As the New Year begins we pray
That the East and the West
Will live and prosper together.
Last week these lines were announced as His Imperial Highness Emperor Hirohito's contribution (not eligible for a prize) to the annual Imperial Poetry Contest. Far more frankly propagandistic than Emperor Hirohito's efforts of past years, which always discreetly hid the Japanese Army under lotus leaves, branches of mimosa and the burgeoning cherry, this year's poem was released in an inopportune week a week singularly illustrative of the famous lines on the same subject by that other imperialist, Rudyard Kipling. Only way the twain were...
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