• U.S.

JAPAN: Break the Mazda

1 minute read
TIME

Japanese light bulb manufacturers, gazing thoughtfully at the news from Germany last week, organized the first anti-Semitic mass meeting that Tokyo correspondents could remember.

In 1931 International General Electric Co.’s Mazda lamp patents expired in Japan. Japanese manufacturers jumped at the chance, flooded not only their own country with cheap bulbs but in 1932 dumped 113,000,000 Japanese light bulbs, selling at 5¢ and 10¢, in the U. S. International General Electric of Japan, a U. S. subsidiary, applied immediately for new patents. Word leaked from the Japanese patent office last week that it would probably be granted. Hence the mass meeting. Though there are probably not 1,000 Jews in all Japan, 2,500 solemn-spectacled Japanese trooped to a hall, heard a retired General deliver a Jew-baiting address in the best Nazi manner, and joined in a rousing song. Its chorus: Oh, punish the Jewish people— defeat the General Electric, and Break the Mazda lamp!

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