Word: emperor
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...Shinto that molded the Emperor of Japan into its supreme symbol. Hirohito has seldom, if ever, deviated from its exacting practices...
...Emperor. In 1924, Hirohito became Regent. Four years later he formally ascended the throne, with all the pomp and circumstance of ancient, perhaps prehistoric, ceremony...
Then he buckled down, with clerklike industry, to the job of God-Emperor. As custom decreed, he chose a name for his reign. It was Showa, or Enlightened Peace. He explained his selection: "I have visited the battlefields of the World War, and in the presence of such devastation, I understand the need of concord among nations...
Sometimes on his white stallion, Shira-yuki, or in his crimson Rolls-Royce, he passed in public parade across the moat around his castle. Almost always his subjects hailed him with traditional banzais and reverential bows. But in 1932 an unidentified assailant threw a bomb at the Emperor's carriage, slightly wounding two horses of the imperial stables. Hirohito sent eight pounds of carrots to console the animals. No doubt, he pondered the words of his Grandfather Meiji, who had once escaped an anarchist conspiracy...
There is still no Allied unanimity on what to do with the Emperor. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Government has made no bones about its wishes. It wants to dispose of Hirohito as Asia's War Criminal No.1. Acting Premier T. V. Soong has publicly hoped for the Emperor's destruction by U.S. bombers-"that would make one less embarrassing question to deal with later." Last week the Chungking press called for Hirohito's trial, execution and the public display of his body "on Sun Yat-sen Road near Nanking...