Word: silk
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...other figure was a buxom octoroon woman in her 30's, wearing a high white turbanish mobcap, a bright embroidered shawl and a black silk dress. She was famed Marie Leveau, sometime hairdresser, New Orleans' potent Voodoo Queen, one of the country's first and most successful blackmailers. The picture Painter Catlin made is the only portrait of Queen Marie to survive...
...signed. If Gosuke's honorable father ever thought of any connection between the two events, he certainly did not conceive that the result would be 1) Gosuke becoming a multimillionaire; 2) Gosuke becoming peer of Japan; 3) Gosuke at the age of 75 going, in a silk suit, as suitor to the gunboat country...
...fell out. For in 1877 Gosuke and his two brothers formed Katakura Gumi (Co.) to manufacture silk in an obscure village on the shores of beautiful Lake Suwa. The silk business grew, slowly at first, then more swiftly as the countrymen of Commodore Perry came to desire more and more silk. U. S. silk consumption swelled from 80,000 bales in 1900 to 500,000 bales in 1929, of which the U. S. took 73%. This was wealth to the Kata-kura brothers. In 1920 they recapitalized their company at 52,000,000 yen, gave it a more resounding name...
...silk made Mr. Imai rich (today he is a tycoon of banking and insurance as well), so it also made him important. For silk represents one-third to one-half of Japan's exports, and 40% of Japan's farmers raise silkworms. Therefore Mr. Imai was long ago elected to the Japanese parliament as representative of the silk industry. A few years ago he felt that it was time for him to retire, but when word of his intention reached the Emperor, Mr. Imai was promptly made a member of the house of peers (senator) for life...
Cause of Senator Imai setting out as a silk suitor was Depression in the silk industry. In 1923 (after the Japanese earthquake) silk touched a high of $10.20 a pound. From then till 1930 it remained mostly in the $5-$7 range, but Depression put it on the skids. In the winter of 1931 when silk fell to $1.91 a pound Japan went off gold-but silk prices still went down. In June 1932 they touched $1.21. Last March silk was selling at $1.10. U. S. silk mills were operating at only about 55% of normal. Then came threat...