When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was first swaddled, Japan's present Finance Minister was already approaching middle age. Today a tottering but keen-witted patriarch, Mr. Korekiyo Takahashi was the first statesman of world prominence to seize last week on President Roosevelt's devaluation project as a basis for local action.
Calling in Tokyo correspondents, Mr. Takahashi revealed that his Finance Ministry was rushing into shape a bill to make ''Roosevelt money" out of the yen—i.e. to devalue it and presumably pounce on the profit to be had by seizing gold held by Japanese citizens and banks.
"If...