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The Man Who Failed. It is not news when a U. S. citizen fails in college and later achieves great success at his chosen profession. In crowded Japan where university graduates sprout like weeds and jobs are sparse, it is news indeed. Sweating over their studies, Japanese students remember that Koki Hirota was the man who failed in his examinations for the diplomatic service only to become one of Japan's most effective Foreign Ministers. He was born in Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu 56 years ago. Kyushu is as solidly conservative as Maine. As a sober little schoolboy Koki Hirota was an ardent member of a super-nationalist secret society known as the Genyosha or Black Sea Society. Its leader, Mitsuru Toyama, now 78, is still politically active, head of the far more formidable Black Dragon Society whose members for the most part are not schoolboys but army officers. Koki Hirota is still his good friend, but he has grown smoother and wiser. After studying at the Imperial University in Tokyo, Koki Hirota attempted to enter the diplomatic service. He flunked miserably.* As a consolation Enjiro Yamaza of the foreign office Political Affairs bureau got the boy an under-clerkship in the Japanese consulate in Seoul, Korea, coached him for a second try at the examinations. Koki Hirota's chief in Korea was young Katsuji Debuchi, lately Ambassador to Washington. The two have been fast friends ever since. After finally passing his examinations Koki Hirota spent a plodding apprenticeship in the Foreign Office, first in Peiking. later London, and Russia. After the War he served at the Embassy in Washington, returned to Tokyo in 1921 and was made Minister to The Hague in 1927 where for the first time he earned a little leisure. All his life he had been far too busy to engender colorful stories or indulge in hobbies, but in The Hague he suddenly evinced a passionate interest for tulip bulbs. Day after day he puttered about his planting fields, fertilizing pistils with his little camel's hair brush until he finally produced a new tulip all his own. After a tour of duty as Ambassador to Moscow, Koki Hirota's big chance came last September. Foreign Minister Count Yasuya Uchida had seen his country through the Jehol invasion. He was tired. 68, and getting deaf. Premier Saito picked Koki Hirota to succeed him. Observers called it "simply the substitution of a vigorous and unspent man for one who is weary." Since the growing power of Japanese militarists forced the resignation of the last truly international-minded Foreign Minister, Kijuro Shidehara, in 1931, the basis of Japan's foreign policy has not changed one inch. She is bound to make herself master of the Far East, peaceably if possible, by force if necessary. But the Japanese are a polite people who search constantly for a foreign minister who car hew to the line his country has chosen and at the same time avoid enraging foreign powers by imprudent statements. It is the despair of Japan's diplomats that there is no language that can explain what Japan is about to do that will not also inflame the foreign Press. Premier Saito and Elder Statesman Saionji forced the resignation of fire-eating War Minister Araki four months ago because of the latter's imprudent announcements. For the same reason they passed over General Araki's own candidate for Foreign Minister—Matsuoka, the man who marched the Japanese