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Show EMPEROR: His Background Their authority re-established with the overthrow of the military governors gov-ernors in 1868, the Japanese emperors, emper-ors, supposedly descended from the sun goddess, have exercised their mythical power for the unlfioation of the country to facilitate its imperial im-perial development. With the overthrow of the shogun-ate shogun-ate shortly after Admiral Perry opened the door of Japan to the outside world, the simple island people, peo-ple, previously owing strict allegiance alle-giance to the military clan, easily transferred their blind obedience to the mikado. The present mikado, HIrohito, is a puny, nearsighted man of 44. He Is called the 124th emperor of Japan Ja-pan by the Japanese court authorities. authori-ties. When he ascended the throne In 1928, he chose the word "Showa," meaning "enlightenment and peace," to describe his reign. Many political experts believe that personally Hirohlto wanted peace, but as the puppet of the military mili-tary clique had to go along with their designs. Actually he wields little real power. His actual "reign" began In 1921, then as prince regent re-gent he ruled in his father's stead. He was married in 1924 and is the father of one son and three daughters. daugh-ters. RECONVERSION: Next Job With World War II finished, and with the nation's great armament production due to be slashed, inter--est mounted in the government's program for switching industry back to a peacetime basis and providing pro-viding continued high employment. Shortly before the cessation of hostilities, President Truman called in War Production Board Chieftain Krug to go over plans for speeding up reconversion to prevent a large-scale large-scale rupture of the country's economy econo-my after V-J day. At the meeting, it was determined deter-mined that the WPB was to conduct con-duct a vigorous drive for the expansion expan-sion of production of materials In short supply to meet all demands; limit manufacture of articles requiring re-quiring scarce materials; establish effective control over material stockpiles stock-piles to prevent speculative hoarding hoard-ing that would endanger the stabilization stabil-ization program; provide priority assistance to break bottlenecks that might impede the switch back to civilian goods, and allocate scarce materials for lower priced articles to keep costs down. |
