Evening star., 1951-04-25
By John Gunther

Forty -nine-year-old Hirohito
, the 124th Emperor of Japan in ar
unbroken succession that goe;
back 2,611 years. was at one time
before the Surrender-by al
: odds the richest man in Japan
and one of the richest ip the
world. In a sense, he. owned Japan
lNow it would be an exaggeration
to say that, today, Hirohito and his
: family are poor as church mice.
. Just as he was cut down f.
nancially, so has Hirohito beer
cut down politically. Like every
body else in Japan. Hirohito Is
Isubject to the authority of soap
This was made perfectly clear in
the first directives to Gen. Mac
Arthur. and it was formally writ
ten into the new constitution that
the Emperor is merely the sym
boil" of the state. deriving his
; position from the sovereign rule
i of the people," AS heard Gen
MacArthur himself put it inform :
ally, THE Emperor,S function is
about that of the Stars and
Stripes in the United States, OF
the Union Jack In England"
Finally. the most important, the
Emperor has been cut down from
the religious point of view. An
amazed nation, on January !,
.11946, read an imperial rescript by
Hirohito himself not merely an
nouncihg that he was not divine,
but in effect stating that he never
had been divine, and denouncing
the myth of his ewn divinity. The
1Itext was, of course, prepared by
-ISCAP, though people nowadays
like to say that it came on the
Emperor's initiative.
! Things Have Changed in Japan.
4 Think back. Before the war a
traffic cop gave the wrong signal
lin an imperial procession; he
killed himself in shame. The court
lItailor could not measure the EN-
lIperor's clothes except at dis
Itance, because touching the i'm
Iperial person, was forbidden. When
Ithe Emperor travelled. all blinds
talong the entire route had to be
drawn, because of the theory that
direct view Of the Son of Heaven
.Imight cause blindness. This type
Iof, nonsense is done with. The
Emperor is still revered, but the
frank and file Of japanese have
Translated their reverence into
different terms.
In the beginning strong senti-
ment existed in the United States
and elsewhere-for trying Hiro-
lhito as a war criminal. From sew
eral points of view he was just as
much criminal as other Jap
anese who were tried-perhaps
more so. The Russians were par
Iticularly intent on hanging him.
land still are. Gen. Macarthur
told us that he had hoped that
IHirohito would not be tried, but
Twas not sure what the final de-
,,lcision would be; the decision was
mot his, but that of the Joint
ChiefS in Washington. Political
lily, it would seem today. the te-
Ecision not to put the Empero- in
1.-THE dock was wise. That we
fspared Hirohito helped, among
.Iother things, to make soap pop
.Iular and workable in the early
.ldays.
Today the process whereby Hiro-
Ihito has become constitutional
lied" continues steadily. He opens
festivals, visits coal mines, goes
Ito baseball games, and similarly
shows himself more and more to
1.-THE people, on the model of a Brit
iish monarch. soap denies that
lit brings influence to bear on the
Emperor in such directions. I'VE
don't mix up in that kind of thing
lat ALL" I heard one high official
SAY. But of course the original
hint that he should popularize
himself must have come from Gen
Macarthur.
!. Hirohito Still Important.
Let nobody minimize the i'm
lportance of Hirohito today. He
has been bereft of his divinity
but he is still a parsonage of great
consequence in the life of the ma
Ition, temporal and spiritual. Part
of the credit for the success of
the occupation certainly belongs
to the japanese themselves, and
Ione reason why they co-operated
$50 willingly was that Hirohito told
them to do so. Negatively, the
Emperor could have been a for
midable nuisance and difficulty if
he had taken a different course:
suppose he had simply passed the
word along, Don't be nice to the
Americans" Particularly since the
Korean war, the United States
has had very few troops in Japan.
I Though the Emperor has loos-
| ened UP in some respects he does
; mot often receive foreigners; even
today. audiences are extremely
!; rare. An outsider would, as a
lrule, only be received if Gen.
Macarthur himself, in quiet way,
sent word to the palace that it
!; would be good idea; in our case
he wrote the Emperor a letter.
Then reply came from the I'm
, Iperial Household Ministry, re-
; Ilayed through Col. Bunker, grant,
ing the audience and laying down
, the conditions under which it
could take place.
We were told that, before our
visit, Hirohito had not received
!, more than four or five foreign
Journalists in more than 20 years.
IOne stipulation with us was that
we must not mention the fact that
we had had an audience until
after We left Japan.
Our audience took place in a
,, building untouched by the war,
the Office of the Imperial House
,, hold. The actual meeting with
, their majesties was arranged in
!. this manner. We walked down a