed young man whom most Japanese reverence without knowing or asking whether Emperor Hirohito is either strong or clever. To such questions from a foreigner, Japanese of high station are apt to reply blandly, "The Emperor is young." (He is 34.)

In these circumstances somebody had to come out from behind the moat and do or say something last week before the mystery could in any way lift. Out came not-particularly-well-known General Kohei Kashii and roared that he was the divinely appointed new Military Governor of the Japanese capital. Normally the august name of the Son of Heaven is considered too sacred to be mentioned or invoked, but last week's emergency was clearly supreme and General Kashii rasped: "Orders to establish an emergency guard over conditions in Tokyo have been issued to the First Division. 'BY COMMAND OF THE EMPEROR, I have ordered mobilization of a portion of my troops at important points, the purpose of which is to maintain order in the capital and to protect important objects.

"I hope both officials and the people will avoid spreading wild rumors and will cooperate in the maintenance of peace."

Premier Among Wenches. With the entire World tingling with wild rumors about Japan, the one rumor too wild to be manufactured became the Son of Heaven's secret, jealously guarded for 24 hours. Secret: The "assassinated" Premier of Japan was not only alive but unscathed, sound and well.

Of the two Japanese of medium height, each with heavily wrinkled face, small clipped white mustache and nearly bald head, who went to sleep on wooden pillows in the Premier's Official Residence, one was Premier Admiral Keisuke Okada and the other was his brother-in-law, Colonel Denzo Matsuo.

If the gallant Colonel deliberately palmed himself off on the assassins as the Premier so that they might kill him and take their departure, his heroic sacrifice was in the normal tradition of the Japanese Samurai who inherits the fanatical feudal duty of dying willingly in case of need to save his superior. It was not clear this week, and it may never be clear, exactly how this most amazing mistaken-identity-murder occurred, but it did become clear that Premier Okada secreted himself first in a steel cabinet and later among kitchen wenches.

A simple Buddhist funeral was next held for "Premier Okada," who ventured out and actually attended it, masquerading as his brother-in-law, "Colonel Matsuo." The corpse was reverently interred, and the only thing which might have given the show away was that the Emperor, who by this time knew the amazing truth, did not send the customary condolences and imperial presents for the Dead. This omission went unnoticed.

Unshaven and haggard was Premier Okada when he at last turned himself over to his astounded valet and was shaved, decked out as an Admiral with all his medals, and drove to the Palace to prostrate himself before the Emperor and humbly voice "my sincere regrets." It was not that the Premier regretted his sensational escape but that in Japan, when things get as far out of hand as they had last week, it is supposed that the Son of Heaven has been inconvenienced or disturbed and officials of the Empire are supposed to regret this. They may regret it either by voicing their shame with an appropriate grovel or by disemboweling themselves in harakiri.

"Dropped Telephones." Flags unfurled by the mustards over buildings they occupied were still flying as the third dawn broke. Day & night Oriental haggling had proceeded while the Japanese fleet arrived to put Tokyo at the mercy of its guns, and the Army brought more & more troops into the capital at the rasping orders of new Governor Kashii.

The two simple Captains who still led the killers persisted unabashed. What each side asked may never be fully known and absolutely nothing was divulged last week. Negotiators for the Government with the mustards included famed General Sadao Araki and other well-known Japanese Army leaders and militarist statesmen. Because the killers came from a regiment in which the Emperor's younger brother, His Imperial Highness Prince Chichibu, once held the rank of captain, even he was brought into the haggling, apparently with no result. In Army dispatches His Imperial Highness is usually described as "popular."

Not popular but obviously and increasingly effective proved new Tokyo Governor General Kashii. His soldiers let the mustards come & go for eating purposes and even stop in the streets to fraternize and chaff with citizens, but every hour his Army planes wheeled over them, dropping this & that. Sentimental leaflets telling the rebel youths how their mothers and sweethearts were softly weeping floated down. After some of the mustards had evacuated Police Headquarters and moved into the partially completed new Imperial Diet building, "the Army planes dropped telephones." This remarkable maneuver was in no respect explained, but General Kashii somehow or other talked with the mustards' Captains over the "dropped telephones"--so Japanese cables said.

Little by little the 1,000 rebel ranks thinned by desertions singly and in groups. Then came a jolt staggering to Japanese public opinion. Mustards who were still flying their flag were formally "commanded in the name of the Emperor" to surrender. Yet they did not immediately surrender.

At this sacrilege Heaven did not open and no blasting bolts were hurled by the Sun Goddess as truly pious Japanese might have expected. However snow had ceased to fall, the leaden sky was clearing and glorious Mount Fuji with its smoking crater could be half perceived when Captain Teruzo Ando of the mustards drew his pistol and blew his brains out. His colleague, Captain Shiro Nonaka next drew his pistol, but his aim was faulty and he merely wounded himself. Twenty-four hours later, however, he committed harakiri. Nineteen junior officers of the rebels disappeared for the time being. The Government sent motor trucks to gather up their men, who walked out meekly holding their rifles crosswise against their chests. Neither the soldiers who thus surrendered nor the soldiers who accepted their rifles showed by so much as the flicker of an eyebrow or the twitch of a facial muscle their Japanese feelings.

With verbal bows of exquisite politeness all round, the Imperial Government finally announced: "The mutineers behaved with moderation and did not indulge in excesses. . . . National sentiment would have been shocked by a combat between the armed forces of the Empire. ... A revolt of unprecedented gravity has thus been suppressed without a shot having been fired and without order in the capital having been disturbed."

It presently came out that U. S. Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew and British Ambassador Sir Robert Clive. both of whom were sheltering numbers of their nationals under their flags, had refused to obey an order from the Imperial Government that all diplomatic missions must move out of the swank residential quarter, the Government having been minded at the time to shell the rebels out of this part of Tokyo. Other diplomatic missions skedaddled or at least sent their womenfolk elsewhere. Thus the Grews, the Clives and numerous U. S. and British journalists had virtual box seats on their embassy hillsides, watched the whole agonizing Japanese show from start to finish, guarded at all times by General Kashii's troops.

Explanation. There is nothing unusual in the situation of Boy meets Girl, and in Japan there is nothing unusual in the situation of Boy kills Premier.

A clean, handsome Boy of the type who meets Girl is manly Konichi Nakoaka who killed Premier Hara of Japan and, after serving ten years in jail, recently emerged still a clean, handsome Boy, the pride of his mother (see p. 24). Japanese are accustomed to look upon acts of political assassination simply as acts of emphatic protest, and Japanese (by foreign standards) hold their own lives cheap. After the young mustards had surrendered, not only did several of them commit harakiri, but a Buddhist priest, who was no hare-brained boy. strolled up to the shrine of the revered Emperor Meiji. knelt down facing it and with a razor blade cut his throat from ear to ear. Beside the priest's bloody corpse was found this neat note : "I sacrifice myself for the peace of the nation. Humbly kneeling I pray for tranquillity."

The Japanese Ambassador in Washing ton, squirrel-bright Mr. Hiroshi Saito. occasionally speaks the unvarnished truth about Japan, and of the mustards His Excellency said : "It would be premature to discuss the direct motives of those deluded officers, but back of it all there must be discerned the general suspicion -- though misdirected -- among the young generation of Japan--as in many other countries-- that the Cabinet and the Parliament have been greatly influenced by big business and other private interests and therefore corrupted. Such suspicion has been nurtured and intensified through the very hard living most of them and many others in Japan are eking out.

"There is a short poem by Takuboku, an ill-fated young poet. In English translation it would run thus: "I work. I work as best I can, "Yet for all that "My living "Is none the better-- "Blankly I gaze at my hands."

"These lines are loved and memorized by many Japanese. The improvement of such conditions of want and misery may have lurked in the minds of these radicals. They must have thought that by overthrowing the present Cabinet they would be helping to bring forth a Cabinet genuinely patriotic and free from selfish interests.

"However it is no easy task to direct the affairs of a mighty modern nation. As your late President Theodore Roosevelt used to say. 'it is the batting average that counts.' This point has been lost sight of by the radical officers."

Significance. The great Japanese statesmen killed or attacked last week were all models of moderation, budget-balancing, diplomatic conciliation and PEACE. The significance of the fact that they were attacked is to be found in the exact opposites of all they stood for. The significance is WAR. Neither attacked nor threatened was any "strong" or so-called "Fascist" Japanese. Their names began to appear only when Tokyo's smartest correspondents started guessing who was going to be the next Premier.

Significantly the need for a "next Premier," which arose when Premier Okada was believed to be dead, survived his reappearance from among the scullery maids. The great Army, Navy and Air Force leaders, who frankly despise Japanese politicians and businessmen, assumed that a new Cabinet is indicated--with themselves more strongly represented than ever before. Everyone else assumed that a new Cabinet is indicated. Any notion that Premier Okada. having barely escaped assassination, should superintend the prosecution, conviction and execution of the clean young Boys was far from Japanese thoughts.

Adolf Hitler in Germany is turning back the centuries toward blood, Wotan, race. Japan has never really turned her centuries forward to 1936. In Russia the worried Bolsheviks consider themselves likely objects of Japanese and German pincers closing upon Russia in simultaneous war from East and West (TIME. Feb. 24). The prostrate Chinese as they scanned the news from Tokyo this week remained particularly prostrate, a comfortable posture in which they await Japanese bankruptcy, Japanese proletarian revolution, Japanese defeat by Russia or the decay of Japanese from temperamental instability in a few hundred or thousand years.

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