No. 1

There was in Tokyo last week an assassination of World importance.

The hour lacked ten minutes of high noon. Down Suraga-cho a twinkling limousine purred toward No. 1. It carried Baron Dr. Takuma Dan.

No. 1 is a low, impressive marble building remindful of No. 23 Wall St., the bland and open citadel of J. P. Morgan & Co. Also bland and open is No. 1, citadel of the Mitsui Gomel Kaisha.

There are richer holding companies than Mitsui Gomel Kaisha but in all the world there is no other enterprise at once so vast and so diverse. Its agencies in foreign lands outnumber the embassies and consulates of the Japanese Empire. Deposits with one of its subsidiaries, Mitsui Bank, exceed the annual tax revenues of all the cities of Japan. Another subsidiary, Mitsui Trading Co., handles one-fourth of all Japan's foreign trade. Under its house flag in normal times sails a chartered merchant fleet as large as the whole mercantile marine of France.

Yet another subsidiary warehouses one-fifth of everything warehoused in Japan, and still another dominates Japanese insurance. Japanese call Mitsui Gomel Kaisha a "business empire." Its prime minister for the last 18 years has been Baron Dr. Takuma Dan.

Greatly beloved, the gentle though shrewd doctor (D. Eng.) has put both Western pep and Western humanitarianism into the Mitsui Empire. The House of Mitsui, richest in Japan, have paid him as director of their interests $291,000 yearly, largest Japanese salary. When the House of Rockefeller wanted to give Tokyo a present of $1,600,000 they put the money into Dr. Dan's able hands, knew it would be wisely given.

Last week when the twinkling limousine of Dr. Dan drew up at No. 1 he rose from his seat a little slowly and stiffly, for he was 73. Just as the old man alighted a youth of 21 dashed forward, fired one shot.

Quick as a panther, Dr. Dan's chauffeur sprang on the youth, wrenched the pistol from his hand before he could fire a second shot. But crumpled on the pavement in front of No. 1 lay Dr. Dan.

Mitsui clerks rushed to help the Mitsui doorman carry him into No. 1. Doctors arrived. Just 30 minutes after the bullet was fired, Takuma Dan died. He was one of only four Japanese peers created by the present Emperor as part of his coronation ceremonies, a pluperfect honor.

Dr. Dan's assassin, one Goro Hishinuma, did not break down under a police third degree. This was not strange. Now in progress is a series of assassinations about which the Tokyo police undoubtedly do not want to learn too much. One by one Japan's men-of-peace-and-goodwill have fallen, done to death by assassins:

First assassinated was Yuko Hamaguchi, the onetime Premier whose concessions to peace in the London Naval Treaty cost him his life; Second Junnosuke Inouye, the soundest and most brilliant Japanese Finance Minister in a generation; and Third Dr. Dan--to name only the Big Three. Biggest as a Peace Man, from the practical standpoint, was Banker Dan. He had thrown the weight of Mitsui Gomel Kaisha against war, unsuccessfully.

Sick abed last week lay a fourth Peace Man, Baron Shidehara, who as Japanese Foreign Minister tried to keep the Japanese Army from rushing into Manchuria. That Baron Shidehara was poisoned is Tokyo rumor, may be untrue.

Direct beneficiaries of the assassinations ,are cackling, rheumy-eyed Premier Ki Inukai of Japan (called "The Old Fox") and a group of Japanese militarists whose powers last week approached dictatorship. Against them weakly stood the aged Prince Saionji, 92, adviser to the Emperor, Count Makino, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and possibly the Emperor himself. Two months ago a bomb, thrown under the carriage of Dr. Ichiki, Minister of the Imperial Household, exploded within 50 ft. of the "Son of Heaven" (TIME, Jan. 18).

As best they could last week the Privy Council, headed by Baron Hiranuma, stood against Japan's militarists who were succeeding at Shanghai (see p. 24). The Council forced Premier Inukai to cut down a Japanese internal bond issue now about to be floated from 28,000,000 yen to 22,000,000 yen ($7,315,000). This money, unquestionably, will be spent to pay some of Japan's fight bills. Whom will she fight next, if anyone?

In Moscow last week the Government newsorgan Izvestia pointedly remarked that two months ago Russia sent a note proposing to Japan that the two nations sign a mutual pact of nonaggression. Up to last week Tokyo had not replied to Moscow's note. Added Izvestia:

"We have in our possession documents originating in Japanese military circles containing plans of campaign against the Soviet Union. Japanese military circles, and not only military circles, are considering the question of an attack upon the Soviet Union and the seizure of the provinces of Primarsk [of which Vladivostok is chief city] and Trans-Baikal [west of Manchuria]."

Though the Red Army is spoiling to fight Japan (TIME, March 7), Josef Stalin continued stubbornly peaceful, restrained the Russian Press, pushed on with the Five-Year Plan. But among White Russians, exiles from the Soviet Union, hope quickened last week.

From Paris, where most White Russians live, cables sped to White Russians in the U. S., telling of a "secret understanding" between the British and Japanese empires with France on the point of joining in.

The alleged understanding: Britain and France would be prepared to let Japan keep maximum war spoils in China if Japan would launch an attack upon Russia calculated at least to block the Five-Year Plan and possibly unseat the Communist Dictatorship.

Obsequies. Certain that Dr. Dan's departed soul was lingering near his body, over 1,000 Japanese came to his home bearing incense which they burned in the Presence. Burners included Prince Tokugawa, President of the House of Peers, Baron Hiranuma, President of the Privy Council, and the Minister of the Imperial Household who dropped an august intimation : the Son of Heaven will bestow posthumously on Dr. Dan the First Order of the Sacred Treasure. After a Buddhist funeral the august remains will be buried at Aoyama Cemetery, Tokyo.

"My father," said Son Ino Dan, the new Baron, "was much worried about the conflict with China and had discussed it at home before leaving for his office. I believe that my father was trying to accomplish something nationally significant. He had spent the entire day previous with the League of Nations Commission."*

It was next revealed that Dr. Dan had been one of the Japanese financiers who recently called War Minister Araki on the carpet and cautioned him about Shanghai spendings. The assassin's pistol proved to be a Browning (Japanese navy type) exactly similar to the Browning which killed Japan's No. 2 Peace Man Inouye. The assassin of that third Peace Man who was the first to fall, Premier Hamaguchi, had not been brought to trial up to last week, his case having been delayed 16 months.

Runs on several Tokyo banks started the day after Banker Dan's assassination. None of these banks had to close last week. But the entire Japanese fiscal community was on edge and fear stalked even in the Cabinet of Premier Inukai. Said Finance Minister Takahashi, "When I think of the assassination of Mr. Inouye and now of the loss of Baron Dan, I feel, and I feel most keenly, the danger of social unrest."

*The commission "as a mark of respect to Dr. Dan" cancelled an excursion they had planned to one of Japan's beauty spots.

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