Word: mitsui
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Matsui, the Mitsubishi and other great families which had built up an octopuslike control of industry, banking and trade-would be put out of action. Nobody was surprised when ex-Baron Mitsui and the others were forced to turn in their holdings for government bonds-frozen for ten years-and to live dourly on official allotments of $40 a month...
...their eyes never shifted from the main chance. Long before U.S. merchants went in for advertising stunts, Mitsui stores gave away paper umbrellas bearing the three-barred family crest and news of bargains. Their Tokyo store had a fuddy-duddy spaciousness, a time-ignoring air and an aura of genteel prosperity not unlike John Wanamaker's in Philadelphia...
When Commodore Perry, with his men at battle stations, "opened" the ports of Japan, the Mitsui sent out staff artists to make minutely detailed sketches of the Perry ships. These sketches helped the family build modern ships of their own. It was the first sign of the Jap flair for imitation which later gave the Occident so much trouble...
...World War II the Mitsuis lost most of their shipping and much of their physical manufacturing plant. They could recoup that-but they could not recoup Allied victory. First, they dissolved their holding company. But that was only a superficial shedding. The real core of Mitsui power and solidarity was the family constitution; each male Mitsui, on coming of age, swore sacred Shinto oaths to uphold the Mitsui constitution and further the family interest...
Many of the top Mitsuis, though not exactly starving, were already jobless. They had returned, full circle, to the aristocratic idleness of the time before old Sokubei, the brewer. The most sadness, however, was expressed by one of the Mitsui "clerks" (actually a top executive), a grey, frail little man named Tatsuo Sumi, who is said to be descended from a 17th Century Mitsui clerk or banto. Tatsuo talked like an aging English butler whose lord & lady had come on evil times. "I have given my life to Mitsui," he said; "there is nothing more to do. . . . A glorious history...