Evaluating Evidence: A Positivist Approach to Reading Sources on Modern Japan

Evaluating Evidence

Evaluating Evidence A Positivist Approach to Reading Sources on Modern Japan

George Akita

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2008 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 654321

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Akita, George. Evaluating evidence : a positivist approach to reading sources on modern Japan / George Akita. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-2560-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Japan—History—1868—Historiography. I. Title. DS881.95. A35 2008 952.04072—dc22 2007043319

Publication of this book has been assisted by a grant from the Kajiyama Bunka Studies Fund at the University of Hawai‘i.

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press Production Department Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

To Akiko Betty Akita (1927–1992) Ruth Shinobu Akita (1960–1965) Jeffrey P. Mass (1940–2001) Masatoshi Sakeda (1937–1996)

Contents

Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1. Japan’s Postwar Positivists The IHKM and YAKM Projects

9 2. Reading Primary Documents Letters, Ikensho, Nikki, and Memoirs—the Pitfalls

30 3. Hara Kei Nikki and Eiin Hara Kei Nikki Compared Typos and Other Problems

53 4. Now That We Have These Primary Sources 65 5. John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix 125 Concluding Remarks 164 Notes 169 Glossary 227 Bibliography 233 Index 257

Preface

This book began as an article in 1997, in between transcribing letters and documents written in the cursive script (sôsho), translating the transcripts as well as published documents on Meiji-Taishô political history, and working with Japanese colleagues on publishing the multivolume Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM). Its roots, however, can be traced to 1977, when the first tentative steps were taken to transcribe sôsho with Japanese colleagues. In other words, this manuscript is based on the grueling lessons learned during twenty-nine years of tutoring by, and collaboration with, Japanese scholars. The primary motive for persisting in this difficult task is my conviction that documentary sources are central to the historian’s craft. Inseparable from this belief is my commitment to do “history the old-fashioned way”— what I designate as a positivist methodology to research and scholarship.1 This is an inductive, as opposed to deductive, process in which the scholar seeks out facts on the subject of interest and, through observation and examination of an extensive body of data, is able to discern certain patterns. The scholar then continues to observe more data until it becomes possible to formulate certain propositions about the subject. Whereas deductive reasoning starts with a theory or proposition and seeks to test it through observation and data, inductive reasoning begins with observation and data and moves toward a proposition or theory. To be sure, the inductive-deductive dichotomy postulated here is too simplistic; even the staunchest proponent of induction will concede that at some point deduction comes to play in the process.2 In the introduction, I will relate how and why I came to adopt a positivist approach, and I will further explain what I mean by positivism as it applies to humanistic studies, vindicating its validity and relevance even as I emphasize the problems inherent in the approach. Chapter 1 begins with a narrative on how I came to transcribe sources written in sôsho with a group of graduate students and young professors who were working on transcribing letters to Itô Hirobumi that resulted in the nine-volume Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo (IHKM). I will then show how this experience led me to suggest to Itô Takashi, a leader of the IHKM project, that we challenge the task of transcribing the Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM). I will also describe Itô Takashi, who is now regarded by his partisans as well as critics as one of the most influential historians in the field of modern Japanese political history. I will also suggest reasons for the



Preface

discernible change in tone and direction toward positivism in the study of modern Japanese political history. This last section admittedly is based on anecdotal “evidence” and a “feel” for the scholarly atmosphere based on nearly half a century of close observation and field work in Japan.3 Chapter 2 enumerates with specificity the problems linked with reading primary sources in Japanese by looking at a variety of Japanese unpublished and published primary sources. In the early years, the difficulties in deciphering sôsho were overwhelming, and so much time and effort were expended in transcribing and then in translating the transcriptions that distinctions between sources and the problems they would present to the ultimate user went unheeded. They were simply subsumed under the generic category “primary sources” that had the “merit” of being transcribed and translated for the first time. It is quite possible that some will now say that this manuscript has gone to the other extreme of seeing distinctions so minuscule as to make them incomprehensible and meaningless, comparable perhaps to the attempt to determine the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin. But it can be argued that even the medieval theologians believed that their efforts were worthwhile. Chapter 3 illuminates a major problem in reading published primary sources, that is, the intervention of a third party between the writers of the documents and the ultimate user. This may be an editor, a compiler, a scholar, or a journalist who may or may not have a vested interest. The problem assumes particular urgency when the published source is highly regarded, widely used, and almost unconditionally accepted as a reliable source. The pitfalls of third-party intervention will be illustrated by comparing the newly published seventeen-volume Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN), the photo reproduction of the diary in Hara’s own hand, with the published Hara Kei Nikki (HKN). Chapter 4 will try to answer the “so now what?” question by showing how published and transcribed primary sources can be used to sustain, question, or strengthen some of the themes and approaches adopted by nonJapanese scholars working on modern Japanese history. The illustrations will come from, but are not limited to, documents related to Yamagata Aritomo (1838–1922), a figure of central importance in Japan’s post-Restoration political history. The obverse is equally important, if not more important, for the non-Japanese scholar working in primary sources, given that the published findings and analyses of non-Japanese scholars are, as I have discovered, extraordinarily useful for insights they provide in interpreting the unpublished primary documents. This cross-fertilization, it is hoped, will enhance the significance of the translations for the non-Japanese audience and perhaps even provide perspectives that may have escaped our Japanese colleagues. The approaches and contents of this chapter will be greatly ex-



Preface

xi

panded in a multivolume work of translations of Yamagata Aritomo papers and papers of other key Meiji-Taishô political leaders. The translations will be annotated and with commentaries. A lengthy introduction on Yamagata as a person and political leader will be included, with concluding remarks on the relevance, if any, of Japan’s post-Restoration political history for understanding political modernization. In chapter 5, I will discuss the works of two highly acclaimed historians, John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix. I contend that the works start with fixed premises and reach conclusions by deductions that are substantiated by the selective use of sources. I expect that questions will be raised about my understanding and analyses. I welcome the critique.4

Acknowledgments

A person can be born and earn a master’s degree in a quarter of a century, and one can incur, as well, a lot of on (indebtedness) in that time. The years of support by the granting agencies and their selection committees over the years is acknowledged with gratitude. The deeply felt obligation to repay the accumulated on to them has much to do with the compulsion to continue. The list of on to be acknowledged is a long one: Social Science Research Council of New York (summers 1975, 1977, 1983); Office of Education Fulbright Program (summers 1980, 1984); University of Hawai‘i Graduate Research Council (summers 1977, 1979 and winter 1982–1983); Japan Foundation (year grants 1981–1982, 1989–1990); Fulbright-Hays Fellowship Program (year grant 1985–1986); National Endowment for the Humanities (two-year grant 1986–1988); small but highly appreciated grants from Yoshida Shigeru Zaidan (1987, 1988, 1991); and Japan Studies Endowment Committee— funded by a grant from the Japanese government (1996, 1998, 2002). The indebtedness to those in Japan is perhaps greater because of the personal, face-to-face, and sustained nature of the relationships. This will become clear in the description later of the details and extent of the collaboration with Japanese colleagues. Indebtedness, however, goes beyond this circle of scholars to Japanese friends from all walks of life who, through their great kindness over the years, have made bearable the solitary, often lonely life of a scholar far removed from home. I regret that the constraints of space prevent me from listing all their names here. Mrs. Kajiyama Minae, widow of the novelist Kajiyama Toshiyuki, donated a munificent sum to the University of Hawai‘i Foundation to establish the Kajiyama Bunka Studies Fund at the University of Hawai‘i as well as a scholarship fund for students. She did this in appreciation of the University of Hawai‘i Library for creating the Kajiyama Collection, which contains some of the finest unpublished documents on Japan’s colonization of Korea. I am grateful to Mrs. Kajiyama and her daughter Miki for allowing me to draw upon the Kajiyama Bunka Studies Fund to support the publication of this book. I would be remiss if I did not mention the Kumagais, Shin and Setsuko, who are among the oldest and most generous of friends. Treating me more as a friend than a tenant, Dr. Yagi Hisaharu and Mrs. Yagi Mutsumi have provided spacious living quarters and a quiet environment conducive to research for more than fifteen years. Moreover, Mrs. Yagi, who lives a minute

xiv

Acknowledgments

away from this home away from home, has for years shared at least three times a week the hot dishes she prepares for her husband. I was introduced to the Yagis by Dr. Ruth Ono, former vice president of administration at The Queen’s Medical Center. Others to whom I am greatly indebted include Dr. Yagi Naoto, Hisaharu’s son, Dr. Hoshi Terumasa, D.D.S., and Mrs. Hoshi Setsuko, Komiyama Michiko, Sakae Yôkô, Tominaga Izumi, and Yamamoto Taka. The wives of my colleagues, Itô Yoshiko, Sakeda Michiko, Hirose Haiko, Kobayashi Akiko, and Masumi Hisako, graciously provided viands whenever I spent long research hours with their husbands at their homes. Much is owed to Takahashi Hajime, who worked closely with me to lay the foundation for a successful binational conference in 1995, cosponsored by the University of Hawai‘i and Nikkei Shimbun (the “Wall Street Journal of Japan”), which focused presciently on the general topic, “How do free societies protect their citizens from terrorism without infringing on their human rights and civil liberties?” We continue to work together to benefit academic programs at the University of Hawai‘i. Indebtedness extends to others outside of Japan as well. Mr. and Mrs. Yoshiharu Yamamoto, now of Los Angeles, over the years have been kind in more ways than can be counted. Mr. Yamamoto was a supervisor when I became a Department of Army Civilian (DAC) employee in Tokyo (1955–1961) in order to support a growing family while trying to complete a dissertation. “Wise” and “fair” would describe him best. The Yamamotos’ generous subsidy in memory of their parents, Zenzaburô and Tomie Yamamoto and Tanoshi and Sei Ono, will enable more students to read this book than would otherwise have been the case. Support has also not been lacking in Hawai‘i. George R. Ariyoshi, former governor of the state of Hawai‘i, also graciously provided a subsidy for the same purpose in the hope that his grandchildren, Sky, Ethan, and Marissa, will grow up in the company of books. Governor Ariyoshi and I grew up in Honolulu’s Chinatown and were in the same classes in junior high school. We attended different public high schools but were drafted on the same day in 1945 and took basic training at Camp Wolters, Texas, and language courses at the Military Intelligence Service Language School, Fort Snelling, Minnesota. We went to Japan as privates, Army of the United States (AUS), but he left early to attend Michigan State University and the University of Michigan law school. I remained in Japan for two years, most of the time as a Department of Army Civilian. Life takes unpredictable turns. In junior high school, all our teachers were certain that I would become a politician and he a scholar. As things turned out, he was the first Japanese American to become a governor of a state, a position he held for more than two terms. If politics is, as I believe, a noble profession practiced in an imperfect world peopled by human beings less than perfect, he surely excelled in it.



Acknowledgments

xv

It is impossible to put a price on the debt owed to Dr. Roy O. Kamada, my cardiologist for more than two decades, who combines peerless competence as a specialist with the kind of warmth and humanity one usually expects only from a family practice physician. Dr. Kamada has a scholarly interest in Japan and is very well read on subjects ranging from literature and political science to sociology and history. Our lively discussions have been a source of both enjoyment and insight. Michiko Itô, East Asian librarian, University of Kansas at Lawrence, and Yoshie Kobayashi (Ph.D., political science, University of Hawai‘i, 2003), associate professor, Faculty of International Communication, Gunma Prefectural Women’s University, have rendered research assistance and were especially helpful in bibliographical matters. Tokiko Y. Bazzell, who in 1999 became the new head of the Japan Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai‘i, has been more than helpful, rendering her guidance and assistance knowledgeably, expeditiously, and with unfailing good humor. John Stephan, as usual, provided extremely sound advice on stylistic and other matters. Much is owed to Paul Varley, collegiality personified, who actually volunteered to read the manuscript when it was in its “article” stage and who soldiered on as it evolved into a book-length manuscript. He caught errors, large and small, too many to mention. The help of these two is gratefully acknowledged. There are three others I would like to thank without fail. Minako Itô entered my handwritten English/kanji glossary into her word processor, making suggestions for changes that were on the mark. In the early days of my interest in Yamagata, she helped me in bibliographic matters and translated several articles written in English for possible publication in Japanese journals. Alberta Freidus-Flagg edited the manuscript in preparation for submission to the press, and Drew Bryan copy edited it for the press. Of each it can be said that I fully concur with Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain, who, on the reason for selecting the editor for his next novel, said, “I find it a really rewarding experience to work with someone who knows what they are doing.”5 Finally, and certainly not in the least, I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to the two readers. One of the readers will recognize the immense impact of his recommendations starting with, but not limited to, the preface. The second reader noted that since the manuscript was “controversial, and names are named,” I should be prepared to hunker down in the bunker. I am grateful for his concern, but I have always welcomed reasoned and even spirited reactions. This willingness to exchange in give and take with my Japanese colleagues, all younger than I, and in the process clearly to have learned from them, is an important reason why they have not begrudged the time they have spent with me over the years.

Introduction

The University of Hawai‘i in the late 1940s and 1950s was a small lib-

eral arts college of some four to five thousand students. It could even have been called a “cow college,” given its establishment as a land grant institution. Indeed, cows and pigs raised by the College of Agriculture roamed freely just beyond the fence that marked one of the boundaries with the liberal arts buildings. Some of us, however, were fortunate to have encountered teachers who could have held their own anywhere in academia. Allan F. Saunders taught government and politics. He approached his topics by the Socratic method and drew from us the awareness that the noninstitutional foundations of a democratic society, among other things, lay in encouraging the give and take of ideas, resisting the quick and easy solution to complex issues that bedevil society, and in not forgetting the indivisibility between means and ends. We took note of the appropriateness of government intervention to protect and guarantee individual rights and to promote the general welfare. These views may appear to be pedestrian and commonplace, but for the nisei (second-generation Americans of Japanese ancestry) students who constituted the majority of the student body and who were either from plantation or, to put it delicately, “impecunious” urban backgrounds, these ideas represented new ways to look at themselves and society.1 Saunders also stressed that in fulfilling the requirements for our minors, we take note of the reputation of instructors among “achieving” students. So it was that in my senior year, I took two courses in the Philosophy Department given by Harold McCarthy: Scientific Method and Logic, with emphasis on judging evidence and its uses, and on how to detect what he called “crooked thinking.”2 In the years 1950 to 1954 that overlapped with my senior and graduate student years, there occurred a defining event that put flesh on and gave meaning to all I had learned from Saunders and McCarthy. This was McCarthyism, distinguished by accusations based upon spurious, often nonexistent evidence, the big lie, and guilt by association. It is difficult to convey to others after half a century the intimidating miasma that McCarthyism cast on many sectors of American society and individuals, including those engaged in the study of Asia. It is no exaggeration to state that this experience has to this day made me extremely sensitive to and wary of anything that smacks of McCarthyism.



Introduction

But what of my passion for documents? One course at Harvard was particularly crucial in awakening in me the excitement and enjoyment of working with primary sources. This was Topics in Chinese History, taught by Lien-shen Yang. He would take a topic such as the role and significance of water in Chinese civilization and spend several sessions developing the theme. He would invariably bring an armload of documentary sources to class to illustrate his points. One of the papers for the course involved selecting a Chinese primary source, translating it, and locating documentary support for every person, office, and historical or literary work mentioned in the source selected. This was an excruciatingly difficult task for me since I had only two years of elementary Chinese. Nonetheless, I had no choice but to search out the sources housed in Boylston Hall. Persistence had its rewards. I discovered with ever-increasing amazement and entrancement that written records stretching back for centuries existed to enable me to fully annotate the contents of the work I had chosen. The five-page typewritten paper, still in my possession, contained ninety-five footnotes.3 There is no question that this exposure to Professor Yang’s course was a turning point in my development as a scholar. I took, however, a slight detour into unfamiliar territory before committing myself fully to positivism. I wrote an article for Edwin O. Reischauer’s festschrift “The Other Itô: A Political Failure.”4 I was at that time intrigued by what I thought was a “love-hate” relationship between Itô Hirobumi and Itô Miyoji, two of the four drafters of the Meiji Constitution. I happened to mention this to the late Hiroshi Wagatsuma, the social psychologist. He was at this time spending a year (1966–1967) as associate research psychologist at the Social Science Research Institute, University of Hawai‘i. He suggested that I use amae as an explanatory device. I agreed, but because I lacked the confidence to employ amae to tease out the relationship between the two Itôs, he kindly agreed to work closely with me. This he did in Hawai‘i and Japan. He also wrote a letter of introduction to Dr. Takeo Doi, a pioneer in research on amae, and I had two interviews with him. It should be pointed out that the section on amae did not constitute a large part of the article and that the rest was in straightforward narrative style based on written sources. A fellow Japan specialist, however, cast his critical eye on what obviously was to him not only a dilettantish attempt, but simply wrong: [Akita’s effort] is psychohistory at its most vulgar level . . . [and] he offers a secondrate view of what he considers a second-rate politician.5

Ouch! I would have preferred a gentler rebuke, but I am nonetheless grateful that the reviewer opened my eyes to the dangers of uncomprehendingly using the theoretical “fad of the day” as an analytical tool. Doi



Introduction



and Wagatsuma, both of whom I respect highly, certainly cannot be blamed for my inability to understand the subtleties of the role of amae in Japan.6 How then do I define positivism? What follows is not a philosophical, theoretical, or doctrinal definition. I admit to an inadequacy in handling subjects on that level of abstraction including, I might add, any comprehension of subjects such as postmodernism and deconstructionism.7 A recent work that does this well is Keith Windschuttle’s The Killing of History: How a Discipline Is Being Murdered by Literary Critics and Social Critics (Paddington, Australia: MacLeay Press, 1996). Windschuttle frontally confronts structuralists, poststructuralists, postmodernists, critical theorists, deconstructionists, and postcolonialists by juxtaposing subjects that narrative historians and the “new theorists” have both covered. I concede that the selection of Windschuttle is also a reflection of my bias against the “new theorists” and their writings. Here I pause to note that as a positivist, I am persuaded that what is sometimes dismissed as “the lowly footnote” has an essential role. I was once described as a “shallow technician” who believed that writing history involved the mere “accumulation of primary sources and footnotes,” that in an article of mine, I had never once gone beyond the “level of footnote excavation” and had instead ignored “great historical themes.”8 I had always assumed that it is not possible to separate “great historical themes” from supporting evidence indicated in footnotes. And, of course, footnotes also help to lead scholars to sources that may prove useful for their studies. They also, sad to say, are needed to help us resist the all too human temptation to cut scholarly corners.9 The polymath Robert K. Merton was an avid believer in the importance of the footnote. His protégé, Thomas F. Gieryn, recalls: The now-normative style of citations was not well suited to what he wanted to accomplish with the anything-but-lowly footnote. In his book on the role of religion in stimulating seventeenth-century English science . . . Merton uses a footnote to explain how his exploration of the salutary connections between Puritanism and early modern science was inspired by yet another footnote, in Max Weber’s magisterial Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. . . . Imagine: two mere footnotes yielding perhaps the most enduring and debated theory in the history of science, eponymized as “the Merton Thesis.”10

My definition of positivism is based on the premise so well stated by George Orwell, who in 1932 declared that “facts” existed and were discoverable, and that there indeed existed a considerable body of fact agreed upon by almost everyone.11 Harold Bolitho also subscribes to this proposition. While acknowledging that scholars may be known as conservatives



Introduction

or progressives, or may be designated as pragmatists and radicals, and still yet as realists and idealists, what unites us all, he states, is that we are linked by common presuppositions—what history is, what constitutes evidence, how documents can be used. If we disagree we tend to do so in mutually intelligible ways. We may not say the same thing, but we speak the same language.12

Positivism is a method or process by which these “facts” or “objects” are discovered, that is, by the inductive method based on observing and utilizing a vast array of data or evidence. The data, among other things, can be recorded interviews, telephonic conversations, speeches, questionnaires, railroad schedules, telephone books, and theater tickets.13 My preference is the written record: unpublished documents and published primary sources, including but not limited to diaries, memoirs, policy statements; and secondary sources such as histories, monographs, journal articles, essays, magazine and newspaper articles, and reviews. It is a given that the meaning and significance of the data come filtered through the mind of the historian. Here an article on pain is instructive. Pain, for more than three hundred years, was believed to be a strictly physical phenomenon. A new understanding of pain was pioneered by Lt. Colonel Henry Beecher, who studied battlefield injuries suffered by World War II soldiers. Then came Canadian psychologist Ronald Melack’s “gate-control theory of pain” that led to studies of pain thresholds and tolerances. These studies show that innumerable factors influence the pain experience, including mood, prior pain experiences, the power of suggestion, gender (women are shown to be more susceptible to pain than are men), personality (introverts are more susceptible than extroverts), attitude (certain athletes are less susceptible than nonathletes), and culture (e.g., Asians appear to be more stoic than Hispanics, who tend to be more vocal).14 If understanding pain requires grappling with these intangible variables, how realistic is it to declare that the positivist historian carrying the baggage of his values and biases is able to discover the “facts” on which he bases his analysis and conclusions? In truth, it would be folly to state unconditionally that this is possible. The task is somewhat less burdensome if the positivist is open and explicit about his prepossessions, and, as Henry Commager suggests, “strives manfully to avoid bias.”15 To those who scoff that it is ever possible to “manfully avoid” something as subjective and intangible as bias, I state two crucial characteristics of the positivist method that serve as checks against bias. One is that questions asked of the data must be framed in an open-ended manner that “will allow a free and honest choice, with minimal bias and maximal flexibility.” In other words, the historian does not approach his or her sources with a preconceived, fixed position.16 The



Introduction



other is openness to alternative interpretations of the analysis and conclusions, that is, a willingness to refine and revise one’s views and conclusions in the face of compelling evidence. What of the role of theory to guide research and analysis and the formulation of conclusions? I define theory as an expression of a general principle whose validity can be tested and replicated anywhere. Given this, I harbor grave doubts about the use of theory by those of us in the humanities in coming to grips with problems involving the human condition and behavior. Perhaps we best eschew theory as a fig leaf to cover the limitations inherent in our field.17 The social scientists, of course, are more inclined to use theory as a starting point to guide their research. Still, I am seeing a distinct and welcome trend among some in Japan studies to assess the limits and even the utility of theory’s place in the social sciences.18 David L. Howell portrays James B. Lewis as “a positivist who knows he cannot be positive about much. . . . He walks the reader through both the primary sources . . . and the secondary literature . . . before settling down on his own, often highly qualified conclusions.”19 I would be pleased to be described in this manner. I would also fit comfortably in the methodological mold constructed by Reinhard Zöllner, whose work “exemplifies the possibilities of delineating historically and thematically complex matter through an analysis of primary sources . . . [who] can hardly be reproached for being averse to historiographical theories . . . [and who also] clearly prefers not to give theory priority over historical-philological results.”20 There is good reason for the “highly qualified conclusions” favored by positivists. This is to avoid postulating results that appear to follow reasonably, neatly, plausibly, and even logically from the evidence laid out by a scholar, but, upon close and skeptical (but not cynical) examination of the evidence, leave room for alternative conclusions. One such example is John Walter de Gruchy’s study of Arthur Waley, in which he closely examines Waley’s published and unpublished correspondence and the memoirs of his period, as well as the “homosexual tendencies of many members of his circle,” including King’s College, Cambridge, and the Bloomsbury group. Midorikawa Machiko asserts that there is “little direct evidence” about Waley’s sexual orientation and that de Gruchy “falls back on assumptions, suggestions, and syllogistic argumentation” to make his case. She also lays out linguistic arguments—what Antoni has called “historical-philological results”—to show that for her, what de Gruchy has concluded is speculative.21 The danger of drawing the wrong conclusion, even though the facts may be correct, is well-illustrated in C. A. Tripp’s recently published work, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (New York: The Free Press, 2005), as noted by Joshua Wolf Shenk in “The True Lincoln.” Tripp relates that



Introduction

Lincoln, in his late twenties and early thirties, shared a bed with a young man and as president may have on occasion done the same in Washington with an officer of his guard unit. But, as Shenk points out, it was a common practice for men in mid-nineteenth-century America to have done so, and this practice, as well as men “openly,” “physically and verbally” showing mutual affection, did not raise any eyebrows.22 Penelope Francks is an economic historian who does not use the word “theory,” but instead uses “model,” in her case the “growth linkages” and “proto-industrialization” models. For her, the model of “growth linkages” between agricultural and nonagricultural activity explains the “successful functioning” of a “virtuous circle” in Japan that resulted in expanding employment opportunities, rising and often quite equally distributed rural incomes, and improving standards of living. Moreover, the success explainable by this model had two more consequential results, that is, the weakening of the trends toward proletarization and the rise of inequality that followed in the wake of industrialization elsewhere. In short, “protoindustrialization” in Japan and East Asia differed from the European ­experience, which is explained by the generally accepted “proto-industrialization” model.23 Whatever I may think about “models” and “theories,” I find much to appreciate in Francks’s article. It is, in the first instance, time-, circumstance-, and location-specific. Second, while she uses a wide range of sources and data, she is modest, tentative, and circumspect in her statements and conclusions. She writes, for example, that “it appears from the evidence [presented] that at least some elements of the virtuous circle of rural agricultural linkages were in place in nineteenth-century Japan” and there is “circumstantial evidence that such a linkage was in operation, even if the data is imperfect.”24 The thrust of her article is that Japan did make a successful transition from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan, with a generally stable, prosperous rural area and an essentially equitable distribution of income. I also share her position that economic development in Japan “inflicted costs,” but that these costs were “not borne in vain” since the goal of most developmental strategy, sustained industrial growth, was eventually achieved, characterized by “wider and more even spread of income-earning opportunities.”25 Jennifer Robertson, a well-regarded anthropologist who “works in and on Japan,” naturally enough believes that theory has its place.26 Yet for her, there are theories and there are theories. She makes the distinction by pointing out that among some “recent [anthropological] monographs in Japan” there is an inclination toward using theory to hide the lack of Japanese archival and empirical material, while giving the reader the impression that this represents a “totalizing explanation.” Theory, for her, should serve as a “reasonable conjecture” reflecting the history-spe-



Introduction



cific circumstances in Japan and as a road sign pointing to further research. She concludes with a statement that is difficult to rebut: Obviously, the mere invocation of a theory of practices is not a viable substitute for exploring and recording actual, everyday practices and collective activities in particular places and times.27

Her cautionary words should be heeded by all Japan specialists, though I suspect that some fields need to pay closer heed than others. The political scientist Aurelia George Mulgan comes down strongest on the irrelevancy of theory. She declares that political scientists working on Japanese politics do not learn about politics. They are, she declares, more concerned about absorbing the “latest artificial constructs” that are devised to aid them in understanding and explicating Japanese politics, that is, “the latest theories, models, [and] frameworks in the discipline.” The consequence is that they drift away from the “documented realities” of Japanese politics. This sometimes makes them appear to live and move in “an artificial world of spurious scientism, grand theories that exhibit selective blindness to contradictory facts.” The further result is the “perpetuation of vacuous theories” based on logical deduction, not on empirical research. George Mulgan’s unequivocal skepticism about the utility of theories in political studies rests, I believe, on two grounds: one, theories narrow the range of questions that can and should be asked and limit the scope for alternative explanations; and two, theorists must deal with data that do not conform to their theories.28 Specifically, she is critical of the rational choice theorists, a criticism shared by Gerald Curtis, who questions them for embracing “theoretical assumptions that make no sense at all in Japan.”29 Moreover, as Harold Bolitho also points out, on major themes in his field, the waters have been “muddied by the discovery of evidence resistant to tidy analysis.” And yet, he continues, there are those who “after wading through the morass of evidence to the contrary [manage] to find what they want, if only in attenuated form.”30 Recently, Joan Mellen, a noted scholar of Japanese films, has added her voice to the kind of skepticism articulated by George Mulgan, Curtis, and Bolitho. She focuses on the critical neglect of Seven Samurai, what Donald Richie, the doyen of critics of Japanese films, calls the “finest” of Akira Kuro­ sawa’s films. The reasons for the “least written about” and “most misunderstood” masterpiece, she notes, are the younger foreign critics’ enamorment with “theory,” their distaste for history, linked as it is with their “skepticism regarding objective truth,” and their political agenda. She asserts that these positions have led them “to pretend that Kurosawa’s masterpiece is in fact one of his lesser works.”31 There may be a moral, however, to the phenomenon of the bewildering



Introduction

array of theories that each have their day and then seemingly lose their attraction. This is reminiscent of the rise and fall of Herbert Spencer’s reputation. Spencer was regarded as Britain’s most “penetrating and significant” social philosopher, but the trajectory of his influence was “straight up and then straight down.” This shows that “even the most magisterial of sociological systems builders” can have his day, only to be “heard of no more.”32

Cha p ter 1

Japan’s Postwar Positivists The IHKM and YAKM Projects

Criticism is the first duty of historical scholarship. . . . criticism, again criticism, and criticism once more. — Keith Windschuttle

Just Who Is This Itô Takashi? In the midst of the imposing edifices in Chiyoda-ku that house Japan’s bureaucratic elites stands the eight-story Shôyû Kaikan, the home of the Shôyû Kurabu. The Shôyû Kurabu had its genesis in the mid-Meiji period when a group from among all the counts and viscounts in the peerage formed the Shôyûkai to streamline and coordinate their selection process. All of those in these two ranks as well as the barons would elect those who would represent them in the first Diet session (1890).1 The Shôyûkai members who were elected then organized a political faction in the House of Peers, the Kenkyûkai (1891). In 1928, the Shôyû Kurabu was incorporated as a public interest body, drawing members from the Shôyûkai and the Kenkyûkai. In 1947, the postwar constitution abolished the peerage system and the House of Peers, leading to the demise of the Shôyûkai and the Kenkyûkai. The Shôyûkai then reconstituted itself as the Shôyû Kurabu. To get to Shôyû Kaikan, a five-minute walk from the Toranomon subway station, one will pass the Ministry of Education (now the Ministry of Education and Technology) building, to some a symbol of much that is wrong with postwar Japan. The Shôyû Kurabu, as the proprietor, occupies a suite of offices on the eighth floor and rents space on the other floors as well as parking stalls in the basement to support its activities. Since 1985, carrying out one of its most important charges, it has sought to promote an appreciation of Japanese language and culture, especially abroad, and has made a number of annual contributions to the Inter­University Center to fund five fellowships.2 It renewed its commitment in 2003. Another vital activity is carried out by the Research Division, which occupies a spacious office with, appropriately enough, a view of the Diet.

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The major function of the Research Division is to publish documentary sources, preferably those donated by descendants of former members of the House of Peers.3 This function is overseen by managing director Ueda Yoriko, who is responsible for every step and aspect of the publication after the papers are donated.4 A “hands-on” managing director who also participates in transcribing, checking, and dating documents, liaison, and selecting the publishers, she also shares responsibility for the division’s budget. Her difficulties are multiplied manifold because the Research Division is in the process of putting out in close succession valuable collections of several important personages of the Meiji, Taishô, and early Shôwa periods: Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM); Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM); Uehara Yûsaku Nikki (projected publication date, 2008); Mishima Yatarô [Tsûyô’s son] Kankei Monjo (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2001); Den Kenjirô Nikki (projected publication date, 2008); and Kodama Hideo Kankei Monjo (publication date not yet determined).5 She is often seen carrying home an armload of galleys.6 I have been going to the Shôyû Kurabu once a week for half a day since the fall of 2000 to participate in its research activities. Prior to this, I had been meeting with Hirose Yoshihiro, formerly with Kensei Shiryôshitsu (Repository for Documents on Constitutional Government) (KS) National Diet Library, at Green Grass, a coffee shop in Iidabashi, to translate a variety of documents or to check transcriptions of YAKM done by others. Now twice a month following our weekly sessions, we would proceed to the Shôyû Kurabu to work with the researchers on the difficulties they had encountered during the week in reading documents in sôsho, though Hirose surely bears the major burden on this. It was on one of these Tuesdays in the fall of 2001 that Itô Takashi dropped in. I asked him how things were going and he replied with a grimace: “I am just overwhelmed by all the collections of documentary sources I’m working on, so I’m tired to my bones.” No sooner had he uttered those words than he turned to another Research Division regular, Ôkubo Yôko, and said, “I understand that the Yamao-ke papers survived the fire-bombings.7 Do you think your father (Ôkubo Toshihiro) can confirm this and if true, determine their whereabouts?”8 This from a person who had just talked as if he had one foot in the grave. Itô then spent the rest of the afternoon, along with Ueda, Naitô Yoshii, and Tsutsumi Koretake, interviewing Tozawa Keizaburô, eighty-five, the chairman of Shôyû Kurabu’s Board of Trustees.9 Tozawa, along with Ibuka Masaru and Morita Akio, had helped to make Sony one of the most recognized brand names in the world. His forte was in technological innovation of Sony products and establishment of Sony plants worldwide. He had kept meticulous notes of his activities and has kept copies of internal memos, drafts of speeches, and letters sent and received. This first in-



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terview, it was hoped, would be the beginning of a series of interviews, at which Itô is especially adept, ultimately to be published. It may just be a coincidence but still noteworthy that Itô asked about the Yamao Yôzô papers and held his first interview with Tozawa the same afternoon. Yamao was involved in the mid-nineteenth-century “high tech” industries—railroads, national communications networks, and mining— and Tozawa with early postwar technological innovation—transistors and tape recorders. Both men in their turn contributed to Japan’s eventual rise as an industrial, manufacturing, and economic giant. Itô that afternoon showed his real self, someone whose consuming passion is to search unendingly for primary sources, sources that cut across disciplinary lines, and then to engage in the hard and thankless job of making them available to scholars now and in the future. What is it that fires this passion? I have finally concluded after years of collaboration with him that he is a skeptic. Strongly competitive, he harbors at bottom a rebellious, anti-establishmentarian streak. Itô showed his rebellious bent and organizational skills as a high school student in Akita Prefecture. He organized the very first student group there that published a student paper critical of school policies. He once also gave a speech denouncing the corporal punishment being meted out by teachers, many of whom were recently demobilized servicemen. Clearly he was not a popular student from the perspective of school administrators and teachers, who discouraged him from even considering himself Tokyo University material. Not one to listen to that sort of advice, he succeeded in passing the university’s entrance examinations. He joined the Japan Communist Party when he was a sophomore, out of idealism partly, but mostly in anger against the “Establishment”—the Japanese government and Japan’s prewar policies and actions. He participated in its activities including the 1952 May Day demonstration at the imperial palace grounds to protest the ratification of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, a demonstration that turned violent and resulted in two demonstrator deaths, numerous injuries, and hundreds of arrests.10 He then rebelled and left the party out of disillusionment with its insistence on absolute, total conformity to the party line of the moment. This in turn led to his questioning of the fourth “establishment,” composed of scholars who worked in the Marxist tradition and who held nearly complete sway over the humanities and social sciences. He had become convinced that they were arbitrarily disregarding evidence out of their fidelity to a priori assumptions and were interpreting data by deduction to reach conclusions that circled back to confirm their a priori presuppositions. These scholars had their own good reasons for their approach and they were not going to lie down for an upstart young scholar. They, in fact, completely ignored Itô for years. This disregard and his sense of what constituted proper historical methodology were enough to stoke his competitive

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fire for more than a generation. Itô soon found that there were a few others who shared his doubts about the academic establishment, and he set out to organize them. At this point the talent he revealed as a high school student, one that has served him well over the years, reasserted itself. He is a superb administrator who can get people with competing egos and agendas to work together for extended periods of time. He is able to do this because he is fair and willing to share credit. He also has the courage of his convictions and will act on them. Others who work with him know that he will not run at the sound of the first shot and leave them vulnerable. And finally, he has shown that he will work harder than any of the others around him. Itô’s passion and his organizational skills gave rise to one of the significant achievements in the humanities in postwar Japan. Postwar Positivists and the IHKM (Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo) Project The first volume of IHKM (Tokyo: Hanawa Shobô, 1973) bolstered the confidence of the then young scholars who cooperated in the editing and who were at that time unquestionably on the fringes of the history-writing fraternity of Japan, so it is appropriate to begin with a brief survey of the IHKM project.11 The goal of the participants was to make widely available and easier to exploit the documentary material contained in the ninetyone-volume Itô-ke Monjo, a work that originally existed only in typed form and was then duplicated. The Itô-ke Monjo was difficult to use. For one thing, there were only a few complete sets, one being at KS. Even two leading public institutions of higher learning, the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Toritsu Daigaku, lacked complete sets.12 Duplicated copies were bound with twine, and it would only be a matter of time before attrition would further reduce the number of extant volumes. Moreover, when the transcribed letters in the Itô-ke Monjo were compared with the holographs, serious errors were found, ranging from reading Eikoku for teikoku to the dropping of complete lines. Two other obstacles stood in the way of full exploitation of Itô-ke Monjo. One, the correspondence was arranged by the senders of the letters and not by chronology, a distinct disadvantage for historical analysis. Two, full dates in the letters, more often than not, were not given, with only the month and day and sometimes only the day.13 This has meant that in the past, scholars tended to use only those letters for which the year was given, and this practice considerably narrowed the scope of historical research and analysis. And since, as noted above, the transcribed letters in Itô-ke Monjo contained errors, the possibility of these errors becoming standardized was always present. It was to deal with these problems and to make it easier to use Itô-ke Monjo that Itô Takashi and Banno Junji, then graduate assistant in the



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Shakaikagaku Kenkyûjo and graduate student in the Bungakubu, University of Tokyo, respectively, began to prepare a karimokuroku, or working index, organizing the letters by compiling both a chronological scheme to the existing grouping by persons and by writing a brief comment on the contents of the letters. This in itself was an extraordinarily time-consuming task since all items had to be separately written down and then compiled. The computer age is a wonder to behold. On the YAKM (Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo) project that followed the completion of the IHKM project, even working sporadically, Kobayashi Kazuyuki took less than a month to arrange all the letters chronologically by sender.14 Had Itô and Banno stopped at the publication of the karimokuroku, they would still have made a substantial contribution to the study of Meiji political history. Having come this far, however, the two decided to check the letters in Itô-ke Monjo against the originals, housed under the rubric Itô Hirobumi Monjo in KS, on which Itô-ke Monjo was based, to correct the mistakes in the Itô-ke Monjo. Eventually the decision to transcribe and publish all the letters was made with the goal of making available in easily usable form the letters written to one of the most important figures in modern Japanese history. There was yet another factor in this decision: Itô and Banno once told me only their youth, enthusiasm, and idealism (for which they unhesitatingly substituted “naiveté”) made them embark on such a laborious project. The two scholars began the lengthy task believing it would take ten years to complete a ten-volume work. The completed project in fact involved only nine volumes, but it took at least eleven years to finish. The enormity of the undertaking can be gauged by the fact that even after several years of laying the groundwork, it still took three years of transcribing, double-checking, editing, and proofreading before the first volume appeared in 1973. In all, thirty-one people participated in the work over the years, and of this number, only Itô and the late (1996) Sakeda Masatoshi, then a graduate assistant at Toritsu Daigaku, were with the project from the beginning to end. Banno and Toriumi Yasushi participated in most of the volumes, but were away at the Australian National University during part of the compilation. What scholars now have at their disposal are most of the letters, numbering more than eight thousand, sent to a central figure in Meiji history. More material continued to be discovered during the course of the project. For example, some thirty letters to Itô Hirobumi were shown to Itô and Banno by Saitô Fusao of Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, in 1976, in time to be included in the ninth volume in 1981.15 The publication of IHKM, then, has made available in usable format most of the letters sent to Itô. It has served two other purposes. One, the work contains more letters than does either Itô-ke Monjo or Itô Hirobumi

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Monjo. As Fujimura Michio has pointed out in his review, there are now available, for example, 379 letters written by Inoue Kaoru, or 59 more than are found in Itô-ke Monjo, and 29 more, for a total of 386, in the case of Inoue Kowashi.16 The “completeness” of the letters to Itô, therefore, is one of the virtues of the recently published work. This is a virtue not to be taken lightly, for any selection or abridgment would reflect the interests and prejudices of the people involved in the editing, to say nothing of the presumption that the editor(s) can anticipate the scholarly concerns and needs of others. Moreover, for a person of transcendent importance such as Itô Hirobumi, even personal matters in the correspondence impinge on the political. Two, the groundwork for reinterpretations of the political history of modern Japan was laid by the nurturing of several generations of young scholars who are now at home in reading primary documents as a result of their participation in the IHKM project. This development may indeed prove to be one of the most significant and lasting consequences of the enterprise. Itô and Banno had received help from graduate students on an arbeit basis in preparing the karimokuroku, but this work involved only reading the already transcribed, typed letters in Itô-ke Monjo. Once the two men began to read the holographs, they realized it would be impossible to finish the task of transcribing the originals with only a few participants. They therefore hit upon a program of action imaginative in conception, fair in apportioning credit, and fruitful in execution, that is, encouraging undergraduate and graduate students to participate as full working partners on the editorial team. This made practical sense, since as future historians these students should not be intimidated by primary sources, and by being given equal status as coeditors, they would have a continuing personal stake in the project. The listing of their names as coeditors would also give them a start in building up their curricula vitae, an important consideration in subsequently acquiring academic positions.17 Itô and Banno were aware that using graduate students had a built-in danger. The students were novices, still in the learning process even while helping to prepare the letters for publication. The chances of making errors therefore were great. Naturally, even the most experienced transcriber is not immune from this hazard, but Itô and Banno came up with a tandem approach to mitigate the danger. It involves cross-checking at every stage of the project. This means that the person who initially transcribes the documents from sôsho is never permitted to check his or her transcriptions but leaves that task to others on the team. The galleys are also checked by someone other than the transcriber. Then, a senior scholar, such as Itô, and lately Sasaki Takashi, goes over the whole of the transcriptions, comparing them with the corrected galleys. This tandem approach has been applied to all subsequent Itô-led projects and is strictly followed by Shôyû Kurabu transcribers.



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Still, embarrassing errors are found after publication. I once pointed out an error to Itô, and he admitted that others had been pointed out by users but that he hoped a future group of scholars will correct them and add letters that continue to be discovered. Hirose and I have tried to overcome this pitfall by going to the originals whenever we translated. This is how we discovered that in the original letter that Mutsu Munemitsu had sent to Okazaki Kunisuke, he had underscored his wish that the latter destroy the letter by imploring: “makoto ni kachû” (be sure to destroy [it]), then adding circles alongside the words. These circles are omitted in the published work by the editor-transcribers, which has visually deprived the scholar user of the strength of Mutsu’s earnest request to “really” destroy the letter.18 This omission shows that even these two most able and careful transcribers were not immune to the ever-present hazards inherent in transcribing and publishing primary documents. It is obvious that at a minimum, dedication to the historian’s craft is required to take part in transcription projects. It also involves willingness to commit oneself for the long haul, to be able to work with others, and to carry one’s share of the burden. Lots of funds are required, with almost no possibility of royalties to show for the years of effort. The publication dates, moreover, are but tips of the icebergs and do not include the months, sometimes years, needed to negotiate for the documents’ release, to complete photo reproduction with multiple copies, to prepare working indices of all the items by date (if given), subject matter, and type of document. All these steps precede the actual transcription, which then must be cross-checked, as are the multiple proofs. Completion of the cross-checking of the proofs is followed by the preparation of a name index, and it requires identifying, insofar as possible, every name through the laborious search of newspaper files, biographical dictionaries, published biographies, diaries, etc. Negotiating with a publisher remains as a formidable hurdle, since the publisher must be convinced that the almost certain loss from sales will be offset by the enhanced prestige accorded a “quality publisher.” These are reasons why the great, if not overwhelming, percentage of scholars in Japan decline to be involved, although they would be able to master sôsho rather quickly with some effort and initial guidance by a veteran transcriber. To sum up. The publication of the nine-volume IHKM is possibly the first instance in Japan wherein a large number of scholars and graduate students worked enthusiastically and without remuneration over an extended period of time on a project that was difficult, tedious, and at times what others may call boring.19 The publication has served the participants well. First, except for those who already held positions, all eventually found regular posts. This is also true of those who participated in later projects. Second, working on IHKM encouraged the participants, including the graduate students, to publish. My 1982 Monumenta Nipponica article has a bibliography,

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pp. 515–521, that lists by authors the publications of the participants. Most, as well as members on later projects, have continued to publish, as witnessed by the ever-growing number of reprints I have received over the years. All this emphasis on the then young positivists is somewhat misleading, since some—for example Narusawa Akira—have completely turned away from the approach and have become theoretical in their orientation. Others, such as Mitani Hiroshi, Banno Junji, Miyazaki Ryûji, and Yoshimi Yoshiaki, balance theory with documentary research.20 Still, the majority have persisted in their positivist approach. The YAKM (Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo) Project The present book had its genesis in spring 1977 when Itô Takashi stopped over in Hawai‘i on his return to Japan after spending a semester working with Professor Gordon Berger at the University of Southern California. Itô, as was his wont, bluntly asked, “What do you intend to do for your second act?” What he meant by this was that foreign scholars on Japan may or may not publish their dissertations, but many soon disappear from the scholarly radar screen after getting their degrees. A major reason for this, he believed, was that most, though not all, began their language training either as undergraduate or graduate students, so that rudimentary training and the pressure of teaching after getting their first positions reduced their reading ability to the point where they lacked confidence to work on even secondary sources. Others, he went on, frittered away their efforts and energies, unable to maintain the sustained focus needed to produce their “second act.” He may or may not have been exactly correct in his assessment of the field in the United States, but his observations fit my situation. The first monograph, based on my dissertation, was published as Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan, 1868–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967; second printing, 1972). It was translated by Banno Junji and Arai Kôtarô and published by the University of Tokyo Press, 1971, as Meiji Rikkensei to Itô Hirobumi. Banno had suggested using Itô Hirobumi’s name in the title because he thought it would attract a wider readership, but the translation, of course, did not qualify as a “second act.” Subsequent efforts to grab the nettle of the “second act” included forays into local history as well as gathering biographical data on all members of the House of Representatives from 1868 to 1960, but neither came to fruition. The efforts, however, were not totally wasted, and my academic conscience was salved by sharing the local history material with Neil Waters, now at Middlebury College, and the Diet data with Professor Yasumasa Kuroda, who has retired from the Political Science Department at the University of Hawai‘i and now resides in Japan. Kuroda told me in 2005 that he will use the data in his next monograph.21



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Itô continued his remarks by telling me, “You once told me that recreational marathoners often hit a ‘wall’ about the twenty-first mile, and those who cannot hurdle the wall either drop out or start to walk. So I’m urging you to overcome the ‘second act wall’ by learning to transcribe documents written in sôsho.” Still, it was difficult to accept Itô’s advice to join him, his colleagues, and graduate students in transcribing letters written in sôsho since I was fifty-one years old at the time. He did not accept the excuse of age and countered with his reasons for making the suggestion. He said that his graduate students were doing it, so the challenge was not insurmountable. Comparison with Tôdai graduate students was flattering, though his logic was unconvincing. The rest of his arguments were more persuasive. He declared that working in previously unpublished sources would free the non-Japanese researcher from his complete reliance on the works by Japanese scholars who were themselves usually constrained by their dependence on secondary published sources as well as the interpretations of their fellow scholars. Moreover, he said, using unpublished and published primary sources would probably lead to writing old-fashioned descriptive narratives—to wit: a release from the broad, overarching generalizations that oftentimes masked the paucity of documentary support. The summer of 1977, as usual, found me at the International House of Japan. In truth, I was hoping that Itô had forgotten the conversation in Hawai‘i. I had no such luck, for he called me even as I was still suffering from jet lag. He strongly suggested that the time had come to meet the team of graduate students and young assistant professors at the Kensei Shiryôshitsu who were participating in the IHKM deciphering project. Filled with trepidation—no, panic-stricken would better describe the feeling—I duly went to KS. Itô handed me a letter and said, “Why don’t you start with this.” This instantly called up the first swimming “lesson” as a preteen at the local YMCA. The “instructor” tied a rope around my waist and hurled me into the pool. After two or three minutes of my wild and frantic thrashing about, he jerked me out and said, “You’re now on your own.” The letter, now unfolded, was stared at for what seemed to be an excruciating eternity. Yet the first two characters, which later turned out to be the salutation “haikei” or the equivalent of “Dear Sir,” remained beyond comprehension. Itô, however, was kinder than the erstwhile swimming “instructor,” and he paired me with a lovely graduate student, herself with only a year of sôsho, on the premise that females are gentler, more patient, and more helpful in answering questions. It was during this first exposure that the most important rule in deciphering sôsho was learned: If you cannot make out the kanji, there is no shame in asking for help, otherwise you will never make any progress. Itô was correct. Kitsunezuka (née Suzuki) Yûko, now professor at Tokyo’s Seisen Joshi Daigaku, because of her unfailingly gracious and patient help that summer, had much to do with the resolve to continue.22

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On returning to Hawai‘i, I registered in the late (2001) Professor Mitsugu Sakihara’s graduate course in reading primary documents and repeated the course for three more semesters. Sakihara had been part of the late (2004) Professor Robert Sakai’s Satsuma documents group that had worked under the late Professor Haraguchi Torao’s guidance during the academic year 1966–1967. Haraguchi, interestingly, was not affiliated with the Bungakubu, but with the Suisangakubu, Kagoshima Kokuritsu Daigaku, and was a pioneer in deciphering Satsuma documents.23 Sakai had earlier invited Haraguchi to Nebraska, where they had worked oneon-one for a year. Haraguchi returned to Hawai‘i for two short visits, in 1968 and 1969, to continue collaboration with the group.24 Sakihara and I first worked on the diary of a village head in Kawasaki because it was written in gyôsho, or semicursive script, and thus was easier to decipher than sôsho. Later, photocopies of letters by Meiji leaders brought back from summer visits to Japan were transcribed. It should be apparent by now that nothing could have been accomplished in sôsho without the unstinting help of others. Tutelage by others would not have been forthcoming had not the willingness to try as hard as possible been evident to them. Itô had warned at the start that “I may, as one of the organizers of the Itô Hirobumi project, invite you to participate, but I cannot force the others, including the graduate students, to accept you. You must be willing to contribute, even if at the beginning this only takes the form of diligent effort at learning. If I try to force you upon the group, we will have serious morale problems that will sap the group’s efficiency.” His words were prophetic. The summer of 1978 found the group at Todai’s Bungakubu working on the onerous task of preparing the name index for IHKM (volume nine). When the task was completed, one of the graduate students, junior by twenty-five years, sidled up and declared, “Last year, you were a guest; this year, you have become one of us.” The student had not been the only person watching. Summer 1981 found me in Japan for a year’s stay, thanks to a Japan Foundation grant. That winter, one of the most accomplished decipherers of the group, Professor Sakeda Masatoshi of Meiji Gakuin Daigaku, asked me to join him in working on the Abei Iwane papers. Abei was a former samurai from Nihonmatsu in what is now Fukushima Prefecture. Abei was a prominent local figure, served in the early Diets, and was elected vice president of the House of Representatives in 1893. The invitation was eagerly accepted. The first step when working on any “raw” collection of documents is making an inventory of holdings by preparing a karimokuroku listing all the letters by senders and dates and including, as well, a list of documents by subject matter, dates, and other relevant information, such as name of persons or organizations associated with the document. This was done by the two of us, and Sakeda proceeded to transcribe most of the letters and



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documents. We collaborated in translating a voluminous amount of letters and documents at his university and his home.25 Collaboration went beyond the Abei papers. Transcription and translation, this time, of letters of Meiji leaders were also carried out in Hawai‘i from October 1984 to March 1985. Translating Abei papers, however, continued for more than a decade after Sakeda returned from Hawai‘i, although at the end, the efforts tapered off when he was appointed Hôgakubuchô in 1988.26 The result of this cooperative effort is hundreds of typewritten pages of raw translations in my files at the University of Hawai‘i. Work on IHKM for all practical purposes had ended in 1980 with the receipt of the name index galleys. Participation in the IHKM project, followed soon after by work on the Tokutomi Sohô papers, had given me such a passion for transcription that I suggested to Itô that we take the next logical step by transcribing all the letters in the Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo, KS. He unhesitatingly agreed, and we asked Hirose and Sakeda to join us. I soon realized that the enormity of the task required my full-time commitment, so in 1984 I took the university’s early retirement option, which enabled me to spend a semester a year in Japan for three years, after which full retirement followed. Work with Sakeda proceeded simultaneously with collaboration with Itô on deciphering and translating letters of Meiji leaders. This took place for many years at Itô’s home, but later, to save time, shifted to a coffee shop in Ikebukuro. We no longer translate, but collaborate in publishing the results of the deciphered letters.27 Hirose Yoshihiro, Third Onshi Itô and Sakeda I count as two of my onshi (teachers to whom a debt of gratitude is owed). Hirose is the third, but not the least. He was born in 1944, which makes him eighteen years my junior. Itô, by six years, and Sakeda, by eleven, were junior to me as well. In fact, all those with whom I have collaborated in transcription as well as in writing articles have been younger. In a society where age is still paid deference, my eagerness to seek and to ask for help from anyone able to give it to me is, I believe, a crucial reason why collaboration has continued with goodwill among all for a quarter of a century.28 Hirose received his master’s degree from Waseda’s Hôgakubu in 1970 in medieval English political thought, which, he notes, sets him apart from those working in the Marxist tradition. He entered the National Diet Library (NDL) the same year and in 1971 was posted in KS, where he remained until 1994, when he was “head-hunted” by Surugadai Daigaku to establish their archives curriculum. A person is rotated among sections in NDL, so it was extraordinary, in fact almost unheard of, for Hirose to have remained in KS from 1971 to 1994. This was due, I am convinced based on

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my observations during our more than twenty-five-year collaboration, to the recognition by the powers that be that in Hirose they had someone with a finely honed sense for locating and evaluating documents and an unmatched ability to negotiate for one of the following, depending on the possessor: the gift, loan, photo reproduction, or safekeeping (but not ownership) of the documents. Hirose was from the beginning of my transcription efforts one of my primary tutors. It was Hirose who corroborated what Itô had put into practice by his senior-leading-the-learner method, by specifically pointing out, “If you cannot make out a word or compound, ask someone, or you’ll never make progress.” I think that for many years, he considered having given me that advice a huge mistake. From that moment on, I have imposed on him unhesitatingly and unashamedly, and since he was working at KS, there was no escaping me. The early days found me frequently at KS from forenoon, there, with dictionaries, slowly and laboriously transcribing from photocopies. Whenever an indecipherable character or compound (jukugo) appeared, it was marked discreetly and lightly with a pencil, to be erased later (of course, the originals must never be marked). When Hirose ended his duties at 5:30 p.m., I would ask him for help. Hirose must surely be one of the most patient and generous of persons (as can also be said of Itô and Sakeda), since he was being asked questions after a full day of replying to inquiries by other users. This would go on for about half an hour. Once a week, depending on his schedule, he would answer questions about other primary documents, as I was looking far ahead to writing a political history of Meiji-Taishô Japan. I would, for example, ask him about the emperor’s evolving role. He would then take me deep into the stacks—an area forbidden to nonemployees—and pull out documents. There we would sit down at tiny tables, discuss the contents, and translate relevant parts. This would go on until around 8:30 p.m., after which we would repair to Sanoji, an izakaya (pub) in Iidabashi, and there enjoy a few dishes washed down with beer and sake. I insisted on treating, regarding this as “tuition,” to which honoraria were added every month. There can be no doubt, of course, who was getting the better of the bargain. Collaboration did not stop even after Hirose left Kensei Shiryôshitsu to become a professor at Surugadai Daigaku in Saitama-ken. We became such a fixture at our weekly sessions at the Green Grass coffee shop that the proprietors, with whom we became very friendly, often poured refills, something rarely done at coffee shops that still charge close to $5.00 a cup. Unfortunately, the proprietors lost their lease, forcing them to close. We now meet at Chat Noir, a nearby coffee shop. Poststudy sessions sometimes continue in Ikebukuro where the choice of pubs is wider. Hirose also spent five weeks at the University of Hawai‘i in the summer of 1999.



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We worked together all day, five days a week, checking the letters in YAKM that had been transcribed by others as a necessary step in publishing them.29 It is a point of honor for me to have been tutored by Itô and Hirose for more than twenty-five years (and by Sakeda for fifteen years). The collaboration with Itô and Hirose will continue for the foreseeable future. Itô is without question the premier bank of knowledge of Shôwa documents, but he is also at home in Meiji-Taishô sources. Hirose, who in like manner is the person to see on Meiji-Taishô documents, has not limited himself to actors in the center. In 1992, Hirose, together with Hiyama Yukio of Chûkyô Daigaku in Nagoya, organized a small group to carry out the monumental work of cataloguing the entire holdings of the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan. These holdings are found in a village an hour’s ride by bus from the city of Taichû (Taichong). The core group took volunteers to assist them for three to four weeks every summer. The result is Taiwanshô Bunken Iinkai, ed., Taiwan Sôtokufu Monjo Mokuroku in nine volumes, covering documents from 1895 to 1906. These are massive volumes—volume nine, for example, comprises seven hundred pages. The group will continue their efforts until all the documents up to Japan’s defeat in 1945 are catalogued. In the meantime, symposia and a volume of articles are contemplated. There is a much younger scholar to whom I am beginning to accumulate a great deal of debt. He may be said to represent the third or fourth “generation” of positivists counting from the graduate students who were the initial participants in the IHKM project. This is a sign that what Itô and Banno had wrought has borne fruit. Kobayashi Kazuyuki was born in 1961 and received his master’s degree in modern Japanese history from Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku in 1986. His mentor was the late (2004) Numata Satoshi, with whom I had worked on IHKM.30 This connection and Itô’s recommendation led me to Kobayashi, with whom I began to check transcriptions of SYKM done by others. This was when he was working in Shoryôbu. He then became a faculty member at Komazawa Daigaku and in 2005 moved on to the Aoyama Gakuin as Numata’s successor. His knowledge of documents housed in the Shoryôbu and his connections with researchers there are invaluable to all of us working on the YAKM project. Kobayashi has also been extremely helpful in sending me photocopies of scholarly articles and primary sources. He sent me, for example, the first half of volume one of Jijûbukanchô Nara Takeji Nikki as well as the quote from the Kaikoroku that Herbert Bix cited on the crown prince’s doubts that the imperial house’s ancestors are “truly gods” and that the (Taishô) emperor is a living deity.31 For many years, whenever I was asked when YAKM would be published, I answered, more in hope than confidence: “Progress is being made and the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible,” all the while suspecting that it

22

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was the headlight of the onrushing train that was approaching. Now, however, it is indeed the light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to the Shôyû Kurabu, which has agreed to provide a subsidy, logistical support, help in cross-checking transcriptions, and preparation of the index. The Shôyû Kurabu participants are dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers, and they, including Ôta Nobuko who was not mentioned earlier, have become accomplished transcribers.32 Beyond the unselfish and absolutely necessary help received for a quarter of a century from my colleagues in Japan, a mostly one-sided relationship that will continue for the near future, I had the understanding and unconditional support of an extraordinary human being, Akiko, my late wife (1927–1992). She was born in Utah but raised and educated in Japan from 1932 to the end of the war in the Pacific. This may or may not explain her attitude: “Do what you have to do; I’ll hold the fort in Hawai‘i.”33 Her goodwill and inner strength were especially evident when she stood firm in her request that I not return to Hawai‘i to be with her when she had surgery for stomach cancer. The reason for her position was that the date coincided with my scheduled speech, in Japanese, on 1 December 1990 at a symposium in the Diet sponsored by both houses to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Diet’s establishment. She knew that Itô Takashi, a friend and colleague since 1967, had arranged it and that the subject of the speech, “Gaikoku kara Mita Nihon Kensei no Ayumi: Sono Hyakunen,” the venue, and the reason for the celebration represented the culmination of all my years of research and writing on the political history of modern Japan. She merely said, “Look at the title of your book and remember, if you don’t do it this time, you’ll have to wait another one hundred years for the next chance.”34 Itô Takashi’s Legacy Robert A. Fish, while a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Hawai‘i, wrote an essay, “From the Manchurian Incident to Nagasaki in Twenty Pages: The Pacific War as Seen in Postwar Japanese High School History Textbooks” (typescript, thirty-six pages).35 He did what many nonJapanese reviewers, journalists, and editorial writers did not, that is, he actually read and compared high school textbooks published from the end of the Allied Occupation of Japan to the 1999 edition in use for the 2002 school year. This entailed reading seven incarnations of the same topics covered by the same three publishers, which were selected to seek a balance. These are Sanseidô, publisher of Ienaga Saburô’s textbook; Jikkyô, representing the left-wing versions; and Yamakawa, known for its more conservative positions. Among the conclusions that surprise are that Japan is treated as an aggressor state that bears primary responsibility



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for the war, and that Japanese “victim consciousness” (higaisha ishiki) does not occupy a prominent place in the textbooks. As striking as are his conclusions, and there are others, even more unexpected are his remarks about Itô Takashi. He notes that Itô is a member of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. This makes him in Jeff Kingston’s eyes a member of the ultranationalistic, reactionary, “‘pride by denial’ school of history” that constitutes a “noisome minority” and shares much with the right-wingers in black sound trucks who pollute the Tokyo air with their “hatred” and “vapid” slogans.36 Fish’s portrait of Itô and his role differs more than a bit. Itô, he writes, is “one of the (deservedly) most respected scholars specializing in the political history of the interwar years.” Fish adds that since “highly credentialed scholars,” such as Itô and two other current or former Tokyo University faculty members, are members of this society, this endows the organization with legitimacy in the public’s perception that many other right-wing groups lack.37 There is more from Fish. He writes that since the “pioneering research” by the Itô-led group of Tokyo University scholars (I suspect he is referring to the participants in the IHKM project), “most responsible scholars have accepted that the political picture” is far more complex.38 Rob Fish did not get the information on Itô from me. One day in late August 2001, as I was preparing to return to Japan on 11 September, Paul Varley mentioned that his graduate assistant, Rob Fish, had written a splendid essay, in fact, one of the finest by a graduate student that he had ever read. He said the research was thorough, the analysis perceptive, the conclusions balanced and sound. Since Itô was involved in a high school textbook, I asked Paul to introduce me to Rob. I then asked Rob for a copy and read it in Japan. I agreed with Paul’s assessment and offered to find a venue for a translated version, but I suggested that he shorten it to increase its chances of acceptance. He declined to do so since he knew he was dealing with a controversial subject and had crafted the essay with great care to be as fair as possible, so that any abridgment would detract from its integrity. This was such a principled position that I dropped the subject. His methodology, analyses, and conclusions aside, I was also struck by his comments on Itô and asked him how he had come to see Itô and his impact as he did. I cite his reply in full since it gives us a glimpse into what some among the newest generation of non-Japanese Japan scholars are doing at the turn of the twenty-first century. [I]n preparation for comprehensive exams, Itô’s work came up on numerous occasions during my discussions with Dr. Minichiello. In addition, in a derivative form, his ideas appear in both Dr. Minichiello’s work as well as Gordon Berger’s first book, so I was familiar with him before going to Japan. Once arriving in Japan, I participated in Professor Chikako Katô’s graduate seminar at Yokohama National

24

Japan’s Postwar Positivists University. Although my focus is on postwar history, most of the other students (as well as Professor Katô), were focused on prewar and wartime Japan, topics which cannot be studied without reading and discussing Itô’s works. While I do not claim a special familiarity with Itô’s scholarship, I think most of my contemporaries completing their Ph.D.’s in modern Japanese history have some familiarity with his work (and at least one refers to it extensively in his dissertation).39

Itô’s growing stature and influence can be gauged by comparing two reviews by Eguchi Keiichi, a highly respected scholar working in the Marxist tradition. He criticized Itô’s first monograph as merely “an imposing index of each group [that he describes].” Eguchi was here giving voice to a criticism that was constantly being directed against Itô, that he lacked narrative and synthetic skills despite his unquestioned mastery of documentary sources.40 Eguchi is undoubtedly fair-minded and even-handed since at the same time he decried the “continued stagnation (fushin) of recent research on modern Japanese history based on Marxism.”41 A little over a decade later, Eguchi paid Itô the ultimate compliment: In his Shôwa Shoki Seijishi Kenkyû and the whole series of works that followed, Itô Takashi has gone beyond the issue of tennôsei fascism to a critique of Marxist scholarship [on modern Japanese political history] as a whole, and, in the process, has established one of the most influential scholarly trends of the 1970s.42

A personal experience may show the shift toward the kind of scholarship Itô represents. The Japanese translation of my monograph, as noted earlier, had been published in 1971. Unfortunately for the Tokyo University Press, it was completely ignored and, as Reischauer said of his Wanted: An Asian Policy, it promptly sank beneath the waves without leaving a ripple. Itô tried to comfort me by saying that he, too, had once been ignored by the Marxist scholarly establishment. The press later implored Itô to purchase a number of copies at a price too embarrassingly low to reveal here, after which it destroyed the huge number that remained unsold. This is not the end of the story. Hirose, at a collaborative session a few years ago, showed me a catalogue sent to him by a major used book dealer. The listed price for a copy of the book, originally set at ¥2,000, was ¥18,000.43 This may be an indication that the book dealer, basing his judgment on experience in these matters, believes that there is now a demand for the kind of methodology and interpretation found in my book. What then accounts for what Eguchi referred to as the “stagnation” of research on modern Japanese history based on Marxism? Let there be no mistake that the Marxist scholars still predominate the history-writing profession in Japan, which is not the same thing as saying that what they produce, with notable exceptions, can avoid the “stagnation” label. I have spent



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more than half of my academic life in Japan since 1955, when I returned to do research on my dissertation. I have sensed a gradual, at first, but lately increasing momentum or “jisei” (trend of the times) toward conservatism. The term is not here being used as a value judgment or intended to have an ideological overtone. The steady decline of the Japan Socialist Party is an example of this trend. Mikiso Hane suggests two reasons for this. One is the spectacular rise in Japan’s standard of living. The reasons for this are complex and will not be discussed except to say that it occurred under a capitalistic order. The other is the unwillingness or inability of the party, supported by most intellectuals, to stop wallowing in its “doctrinaire quagmire” and its choosing instead to adhere “tenaciously to timeworn Marxian concepts.” In short, the leaders and membership appeared to be more engrossed in maintaining their faith in “an abstract society far removed from the realities” of Japan.44 The mortal wound to the party was rendered by one of its own, Murayama Tomiichi of the party’s left wing, who accepted the prime ministership in 1994 and simultaneously declared that Japan’s self-defense forces were “constitutional” (gôken). This pronouncement tore apart the party, leaving it but a shadow of its 1955 self. Any question about the “trends” moving toward a more politically conservative Japan has been put to rest by the Japan Communist Party’s platform adopted on 17 January 2004. Absent from it is the call for a “socialist revolution,” replaced by an emphasis on “democratic reform . . . within the framework of capitalism.” The goal of one-party rule by the Communist Party is abandoned in favor of a multiparty system achieved through elections. And strikingly, the constitutionally mandated emperor system is accepted until the people themselves decide to abolish it. The party has been moving in the direction now given expression in its platform, but the sense of urgency was increased when, in the November 2003 election, it lost eleven of the twenty seats it controlled in the House of Representatives.45 The Japan Teachers’ Union (Nihon Kyôshokuin Kumiai or Nikkyôso) has followed a similar downward trajectory. The union, dominated by “leftwing Marxists,” was overwhelmingly powerful among the teachers from its inception until about the late 1980s, when its membership stood at 39 percent of all teachers.46 Harry Wray, a long-time resident in Japan who has taught in both English and Japanese at a number of universities, including Nanzan University, informed me that the percentage in late 2001 is lower than it was in 1999 (telephone conversation, 21 November 2001). The conservative jisei in Japan is here suggested only as a possible context for the “stagnation” of Marxist-oriented scholarship, since it would be difficult to prove cause and effect between the jisei and hundreds of scholars individually who still favor that approach to their historical studies. Still, there is no doubt that there is also a jisei in Japan’s history-writing

26

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f­ raternity away from strict adherence to Marxian analysis and methodology to accepting alternative methodologies and analyses.47 A harbinger of this was the reactions of Nishikawa Masao and Eguchi to Itô’s proposition that “fascism” was an inappropriate term to explain Japan of the 1930s.48 Itô’s argument touched a raw nerve among the mainstream scholars. Rekishi­ gaku Kenkyû published a special issue, Nihon Fuashizumuron no Saikentô, in which the two lead articles were in essence directed against the Itô proposition.49 The acerbic nature of the criticism can be seen in the article “Gendai Handô Rekishigaku Hihan,” written jointly by the Teikokushugibukai Wakate Gurûpu and appearing in Rekishigaku.50 Besides labeling Itô, Nakamura Takafusa, and Satô Seizaburô as scholars producing “reactionary” history as contrasted to the more correct, scientific historicism, the authors condemned the three for practicing “right-wing journalism.” It took just three years for Nishikawa Masao, who had been one of Itô’s sharpest critics, to concede that “I am not insisting that we must use the term ‘fascism’ to describe Japan [of the 1930s]. When you look at the situation in Japan from the perspective of world history . . . and if you can say that it would enhance understanding of the Japanese experience as a whole by not using the concept ‘fascism,’ well, that is fine.”51 In this Nishikawa is seconded by Eguchi, who subsequently wrote, “There are suitable grounds for paying close attention to Itô’s criticism that there are ambiguities in the concept ‘fascism.’”52 The state of historiography in Japan on modern Japanese history at the turn of the twenty-first century, therefore, is such that it is becoming more difficult to categorize scholars as being “left-wing,” “progressive,” “conservative,” “nationalistic.” Itô, in fact, may have initiated the trend of confounding those prone to easy generalizations by using an author’s presumed ideology as a litmus test. In 1975, six years before Eguchi praised Itô’s contribution to the reinterpretation of the 1930s, Itô had given unstinting praise to Miyaji Masato, one of the most respected scholars working in the Marxist tradition, by stating that Miyaji’s Nichiro Sengo Seijishi no Kenkyû was “the best recent work on the late Meiji–early Taishô years.”53 Later, with some reservations, he directed his readers to one of the classic works in the Marxist genre, Tôyama Shigeki’s Nihon Kindaishi.54 He also recommended very strongly Kurushima Hiroshi’s “Chôshû Sensô to Bitchû no Bakuryô ni okeru Chûkan Shihai Kikô no Ichikôsatsu” (Shigaku Zasshi 90 [1981]: pp. 1–45).55 Two more examples of the problems inherent in any attempt to pigeonhole scholars on ideological grounds can be cited. Katô Chikako of Yokohama National University has published mainly in Rekishigaku Kenkyû, Rekishi Hyôron, and Nihonshi Kenkyû, venues of choice for those of “progressive” persuasion.56 Yet it was Katô who, as Fish reports, urged her graduate seminar students to take seriously Itô Takashi’s work. Katô (Nojima) Yôko, Itô’s successor at Tôdai, was once described to me



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by a contemporary of hers as being “new left” in her orientation. So her statement on Yamagata Aritomo, “Fûten Chin’an Nikki,” posted on her Web site, evoked more than a bit of surprise among those who saw it.57 She explains that her use of fûten is due to its association with the main character in what was the longest running movie series in the world, Torajirô, who called himself “Fûten no Tora” (Tora, the Stumblebum). At age five, she had become an ardent fan of Atsumi Kiyoshi, who played Tora. She writes that Chin’an comes from Chinzansô, the famous garden created by Yamagata, and that it is Yamagata who at this moment attracts her greatest interest in her study of modern Japanese history. Even if, after her research, she concludes that she cannot be as great a “fan” of Yamagata as she is of Atsumi, her great interest in Yamagata is heartening, since I am still in the conspicuous minority for my vocal, positive evaluation of him. Let us look at another indication of the jisei away from scholarship based on the Marxist tradition. This is the slowly growing number of volumes of published primary documents. In short, the tedious, unspectacular, time-consuming transcription of dry-as-dust primary documents has gained academic respectability, is worthy of emulation, and has evoked the gratitude of users. Sugita Gempaku (1733–1817) recalled in his old age that there had been only three rangakusha (scholars of Dutch learning) when he first began Dutch studies, but that after fifty years, rangaku had spread all over Japan. This is not to imply that the pioneering impact of the IHKM transcribers is in any way comparable to that of the rangakusha. Still, there is no doubt that the IHKM transcribers now have more company than imagined when they first appeared. Itô once lamented to me about how lonely and isolated they had felt in the early days. The titles of transcribed and published works are listed to show the growth of the phenomenon, as an aid to scholars who may be contemplating research on the political history of modern Japan, and to assist libraries seeking to enlarge their holdings on Japan.58 Inoue Kowashi Den, 6 vols. and a supplement.59 Tokutomi Sohô Kankei Monjo, 3 vols. Yamada Kengi Hakushaku Monjo, 9 vols. (documents, 7 vols.; ­catalogues, 2 vols.).60 Saionji Kimmochi Den, 6 vols.61 Matsukata Masayoshi Kankei Monjo, 18 vols. and a supplement.62 Hara Kei Kankei Monjo, 10 vols.63 Uehara Yûsaku Kankei Monjo, 1 vol. Okazaki Kunisuke Kankei Monjo, 1 vol. Ogawa Heikichi Kankei Monjo, 2 vols. Ozaki Saburô Nikki, 3 vols.64 Takarabe Takeshi Nikki.65

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The publications of Shôyû Kurabu, past and projected, should be added to the growing list, as well as the Jijûbukanchô Nara Takeji Nikki . Kaikoroku and the Ôkuma Shigenobu Kankei Monjo (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobô, 2004).66 This project, sponsored by Waseda Daigaku in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of its founding (1882), involves publishing the more than six thousand letters sent to its founder, Ôkuma Shigenobu (1838– 1922), in a body of work that will ultimately comprise ten volumes and a supplement. There are also whispers that Keiô Daigaku will produce a revised, enlarged edition of Fukuzawa Yukichi Zenshû. This proliferation of volumes is in and of itself significant. The consequence goes beyond the numbers. These volumes are held by all major university libraries and research institutions as well as by scholars who are willing to invest in the considerable cost of procuring them. They are read because they are published in kaisho. Their availability no doubt has had a major impact in loosening the once tight hold exercised on the interpretation of modern Japan’s political history by scholars working in the Marxist tradition. It is therefore no longer possible for scholars to analyze and make judgments on political history based on preconceived notions given the likelihood of having sources cited to contradict them. This stress on transcription of documents of figures who were active in governance and politics at the center skews the reality of transcription projects in Japan. There are probably dozens of groups working on the local level. The documents fill the godowns of daimyo, their retainers, gôshi, gônô, village heads, and merchants. These groups may be led or advised by a university professor, high school teacher, or a professional researcher, and are composed of highly motivated and intellectually curious volunteers who enjoy the camaraderie of like-minded souls. I met with two such groups in the 1970s, one in Kawasaki and the other in Odawara. Kimbara Samon of Chûô Daigaku was their adviser and invited me to meet with the groups. Herman Ooms describes another group led by Ozaki Yukiya, a high school science teacher in Makibuse, Nagano Prefecture. The group collected, catalogued, and transcribed “tens of thousands” of documents found in the godowns of Tokugawa village heads.67 The minshûshi historians such as Irokawa Daikichi and Anzai Kunio have also exploited the documents stored in the godowns. Their conclusions generally point to conflict between “the people” and government, which simply sustains the truism that documents tell us what we, and this includes positivists, wish to see. I conclude with one more example of a local history project, which is cited to show how time-consuming transcription projects can be and how much dedication is required to bring them to conclusion. This project involved Hirose and four others from the region. The project lasted nearly ten years and required that Hirose make one weekend overnight trip a month to the region. The process was well-described by Ooms, i.e., the need to locate



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the documents, negotiate for their use, put them in meaningful order, catalogue and transcribe them, and then write a general history based on the documents. The result was the six-volume Mashikochôshi (1985–1992), which comprises one volume of general history and five volumes of documents.68 It is clear that Hirose had begun to take the initiative on the Taiwan Sôtokufu project even as he was winding down the Mashikochô enterprise. I am convinced that his superiors at the National Diet Library long ago had seen in him a person of rare qualities that fit the requirements of the Kensei Shiryôshitsu, which is why he was kept at his post for many years. The KS’s misfortune is my gain, for he now has a more flexible schedule and can meet with me for longer hours. One result is the next two chapters, for without his patient guidance and tutelage they could not have been written. His deep and wide knowledge of primary documents and holdings in research institutions, and his skepticism and more tempered approach to certain documents have matured me as a historian on the political history of modern Japan. Our shared conviction in the appropriateness of the positivist methodology, without doubt, also had much to do with our enduring collaboration. Needless to say, I take full responsibility for any weaknesses in analyses and lapses in judgment resulting from our collaboration. Specifically, I will in chapter 2 go beyond the discussion of groups involved in transcription projects and the mechanics and processes involved in transcribing documents written in sôsho. The underlying premise of the chapter is that while scholars are or should be aware of their prepossessions, they should also be conscious of the existence of the same among those who leave their records for posterity.

Cha p ter 2

Reading Primary Documents Letters, Ikensho, Nikki, and Memoirs—the Pitfalls

Many of the documents, being written for a purpose, are evasive or plain lies, but the evasion and the lies are precisely what indicate that purpose to the historian, who reads them as a child holds up to a mirror a word written backward. — Gouverneur Paulding

Writing for History Documents, especially those written by the principals involved, are one of the basic building blocks for the historian seeking to reconstruct the past. Paulding notes correctly that these documents are not necessarily what they seem, but the very awareness of the problems they raise enhances their utility and value. There is no question that societies’ movers and shakers write letters, diaries, memoirs, and position papers with a self-interested eye on history. Nothing as sinister as evasion or deception may be involved, but merely the natural human impulse to be seen in the best possible light, to help tilt the historians’ judgments, if not favorably, at least appreciatively with respect to themselves. One of the surest signs of this purposeful attempt to “write for history” in the papers of the political actors in Meiji-Taishô political history is the existence of neatly written duplicates, often written in kaisho. Sôsho, with its flowing and abbreviated kanji, is more difficult to read, but easier to write with the brush on washi (Japanese paper), whereas kaisho is easier to read but more laborious and time-consuming to write. Despite these obstacles, many writers favored kaisho when they wanted to call attention to the documents’ significance and to minimize the danger of having the contents misconstrued. Still, kaisho, given the idiosyncrasies of individuals, is difficult enough to require slower and more careful reading than mere scanning, especially when the writers sometimes slipped into gyôsho, the semicursive writing. This further suited the purpose of nikki (diaries) and ikensho (position papers) writers.



Reading Primary Documents

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Another sure sign that given documents were regarded by the authors as being worthy of notice, as well as to give voice to their side of the story, is that they were rewritten, usually sometime after the events had transpired. Miyajima Seiichirô (1839–1911), a ranking bureaucrat who was close to Katsu Kaishû, kept a series of diaries from 1850 to 1908. He considered his Boshin Nikki (1868) as the most significant of the lot. In 1881, he had his younger brother Kishirô rewrite it in kaisho under his watchful eye. The result is the twelve-volume Boshin Nikki.1 He also used other diaries and documents to reconstruct and publish, in 1906 at his own expense, a narrative he deemed of particular consequence for the historical record. This is his Kokken Hensan Kigen (KHK) that he had presented to Iwakura Tomomi in 1881. In it he traced the efforts of the Sain (Left Board) to write a constitution and to lay the foundation of constitutional government.2 Miyajima, in the KHK’s last paragraph, gives his rationale for publishing it. By 1906, there was general consensus in Japan that the Constitution was one of the most visible, outstanding achievements of the Meiji period, and Miyajima is here clearly trying to ensure his and the Sain’s place in this accomplishment: I had intended to keep [this document] private, but the empire’s foundation has increasingly become firm. There are now many scholars who are studying the Constitution; yet, there is little knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the early attempts at writing a constitution. I have therefore chosen to make [this document] public in the hope that it will serve to shed some light on the origins of our Constitution [kokken].3

Miyajima, however, had a self-interested motive for publishing KHK because the Sain’s drafts were regarded as not representing the mainstream leaders’ constitutional views. Etô Shimpei, for example, thought that Miyajima was not contemplating an emperor-centered constitution and was willing to give the people too much leeway to interfere in state affairs. The Sain was abolished in 1875 and replaced by the Genrôin (Senate), which continued work on constitutions.4 America’s Declaration of Independence could have suffered the same fate of becoming a mere footnote in history. The participants of the events of 1776, including Thomas Jefferson, apparently did not realize the historical acclamation that would be bestowed upon the author of the Declaration. One historian has noted, in fact, that at least ninety other “‘declarations’ of independence [had been] made by colonies, local governments, and patriotic groups between April and July 1776.”5 The Declaration, therefore, at first was not linked in the population’s mind as a pillar of American political philosophy—for fifteen years after it was proclaimed, it was “all but forgotten” and the author seldom noted.6 The Sain’s and

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J­ efferson’s efforts, ­however, had diametrically opposite fates, and both because of the tug and pull of political partisanship. The question of the Declaration’s authorship became important only with the advent of strife between the Federalists and the Republicans in the age of Federalism (1788–1800). It was then that the Declaration became the “deathless instrument penned by the immortal Jefferson.”7 One of the best-known rewritten documents does not involve the author’s redoing his own record, but the copying of another’s, and for plainly political reasons. The copier is Itô Hirobumi, at that time arguably the most influential Meiji government leader, reproducing Ôkuma Shigenobu’s March 1881 ikensho on constitutional government, a document that precipitated Ôkuma’s ouster from the government in the “Political Crisis of 1881.” Itô, on hearing of the petition’s “radical” proposals, had asked Sanjô Sanetomi to retrieve it from the emperor. He then painstakingly and meticulously copied this lengthy position paper in kaisho, stroke by stroke (27 June 1881). That Itô did not entrust this task to a scribe and that he specifically stated that he had personally copied it (jisha) shows the importance he attached to the document.8 Images of Ôkuma’s March 1881 “Memorandum on Constitutional Government to the Emperor” and other original and important historical documents have been made available online by the National Diet Library.9 Yamagata Aritomo also frequently rewrote or had duplicates made, for much the same reasons that had motivated Miyajima. A personal trait may also have had a role: Yamagata had a penchant for precision and clarity, which is why he is easier to read and to translate than, say, Itô Hirobumi.10 An example of this penchant is his lengthy letter of 5 April 1895 to Mutsu Munemitsu in which he changed but a single character: he crossed out the second character shû in Ôshû (Europe) and replaced it with bei (for Beikoku or America) to make Ôbei.11 Yamagata, however, went beyond changing wordings in letters he sent. It is now evident that he went through the whole of the letters he had received and selected those that now constitute the Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM). Scholars had long suspected that the number of letters included in the YAKM is far less than the number Yamagata had received over his lengthy career. For example, Shinagawa Yajirô (1843–1900) was fifty-seven years old at his death and was a second-tier Meiji leader. Yamagata was eighty-four and one of the founding fathers of modern Japan. Still, the published Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM) is now in its sixth volume with another projected. The published YAKM will be in three volumes. The question of who had selected the letters that remain has been long a puzzle, since no scholar or group of scholars had attempted to read, much less transcribe, the whole collection written almost entirely in sôsho in countless different styles. The transcription has been



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completed and two volumes out of three have been published (2004, 2006), so the riddle may be closer to solution. Yamagata had always exercised a measure of editorial control, as did Hara Kei over his diary. He did this by sometimes adding his comments on the letters sent to him, as in the case of the letter he received from the dying Iwakura (YAKM, 16 July 1883 [discussed in chapter 4 n. 98]). He also fleshed out the YAKM by adding copies of letters he had sent to others which do not appropriately belong to the kankei monjo proper (letter to Mutsu Munemitsu, Yamagata Aritomo Monjo, 5 April 1895). Yamagata even took the trouble to create a special category for an event he considered of particular importance for understanding the Taishô period, Taishô seihen. In this instance, he selected the letters to him from Katsura Tarô, matched them with his replies, and added his oral commentary, dictated to a scribe, probably Irie Kan’ichi. Yamagata preserved the two scrolls that make up this special section in a special box apart from all the other scrolls in YAKM. At the head of the first scroll, in his hand, are the words: “Taishô gannen jûnigatsu Katsura shushô to taidan oyobi ni ôfuku no shokan nari” (Dialogue with Prime Minister Katsura, December 1912, and exchange of letters). The copies of the letters he sent to Katsura are by a scribe. Finally, his personal hand in the selection process is revealed at the beginning of the seven scrolls containing letters he had received in 1911. There he wrote, “Yonjûyonen ichigatsubun” (January 1911 letters). The knowledge that Yamagata had a hand in the selection process enhances its value to the historian since we at least know what he regarded as valuable. Yet the question of the final decision on the selection of the totality remains unresolved. The historian regrets that because the documents may have been culled by a third party, the historian has been left out of the process of deciding for himself what is important. Pitfalls in Documentary Evidence Unpublished documents, because of their nature as “primary sources,” may well lull the user into uncritically accepting some of them as “evidence.” Yamagata, during the campaigns against anti-imperial forces in northwestern Japan, directed the Kiheitai (Chôshû’s auxiliary units of samurai, farmers, and townspeople) to compile the most accurate reports possible. He did so because he saw that units from other han (domains) were preparing narratives that were extremely slipshod, apt to contain exaggerations, and enlivened unnecessarily by colorful descriptions, and that were therefore removed from the reality he was witnessing and experiencing. He later noted that books were being written on the basis of this bad official reporting, causing him to lament, “what are we to do when the facts differ greatly from those found in the documents?”12

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Memory is an especially fragile reed on which to depend for the reconstruction of events by either the principal involved or the historian. Melissa Müller, author of Anne Frank, who began her biography in 1995, has addressed this problem of recall. She writes that she wanted to “explore the family background and the social milieu in which [Anne’s] life was rooted.” To do this she had to interview, among others, “upward of twenty contemporaries of Anne Frank” as well as many who knew her father, Otto Frank. This required talking with people about events that had occurred more than fifty years before. She cautions the reader, “Memories change after half a century and some people I interviewed had different recollections of the same events.”13 She adds, however, that she interviewed people who astounded her with memories that were “remarkable” and “amazing.” She notes also that Miep Gies (née Hermine Santrouschitz), the Austrian who was sent to Holland as a child in 1911 in a program for ill and undernourished children, at eighty-nine still had the “memory of a young woman.” Gies was a true heroine of the Frank saga for her roles in hiding the Franks as well as shopping and finding food for them at the risk of death.14 Müller’s caveat echoes John Adams’s lament, “What are we to make of history when, in less than forty years, such diversities appear in the memories of living men who were witnesses.”15 Closer to home, Gerald Curtis writes of two interviews with Hosokawa Morihiro (prime minister, 9 August 1993–28 April 1994). These interviews, held three years apart (1994 and 1997), touched upon important policy matters such as the Uruguay Round multilateral trade negotiations and the consumption tax increase. Curtis notes that Hosokawa’s recollections differed on these two issues.16 Curtis does not cast aspersion on Hosokawa for this, saying that for Hosokawa, both versions were “true” when he stated them.17 Yamagata, to his credit, was fully aware of the pitfalls of memory and, typically, guarded against them. He delivered a speech, “Chôhei Seido oyobi Jichi Seido Kakuritsu no Enkaku,” in April 1919. There is no question that he was well prepared to recall as accurately as possible the events and reasons involved, for he obviously had sources such as ordinances, ikensho, and minutes (Genrôin Kaigi Hikki) in hand from which he cited verbatim. He also wrote two letters to Tokutomi Sohô nearly a year before delivering the speech. In the first, he asked Tokutomi to return documents, including books, on the establishment of the conscription system because he was finding it “extremely difficult to recall the precise details” (16 June 1918). In the second, nearly three months later, he wrote that “it would be imprudent for me to rely on memory alone to recall accurately the details of something that had occurred over fifty years ago” (5 September 1918).18 The existence of documents to prod memories is no guarantee that ­issues involving faulty and disputed recollections can be resolved satisfactorily. Müller acknowledges that she was shown “photographs, letters, hand­



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written notes, and revealing documents,” but presumably these materials still resulted in instances of “different recollections of the same events.”19 A famous conundrum associated with the authorship of the Declaration of Independence also well illustrates this point. John Adams, at age eighty-six, recalled with “astonishing clarity” a conversation with Thomas Jefferson nearly a half-century before about which of them should draft the Declaration of Independence. Adams wrote at this time that he had persuaded Jefferson to accept the honor. Jefferson, however, immediately refuted this account, insisting that the five-member drafting committee had selected him to write the draft. He wrote to James Madison that he had “written notes” made “at the moment and on the spot” that would disprove Adams’s version of the event.20 McGlone leans toward Jefferson’s recollections and states that Adams’s version resulted from “false memory,” one, however, overlain by benignity and generosity toward Jefferson, who in 1820 had once more become his warm friend.21 McGlone, however, concludes that the differences in Adams’s and Jefferson’s accounts may “never be resolved empirically.”22 The Ikensho as a Primary Source Ikensho, on the face of it, do not seem to present many problems for the historian, for they are straightforward statements of positions on issues. However, their very nature, an attempt to sway policy, requires determining the writer’s political agenda over time, his motives, stated and unstated, his place and role in the government, and his relationship with cohorts, which are intimately related to their ultimate fate. They are known by many terms, among them kengi, kengensho, jôsô, jôsho, and kempakusho. There are two general categories of ikensho, whatever the terms used: one, those presented by people within the government (for example, the kengi on constitutional government submitted individually by seven councilors between December 1879 and May 1881); and two, those submitted from outside the government (one of the best-known of these is the petition submitted by Itagaki Taisuke and seven others calling for the establishment of a national assembly in 1874).23 This discussion will be limited to intragovernment ikensho, and these are of five general types, two of which may be misidentified as letters. The first type are clearly ikensho because they are given titles by the author and/or are accompanied by a cover letter.24 Yamagata’s widely cited untitled ikensho on “racial competition” was accompanied by a brief cover letter.25 Yamagata provided the title for his 1917 ikensho to encourage the establishment of a third party by writing in his hand in sôsho at the head of the ikensho “Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan Utsushi Taishô Rokunen Ichigatsu.” The utsushi (copy), however, had been written in kaisho by some-

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one other than Yamagata.26 There is another copy in the Den Kenjirô Kankei Monjo, but this one is a mimeographed duplication. On the cover, in sôsho, is a note saying that Yamagata had asked that the document be sent to (Taiwan’s) Governor-General Den. Also written in large characters is the word gokuhi. This cannot be translated as “top secret” given the two types of copies extant, but it probably meant that the ikensho should be considered important, handled with care, and its distribution limited. The second type are later identified as ikensho by the authors. Kido Takayoshi, in a memorandum he wrote (September 1873) after he had presented his untitled ikensho on constitutional government (July 1873), declared, “I wrote the sho because of my desire to have the government speedily enact a constitution.”27 Yamagata composed two untitled ikensho, one in 1907 and the other in 1909, but in letters designated them respectively as “Dai-Ichi Tai-Shi Seisaku” and “Dai-Ni no Tai-Shi to shite [no Ikensho].”28 The third type are the rombun-ikensho (essay–position papers). These are not so common and usually were written by “second-generation” bureaucrats who had been educated at Tokyo University and may have studied abroad as well.29 They are often in the form of lengthy, scholarly discourses aimed at calling attention to the author’s erudition as much as to change policies. At times, the scholarly argumentation overshadows the policy proposals, so that these documents do not lend themselves to precise categorization. Tsuzuki Keiroku’s “Chôzenshugi” (1892) and “Kizokuin Shokô ni Tsugu” (1898) are rombun-ikensho.30 His “Jôyaku Teiketsuron,” however, is clearly an essay and was published in the Kokka Gakkai Zasshi 6, p. 27.31 Sakatani Yoshirô was another early graduate of Tokyo University’s Seijirizaigakka (1884), but he did not do postgraduate work abroad and directly entered the finance ministry. He was finance minister in the first Saionji Kimmochi Cabinet (1906–1908), and mayor of Tokyo (1912–1915), an appointed office. Like Tsuzuki, he wrote both types of documents, such as a draft he prepared for Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi, “Kan’yû Tetsudô Haraisage o Todome Min’yû Tetsudô o Kaiagubeki no Gi ni tsuki Kengi,” (August 1889) for submission to Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka, and the ronsetsu (treatise) “Zeisei Seirian ni tsuite” that he published in Ryûmon Zasshi, 25 March 1926.32 One way the young bureaucrats called attention to the ikensho aspect of their rombun-ikensho was to frontally attack their superiors by name. Tsuzuki, in his “Chôzenshugi” (Principle of Transcendental Cabinets), began by chiding former prime minister Yamagata and the incumbent prime minister, Matsukata Masayoshi, for their incomprehensible actions vis-à-vis the Diet despite their alleged commitment to chôzenshugi.33 Their actions, he implied, stemmed from their lack of understanding of chôzen­ shugi’s real meaning. He then proceeded to lecture them on what chôzen­ shugi “really meant,” that is, the government should have nothing to do



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with any political party, whether pro-government or mintô, in seeking to pass measures in the House of Representatives. Thus Tsuzuki gave voice to those bureaucrats who had contempt for party politicians.34 More important, however, was that his ikensho served the vital function of promoting discourse among the bureaucrats on this crucial question. In short, the Meiji leaders were still trying to work through the shape and content of Japan’s constitutional system in the early 1890s. Inoue Kowashi, for example, submitted his “Tai-gikai Taisaku ni tsuki Naichin” on 29 August 1892 to Prime Minister Itô, Home Minister Inoue, and Justice Minister Yamagata to rebut Tsuzuki’s position and to support the line being espoused by Mutsu that the government needed the votes of pro-government allies in the House of Representatives.35 This discussion on the rombun-ikensho illustrates the hard task of making distinctions among ikensho. This problem is illustrated by the categorization of Tsuzuki’s “Chôzenshugi” as a rombun by a leading scholar of Meiji political history, Banno Junji.36 However, “Chôzenshugi” stands in direct line from the public policy statements (12 and 15 February 1889, respectively) of Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka and Privy Council President Itô on chôzenshugi to the rebuttal by Inoue Kowashi of Tsuzuki’s position (29 August 1892). Banno, it should be noted, then designates Inoue’s statement as an ikensho.37 The fourth type is the fukumeisho-ikensho (inspection report–position paper). The fukumeisho are official fact-finding reports by those sent out from Tokyo to outlying areas of Japan. They contain firsthand observations on a wide range of subjects, such as education, taxation, local governmental systems, customs, transportation, classification of the population into political groups, and so forth. They are, for political historians, one of the most valuable and indispensable primary sources. They are also unfortunately underutilized, both by Japanese and non-Japanese scholars. There may be several reasons for this neglect, among them ignorance of their existence or simply lack of interest.38 The fukumeisho have also been greatly overshadowed by works published by individuals who went to the West in the bakumatsu and early Meiji periods to study and learn. The best-known of these is Seiyô Jijô by Fukuzawa Yukichi, first published in 1866 and based on Fukuzawa’s three bakufu-sponsored trips to Europe and America (1860, 1862, 1867). In addition to Seiyô Jijô, which was probably the most widely read and studied book of its time, Tokumei Zenken Taishi Beiô Kairan Jikki (1878) by Kume Kunitake, a member of the Iwakura Mission (1871–1873), also enjoyed much popularity in the Meiji period.39 The early inspection trips to Europe and America were motivated in large measure by the recognition that Japan was ignorant of the West and needed to learn about it. The fukumeisho show that the Meiji government leaders were ignorant as well about large regions of Japan itself, including

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the pre-Meiji capitals, Kyoto and Edo. They were convinced that learning about these areas was a sine qua non to establishing a modern nationstate, a learning process that extended over many years. We go to Yamagata Aritomo for an example of the fukumeisho-ikensho. This particular case also illustrates the confusion that can easily arise in a technical description of primary documents, a difficulty encountered as well in the discussion of the rombun-ikensho. Still, the problem does not free the historian from the responsibility of making as precise a definition as possible. Not to do so risks the danger, as shall be shown, of missing important policy statements. Home Minister Yamagata (1885–1889) in a letter to Shinagawa Yajirô (25 May 1886) added a besshi (enclosure) titled “Fukumeisho” neatly written in kaisho, probably by a scribe. However, this document is not a fukumeisho, but an ikensho, for at the end Yamagata states specifically that he is submitting to fellow cabinet members his personal opinions (ikko no iken) on policies Japan should adopt vis-à-vis Okinawa, Gotô, and Tsushima. He adds that his policy statements are based on the observations he recorded in detail in his nikki (Nankô Nikki Kyûshû Chihô Junkai Nikki). We therefore have a complicated case in which Yamagata’s daily record or nikki may be what is conventionally regarded as a fukumeisho because it is a public document that he submitted together with his fukumeisho-ikensho.40 Tessa Morris-Suzuki provides an illuminating example of the distinction between a fukumeisho and an ikensho. She notes that the linguist Nakanome Akira and the ethnographer-archaeologist Torii Ryûzô were sent by the government to the southern half of Sakhalin. Nakanome focused mainly on the Tungusic language of the Uilta, recorded their myths, religious beliefs, and social structures. Morris-Suzuki points out, however, that “[he] saw his role as being to prescribe as well as to describe: to define the position that the indigenous people of Sakhalin should occupy in the colonial order,” that is, he had submitted a fukumeisho-ikensho although he did not designate it as such. Torii, who was commissioned at the same time as Nakanome, published reports that “contain[ed] no prescriptions for colonial policy . . . [but were] simply meticulous accounts of the origins, language, customs, and religion of the region’s native peoples,” or a fukumeisho.41 Yamagata’s policy proposals are worthy of note because they also put to rest the stereotypic view of him as the archetypical Home Ministry bureaucrat bent merely and single-mindedly on establishing a highly centralized nation-state tightly controlled from Tokyo. There is no gainsaying, of course, that because of the very nature of the nation-state, an implicit premise ran through the fukumeisho that Tokyo would be at the apex of a centralized Japan. Moreover, Yamagata stated explicitly that the benefits from Okinawa’s integration would flow to Japan. Given the dangerous realities of nineteenthcentury international rivalries, he also emphasized Okinawa’s importance as



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a bastion to protect Japan’s southern approaches. His suggested means to these ends, however, reveal a practicality, moderation, balance, and fine sensibility to Okinawa’s traditional ways, and a conviction that the Okinawans were capable of contributing to their integration in the modern Japanese state. Yamagata clearly stated that the benefits from Okinawa’s integration would not be a one-way street to Tokyo, but must be mutual (hoeki). Yamagata believed that the Okinawans’ contributions to Japan’s military defense were crucial to the integrative process. He therefore urged that Okinawans be used in the military garrison stationed on Okinawa. He believed that education, too, was crucial to integration and proposed that talented young Okinawans be identified and enrolled in normal schools in Japan, and on their return home be placed throughout the elementary school system. He was also convinced that Okinawans’ lives were touched most intimately by the local governmental bodies and that it was at these points of contact that the Okinawans could be put at ease with the new order of things. The most effective approach to this end was, he proposed, to retain traditional ways and time-honored customs of governance. Yamagata applied the same reasoning to laws, saying that laws that were not congruent with the developmental stage of the people were never effective. He therefore advocated that laws based on traditional practices be kept and administered not from Tokyo, but from the prefectural government. Yamagata admitted that maintaining Okinawa’s traditional taxation system would be extremely troublesome and inefficient, but he added that since the people were comfortable with the old system, Japan should retain it, including the use of mainly oldtime tax collectors. And finally, he repeatedly emphasized the need to go slowly in implementing all aspects of the reforms. The reader, it needs to be reiterated, could easily have been misled by the written title “Fukumeisho” and therefore have missed this important ikensho that sheds light on one approach to the significant issue of how Japan should integrate noncontiguous territories. The fifth type are ikensho in the form of letters. These are identifiable as such by their contents, and Yamagata’s letter to Mutsu of 5 April 1895 is an example.42 There is also a distinguishing characteristic of the letter­ikensho that makes it possible to identify it as such: the salutation at the beginning and end are written in sôsho while the body is usually in kaisho. Such is the case with Inoue Kowashi’s letter of 26 August 1875 to Ozaki Saburô and Takasaki Goroku. Inoue made doubly certain that the kaisho portion was read as an ikensho by declaring categorically that he was restating and therefore “making perfectly clear his fundamental position” on the kind of modern monarchy Japan should establish.43 Mutsu’s letter to Inoue Kaoru (3 May 1889) is another example. Mutsu was ambassador to the United States and, based on his observations of the role of ­political parties there, asserted that parties had to be an integral part of

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the Meiji constitutional system. He therefore urged Inoue to create a progovernment party, specifically, the Jichitô.44 In other words, by using kaisho, the writers minimized the misreading and misinterpretation of policy proposals they considered urgent and significant. Letter-ikensho sometimes cause confusion. Yamagata’s “Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan” (January 1917) is discussed in an unsigned article, “Tegami o Tsûjite-2,” in the Jiji Shimpô (1 August 1928). Whoever was responsible for the article’s lead probably took shokan to mean tegami (letter), a commonly used equivalent. The author throughout the article, however, talked about Yamagata’s ikensho.45 The distinction is not a trivial matter. Letters deal with the whole gamut of the human condition and experience. They represent for the historian, therefore, a wide range in their utility. The ikensho, however, were expected to be read by more than one person and were focused on policy questions. The care with which the authors prepared their ikensho, the insights they brought to their subject matter, and the manner in which they developed their arguments lifted the ikensho qualitatively above most letters and made them among the most useful of primary sources. It is difficult to determine the impact of ikensho on government policies. Sometimes it is clear that an ikensho had no impact on government policy because of political realities and developments. This was the fate of Tsuzuki’s ikensho when political realities made moot his unconditional probureaucratic, anti-party positions. This situation had come about because the first-tier Meiji leaders, the object of Tsuzuki’s attack, had proceeded on the basis of the Mutsu/Inoue position that the government simply could not be expected to pass its programs in the Diet without the votes, including some from the opposition parties. In other instances, official rejection is a sign that the ikensho had been regarded with seriousness, and its fate becomes part of the record. Such is the case with Yamagata’s “Kokumu Daijin oyobi Sûmitsu Komonkan o shite Giin o Kaneshimuru no Rigai Ikan” (early June 1890).46 Here, Yamagata asked rhetorically, “Can cabinet members and privy councilors concurrently hold seats in the Diet?” His reply, which would probably surprise the vast majority of Japanese and Western scholars on Meiji-Taishô political history, was that there was nothing that prevented such concurrent membership. However, privy councilors and peers largely opposed Yamagata’s proposals and the cabinet rejected them.47 The ikensho, whether they were accepted, rejected, grappled with, or ignored, revealed the deepest concerns of the Meiji-Taishô leadership as they attempted to cope with the unpredictability and hazards of a Japan trying to modernize. The weight the writers attached to the ikensho can be seen sometimes in the expression of strong feelings that may have bordered on passion. This trait distinguished them from the negative emotionalism sometimes found in letters.48 Even making allowances for Kido’s well-known emotionalism, there is no gainsaying the strength of his conviction that



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Japan must adopt a constitution. After stating that “a constitution and laws” were indispensable for Japan, he concluded his untitled ikensho with, “I have apprehensions about the future [of a Japan without a constitution]. I cannot keep these fears to myself. This is why I speak my thoughts and ask for your reactions.”49 And in a memorandum written subsequently, he bemoaned the fact that his views had not been accepted, and added, “because I so strongly believe in my views, I repeatedly state them.”50 Inoue Kowashi’s ikensho letter to Ozaki and Takasaki also was suffused with his strong feelings. He wrote that he had been perturbed and upset with the unexpected reprimand from the two for his position on the imperial system. He then wrote: I earnestly believe that this subject goes directly to the heart of our constitution, and so if my views are truly shallow, then I am guilty of a crime against you and the monarch. Let me therefore restate my fundamental position to make perfectly clear what I meant.51

The recipients’ and readers’ reactions were sometimes as emotional. Thus, when Yamagata sent Tokutomi a volume of his ikensho, Tokutomi wrote in acknowledgment: I have read your ikensho. I agree wholeheartedly with your views. . . . It is as if the clouds and fog have been swept away to give me a clear view of the sky.52

Tokutomi is here engaged in hyperbole and flattery, but there is no question about the genuineness of the article writer’s reaction on reading Yamagata’s “Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan”: To see the Genrô Yamagata, who was over seventy at the time [he wrote this], exert so much effort to cleanse the political system is truly moving [mune o utsu].53

The Nikki as a Primary Source The primary source that particularly excites the historian is the nikki. It offers what is most valued by the historian: a record over time, even granting gaps from lost, misplaced segments, deliberate erasures, and the inability of the principal to write a daily entry. Moreover, the nikki writers express candidly their most private thoughts and evaluations of persons and events on the assumption that they alone are privy to them. Takarabe Minoru recalls that his father, Admiral Takarabe Takeshi, would go immediately to his study and work on the day’s letters and write his day’s entry no matter how late it was when he had returned home. He guarded the diary against prying eyes by first encasing it in furoshiki (wrapping cloth) and then placing it

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in a kôri (a large bamboo lattice trunk). He also wrote in sôsho with a special kind of brush, which may have been imported from China, that made it doubly difficult to read his handwriting.54 Other methods were employed to hinder the unwelcome stolen glance into the nikki’s contents. Fujinuma Shôhei, the keishisôkan (chief of the Metropolitan Police) during the 5.15 (1932) Incident, wrote his entries from left to right, which probably caused confusion initially for readers expecting the inscriptions to go in the normal right to left direction.55 Den Kenjirô wrote in kambun. However, the entries are in kaisho so that a person who could read sôrôbun (epistolary style) and had the time could read them. Still, Den was sensitive to the possibility of the quick peek, so he used symbols to mark the occasions that he had sexual encounters with his wife (ο), and when it was with a person other than his wife (∆). He then helpfully tallied up the yearly totals in a multipage appendix, perhaps to be helpful to the historian interested in these matters.56 The nikki, written in the sanctity of the study with entries that were not shared with others except by the writers’ leave, are therefore rich lodes for the historian. Here is Ozaki Saburô’s antipathetic assessment of Yamagata written prior to Yamagata’s appointment as prime minister: Yamagata simply does not command the necessary respect to carry out successfully constitutional government (30 September 1889). [Also] Yamagata’s vision is narrow, and he is surrounded by men of little consequence who are nothing but brazen flatterers. He is, moreover, faint-hearted and does not radiate authority. He will surely lose the people’s confidence, and within months will commit a major blunder (December 1889).57

Ozaki’s reaction to the assassination of Mori Arinori is harsher: All those who heard of it are agreed that he was felled by heavenly retribution [shimbatsu]. Because they believed that it was well deserved, no one is shedding any tears. Mori Arinori’s recent behavior has been wild and rash, and he surely did not have the qualification to be state minister (11 February 1889).58

These entries show that an undifferentiated “establishment,” or “ins,” never existed in Meiji-Taishô Japan, and they also give pause to attempts at hagiography of Meiji-Taishô political leaders.59 It is, however, easy enough to fall into this trap when we come across a statement such as the one Takahashi Korekiyo made for public consumption on the day of Yamagata’s death: [When we talked about economics] Yamagata would listen for an hour or two and understand what I was talking about. He always demurred and said he was “merely a man of the sword,” and that finances and economics were beyond the scope of



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his competence. Such was definitely not the case. He had scrupulously and carefully studied.60

Takahashi is here clearly extending to Yamagata the elementary courtesy of not speaking ill of a recently deceased cohort, for in more private notations, there is evidence, indirect as it is in Takahashi’s case, that he, Hara, and others believed that Yamagata had only a superficial knowledge of fiscal and economic issues.61 Words May Not Mean What They Say The Meiji leaders had to cope with the hazard that confounds high-level political figures everywhere, then and now: the leak. Itô once complained bitterly in his reply to an imperial inquiry on the political situation just prior to the dissolution of the second session of the Diet: Bureaucrats flatter party heads in the hope of securing for themselves [higher] positions in the future. Therefore, there are no state secrets that are not leaked. The parties also are able to avail themselves without effort, and before the fact, of information on everything the government intends to do (10 December 1891).62

The nikki writers could protect the privacy of their thoughts by methods noted earlier. The ikensho writers had greater problems, since the ikensho by its nature was meant to be read by more than one person. To minimize leaks, the writer could specify that its circulation be limited. This was done in some instances by an unambiguous request, such as the one made by Inoue Kowashi in his ikensho on Japan’s monarchical system. The ikensho’s recipient could also be alerted by the writer’s use of terms such as “gokuhi,” as in the case of Yamagata’s “Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan,” where he took pains to write the word in larger than normal size. Although the word is usually taken to mean “top secret” or “absolute secrecy [required],” given the contents of the ikensho, Yamagata probably meant “limit circulation to those concerned and exercise care so that copies do not fall into the hands of the members of the majority parties or unsympathetic journalists.” And he well might have felt the need to limit circulation, since he was proposing a project to neutralize the threat posed to his vision of constitutional government, that is, the danger he saw in the concentration of, and thus unrestrained, political power in the hands of the majority parties. It must be stressed, however, that Yamagata did not limit his concerns to the dangers posed to a constitutional system by the concentration of political power in the hands of the parties (legislature). In his 1879 memorial to the Throne on constitutional government, he called for a government of separation of powers in which there was a “balance among the executive,

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legislative, and judiciary branches” toward making “each of these branches stronger and more efficient.” He then proposed that the principle of the separation of powers be embedded in Japan’s constitution to ensure that the executive power did not impinge on the powers of the other two branches.63 Moreover, on his 1889 European trip, the perceptive Yamagata noted a trend that was part of a modernizing polity: “a great concentration of executive power” (gyôsei ken’ryoku), and he blamed both the executive and legislative branches for this, writing that they were only concerned about expanding their respective prerogatives. The result, he lamented, was great harm to the nations involved.64 How then did the Meiji-Taishô leaders attempt to minimize this danger in their letters, which, unlike the nikki but as with the ikensho, were meant to be read by the recipients and possibly others? They did so by using code words that both senders and recipients understood to mean that the contents were important and confidential, so that extra care should be exercised in guarding against the leak: dokugo gokachû and heitei ni negai tatematsuri sôrô, that is, “please consign [the letter] to flames after you have read it.”65 Inoue Kowashi in his letter-ikensho on the monarchy cautioned recipients to “immediately consign it to flames after you have read it,” then added, “do not under any circumstance show it to others.” By so doing, he underscored the point he had made at the letter’s beginning that the contents represented his “fundamental positions [on the question]” and, furthermore, that his views should be kept from others.66 It is possible that the senders’ instructions were meant to be taken literally and the requests were honored, but this is difficult to prove since in these instances the evidence has literally “gone up in smoke.” The existence of countless letters with the code words, however, indicates a general consensus that such letters contained important information that should be kept confidential.67 It may be that the frequent use of code words cheapened their significance and reduced them to a formulaic level. An indication of this can be found in the letter Mutsu sent to Okazaki Kunisuke on the actions to be taken in the third Diet session (6 May–15 June 1892) that in part involved the Jiyûtô’s Hoshi Tôru and were aimed at embarrassing the Matsu­ kata Cabinet. Mutsu did not simply conclude the letter with the mantra gokachû, but wrote instead makoto ni kachû, enclosed the words in parentheses, and added circles at the sides of each kanji. And as if to hammer home the conspiratorial nature of the letter, he did not sign his name, but wrote instead, “You know who is sending this” (3 May 1892).68 And well might Mutsu have felt compelled to doubly stress his injunction to “consign the letter to flames,” for he had himself ignored Okazaki’s request to do that to one of Okazaki’s letters (heitei ni fuseraretashi) (6 July 1890).69 In the 3 May letter, however, Mutsu, by emphasizing kachû, probably meant to be taken at his word. But the existence of letters with the injunc-



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tion obliges the historian to guess at both the intent of the sender and how the recipient may have read that intent. A knowledge of the personalities and issues involved sometimes is helpful in making an educated conjecture. We see this, for example, in a letter Yamagata wrote to Shinagawa Yajirô on 27 April 1891. Having just resigned as prime minister, Yamagata informed Shinagawa that Saigô Tsugumichi was the nearly unanimous choice to succeed him. Saigô had refused to go along. Therefore, Yamagata suggested that the Chôshû group support the third choice, Matsukata (who was ultimately appointed prime minister 6 May 1891). In the postscript to his letter, Yamagata told Shinagawa, “Goichidokugo heitei dôji e gotôji kudasarubeki sôrô.”70 Yamagata could have meant either that the letter should literally be “consigned to flames” out of deference to Matsukata’s feelings at being regarded as the third choice, or that the contents should be kept as much as possible among the Chôshû stalwarts. The latter may have been the case, because Matsukata, even before Yamagata’s resignation, could not have been unaware that his political abilities were not regarded highly by his Sat-Chô cohorts. He had the reputation of being indecisive and agreeing with the last person with whom he spoke. There is another possible explanation for Yamagata’s request. The ever prudent and finical Yamagata may not have wanted to add credence to what was widely suspected, that the Sat-Chô leaders were engaging in taraimawashi as part of their continuing effort to “maintain the Sat-Chô balance.” This meant that by rotating the prime ministership and by equitably distributing the cabinet posts, neither the leaders from Satsuma nor those from Chôshû would dominate the government. It would be too much to read perniciousness for this maneuvering. This was a means to ensure stability in the government in the face of the unquestionably growing power of the popular parties, which is not the same thing as an attempt to retain power in their hands at all cost. In fact, the Jiji Shimpô described the phenomenon in its 1 November 1889 issue after the fall of the Kuroda Cabinet and before the first Diet session in 1890, a sure sign that the Meiji leaders were not completely confident that constitutional government would evolve as they envisioned or hoped. This practice may even be likened to the decisions made in smoke-filled rooms by America’s big-city politicians, a practice that American democracy for all its blemishes seemed to have survived. The point of this discussion is that the Meiji leaders were aware that leaks were virtually impossible to prevent, and the best that could be expected was a good faith effort to keep matters confidential. The Hara Kei Nikki (HKN) An event in 1950–1951 sent shock waves through the ranks of students of Meiji-Taishô political history: the publication of the ten-volume Kangensha

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edition of HKN. The richness and fullness of detail, the intelligent, insightful, and frank analyses of events and persons of the time have made HKN the object of unparalleled approbation. Mitani Taichirô states unequivocally that this political diary’s excellence transcends time and national boundaries.71 Matsuo Takayoshi in his Suisen no Ji also expresses his very high regard for HKN and notes that HKN’s impact on political historians was such that Shinobu Seizaburô, “the pioneer [kaitakusha] of modern Japanese political history,” felt compelled to revise (hotei) immediately his fourvolume Taishô Seiji Shi (TSS) (Tokyo: Kawade Shobô, 1951–1953) by publishing his three-volume Taishô Demokurashiishi (TDS) (Tokyo: Nihon Hyôron Shinsha, 1954–1955).72 Although Matsuo does not specifically say so, the implication is that Shinobu did not have access to HKN when writing TSS. If this is what Matsuo means to say, it is puzzling.73 Shinobu lists HKN in TSS’s bibliography and there is no question that he has used HKN, even though he does not footnote TSS. This is clear by comparing the two works. For example, Shinobu’s discussion of the “Kropotkin” incident involving Tokyo University professor Morito Tatsuo, TSS 3, p. 900, is based in part on HKN 5, pp. 200–202. His analysis of Hara’s and Yamagata’s shared concern over the labor movement’s growing radicalism and its implications for universal manhood suffrage, TSS 3, pp. 889, 900–901, makes use of HKN 5, pp. 421–422, 461. His discussion of the interservice differences over the appointment of an interim navy minister while the incumbent Katô Tomosaburô participated in the Washington Conference, TSS 4, pp. 1047–1049, relies in part on HKN 5, pp. 456–457.74 There is no question, however, that HKN instantly became the mainstay for all the major political studies of the late Meiji-Taishô period. The roll call of authors and their works is a distinguished one and includes, in addition to the two works by Shinobu (who may have been one of the very first historians to have used HKN), the following: Oka Yoshitake, Kindai Nihon no Seijika, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1960.75 Masumi Junnosuke, Nihon Seitô Shiron (NSS), Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1965–1980, especially vols. 2–4 (1965–1968). Mitani Taichirô, Nihon Seitô Seiji no Keisei: Hara Kei no Seiji Shidô no Tenkai, Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1967. Kimbara Samon, Taishôki no Seitô to Kokumin: Hara Naikakuka no Seiji Katei, Tokyo, Hanawa Shobô, 1973. Matsuo Takayoshi, Taishô Demokurashii, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1974. Yamamoto Shirô, Hyôden Hara Kei, Tokyo, Sôgensha, 1997 in two vols.



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Kawada Minoru, Hara Kei to Yamagata Aritomo: Kokka Kôso o Me­guru Gaikô to Naisei, Tokyo, Chûô Kôronsha, 1998. American scholars were not far behind in using HKN. In the 1950s and the early 1960s, political biographies were favored dissertation topics for those in Japanese history at Harvard, and Lawrence A. Olson, in his “Hara Kei: A Political Biography” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 1954), as well as Roger F. Hackett, in his “Yamagata Aritomo: A Political Biography” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 1955), were among the earliest to write them.76 Tetsuo Najita and Peter Duus then published fine political histories, using but not limiting themselves to HKN, with Najita for obvious reasons much more dependent on it than Duus.77 Hackett followed with the published version of his dissertation, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838–1922 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971). The trend away from Meiji-Taishô political history in English is illustrated by the years between Hackett’s study and Michael Lewis’s excellent and nuanced Rioters and Citizens: Mass Protest in Imperial Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). However, Lewis is representative of a younger group of scholars who concentrate on areas other than Tokyo. Therefore, while he writes on the relationship between Tokyo and the regions, he stresses the events in the localities as well as the groups involved in the 1918 Rice Riots. This may explain why, after he notes that the “riots played an important role both in the rise of Hara Takashi [Kei] . . . and the beginning of cabinets routinely composed of party politicians,” he has but one citation from HKN, and the two other quotes from Hara are from secondary sources.78 The Overreliance on HKN The very excellence of HKN, together with the general lack of Taishô-era primary sources, however, has resulted in an overdependence on HKN by those who focus on high-level leaders and their activities in Tokyo. The republication of the 1950–1951 Kangensha, the first edition of HKN, exemplifies the problem. The publisher Kangensha went out of business, but the great demand for HKN at used book stores drove the price so high that it made economic sense to republish it. This is the six-volume Fukumura, the second edition. The Kangensha had been published five years after Japan’s defeat, and the paper, cover, and binding reflected the poor state of Japan’s economy at that time. The Fukumura is not only a superior product, but its usefulness has been enhanced by name and subject matter indexes and appendixes, including Hara’s will and letters. This overreliance on HKN has resulted in a narrower vision of late Meiji and Taishô political history than would otherwise have been the case, that is,

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an overly positive view of the Seiyûkai’s centrality in this history from Hara’s perspective. It is not humanly possible, of course, for Hara to have been free from his prejudices, and as a consequence, someone such as Yamagata, who personified Hara’s bureaucratic antagonist, has taken some hard blows.79 Hara’s antipathy to Yamagata came through clearly to Masumi: Even when Yamagata in his last days had laid down his “shield and spear” and had to depend on Hara, it was difficult for the latter to put aside his long-standing animus toward Yamagata.80

This in turn may have confirmed some historians’ notions of Yamagata as a reactionary and unregenerate anti-party bureaucrat. Frederick R. Dickinson, from a different perspective, pits the Anglophile Katô Takaaki, who in the years 1914–1919 represented the vision of “free trade imperialism and parliamentary politics,” against the “military-bureaucratic Yamagata faction” who had “hopes for continued exaltation . . . of Imperial Germany—the pursuit of continental empire supported by large ground forces—and oligarchic rule at home.”81 Elsewhere, he expresses agreement with the still widely held formulation that the “Yamagata faction” represented the “most stubborn remnant of oligarchic rule.”82 However, Yamagata was never a champion of “oligarchic rule.” He had, as earlier noted, warned against the danger of the executive branch impinging on the legislative and judiciary branches. In the same letter, he left no doubt about the importance of the legislative branch, declaring that “[t]he legislature is the fruit of civilization” (kokkai wa bummei no kajitsu) and “the soul of statesmen” (seijika no seishin).83 Post-HKN Primary Documents The study of late Meiji and Taishô political history, however, has been enriched from the late 1950s by the gradual appearance of published primary sources that have helped to redress the one-sided reliance on HKN, such as Ôyama’s Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho (1966), and Taishô Shoki Yamagata Aritomo Danwa Hikki . Seihen Omoidegusa, ed. Itô Takashi (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1981). The latter provides Yamagata’s views on domestic and foreign issues as well as his descriptions and analyses of central events such as the Taishô seihen, the circumstances surrounding Japan’s declaration of war against Germany (August 1914), and the formation and dissolution of the second Ôkuma Shigenobu Cabinet.84 The Meiji Tennôki deserves mention here as an indispensable source for Meiji political studies; however, as earlier noted, the usefulness of the Meiji Tennôki is diluted by only partial use of the documents. This is not the case with the recently published papers of Itô Hirobumi, Matsukata Masayoshi,



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Ueharu Yûsaku, and Okazaki Kunisuke, since all the available documents have been included, although letters, privately held, keep surfacing. The appearance of these collections is naturally a welcome development. Published nikki also enlarged and enriched the repertory of post-HKN primary sources. The first to follow HKN was Taishô Demokurashiiki no Seiji: Matsumoto Gôkichi Seiji Nisshi (1959). Matsumoto was a lower-level bureaucrat who served as a conduit for political intelligence among the movers and shakers in the government. He assiduously recorded what he had been asked to convey as well as other conversations he had had, and he added his comments. Since he moved primarily among those in Yamagata’s circle, his nisshi serves to balance the perspective found in HKN.85 A significant addition to published nikki that presents a contrastive perspective to that found in HKN is Itô Miyoji Nikki . Kiroku—Mikan Suiusô Nikki (Tokyo: Yumani Shobô, 1999), 7 vols., ed. Hirose Yoshihiro. Miyoji was one of the drafters of the Meiji Constitution and in the early 1890s was extremely close to Itô Hirobumi. Miyoji’s “insider” position, therefore, lends unusual significance to his descriptions and analyses of political events and personages on the highest level. However, his nikki cannot compare with the depth, width, and detail found in HKN. Hara was single-minded in his attempt to leave as full a record as possible of his attempts to make the Seiyûkai the most powerful political force in Japan. He therefore wrote not only of his relationships, often conflictive, with leading government figures, but of the myriad problems involved in party building on all levels, and finally on the issues and problems of governing. Moreover, a telling gauge for judging the usefulness of HKN for the political historian is the central place it occupied in Hara’s scheme of things. Hara staked his political reputation on his nikki. In his will, he instructed his wife Asa and son Mitsugu (Keiichirô) to treat his nikki as the most valuable of his earthly belongings and to preserve it in perpetuity.86 He fully expected the nikki to be read by others, but only after several decades had elapsed. This is probably why he wrote it in gyôsho.87 Miyoji, for his part, seemed to lose interest in recording political matters when they did not concern him directly, and he spent as many pages, if not more, writing of his great love, bonsai. His nikki for all its value therefore is of uneven usefulness for the political historian. Moreover, it is interesting in the face of Hara’s expressed wish that his nikki be preserved in perpetuity that the Suiusô Nikki in Miyoji’s hand does not exist, and only one copy (shahon), written in kaisho, is available. Historians owe a debt of gratitude for this to Osatake Takeshi, who, as head of the Kenseishi Hensankai formed to commemorate the Diet’s fiftieth anniversary (1940), took the initiative to have it copied. The original, including most of Itô Miyoji’s papers, were burned during the air raids on Tokyo. Itô’s papers relating to the Meiji Constitution were the only ones spared this fate since Miyoji’s

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grandson Harumasa had sent them to the country for safekeeping on the grounds that they constituted the most valuable of the lot.88 The Takarabe Nikki serves a similar purpose by giving the Satsumanavy viewpoint, something that had been lacking in late Meiji and Taishô political history. And when used with other sources, we have a “multiplier effect.” When, for example, the navy’s side on the naval expansion issue that came to the fore in 1910 is analyzed and considered with the army’s position found in Yamagata’s Danwa Hikki and the Uehara Yûsaku Kankei Monjo, as well as with the Seiyûkai-Saionji standpoint in HKN, the result is a fuller picture of the issue that led to the Taishô political crisis of 1912– 1913, a pivotal event in Taishô history. The Ozaki Saburô Nikki adds still another dimension to our understanding of late Meiji and Taishô political history by giving us the anti– Satsuma-Chôshû, pro-kuge, kazoku, and House of Peers perspectives.89 Ozaki’s predispositions stemmed from his lifelong association with his mentor, the kuge Sanjô Sanetomi.90 Other published nikki fill specialized niches because of the writers’ backgrounds. The Banshôroku (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1992–1997), by Takahashi Yoshio (Sôan), a successful business entrepreneur and chanoyu devotee, is useful in evaluating the Meiji leaders’—especially Inoue Kaoru’s —aesthetic tastes and preferences. He also touches upon other matters such as the withdrawal from the Seiyûkai on 23 February 1913 of twenty-four members, including Ozaki Yukio of the “hardline faction,” and, briefly, the Tokugawa house’s financial condition, which may be of interest to economic historians.91 Ijûin Hikokichi was Japan’s ambassador to China during the 1911 revolution and gives a well-placed Japanese’s view of that momentous event. Before the first entry, Ijûin notes somewhat apologetically that he has never written a diary. His rationale for beginning is that he says his memory is “declining.” After this seemingly self-conscious note, he starts on the very day the consequential event, the 10 October 1911 revolution, erupted. The foregoing suggests that he expected his diary to be read someday. Takeshita Isamu was an admiral in the Taishô period and sheds light on the navy’s activities and positions in that period.92 These few published nikki, however welcome, are still by men who can best be described as secondary figures in the late Meiji and Taishô periods. The overall paucity of published primary sources is underscored by the fact that the nikki of the real political giants—Itô Hirobumi, Yamagata Aritomo, Inoue Kaoru, Matsukata Masayoshi, Saigô Tsugumichi, Iwakura Tomomi, and Sanjô Sanetomi—either do not exist or continue to frustrate the best efforts of scholars and librarians to locate them. The consensus is that if the nikki were extant they probably would have been cited in Meiji Tennôki, as those of Tokudaiji Sanenori and Sasaki Takayuki were. Still, we should be grateful for the publication of these post-HKN pri-



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mary documents, for they have surely enhanced our understanding of late Meiji and Taishô political history. There is no doubt, however, that HKN maintains its central position as the fullest and richest source on the subject. This was one reason for the publication of the Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN).93 The Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN) A nagging question, however, remains. Why was it even necessary to bring out this latest edition in the face of the published Kangensha and Fukumura editions and the high production costs it entailed? Professor Matsuo suggests that it was close to a needless enterprise. He declares in his Suisen no Ji that, measured by the standards of contemporary scholarship, there are problematical parts in the published editions, but that these are “exceedingly few” (goku jakkan). Hashimoto Satoru, the Hokusensha’s managing editor, was naturally surprised by this less than enthusiastic endorsement, so he asked for an explanation. Mr. Hashimoto’s impression after the conversation was that Professor Matsuo was deferring to the concern (kenen) expressed by Hara Toshikazu, who is married to Hara’s granddaughter, Misako.94 This deference may be related to the fact that Professors Yamamoto and Matsuo had been presented with approximately 4,600 documents relating to Hara Kei.95 The concern in turn may involve the distress expressed by Hara Toshikazu over the possibility that the EHKN edition may cast a shadow over the quality of the published versions by his father-in-law, Hara Keiichirô. On 30 July 1997, Professor Hirose called on the Haras in Kyoto to pay his respects and to inform them of the publication of the EHKN. He spent nearly seven hours with them and the strongest and most lasting impression he received was their concern over the impact that the new edition would have on the reputation of the Kangensha/Fukumura editions.96 Given this, Hashimoto in turn deferred to Professor Matsuo’s sensibilities and published his statement in the hope that the readers could come to their own conclusions. He and the two coeditors are confident, however, that on the basis of the prepublication comparison between the Kangensha/Fukumura and EHKN, there are enough problematical points to have justified the latter’s publication. This was the second reason for starting the EHKN publication project.97 In December 2001, Ueda Yoriko of Shôyû Kurabu almost matter-offactly made a comment to me that confirmed the correctness of the decision to bring out EHKN. She said, “Before we attach our imprimatur on a publication, we must be careful that it meets the highest scholarly standard, and in fact, we have generally met the standard. Still, we are human, so errors will be made. Our publications are to make the work easier for scholars by presenting documents written in sôsho but published in kaisho. If a scholar finds

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material he can use, he should then go to the original and check for himself.” Ueda is not an academically trained scholar, but she shows that a Ph.D. is not necessary to think and act like one. This is why she enjoys the respect of her cotranscribers and those of us who make a living in academia. The following chapter is an exercise in following her advice by checking and comparing the published Hara Kei Nikki with the Eiin Hara Kei Nikki.

Cha p ter 3

Hara Kei Nikki and Eiin Hara Kei Nikki Compared Typos and Other Problems

’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none go alike, yet each believes his own. — Alexander Pope

Hara Keiichirô followed eight guidelines in transcribing from the origi-

nal Hara Kei Nikki (HKN) for the Kangensha edition, only one of which needs to be highlighted. He writes that he tried to faithfully follow the original and made changes only in the event of obvious errors.1 For example, Keiichirô used the correct kanji (zô), where Hara had not, in writing the given name of Tokyo municipal assemblyman Morikubo Sakuzô.2 Hara also habitually used he, as in ihe (say, state), which Keiichirô changed to the hyôjungo (standard Japanese) hi, and, in this instance, ihi.3 The other guidelines refer to his attempts to be helpful to the reader, such as adding punctuation marks that Hara did not use in the diary and giving the Western years for the nengô (era name) in the table of contents that Hara had written at the beginning of each volume.4 Keiichirô finally informs the reader that the correct rendering of Hara’s first name is Takashi, but for HKN, he reads it as Kei. This is to be helpful, for example, to librarians in cataloguing the diary.5 Keiichirô makes only one comment specifically related to the editing of Kangensha in preparing it for the Fukumura edition, that is, he says he limited himself to correcting typographical errors, a point worth recalling when Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN) is compared with Kangensha/Fukumura.6 The whole diary will not be compared line-by-line. A limited and randomly selected number of pages will be sufficient to show that there are more than “exceedingly few” problems in the transcription, and that the Haras had grounds to have expressed their “kenen” (concern) over EHKN’s photoreproduction. HKN and Typographical Errors The problems can be grouped under several categories. The first is typographical errors, the bane of scholars, eluding their best intentions and

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efforts to avoid. It is possible, however, that some of the typographical errors stemmed from haste and the lack of manpower. Toshikazu, who lived with his father-in-law, Keiichirô, recalls that only two persons, Keiichirô and a former high school teacher, worked on the transcription and that they rushed it, completing the transcription in about six months.7 A comparison with the approaches taken by the teams organized by Itô Takashi and his colleagues sheds light on how they attempt to minimize the dangers inherent in going it alone and in haste. These teams, as the word makes clear, are made up of a number of participants who work at deliberate speed and who cross-check each other’s work at every step to reduce the number of errors that are present at every stage. This modus operandi is a major reason for the years it takes to publish the results, but despite these safeguards errors are still discovered in the published volumes. Robert Sakai in 1968 remarked that Haraguchi Torao, assisted only by his wife, was a lonely pioneer in transcribing the Shûmon Tefuda Aratame Jômoku. To ensure accuracy, he checked his transcriptions by comparing them carefully against the original, starting from left to right, bottom to top, kanji by kanji.8 There are several types of typographical errors. First of all, Keiichirô drops kanji and katakana found in EHKN. In just six pages of Fukumura, fourteen have been found. Some of these do not affect the meaning, such as the shi in Tokyo-shi, ni in nite and tonikaku, and koto.9 Others, however, are not so innocuous, such as dropping ken from jiken, reducing an “event” or “occurrence” to a “matter,” and dropping as well the honorific go, and by so doing making Hara and not the crown prince, later Shôwa emperor, the subject of the sentence. In still another instance he drops nai from naiwa, which renders a confidential, private exchange an ordinary conversation.10 Keiichirô cannot be judged too harshly for making typographical errors, for even historians trip up more than occasionally. Granting this, he still can be faulted for his assertion that he had corrected typographical errors he had found in Kangensha when the presumption is strong that he had in fact not done so. This may be an unfair statement based on the few, randomly selected pages used for this section, but in every instance, including the fourteen typographical errors found in the six pages and other problems to be discussed later, corrections have not been made. One such problem can now be described, and it involves a serious error. Keiichirô dropped one and a half lines from the original HKN in transcribing for the Kangensha edition and then failed to correct this error in the later Fukumura edition.11 One final indication that no changes had been made is that the punctuation marks in both published editions are identical. In a work of this magnitude, it is likely some changes would be made the second time around.12



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A contrastive illustration is the publication of Kume Kunitake’s Tokumei Zenken Taishi Beiô Kairan Jikki (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1878). There were three additional printings, 1879, 1880, and 1882, and for each impression, printing errors were corrected.13 HKN and Mistranscriptions The second category of problems is Keiichirô’s mistranscriptions. Keiichirô stated that he made changes only in the event of obvious errors in the original, such as adding sai to shinsai, adding a ke to Hara’s muttsushiku to read mutsukashiku,14 and, as noted earlier, changing the zô in Morikubo Sakuzô. There are emendations, however, that are not so helpful since they change the meaning found in EHKN. In one such example, Hara, in recording a conversation with foreign minister Ôkuma Shigenobu, had used the conjunction mata. Keiichirô mistakenly replaced the word with the pronoun yo. In this way, Hara is now the one making the point that Ôkuma had made to him, completely changing the entry’s meaning.15 In another example, Hara is defending Morikubo Sakuzô, the Tokyo Municipal Assembly member, from the canard of wrongdoing, stating that “[Morikubo] is not one to commit the wrongs [for which he is being criticized (akuji o nasu mono ni arazu)].” Keiichirô’s transcription reads, however, “nasu mono ni narazu,” thus having Kei saying, “[Morikubo] is not one who [in the indeterminate future] will commit wrongdoing.”16 HKN and Dating Errors The third category of problems is dating errors. Correct dates, simply put, are essential to a diary’s purpose and integrity. Diary dates also serve the useful functions of corroborating and substantiating events and the people involved in other diaries and documents, and in the preparation of chronologies. A concrete example of the corroborative function is the dating of letters. The year is often left out in Meiji-Taishô letters. When people and events mentioned in a letter in which even the months and days are lacking are cross-checked with diaries, published autobiographies, biographies, newspaper indices, and chronologies, it is often possible to pinpoint the year. This already tedious process becomes frustratingly difficult when dates are incorrect in a given diary, which also contributes to compound errors. There are two dating errors in a single page of Fukumura. In the first, the subject of the entry is “alive” on 3 November, the day after his actual death. In the second, the date of the confirmation of an award to Hara from the Spanish monarch is given as 23 October instead of the 26 October found in EHKN. In the former instance, the numeral ni has been transcribed as san, and in the latter instance, roku has become san.17

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Gaps, Multiple Entries, Memory The fourth category of problems involves editorial practices that may reveal Keiichirô’s lack of experience as an editor of documents (he was an aspiring writer). An HKN reader will immediately note that Kei did not keep a daily record, unlike Admiral Takarabe Takeshi, who made a special effort to do so. Hara was consumed by his effort to build up the Seiyûkai as a commanding political force—a major theme of Tetsuo Najita’s study.18 The frenetic schedule he maintained to this end may explain many of the gaps in HKN. The obverse of a gap-filled diary by someone pressed by a demanding work schedule is a diary by a person with leisure, such as Kuratomi Yû­ zaburô. The Takarabe and Kuratomi examples can be contrasted with Hara’s approach to nikki writing and may be helpful in gauging the more crucial issue of HKN’s reliability. Kuratomi was a privy councilor (October 1920– ­December 1925), after which he served as Privy Council president until May 1934. He wrote daily in sôsho, most of the time on both sides of standard notebook-sized sheets, in handwriting so tiny that someone described it as “words tiny as a fly’s head” (yôtô no gotoki moji). The average length of an entry is eight pages. He wrote 296 volumes from 1919 to 1944.19 The contents are significant since he took pains to record the views of privy councilors, and there have been several attempts to transcribe the sôsho for eventual publication. Each attempt, however, was aborted after a few years because of the difficulty in reading the tiny kanji as well as the heft of the diary.20 The grueling pace Hara maintained offers a clue to another of his peculiarities in writing HKN. He often wrote multiple entries at a sitting. The evidence for this in the nikki proper is indirect, but one such example is the group of entries dated 11, 12, and 14 March 1911. The first thing any nikki writer records is the date. Let us assume that, as was the usual case, Hara did not have time to write after completing the entry for the eleventh. Since there is no entry for the thirteenth, he probably sat down to write on the fourteenth. The hint for this is that there are two 14 March dates. This suggests that Hara had forgotten that the previous entry, which is five pages long, was for the eleventh. He automatically wrote down 14 March, realized his error, brushed over the numeral 14 and wrote the correct date, 12 March.21 However, if we leave the diary proper, there is direct evidence that Hara wrote more than just a few days of entries at a sitting. Keiichirô, at the end of the last entry, 25 October 1921, matter-of-factly noted that the eightytwo volumes (in washi) ended at that point, but since Hara had also left brief outlines written in pencil for the forthcoming entries, Keiichirô wrote that he was inserting them at this point. The outlines are for eleven entries, from 25 October to 4 November, the day he was assassinated. The



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outlines are extremely brief. The 25 October entry merely reads, kakugi teppei tetsuzuki (cabinet meeting, withdrawal process), and from this was published forty-six printed lines in Fukumura that included descriptions of several events and conversations with and among several principals. Moreover, the Fukumura entry is incomplete because he says nothing about teppei tetsuzuki. It can be assumed that he would have gone on for several pages in the original since the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Siberia was one of the burning questions of the day.22 It can therefore be surmised that Hara had an extraordinarily retentive memory and disciplined himself to focus intently on matters that he intended to incorporate in the nikki and at the first opportunity sketched the outlines in a notebook he carried. Hara, to his credit, did admit to memory lapses, as for example when he parenthetically noted, “I was told the name, but I have forgotten it.”23 To be helpful, especially to a researcher, Keiichirô could have in his Kangensha introduction called attention to Hara’s practice of writing multiple entries, even though Keiichirô’s note at the end suggests this. Scholars on modern Japanese political history are not all specialists on Hara. Some may be interested in Hara’s relationships with Hoshi Tôru (1850–1905), Itô Hirobumi (1841–1909), or Katsura Tarô (1848–1913), all of whom played key roles in political party history. These researchers would not feel compelled to go on beyond Katsura’s demise and would therefore miss Keiichirô’s note at the end. It was the comparison, random as it was, of HKN with EHKN that called to mind Keiichirô’s note. The point of the foregoing discussion is this: Even granting Hara’s extraordinarily retentive memory and his highly disciplined focus on what he deemed significant, his habit of writing multiple entries should alert the scholar to exercise extra care in reading HKN. Jefferson, after all, is considered one of the finest minds of his time, but notwithstanding notes written “at the moment and on the spot,” his recollections on drafting the Declaration of Independence are still, according to Maier, plagued by “one mistake after another.” HKN and Marginalia Hara had another habit to which Keiichirô should have alerted the fastidious scholar concerned with nuances. Hara, when he wanted to clarify a preceding statement, placed his remarks, usually very brief, in parentheses. For example, after writing that Katsura told him that Hirata Tôsuke had written the draft of his speech, Hara added in parentheses: “just as I thought.”24 Keiichirô dutifully followed Hara on this type of comment. Hara almost certainly went over his entries, and when he recalled important details or, more to the point, wanted to underscore the significance of

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his original statement, he would write lengthy commentaries in the upper margins (rangai) of the page. Keiichirô usually used parentheses around these statements that were qualitatively much more significant than the brief, clarifying notations, and arbitrarily placed them in the entry body that appeared to him to represent the logical progression of Hara’s thought on the matter. This practice may have stemmed from his background as a writer, and he probably believed he was doing a kindness to the reader by providing a narrative that could be smoothly read. Historians, in dealing with primary sources, generally are more concerned with capturing any hint of priorities that the writer has among matters at hand, and less interested in smoothly flowing narratives. They are aware that a person’s thought processes when writing spontaneously, as in the case of a nikki, are not necessarily neat and elegant. One of the diary entries most quoted by historians will illustrate the rangai commentary’s significance. This entry revolves around the Katsura government’s plan to “convert Japan’s trunklines to the broad gauge” and Hara’s opposition to it. He believed that the conversion would siphon off funds from railway construction projects in local areas, with disastrous consequences for Seiyûkai’s power base there.25 Hara’s rangai commentary reads: Katsura said that he, not Gotô [Shimpei] had drafted the wide-gauge railroad bill. This is why he wanted to see the bill pass [the House of Representatives]. However, I rebutted Katsura by saying that if this bill were to pass, the partymen’s position would become tenuous, and we cannot then expect to see the parties grow; and that without this progress, we cannot possibly hope for the further growth of constitutional government. Katsura agreed with me.26

It is more than likely that Hara wrote this commentary after he had completed the lengthy entry on this subject, and he did so to emphasize the point he had made earlier in the entry: “[Katsura and I] discussed a vital question that can be said to mark an epoch-making turning point in Japan’s constitutional history.”27 Keiichirô, to be helpful, should have made the point in the introduction to the published versions that Hara did make rangai comments and that he, Keiichirô, had therefore enclosed them in brackets to distinguish them from Hara’s short parenthetical comments. To have done so would have enabled scholars to make their own judgment on the issues concerned. Specialists in Japan’s medieval history have recently begun to pay close attention to the position or placement of comments added to the unpublished documents—which may have been later added—believing the position reveals the importance of the relationship between the commentary and that part of the document commented upon. Sometimes the comments are writ-



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ten on strips of paper, and where these strips are attached are also believed to show the significance of what is commented upon. Moreover, the high cost of the paper itself elevated the significance of the added commentary.28 Actually, interest in rangai commentaries and the placement of symbols that indicated emphasis antedated my venture in transcribing primary documents. In the spring of 1972, Kimbara Samon spent a semester at the University of Hawai‘i. He brought with him a microfilm of “Yamagata Kô Bunko Kakiire Bôsenbon Sakuin,” Ishii Tominosuke’s handwritten transcription of Yamagata’s comments, as well as the line-by-line, word-by-word notations of sidelines, circles, and check marks made by Yamagata in fifty-seven books that are part of the Yamagata Collection, Odawara Municipal Library. For example, in “‘x’ work, p. 128, lines 5 through 7, from words ‘n’ through ‘z,’ sideline in blue pencil,” or “book ‘y,’ p. 68, from above line 5, in the margin [rangai], Yamagata’s comment [as follows]. . . .” The microfilm has been processed and printed and ideally, with this in hand, it will be possible to go to any library having the books that Yamagata had read and retrace Yamagata’s comments and other marginalia to determine what he regarded compelling enough to leave his thoughts or to stress with symbols.29 Deliberate Excisions and Alterations Diary writers as well as others deliberately excise words or alter the texts for a variety of reasons. Historians would prefer that the documents remain unexpurgated, but this is a hope unrealizable in a world of self-interested human beings. Moreover, the historian is sometimes caught on the horns of a dilemma by being given the opportunity to publish a primary source with conditions attached. Ozaki Harumori gave the editors of the Ozaki Saburô Nikki access to the diary on the condition that he would transcribe it (a straightforward task since it was in kaisho) to eliminate certain “sensitive portions.” This was agreed upon. A comparison of the original with the transcription showed that he had excised only those parts that described certain illnesses in the family.30 Harumori’s concern over this is fully understandable given the extreme sensitivity of the Japanese about family disabilities.31 An admirable instance of third-party intervention is given by Patricia G. Steinhoff. One of her principal informants, a former New Left journalist in Japan, Takazawa Kôji (pseudonym), knew she was planning to use one of his books (1995) as a source. He warned her to desist, saying that while he was confident that he had recorded accurately what his interviewees had told him, “he did not think that they were telling the truth.” In another work (1998), he noted that the stories they and another key figure told him were expressions of “what they wished had happened, what ought to have happened,” even when their accounts differed “markedly from what really occurred.”32

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Takazawa is now paying a price for his independence and integrity. Since the publication (1998, 2002) of his book, the former New Left group with whom he had worked closely has mounted a “vicious campaign of character assassination” against him, questioned his motives, and treated him as a “sellout.” He has since avoided all his usual haunts because of these attacks and his fear of retaliation from North Korean agents in Japan.33 The skeptical frame of mind exhibited by journalists such as Hasegawa Hiroshi of AERA and the freelancer Takazawa Kôji should be emulated by scholars in the humanities. We need to do so because there are examples of indefensible, deliberate alterations and deletions. One is found in Tokutomi Iichirô’s Kôshaku Katsura Tarô Den.34 This biography is distinguished by full citations of letters as well as some photocopies of the originals written in sôsho. Tokutomi deleted forty consecutive words from a letter Katsura had written to Yamagata on 18 May 1904 and indicated the deletions by forty squares. It fell upon me to transcribe the original letter, among others, as part of the Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project. In so doing, I transcribed the forty missing words, which in translation read: It is exasperating beyond words for someone who is a soldier, such as I, to have to deal with those whose purpose in life is guided by profits and greed.35

The reason for the deletion can only be surmised, but he may not have wished to offend businessmen and industrialists (jitsugyôka) from whom he sought subsidies to support the costly project of publishing this massive two-volume biography. Tokutomi himself lends support to this conclusion by eliminating jitsugyôka from the preceding sentence without using three squares to indicate the deletion. It was also no secret that Tokutomi had over the years solicited and received subsidies for his publications, including his Kokumin Shimbun. Hara makes several references to this fact, writing in one instance that “Itô [Hirobumi] told me that till the end of last year, he had been providing ¥400 a month to the Kokumin Shimbun.”36 Itô Miyoji also once informed Itô that the previously antagonistic Kokumin Shimbun was now moderating its tone and suggested that someone from the newspaper may soon be coming to request money.37 The other example is also hard to defend because it involves Anne Frank’s diary, which has a worldwide readership. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, is the only member of his family who did not perish.38 It has now come to light that he had tampered with the diary by not including Anne’s criticisms of her mother Edith, descriptions of the lack of warmth between her parents, and mention of her growing awareness of her budding sexuality. These entries survived because Otto did not want to destroy them. However, he repaginated the diary to cover up the excisions of what he apparently regarded as inappropriate and offensive to his sense of propriety. Melissa Müller writes



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that Cov Suijik of the Anne Frank Foundation of New York showed her the pages he had received from Otto Frank just before he died in 1980.39 Müller reveals that Anne, while in hiding, also reworked her diary, starting from the very first entry. She changed sequences of events, revised whole passages, and excised sections that “she found too immature, personal, or simply embarrassing.” Müller surmises that the changes in style and content indicate that Anne intended to use entire passages from her diary for a novel, “a romance of the ‘Secret Annex.’” Anne wanted, Müller adds, “to be famous and make a place for herself in history.”40 Anne’s actions, however, are qualitatively different from those taken by Tokutomi and Otto Frank and more on the level, as we shall see, with Hara (Kei’s) excisions. The novelist Cynthia Ozick has also noted Otto Frank’s deletions and points as well to others, including Anne Frank’s “numerous expressions of religious faith, a direct reference to Yom Kippur, [and] terrified reports of Germans seizing Jews in Amsterdam.” She adds that these alterations are understandable given Otto Frank’s background as an affluent, bourgeois Jew who had assimilated into German society. She has a bigger ax to grind and is scathing in her attack on those who gave rise to the “legend” that the diary was a “genial document,” an uplifting paean to the indestructibility of the human spirit and the inherent goodness of mankind. She charges that the diary has been “bowdlerized, distorted, . . . infantilized, Americanized, . . . sentimentalized; falsified, . . . and in fact, blatantly and arrogantly denied.”41 The diary in this process, she argues, has been transmuted from its essential core, which is not in her view about the Holocaust. The heart of the diary, she insists, is its dark testimony of the “human spirit’s easy destructibility.” She is, as noted, forgiving of Otto’s deletions, but not his complicity in creating this “shallowly upbeat view,” a view that saw its genesis in the Pulitzer-prize winning 1955 Broadway play by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich.42 Such is Ozick’s anger at what she regards as the complete distortion of the essential meaning of the diary, a distortion that she says continues to be perpetuated, that she suggests as a solution the ultimate act of censorship of the diary, one that she calls “an irreplaceable masterwork”: It may be shocking to think this (I am shocked as I think it), but one can imagine a still more salvational outcome: Anne Frank’s diary burned, vanished, lost—saved from a world that made it of all things, some of them true, while floating lightly over the heavier truth of nuanced and inhabited evil.43

There is such finality in the burning of documents that the scholar of modern Japan’s history can only be grateful that the principals writing to each other ignored the “requests,” some as earnest as was Mutsu’s in his letter to Okazaki, “to cast the letters into the fire.”

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We now turn to Hara, who also deliberately blacked out portions of his diary for reasons he clearly stated. The eliminated sections involved his wife Sadako and her infidelities. Hara wrote that he and Sadako were separated, but not divorced, from 1896 to 1899. Urged by close friends to reconcile since she was said to be contrite and prepared to mend her ways, he not only took her back but, as he noted: I even totally brushed out [issai massatsu] all references in the diary to her conduct. However, she not only gradually reverted to her old ways, but no sooner had I returned to Tokyo in early October from my tour of northeastern Japan, I heard that she was . . . five months pregnant by someone else. . . . She believed that I was ignorant of her condition and believed that I would not find out. To hide her condition she went to the Miura Peninsula ostensibly to recuperate.44

Hara divorced her in December but, given the circumstances, was still generous to her. He was concerned about her future, so he not only paid for her Miura Peninsula expenses, but also gave her the magnificent sum of ¥2,000.45 Hara later noted that Sadako gave birth to a girl. He remained magnanimous and continued to pay all expenses she had incurred and even paid the rent of her Tokyo residence. He clearly stated his reasons for his actions: Although we were divorced because of her conduct I took the position that while I may despise the behavior, I could not hate the person. I intend to do my all to be as magnanimous as possible.46

Hara, as well as Keiichirô, left no clue as to which entries had been blotted out. It is possible, however, to point to the entries by deduction. Hara would lightly and quickly brush over words and short phrases. These are obviously revisions to clarify the text. The fifteen lines, the totality of the 3 December 1896 entry, however, are so firmly and fully brushed over with broad strokes that it is impossible to make out the contents. This date fits with the 17 December 1905 entry in which Hara recorded that he had been separated from Sadako since 1896 and had eliminated all mention of her conduct. The person who has only Kangensha or Fukumura at hand will see that the 26 November 1896 entry is followed by the 4 December entry. Since Hara did not write daily, the reader can only assume that these two entries are consecutive and will never know of the 3 December entry. The second excision occurs in the 23 December 1896 entry, in which most of two lines are completely brushed over. Early in the entry, Hara mentioned that his prospective new wife, Asa, finally had been accepted by his family and had met his mother and others. He later goes on for many lines, indented from the main



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text, on the many personal incidents of the years past. It is in this section that the brushed over lines appear, so the presumption is that mention of Sadako’s conduct had been blotted out. This episode provides another reason for comparing HKN with EHKN whenever a researcher uses the former even for limited purposes. In this instance, the researcher would be rewarded with the stark, visual impact of Hara’s strength of resolve to forgive and forget Sadako’s infidelities. Hara, moreover, had more reason than had Otto Frank to expunge mention of his wife’s attitude and behavior. He had been several times cuckolded, and in the masculine, shame-oriented Meiji-Taishô periods, such action to expunge would have been understandable. That he openly admitted doing so, and later detailed her infidelities, enhances the reliability of his comments and elevates the value of his notations, even granting the heavy stress on the Seiyûkai and the unresolved conundrum of his ability to recall complex details stretching over many days. This episode also reveals aspects of Hara’s personality: great inner strength and self-confidence. Moreover, his magnanimous, generous treatment of Sadako also suggests that he was the ideal “oyabun” (leader, patron) type who could command the respect and loyalty of the partymen. It is easy to understand how this outsider-loser was able to rise to the point where he could deal with the highest level of Sat-Chô leadership as well as with the aristocrat Saionji Kimmochi, become head of the Seiyûkai, turn it into the largest political party of his time, and make Yamagata weep at the news of his assassination. As revealing of Hara’s character as the Sadako episode is, what we have in EHKN still is an incomplete record. We know very little of Sadako’s side of the story and of her motives. Hara does mention that his friends used the fact that she was a child (yônen) bride to urge him to take her back, but is otherwise silent.47 Sadako’s background, as well as her possible immaturity, may help to explain her conduct. She was the daughter of Nakai Hiroshi of Satsuma. Nakai divorced his wife, who then married Chôshû’s Inoue Kaoru, later, genrô. Hara’s father was a karô (daimyo’s chief retainer) of the Nambu han in what is now Iwate Prefecture. However, Nambu han was on the losing side of the war against the Sat-chô-do-hi forces. Hara was also a failure in several of his early career choices, and it was not until Inoue Kaoru took him under his wings that his career began to improve.48 It may be that ­Sadako felt put upon by what appears to have been a marriage of convenience to an older person that may have served her husband well but was beneath her status as a daughter of Satsuma. It could be that Hara’s long absences may have also driven her to seek comfort in the arms of others. We need to know to round the circle, but we can never know, for her voice

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is silent. Therefore, a suggestion such as Ozick’s to destroy documents is an abomination: the finality of the action represents the worst kind of third-party intervention. In the end, however, for all his weaknesses as an editor, Keiichirô served the cause of scholarship exceedingly well on the most basic, crucial level. He, as a filial son, took to heart Hara’s injunction to treasure the nikki as the most valuable of his earthly belongings and took the actions that helped to preserve it, not once but twice, from the flames.49

Cha p ter 4

Now That We Have These Primary Sources

In Japan as elsewhere, the founders of modern nation-states sought to find an appropriate balance between coercion and consent in governing. The modern nation-state emancipated the national public but disciplined it; it promoted popular political participation but limited its boundaries; it tolerated political criticism but encouraged political conformity. The all-important equilibrium among these contradictory impulses—emancipation vs. discipline, criticism vs. conformity, exclusion vs. inclusion—constantly shifted. — Peter Duus

Kent Calder has exhorted fellow political scientists to “resort to political archaeology,” that is, to engage in the kind of approach favored here, “a systematic search for historical origins of key institutional features.”1 This call for more “political archeology” is seconded by Jeffrey Mass, who in a statement (adapted to this discussion) emphasized that “we cannot hope to narrow the distance between ourselves and the political leaders of the [Meiji-Taishô periods] without listening very hard to what they were saying.”2 Another scholarly approach to Japanese history, however, stresses the edifice rather than the bricks and mortar, since it is believed the result would have larger meaning for the nonspecialist. Conrad Totman, addressing himself to among others an earlier work by Mass, declared that “recent scholarship” in English-language studies of medieval Japan is on the whole an exercise in which “the least significant work was being done where the greatest effort has been expended, in the microscopic analysis of elite political structure” that reflected “a current fascination with ‘documents.’” He added that when a historian writes “particularistically of another society,” he is being an “antiquarian” who conveys “esoteric information . . . of no importance . . . beyond [its] value as exotica.” The remedy, he categorically states, is that the “American monographer must give his work significance in terms of the corpus of English-language works, and he must address questions of central concern in his own society.”3 Subsequent to the issuance of this dictum, the trend in Totman’s own major field of interest, the Tokugawa period, has been moving undeniably and irresistibly toward the “particularistic” direction he decried.4 Bolitho,

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in his survey of the field, notes that research on Tokugawa Japan in English has become “infinitely more detailed,” tied closely with the findings of Japanese scholars, highly particularistic, and aimed at explicating how Tokugawa Japan “actually worked,” that is, how people at many different levels of society played politics, how they paid (or failed to pay) their taxes, how they complied (or failed to comply) with official directives, how they learnt, what they learnt, how they made their livings, what they thought of the world around them, how they ran their families, how they conducted their sex lives.5

A look at some recent articles reveals that this particularistic trend is evident in nearly all fields. Kevin M. Doak makes precise distinctions among the terms minzoku, volk, kokumin, jinmin (jimmin), and kokka.6 Douglas R. Howland clearly differentiates among terms such as mibun, kaikyû, and shi­ min, while Gerald Groemer does the same for terms relating to outcastes.7 Groemer’s basic thesis in the outcaste article is that “oppressive edicts, flagrantly biased legal decisions, and inhumane discriminatory policies” contributed mightily in establishing, hardening, and reproducing Edo’s outcaste order, and that the “disastrous failure” of the Tokugawa political and economic order foredoomed the creation of a “just and humane society.”8 This premise may be behind his puzzling conclusion that “It remains unclear [italics mine] why the bakufu chose to centralize authority in Danzaemon in the Kanto region while dispersing it in the Kansai, but the decision to do so unquestionably [italics mine] resulted from a desire to tighten rather than loosen control in both locations.”9 Some Japanese scholars, several of whose works he cites, have a somewhat different view. One notes that kawata10 groups were able to negotiate “a variety of administrative and commercial relationships with their putative commoner masters” and, through marriage and commercial activities, acquire land, wealth, and population that enabled them to rise above their status. Another writes that while status may be a sign of power, this situation is not limited to bakufu-outcaste relations.11 These questions cannot detract from Groemer’s yeoman contributions in shedding light on the outcaste order and the blind in Tokugawa Japan. Totman’s injunction also raises the fundamental question: “Who decides, and by what standards, for all scholars, what is of ‘central concern’ to one’s society?” Moreover, what he denigrates as an “apprentice’s task”—that is, making documents and their translations available by tedious, time-consuming, and persistent effort—serves the non-Japanese monograph writers’ broad interpretive ends.12 And when these are previously untranscribed documents, the Japanese scholars’ purposes are served as well. Totman’s admonition was even more strongly stated by Professors Harry



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Harootunian and Naoki Sakai two decades later in a lengthy dialogue (tai­ dan).13 They condemn Japanese studies today for its conservatism, its emphasis on sterile translations, and its hostility to theory. This state of affairs, they assert, is abetted by funding agencies such as the Japan Foundation and the Social Science Research Council of New York, as well as by journals such as Monumenta Nipponica, Journal of Japanese Studies, and Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Dennis Washburn’s retort to their complaints, in a review article of a work by Atsuko Sakaki, is pertinent and insightful: Harootunian and Sakai are exerting a form of coercive pressure on younger scholars similar to that [for] which they condemn the field as a whole.14

Harootunian also appears to link the University of Washington’s Asian studies program, tainted by a “certain reputation” when McCarthyism was in full swing, to the Journal of Japanese Studies (JJS).15 The JJS, he continues, is now “again” (italics mine) trying to “speak” for Japan studies as a whole.16 This is a puzzling and troubling statement. His use of the word “again” is significant, since it suggests that the JJS was already active in the “era of McCarthyism.” McCarthy died in 1957, and the first issue of JJS appeared in 1974, so I am at a loss to understand how Harootunian justifies the connection. Harootunian’s charge that JJS is taking upon itself the task of speaking for Japan studies as a whole is ironic in the face of Dennis Washburn’s critique that it is Harootunian who is trying to speak for the whole field. Bolitho had witnessed this inclination earlier. He regarded it as “humorous” that Harootunian takes great pains to stress that only someone ignorant of the works of literary critics, linguists, and social thinkers of the last thirty years would even doubt that everyone in the mainstream of intellectual history writes precisely as he does.17

Let it be added that as a JJS charter subscriber, I have never felt that JJS pretended to speak for the field in general. In fact, as far as I am concerned, none of the three major journals—Journal of Japanese Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, and Monumenta Nipponica—has exhibited any such inclination. What we have here, then, is Totman, Harootunian, and Sakai usurping for themselves the role of ultimate arbiters of the standards, practices, approaches, and subjects of research for the whole field. Still, Totman is on target in suggesting that non-Japanese scholars should try to broaden the significance of transcribed and translated documents by wedding them to the corpus of articles and monographs in languages other than Japanese. This effort, as earlier noted, will provide rich, unexpected, and bracing perspectives in interpreting the documents. At the same time, to

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do so may enable the non-Japanese scholar to have new ways to view major themes in modern Japanese history. This chapter will look at some of these themes to answer the fundamental question confronting the political historian of Meiji-Taishô Japan: the nature and structure of the post-Restoration state. From this question flows ancillary and closely interrelated questions, among them: Who were the architects of the new state? What were their motives, priorities, intentions, and relationships to each other? How did they go about fulfilling their visions? What did they owe to their Tokugawa heritage? How and why did the state evolve and change? Were the changes “revolutionary”? How did all the political parts in Tokyo as well as in the localities fit and relate to each other? How great was the Western influence? The interconnectedness of these questions or themes will result in explanations that overlap and reappear throughout the chapter. This repetitiveness, however, suggests that these themes may provide valid signposts for a better understanding of Meiji-Taishô political history. However, let us first turn to the Tokugawa heritage. The Tokugawa Heritage Herman Ooms is speaking about the role of commoners in the Tokugawa period, but his words set the right tone on the importance of the Tokugawa heritage: “World-making by the rulers often followed the contours of the world commoners had already made, admittedly in the process consecrating that world.”18 In short, the Meiji leaders were constrained by what history had bequeathed them: that in matters large and small, they had to follow the contours laid down during the Tokugawa period. Or, put another way, explanations for every post-Restoration development, except perhaps for Japan’s empire, must start at least with the Tokugawa period. Even in the case of empire, scholars must still grapple with questions of the nature and relative weights of the center vis-à-vis entities other than Tokyo, including the colonies, and the hows and whys of the changes among these relationships over time. This theme has Tokugawa roots. The Bakufu and the Han An examination of central-local relationships in the Meiji period may start with a look at the lively, current debate among scholars over the nature of the Tokugawa state and the implication for the post-Restoration Japanese state. James White is described appropriately as a “historically-minded political scientist.”19 His formulation of the Tokugawa state, though he probably did not anticipate it, is at the core of the present debate among historians. I am not able to do justice to his positions, which, I am sure, are more refined and complex than I am able to state here. One of his chief contentions rests on his theoretical construct that sees a similar pattern in Japan’s state



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development and that of the early modern states in Europe. By this he means that there is a difference between state growth or development and state capability or performance. In short, while the Tokugawa state was “autocratic and centralized” from its beginnings to the 1850s (state development), its capability (the ability to extract and use necessary resources) declined from the early seventeenth century.20 Patricia Sippel, a historian who teaches in Japan, notes that the agricultural tax in the bakufu domain unquestionably declined in the 1760s, but “how it occurred and how the reduction impacted on bakufu authority remain open questions.” After citing scholarly explanations for this decline, she also writes that each of the explanations can be used to “support the argument that lower taxes reflected and accelerated a decline in bakufu power.” This in spite of the facts that the bakufu continued to claim “absolute authority” and the villagers “never questioned their obligation to support the state.” She cites Florencia Mallon’s 1994 study of the relationships between state and subjects in nineteenth-century Mexico and suggests that what Mallon calls “hegemony,” characterized in Mexico by constant, ongoing contested episodes between state and subjects that did not necessarily push their overall relationship in a single or continuous direction, also evolved in seventeenth-century Japan.21 Ronald Toby has fired off a heavy supporting salvo for White’s formulation. In his “Rescuing the Nation from History,” he begins by lavishing praise on the Ravina and Roberts studies that are based on extensive use of primary documents. He then points out that both scholars emphasize the existence and viability of the “domain state” or “han kokka” and notes that they argue that the daimyo domains were “sovereign or near-sovereign entities who acknowledge[d] no higher power.” Toby rebuts the Ravina-Roberts position by pointing out that despite all the local power held by the daimyo, it was the bakufu, until it “deconstructed” gradually over the nineteenth century, that “retained the preponderance” of power and authority. This fact, he continues, made it the “government” of Japan; the daimyo’s control was always conditional and by no means sovereign in any meaningful way.22 There is no doubt that Japan-wide networks of roads, coastal sea routes, trade, and intellectual exchanges existed in Tokugawa Japan and that the bakufu controlled foreign affairs and the minting of coins and compelled the daimyo to participate in the sankin kôtai system.23 That said, and I speak as a nonspecialist, I suspect that as more local and domain studies are carried out, the thesis of the preponderance of bakufu power, authority, and reach will be attenuated, a trend that builds on Albert M. Craig’s aptly titled Chôshû in the Meiji Restoration (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), and Marius Jansen’s Sakamoto Ryôma and the Meiji Restora­ tion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961). Craig, in his latest work, “The Meiji Restoration: A Historical Overview,”

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points out that scholars are now recognizing and emphasizing the “importance of village (or even regional) self-government,” and that in the baku­ matsu period, each domain remained self-governing (and competently so) and was able to maintain its integrity given that none collapsed. Moreover, he asserts that the domain kokka predominated since most of them preferred to manage han affairs rather than participate in national affairs.24 W. F. Vande Walle lends substance to Craig’s position on strong han identity by noting that the nineteen Satsuma students who went to the West identified themselves not as representatives of Japan, but of Satsuma. It was during their sojourn in Europe that they discarded their “strong domain identity” and their sense of loyalty to the daimyo.25 Moreover, it can be pointed out that the strength of han identity and loyalty carried over into the Meiji period, as can be seen by the commonly used expression hambatsu seifu (“clan” government), a term that was used pejoratively against the Meiji government whose highest positions were selfconsciously occupied by those from Satsuma and Chôshû. In the recent spate of articles stressing areas other than Edo, one study in particular caught my attention for its moderate tone and even-handed approach. Brett L. Walker, though not totally dismissive, moves away from the themes of earlier studies on Tokugawa peasantry, that is, the emphasis on peasants engaging in a class struggle against the “oppressive” Tokugawa system, as well as on peasants fighting against the inequitable distribution of wealth and power in their villages. Rather, he dissects and analyzes convincingly the confluence of agricultural practices and the fortuitous “territorial and climatological environmental changes that wreaked havoc on agricultural cycles.” The result of this conjunction, he writes, was acute food shortages that in extremis cast the human population against the wild boar in a life-and-death struggle for survival in Hachinohe that led to the loss of thousands of peasant lives. While his central theme is fascinating, the relevance of his study for this section is his description of the central-local relationship. He concedes that there was “considerable political centering” in the Tokugawa period. Yet he also talks about the “highly fractionalized” nature of the Tokugawa polity that militated against, for example, the creation of broad “national commerce and food distribution networks” that characterized early modern England. Moreover, he points to the “lack of central government planning for emergencies” that exacerbated the already desperate position in which the peasants found themselves during the Hachinohe wild boar famine. And finally, he emphasizes that it was the local monastic institutions and the affluent that were most involved in famine relief, signifying the continuing importance and vitality of traditional community relations.26 This vitality and strength of the Tokugawa local entities, I believe, helped to shape the profile of Japan’s modern state.



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Post-Restoration Japan The Relationship between Tokyo and the Rest The Meiji leaders were motivated to create a modern nation-state out of the “fractionalized” Tokugawa polity by the need to protect Japan’s integrity from the threat posed by an aggressive, rapacious West. To this end, among other matters, they disestablished the samurai class and created a national conscript army, established a system of universal education, and steadily built a national transportation and commercial infrastructure. The process in creating each constituent part was not smooth, with contending factions and groups vigorously and contentiously promoting their respective visions. The founding of Japan’s modern monarchical/constitutional system is one example, as is evident from the bitter contention between Inoue Kowashi on the one hand and Ozaki Saburô and Takasaki Goroku on the other. Another was the relationship between Tokyo and non-Tokyo political entities that involved the creation of a prefectural system headed by a strong centralized bureaucracy in Tokyo. On this question, there was bitter infighting involving heavyweights in the capital. Yamagata Aritomo, a military man, stood in one corner. He saw the need for centralization, but he believed from the beginning that a foundation made up of local political entities must first be laid. A case may be made that Yamagata, who came from the lowest stratum of Chôshû’s samu­rai class and who went on to command the Kiheitai with its commoner component, would adopt this approach. Be that as it may, the policy statements in his fukumeisho-ikensho on integrating Okinawa are relevant here because they reveal his strong proclivity for accommodating local concerns. Yamagata’s clearest and strongest articulation on this subject, however, is found in his 1919 speech on the creation of the local government system. In it, he unequivocally states that in building the new state structure, priority should be given to the system of local government. He likens the chôson (towns and villages) that undergirded the state superstructure to a house’s foundation: I was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that the people would achieve, as a natural consequence [of this experience in local governance], the ability to participate responsibly in national affairs . . . that the system of local government was the foundation of our future constitutional system and the pillar to which the nation would be anchored for generations to come.27

In the other corner stood Itô Hirobumi, the quintessential civilian, and others who believed in building from the top down, that is, they wanted the establishment of the Diet to take precedence over the creation of the system of

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local government. As Yamagata wryly put it, this meant building “from the major to the minor.” The cautious and insecure Yamagata, who, in any political situation, tended to see that a cup was half empty, was afraid that the members of the deliberative committee on the system of local government would reject his approach. As a consequence, he became “depressed.” His reaction to the acceptance, with modifications, of his proposals revealed the strength of his convictions: when the shi-chô-son [municipalities-towns-villages] system became law in 1889, I regarded it as the first concrete consummation of all the steps that had been taken since the Restoration. I have never been as happy as I was at that time.28

Richard Staubitz’s judgment on this debate is noteworthy. Yamagata and Ômori Shôichi, he writes, did not conceive of the system of local government as “an administrative structure designed to extend more complete central control to the local level.” Rather, he continues, they were preoccupied more with the problem of integrating the local levels into the new state structure in order to draw the “energies of the masses of the people into national political life.”29 Yamagata’s thoughts on local government may provide substantive support to those who are now stressing that many keys to understanding a modernizing Japan, as well as the Tokugawa period, could be better found in areas away from Tokyo.30 Neil Waters earlier helped to revise the notion of Tokyo’s overpowering control over the polity. He enunciated what I call the “two-way traffic view” of the regional (for him, Kawasaki) and center relationship. Waters stressed that the middle stratum of local regional leaders did not serve simply as the conduit for central government manipulation of the commoners. The basic thrust of his analysis was that from the bakumatsu period to the establishment of the Diet in 1890, these local regional leaders served as a shield or buffer against what they considered “hasty, ill-conceived, and dangerous” government reforms. They did so by a mixture of evasive and manipulative actions that resulted in minimizing and blunting the disruptive effects of political and economic change affecting the region. However, they did not blindly oppose the government. Based on their rational calculation of the costs and benefits of the reforms on the region, sometimes they “enthusiastically” supported it. This rational calculation was, without doubt, motivated by self-interest, but these regional leaders were neither exploitative nor parasitic; if they were moved by self-interest, their actions benefited the “humbler residents” as well. Specifically, they worked hand in glove with the “masses” to subvert the draft for “years” by taking full advantage of the numerous loopholes in the conscription law. Their sponsorship of economic projects benefited the “ordinary peasants” as well. And finally, by preserv-



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ing regional autonomy, they provided what the masses, and it might be added the government, cherished: “stability.”31 Richard J. Smethurst and Penelope Francks, like Waters, show that it would be a mistake to see the relationship between the center and the “localities” merely as an adversarial one, and they persuasively argue that this relationship could redound to the benefit of all involved. This interpretation clearly attenuates the older notion of overweening central power exercised on behest merely for the center’s purposes and gains. Smethurst’s is a detailed, closely reasoned, and generally convincing overview of prewar agricultural Japan.32 He starts with the premise that Japan’s rural economy expanded dramatically between 1868 and the late 1930s, with both the government and the farmers responsible for this growth. The Meiji government’s contributions lay in creating the framework of “orderly political, financial, educational and technical institutions” and the encouragement of farmers to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the newly created infrastructure. It actually took little prodding for the farmers to do so and to commit themselves to improving agricultural techniques based upon “rational decisions and choices.”33 Smethurst disagrees with the view that “a combination of landlord-government coercion and manipulation weakened the tenant movement in the late 1920s.” In other words, the tenant movement’s success in the 1920s “can be attributed to the national government’s forbearance and aid,” which was, of course, welcomed by the tenant-farmers. This meant that the government, by its methods of mediating disputes, helped tenants to purchase land “inexpensively,” while the police and courts, for their part, intervened infrequently in support of the landlords. Moreover, instead of faulting the government for its so-called miserly and slow-paced extension of the male franchise, Smethurst stresses that the expanding franchise enabled the tenant farmers to become a part of governance. They were able, he says, to gain seats on 27 to 32 percent of all village assemblies in Japan from 1925 until World War II, with positive results for their livelihood.34 Francks’s focus is on the roles of the village groups. She points out that large-scale cultivating landlords, usually village heads, were not necessarily significant everywhere in Japan, and some may have lost interest in rural agriculture, lured away by industrial and commercial opportunities. The “whole village groups,” in which medium-scale owner/tenant cultivators played a leading role, then assumed the functions of the large-scale cultivating landlords. The village groups could do this because the village itself had significant experience in group organization that had been maturing over generations and had developed the necessary institutions and skills required for group action. This experience and skill was put to use by the village groups in their role as “intermediaries” with the “outside world” that included government organs and extension services, and in

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their “tak[ing] over the functions such as marketing and provision of credit the landlords had previously performed.” Francks is particularly interested in the roles played by these village groups and the government in bringing about technological change and the completion of an irrigation project in the Saga Plain. The successes in these two areas of endeavor, she writes, transformed the agriculturalists there from “subsistence level production to sophisticated commercial farmers.” In the process, the officials sometimes exercised “authoritarian” means, such as using the force of law to achieve their objectives. However, Francks concludes that extension officials and farmers worked together most of the time with a degree of mutual respect. Another contribution by the government was its long-term involvement in agricultural extension, that is, what Smethurst says is part of the infrastructure created by the government. Francks’s emphasis is on the “balance between the roles of government or research officials and farmers’ organizations.” This generally successful balance was possible because the government was represented by officials and extension workers “who had long experience and close contact with working farmers,” who “consulted them or their representatives,” who “backed up the adoption of technology,” and who were “attuned to the structural changes” of the villages and could therefore also be “influenced by the farmers.” The farmers’ impact, in turn, was enhanced by the repository of local skills in the village groups and by the leaders’ sensitivity to the “problems and potential” of their respective environments and their exercise of initiative in coping with the problems and potential.35 Michael Lewis carries forward this interpretive line in his study of Toyama Prefecture’s relationship with Tokyo. Lewis postulates that by the late nineteenth century, Toyama officials used chihô jichi or local autonomy in three ways: one, to try to achieve prefectural independence; two, to minimize Tokyo’s meddling in Toyama’s politics; and three, to gain access to the national treasury.36 This description of the Tokyo–Toyama Prefecture relationship appears to sustain the truism applicable to open and pluralistic societies that all politics is local. Still, in the very need to gain access to national funds for riparian works, education, and local industrial promotion, “autonomy” came to mean “dependence.” This was not equated by Toyama officials to mean that the prefecture would simply become a “poor dependent of the bureaucratic center in Tokyo.” They defined “dependence” to mean improving local economic conditions, which would better Toyama’s society.37 Toyama and all other prefecture-level entities were able to adopt this definition because, as Tetsuo Najita in his classic study has shown, power flowed from the localities as well, for their representatives in the Diet could either withhold or grant their support to the central government in its annual budget negotiations.



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We turn to Lewis again to complicate matters for the proponents of the straightforward top-down explanation of center-localities relationships. This he does with the observation that the contest for political goods—was multilateral [as well]. Prefectures competed with prefectures. Districts, cities, towns, and villages within prefectures vied against each other over issues of local profit and pride. Factions split off from a single party. . . . Such rich complexity was evident in Toyama Prefecture, where parties and political bosses acted, as their counterparts did in other prefectures, to interpret local autonomy to suit various visions, some self-interested, of what most benefitted the local good.38

Meiji Education Reform Education reform provides us with still another perspective to analyze center-local relationships. The Meiji leaders, after early debates over the roles to be played by the samurai class in nation building, opted instead to harness the numbers and energies of the populace. They therefore chose to create a conscript army rather than a samurai-centered force. Education of the masses was another cornerstone of the Meiji leaders’ vision for achieving nationhood. Kume Kunitake’s record of the significance and consequences of widespread education in the West leaves no room for doubt that this would be the case. Insightful people, he averred, are aware that “education is the key to improvement,” and this being the case, “talented black people” with education will elevate themselves within a decade or two, while “white people who do not study and work hard will fall by the wayside.”39 Kume associates the high level of education in Holland with the determination of the Dutch to preserve their national autonomy, natural enough for leaders anxious to preserve their nation’s integrity. He saw the same linkage in Switzerland, noting that an elevated level of education was behind Swiss patriotism and determination to be independent. Equally striking to Kume were the broader consequences. He was duly impressed by the reputation of the Swiss as being the “most civil, the best-informed, and the most diligent at their occupations,” all because education was so widespread. Sweden (Norway being part of it at this time) and Denmark surprised the party for their “technological progress and advancement in elementary education,” which had given rise to “widespread literacy.” This, in turn, he noted, was because of the adoption of American pedagogy that stressed easily available education for all without distinction of gender and social class. Kume, finally, was of several minds about the Italians: greatly artistic, but lacking in “industriousness,” and “seventeen million” of them illiterate because of an underdeveloped educational system.40 Fascinating, instructive, and valuable as are these insights gleaned from a highly reputable primary source, an overemphasis on such a view

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from above will lead, and has led, to a skewed perception of Meiji educational reform. The stereotypic view, which seems to be embedded in the works not only of those who write for popular consumption but of scholars as well, is that the central government succeeded from the start in controlling the content and pace of this aspect of nation building. Roger Pulvers, for example, confidently and firmly states what is basically the statist position. He asserts that in Meiji Japan—by a process similar to that which had occurred earlier among the Western powers—practically all diversity and “internal pluralism” was sacrificed and negated on the altar of national unity. This involved the banning of local dialects in the schools and inventing and then foisting on a “believing public” the “absurd myth” that all Japanese shared a common racial, national, and civic identity. His “public,” at least, had some choice, for it “gladly accepted” all this for the pride it gained from membership in the family of strong, modern nation-states.41 Some scholars are now presenting findings on the subject of Meiji educational reform that reveal a more complex relationship between the center and the localities. Building on the pioneering work by Ronald Dore and newer studies such as Brian Platt’s, their research makes evident the strong localized education foundations laid in the Tokugawa period.42 The Center for Japanese Studies and Educational Foundations, University of Hawai‘i, cosponsored a presentation on 3 April 2000 by Abigail Schweber, then a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, titled “Education and State Formation: National Policy vs. Local Control in Meiji Schools.”43 She disagrees with the standard interpretation on the subject that concentrates on the Ministry of Education’s role in installing a “uniform national education system tightly controlled from the center.” This interpretation, she says, rests on the premises that the Meiji leadership showed foresight and ability in creating a system that would provide the state with an educated labor force to undergird economic development, and that the centralized system was purposefully established to disseminate ideology. Her research on the “prefectural and local voices” in the debates on setting up the system reveals that the ministry’s “actual influence in the early Meiji period was minimal, reflecting a rejection of state authority,” and that the establishment of the system did not involve a “carefully planned process characterized by either foresight or premeditation.” The system instead evolved out of a mid-Meiji political process in which “the state responded to a series of threats to its authority” and only gradually took “control over local policy from the prefectural governments.”44 In March 2005, I learned that Abigail Schweber had presented a paper, “The French Connection in Japanese Education: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” at the 2005 annual American Historical Association conference, and I telephoned her to express my interest in her work. She graciously sent me



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not only a draft of her AHA paper, which she was preparing for submission to an academic journal, but also a draft of chapter 2 (Prefectural Pathfinding, forty-eight pages) of her dissertation, material from which will be incorporated, as a forthcoming monograph, into a broader discussion of education in the Meiji period. The contents of chapter 2, in which she succeeds in making her case, may be used to give flesh to several themes found in this chapter. On one level, her work lends weight to the side of domain autonomy vis-à-vis the bakufu since the prefectural authorities relied on that tradition and practice of local autonomy as they reshaped the Gakusei (1872) to conform to their priorities and aims. On another level, her chapter lends support to the view of the kind of bureaucratic ignorance, disarray, and discordance in Tokyo that hindered rapid institutional changes. And, finally, Schweber offers further insights into the question of the pace and course of Western influence on post-Restoration Japan. Her AHA paper on the French connection in Japanese education is especially fascinating, showing that the Meiji leaders in the early years, for reasons she well describes, resembled a gang that could not shoot straight.45 Schweber also sent me a copy of “Jiyûka and Backlash: The Failure of ‘Free Education’ in Meiji Japan,” her paper (currently in submission) originally presented at the 2001 Association of Asian Studies conference. She notes correctly that older Japan specialists, such as I, had “completely overlooked” the involvement of the Jiyû minken undô with education issues and by so doing had limited our discussion to the movement’s political activities on the national stage. This led, she proposes, to the downgrading of its wider, nationwide impact. I take some comfort, however, in her statement that “the literature by Japanese scholars on the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement, including the important contributions of Irokawa Daikichi, has largely ignored the issue of education.” The materials she sent me also speak to larger issues, one being that the “bottom-up” studies favored by younger scholars can be ignored only at the risk of perpetuating the limitations of works written by older specialists. The tensions of various sorts between the movement and the Meiji government, within the government, and among groups with the movement that were given relatively free expression reveal a Meiji political environment that was much more open and pluralistic than is usually portrayed.46 Richard Rubinger shows that creating institutions with nationwide reach and charged with establishing national standards produced mixed results that were staggered over a considerable period of time. The Ministry of Education, for example, was created in 1871, followed by the promulgation of the Conscription Law in 1873. Both were aimed at raising Japan’s literacy level, a crucial step toward achieving a centralized, modern nation-state. Rubinger concludes nonetheless that “hard core illiteracy,” including among male conscripts, persisted well into the twentieth

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century. In other words, not only was the conscription system susceptible to noncompliance leakages as Waters has stated, but it failed to achieve one of its fundamental aims even among some of those who were conscripted. Furthermore, Rubinger points out that literacy did not improve in a uniform manner throughout Japan, but that improvement differed among regions and even within areas within regions. He attributes this to the “geographical environment” of a given community, such as proximity to large cities, a developed transportation infrastructure, and traditions of learning and culture.47 Richard Torrance adds further substance to those who aver that Japan’s early school system was not in practice cut from the same cloth under central government control. He makes a distinction between rate of matriculation (90 percent after 1903) and level of literacy. He shows that the young students left school to support their families before they really learned to read and write. Still, he notes, literacy rates grew among all classes, particularly among the working class, because what they read was “useful and pleasurable.” This trend, he adds, occurred outside the channels of formal education, with newspapers and popular literature having much to do with it.48 P. F. Kornicki’s position is somewhat different from Rubinger’s “unexpected conclusion” that male illiteracy was greater in the last years of the nineteenth century than had been believed. He relies on the writings of Western visitors to Japan to present the position that there was a significant level of literacy in Tokugawa Japan.49 Both agree that their respective positions are bases for further research on the subject. Since Kornicki stresses that there remains much work to do, a zadankai or a conference panel among Platt, Kornicki, Schweber, and Rubinger may be a good way to start shedding more light on this subject, with great implications for Japan’s modernizing history. Politics and governance are indeed a messy business with messy results, and the practitioners and events never stand still for scholars, frustrating their attempts at the elegant, neat explanation. This should not preclude us, of course, from making a good faith effort at explanation to bring some measure of order out of the inherently chaotic worlds of politics and governance. The Assimilation of Peripheral Areas Japan’s colonizing experience may be seen on one level, at least, to be an extension of the question of Tokyo’s relationship with non-Tokyo entities. This relationship took on new meaning and urgency when Japan, early in the process of nation building, faced the problem of assimilating newly acquired territories and their inhabitants, a matter that found it inexperienced and ill-prepared. Yamagata, in his fukumeisho-ikensho, outlined one approach for coping with this new development: an Okinawa policy not cen-



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tered on naked exploitation but on assimilating the Okinawans by respecting their traditions and sensibilities. Assimilation, however, was a problem more complicated than suggested by Yamagata’s fukumeisho-ikensho. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, in a brief essay, provides a textured, insightful analysis on the complexities inhering in, and connections among, the words “nationality,” “national identity,” “nationstate,” and “colonies” that should be the starting point on any discussion of this problem. She also cautions against defining colonial policy as being “simply ‘assimilationist’ or simply as ‘discriminatory,’” and she reminds the reader that the “complex issues of nationality and identity were issues both for colonizer and for colonized.”50 Despite her counsel on the subtleties involved, an admittedly gross overview of the results of Japan’s assimilation policies in Korea, Hokkaido, Taiwan, and Okinawa will be presented here. This exercise is prompted by the current wave of interest in the subject that parallels a similar rise in the number of works on Japan’s local areas. The subject is also pertinent because what the Meiji leaders tried to do in peripheral areas is reminiscent, in several important ways, of the approaches they adopted in the home islands on the road to modernization. An intriguing peek into the complexity of the relationship between governors and the governed in prewar Japan is provided by the “Recommendations of Governor-General Hasegawa Yoshimichi” on how to deal with Korea and Koreans after the 1919 March First Movement. Given that Hasegawa was relieved as a result, it would have been understandable had he recommended harsh and even draconian measures to cope with future nationalistic activities in Korea. Instead, not only is the tone moderate, but his recommendations are similarly moderate, even-handed, and fair, though naturally enough, a Korean nationalist would disagree with this assessment. His basic position was that economic exploitation was not the purpose of the annexation, but rather that the mutual benefit of both Korea and Japan was to be achieved by having Koreans actively participating in all phases of government.51 The best of intentions obviously does not guarantee the best of consequences for either the governors or the governed. Hasegawa’s “Recommendations” notwithstanding, Japanese administrators continued to exhibit insensitivity to Korean sensibilities. One example that caused great dismay among the populace was the Sôtokufu (GovernmentGeneral) plan to demolish the Kwanghwa Gate. Yanagi Muneyoshi, the founder and leader of Japan’s mingei (folk-craft) movement, passionately deplored the plan in the September 1922 issue of Kaizô. Professor Yong-ho Choe’s description of Yanagi as “one of the very few Japanese whom many Koreans loved and respected as a true friend of Korea during Japan’s colonial rule” suggests that the Japanese were having problems with assimilating the Koreans.52

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Tadao Yanaihara in the early 1930s came to a similar conclusion. He wrote that the government’s inability to win over the Koreans could be traced to the dilemma stemming from the conflicting tensions “between the two phases of the Government’s assimilation policy—paternalistic protection and encouragement on the one hand, and bureaucratic oppression on the other,” and suggested that the resolution of the dilemma would not be easy.53 Still, it was not for lack of concern and effort by all involved. SoonWon Park is representative of a group of scholars who are now arguing that “Japanese colonial policies were not always authoritative and arbitrary,” that “ambiguities, contingencies, and conflicts” abounded in the process of colonial policymaking, and that Koreans from the elites to the peasantry were involved in shaping important policies and legislation affecting Korea.54 It is along these lines that Brandon Palmer addresses a subject fraught with controversy and emotion: “Japan’s Mobilization of Korea for War, 1937–1945,” Ph.D. dissertation, August 2005, Department of History, University of Hawai‘i. As the title attests, Palmer deals with several aspects of mobilization: labor, student, military, volunteer, and conscription.55 I was drawn to his dissertation by the title of a paper he presented at the Twentieth Annual Phi Alpha Theta Hawai‘i Regional Conference at the University of Hawai‘i campus, 31 January 2004, titled “Koreans in the Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War: The Korean Special Volunteer Soldier System, 1937–1943.”56 Intrigued by the word “volunteer,” I asked Palmer for a copy of his paper. He went beyond the call and sent draft copies of chapter 1 (“Introduction”) and chapter 4 (“The Conscription System”) of his dissertation. Chapter 4 deals in depth with the arguments set forth in his paper. His findings and conclusions are controversial, but as in Soon-Won Park’s works, they can no longer be dismissed out of hand.57 Palmer acknowledges that earlier histories on modern Korea in Korean, Japanese, and English are based on substantial research. He contends, however, that they are constrained by their “black and white” perspective, overemphasizing as they do Japan’s exploitative actions and the oppression and victimization of Koreans.58 Against this dark view, Palmer states that in the case of Japan’s mobilizing Koreans for the military, the motives are “more complicated” and suggests that in the implementation of the mobilization laws, Japan did not seek to antagonize the Koreans.59 Moreover, he makes the point that the colonial regime was not an omnipotent “monolithic” entity, but had vulnerabilities that the Koreans exploited. They were able, for example, to use for their own ends the laws and organizations created to mobilize them, using or abusing them when it suited their purposes and, on the local level, ignoring them. In short, the Koreans cannot be seen “exclusively” as victims, as they had a part in shaping their own destinies.60 In truth, some Koreans went much further, regarding themselves to be “ultra-loyal” to Japan; there were those who even



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attached a blood oath to their volunteer application.61 How then to account for the fact that in the years 1938 to 1943, only slightly more than seventeen thousand Koreans were recruited? The number, however, is somewhat deceiving since the colonial government was not recklessly determined to coerce or dragoon Koreans into the military. Instead, it established high qualification standards that limited enlistment and thereby excluded a large number of potential recruits.62 The basic thrust of his exposition notwithstanding, Palmer is evenhanded and readily concedes that the volunteer system was instituted to benefit Japan, not to empower the Koreans. He notes that some of the colonial government’s actions and propaganda directed against Koreans smacked of enormous pressure. He also duly addresses the issues of opposition and resistance to mobilization.63 All of these points and more are accentuated in chapter 4, “The Conscription System” (pp. 1–40). According to Palmer, the Government-General of Korea announced on 9 May 1942 that a conscription system would be implemented on 1 August 1944 (just a little over a year before Japan’s surrender to the allied forces on 15 August 1945). The lateness of the announcement and the two years the Government-General allotted itself for the implementation call for, I believe, revision of the widely accepted view that Japan’s colonial regime was an efficient, authoritarian, monolithic, and oppressive regime that could move at will against the Koreans. Although Palmer does not emphasize the following issue, his narrative also appears to cast more than a shadow of doubt on one of the most emotional charges against the colonial regime, namely, that its thirty-five-year rule eradicated the Korean identity, language, and culture. The first step in establishing the conscription system was the easiest. The Imperial Constitution, Family Registry Law, and Military Service Law had to be revised since none applied to Korea. The Military Service Law, for example, passed both houses of the Diet by early February 1942.64 Palmer, almost in passing, cites revealing examples of interpellations in the Diet, such as, “can we expect fairness [for Koreans] if military service is forced?” and “might we offer enfranchisement [in exchange] for military service?”65 That Japan took this first step reveals the importance it attached to the legal bases of its policies and actions. This emphasis on laws and regulations, of course, could lead to coercion and suppression, but as a general rule, it restricted the unfettered exercise of the government’s powers and presented opportunities to the public to use the laws and regulations to its advantage against the authorities. Palmer’s judgment on the Government-General’s attitude and conduct on the conscription system is that “Japan remained within the legal framework it established for itself” until the “desperate last months of the war.”66 The colonial regime faced two major obstacles in trying to implement the conscription system. The first was the astonishingly low literacy rate. In

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1942, only roughly half of the Korean youth had attended school. In 1943, a mere 38.2 percent of the same group had completed their elementary school education, and less than one-quarter of young men could speak Japanese. These facts directly affected the conscripts’ ability to understand and obey orders in Japanese, and it also limited Japan’s ability to mobilize larger numbers of Koreans as soldiers. Moreover, as in Taiwan’s case, the Government-General did not aggressively push for widespread use of Japanese until the late 1930s. In fact, the Japanese and Korean publics, as well as bureaucrats, had expected that the compulsory education system set to be established in 1946 would precede the conscription system. Therefore, Japanese language literacy, one of the cornerstones of “Japanization” or assimilation, was not in place, and as late as 1944 the Government-General put little credence in the “local authorities’ empty claims” on the success of the assimilation process.67 The second, almost insurmountable, stumbling block was the need to update the Korean family registers (koseki). The registers, if properly maintained and regularly updated, would contain correct addresses, ages, and genders, as well as information on potential draftees’ criminal records. Despite prior efforts to reform the system, Korea’s family registry system was in utter disarray due to bureaucratic inertia, popular indifference, and people moving about without reporting changes. Without the information on potential recruits, the colonial regime could not send out draft notifications. This was an almost crippling problem since the colonial regime itself estimated that nearly half of the Koreans in Korea, Japan, and Manchuria were not recorded in family registers. The Government-General brought in 2,449 bureaucrats from Japan to help straighten out the mess, with some success.68 Palmer, again almost in passing, points out that the “infamous namechanging policy” introduced in 1939, whereby Koreans were compelled to adopt Japanese names, in effect erasing their identities as Koreans, “had everything to do” with “bringing Korean family registers in line with the Japanese.”69 Thus, it can be said that if the Government-General was still struggling with the family registry problem in the early 1940s, assimilation of the Koreans was still an unfulfilled dream. Another telling point in Palmer’s narrative is his description of the expense and effort expended by the Government-General to gain Korean acquiescence to conscription. These actions belie the generally accepted stereotype of a highly coercive, heavy-handed regime. Ironically, much of the effort was “wasted” since so few Koreans understood Japanese.70 It should be noted that some Koreans willingly served since the military offered a semblance of social equality. Conscripts received the same pay and ate the same fare as Japanese recruits. Moreover, Koreans in compliance with Japanese policies could be, and were, promoted over Japanese.71



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Palmer’s revisionist narrative would be one-sidedly incomplete without noting that he stresses the social and official coercion of potential conscripts. Moreover, his description of widespread acts of draft avoidance is a long one, replete with actions unceasing in persistence and long on imagination. I particularly liked his summary of the family register problem: “[the mess enabled] countless draft dodgers [to reap] the sweet rewards of relative freedom from service.”72 Jeffrey Mass’s suggestion that we “listen hard” to the subjects of our studies takes on a special relevance when reading Hildi Kang’s work based on recollections of elderly Koreans who had lived under Japan’s colonial rule. She had expected to hear a litany of tales of atrocities substantiating the narratives of the “passionate stories of martyrs.” Indeed, there are enough recollections of Japanese “arrogance and brutality” and discrimination. Yet against these are memories of “positive experiences” such as the kindness and respect some Japanese extended to the Koreans. The overall impression left by her work compels stepping back from accepting uncritically the usually neat bifurcation that identifies the Japanese solely as aggressors and the Koreans merely as hapless victims. One interviewee, for example, maintained that he received “equal pay, promotion, and treatment”; another recalled that he was such a respected village personage that the Japanese police chief bowed to him whenever their paths crossed; and still another remembered that their family became “good friends” with the detective assigned to watch their father, and they eventually shared their meals with him. The Koreans, as Palmer has depicted, were more than adept at using to their advantage the circumstances in which the colonizers placed them. And finally, as Neil Waters pointed out in his study of Kawasaki in Japan, “nothing happened” there,73 so, too, Kang often heard from her respondents that “nothing much happened to me.” In fact, she had to eliminate a number of interviews because there was nothing “extraordinary” in their contents (in all, fifty-one recollections remain).74 All in all, the studies by Palmer, Park, Kang, Shin, and Eckert represent an exciting and welcome trend that parallels in some measure the revisionism by both Japanese and non-Japanese scholars working on modern Japan. I also am heartened by the absence of harsh rhetoric I found in Andre Schmid’s review article. Schmid in his biting review decries what he sees as a woeful gap in the studies by older Japan specialists on modern Japan. This is shown by their blind eye to what he considers the indisputable fact that the colonizing experience was central to Japan’s modern history. Furthermore, he condemns these specialists for not admitting that Korea occupied a central place in this experience. By his passionate presentation, he confirms that by and large the record of Japan’s colonization of Korea still generates much heat.75 I close the section on Japan’s assimilation policy in Korea with a study

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that can rightfully claim to be pathbreaking: Wonmo Dong’s “The Japanese Colonial Policy and Practice in Korea, 1905–1945: A Study in Assimilation” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1965). The completion date suggests that his research and writing were in progress in the early 1960s, nearly forty years before the appearance of recent revisionist studies on Japan’s colonial rule of Korea. The purpose and guiding principles behind the study presaged as well the current revisionism.76 The first premise of his study is that the colonial rule was “authoritarian,” given the authoritarian state in Japan.77 Since nearly all the literature in Japanese and English on Japan’s post-Restoration history at the time he wrote accepted the same assumption, it is hard to fault him for proceeding on this premise. The second premise is that “assimilation was perhaps the most basic [italics his] principle of colonial government in Korea.” The third premise is that the Korean assimilation problem was “indeed very complex” given the “psychological, sociological, and cultural ramifications” involved. In the face of the tendency among some contemporary Japanese and Anglophone writers in Japan studies to base their interpretations on a simplistic, black versus white approach, Wonmo’s emphasis on complexity was prescient for its time and refreshing for the present. The fourth premise is related to the third, and in his words: [I] will treat the entire problem [of assimilation] without reference to those moral sanctions which would either justify or condemn the Japanese colonization of Korea or the Japanese preference for assimilation.78

The fourth premise is based on his acknowledgment that the very complexity of the “assimilation problem” and the data available at the time of his research were “limited in both quantity and reliability.” He ends his preface with the “wish” that his study will serve as a “stepping stone for future research on this problem,” whether it be in his “discipline of political science or other learned disciplines.”79 He would be pleased to note that the seed he had planted some forty years ago has germinated and is in the process of blooming.80 Before leaving the subject, I share the results of two Japanese gendarmery surveys of Korean attitudes in 1936. The first,81 on “independence thoughts,” showed that of those polled, 8.1 percent always thought of independence; 11.0 percent wanted independence at a favorable time; 32.6 percent had given up the thought; and 48.3 percent did not care one way or another. Of interest is that among intellectuals, 47.2 percent had given up the thought, and 28.1 percent didn’t care; among students, the percentages were 33.6 percent and 50.6 percent, respectively. The results of another survey, on attitudes toward the Japanese government, showed that overall, 11.1 percent were opposed; 14.9 percent called for reform; 37.7 percent were sat-



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isfied; and 36.1 percent showed no interest in the issue. Among intellectuals, the numbers were 10.7 percent, 24.9 percent, 44.9 percent, and 19.5 percent; and among students, 9.9 percent, 12.7 percent, 40.7 percent, and 36.7 percent, respectively.82 It is granted that polls present great problems in how they are taken and how the results are then interpreted. Still, the Meiji-Taishô leaders accepted and acted on the principle that any government that is iron-fisted cannot govern a nation. Moreover, their concept of assimilation was predicated on the premise that the Koreans would become Japanese with legal rights, protections, and duties. These two factors compelled the Tokyo government to accept a moderate, accommodating approach. Yamagata’s ikensho on Okinawa and Hasegawa’s recommendations on Korea are well in this tradition.83 If assimilation means to become Japanese and to integrate seamlessly into Japanese society, Japan’s effort with respect to the Ainu was, David L. Howell flatly states, a failure. This even though the Ainu are now monolingual in Japanese and are largely ignorant of traditional Ainu cultures. The evidence for nonassimilation is the existence of some thirty thousand people who continue to identify themselves as Ainu, examples of leaders submitting petitions or taking legal actions against the Meiji state’s efforts at “cultural engineering,” and instances of those who took flight or refused to cooperate. Furthermore, he points out, the accommodation of “many Ainu” to the assimilation process was in fact a “strategy” to retain a measure of control over their relations with the state and the wider Japanese society.84 The record of Japan’s assimilation policy in Taiwan may have been much more satisfying to Japan than the consequences of their efforts in Korea and among the Ainu. Chang Han-yu and Ramon Myers, as well as Samuel P. S. Ho, limiting themselves to Japan’s economic policies, on the whole positively evaluate its consequences.85 Steven Phillips, for his part, points to Japan’s successes in sanitation, education, and the creation of the infrastructure for Japan’s modernization.86 Interpreting the results of assimilation (dôka) in Taiwan is more problematic. There were attempts at this in the fifty years of Japanese rule, but, interestingly, it was only after 1937 that Japan embarked on a state-enforced, concentrated effort at “imperialization” (kôminka), that is, the total assimilation of Taiwan’s inhabitants, an indication that Japan was not until late in the game forcing the assimilation policy on the Taiwanese. This in turn reflects, among other things, the Meiji-Taishô political leaders’ preferred evolutionary approach involving matters of governance and nation building. For example, classical Chinese was removed from the elementary school curriculum only after April 1937.87 Harry J. Lamley makes the points that the Taiwanese and aboriginal inhabitants “[o]n the whole . . . performed well as imperial subjects, or kômin”; that they engaged in very few hostile acts; that

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they, as a rule, “served faithfully in the Japanese armed forces”; and that by “early 1945, even the middle-aged and elderly prepared to fight to the bitter end.”88 Lamley points out, nonetheless, that the kôminka movement “appears to have been generally unsuccessful in the long-run,” because few Taiwanese were transformed into “true Japanese,” given their resentment over “harsh and demanding kôminka measures.” His overall conclusion on this final phase of the “assimilation” policy, however, is even-handed, that is, it was perhaps too much to ask for the full assimilation of a large population in a few years. Therefore, he asks his readers to measure the post-1937 kôminka attempt by the “realistic standard” of “rapid acculturation” rather than “complete assimilation.” If this is done, he says, the policy seems “to have been relatively effective under controlled conditions.”89 Phillips is also of two minds about Japan’s Taiwan experience. He made note, as we have seen, of Japan’s undoubted success in improving, across the board, the Taiwan inhabitants’ material well-being, but he also stresses the “huge price” they paid: “life in a brutal police state, second-class citizenship, [and] economic exploitation.” History’s final judgment will probably be kinder, because the Japanese were followed by the Nationalists, who were even more brutal and who were also unconscionably corrupt and inept—so much so that Phillips flatly declares that “Nationalist rule of Taiwan during the latter half of the 1940s was a failure.” He adds that this failure is highlighted by the Taiwanese perception that the Japanese regime was characterized by “honesty, competence, predictability, [and] efficiency.”90 Yamagata would probably have been pleased with the results of the assimilation policy in Okinawa because Okinawa’s assimilation policy echoed, in fundamental ways, the proposals in his fukumeisho-ikensho. This is not to imply that there was a direct cause-and-effect relationship between his proposals and Okinawa’s assimilation. The contents of the fu­ kumeisho-ikensho, however, strongly suggest that Yamagata did not conform to the one-dimensional stereotype that continues to hound him, that instead his political acumen was of high order, that he consistently favored a political order that was more open and participatory, and that the people could be trusted to exercise the initiative to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to achieve this more open political society. The success of the Okinawan assimilation policy rested on three factors. First, the existence of a pro-Japanese faction among the intelligentsia, the “enlightenment faction” (kaikatô). Second, Japan’s victory over Ch’ing China in 1895 that strengthened the hand of the kaikatô at the expense of the pro-Chinese “stubborn faction” (gankotô), the existence of which Yamagata had expressed misgivings about in his fukumeisho-ikensho. Steve Rabson’s conclusion on the reason for the shift is noteworthy: “As for the dichotomy between China and Japan in the Meiji Era, it was the Okinawans themselves who, on their own initiative, turned toward the latter.” Rabson



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uses the word “voluntary” on more than one occasion in his essay. Third, the success of the language “standardization” program. Rabson writes that by the end of the nineteenth century, “Okinawans were enthusiastically taking up the cause of language standardization,” now described by linguists as the “bottom-up consolidation” period. Here again, the spirit inhering in Yamagata’s fukumeisho-ikensho is apparent. The measure of the success of the assimilation process is that the Okinawans began to rail against being compared to others subjected to the same process. As early as 1903, Oki­ nawa’s leading newspaper expressed resentment that the Okinawans who were “truly Japanese” were being placed on the same level with Taiwanese and the Ainu. This pride at being “truly Japanese” still did not prevent them, unfortunately, from facing prejudice and discrimination in mainland Japan.91 Morris-Suzuki provides an apt coda on the subject of assimilation: Even the smallest and most vulnerable indigenous communities were not just passive victims of state policy but shaped their own identity within the framework of empire, often participating with surprising vigor in colonial debates.92

Morris-Suzuki condenses in that sentence one of the Meiji-Taishô political leaders’ most hallowed convictions on governance: those acted upon, be they inhabitants of Japan proper or the colonies, must be given the right and opportunity, as proposed by Hasegawa, to actively participate in all phases of government, even if this sometimes, and depending on the circumstances, only involved the chance to “talk back” in frustration and anger against government policy. The results, they believed, would be the rise in their political maturity and the enhancement of their ability to contribute to the state. This does not mean that full participation was to be a sudden thing or that the government sometimes did not act in ways that contravened their stated belief in the value of participation by the people. And, importantly, there is no denying that those ruled sometimes rose in violence against the rulers. Studies from the early 1890s on center-local relationships in the Meiji-Taishô periods show that the earlier, strong emphasis on center predominance, a one-way flow of authority and power from Tokyo to the tips of the archipelago, needs to be re-evaluated. The Pace of Japan’s Modernization A standard, persisting view is that Japan embarked on “a crash program of modernization.”93 It may be appropriate to rethink the validity of the “crash program of modernization” position as well as the use of the words “revolution” and “revolutionary” to describe the process of the changes wrought by the Meiji leaders in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. Frederick R. Dickinson states his position merely in passing which speaks to its wide acceptance. White, in his impressive study of Tokugawa-era “contention,” is

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convincing in his unambiguous statement that in Japan, “of revolution we see nothing.”94 That he felt impelled to make this assertion means that “revolution” is commonly used to describe the Meiji Restoration. He is, however, on less secure ground by alluding to post-1868 changes as “revolutionary.”95 The word “revolutionary” to him signifies the rapid imposition, by a coercive, repressive Meiji regime, of changes that were compressed into a brief period of time, in this case by the early 1870s.96 This conclusion, it seems, is based on his proposition mentioned earlier that the continuous state development throughout the Tokugawa explains how the “regulatory vacuum” that initially surrounded the Restoration came to be “rapidly filled by centralized state institutions and self-righteous statism.”97 In short, White’s formulation of the post-Restoration Meiji state is described by the three words, “rapid,” “centralized,” and “statism,” with the implication that it was as “autocratic” as was the Tokugawa state. The following sections will analyze each of these words. Gradual and Not So Smooth Meiji State Building There are many examples in the documents that point to the evolutionary pace of reforms, but four must suffice for the moment. One is Yamagata’s 1919 speech in which he revealed the existence of the lively debate over the question of whether the creation of the local government system should precede the establishment of the Diet, a debate that remained unsettled until the very eve of the passage of the law that created the local government system in 1889. The second example reveals that as late as 1883, the bureaucracy, the so-called engine that was to drive the central government, was not even fully developed and lacked a vital component: a pension system for bureaucrats. Iwakura, one of the most powerful of the first generation of Meiji leaders, believed strongly that this lack represented the government’s failure to act on “the cardinal principle of government, the appropriateness of rewards and punishments.” This failure so disturbed Iwakura that on the very eve of his death (20 July 1883), he wrote to Yamagata to seek his assurance that the Meiji leaders would “establish fair procedures governing retirement benefits for ministers and councilors” as well as for “countless other officials.” He reminded Yamagata: “Up to now, the government had based its actions on this matter on an ad hoc basis without fixed principles, even granting that this had been inevitable [given the circumstances].”98 The third case is related to the above. There is little doubt that one of the Meiji leaders’ most significant priorities was to create a national army to defend the new government from internal and external armed threats. This was the impetus for establishing a national conscription system. Yet, as Rokuhara Hiroko points out, when the 1873 Conscription Act was promulgated, the government had barely begun to assemble data on the re-



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sources necessary for nation building. She adds that the prefectural governments through which the act would be carried out were ill-equipped to do so until 1886, when the organizations of the prefectural governments were finally “rationalized, the duties and powers of different sections clearly specified, and objective means established for evaluating the administrative experience and ability of the staff.”99 The fourth illustration comes from Kume’s Zenken Taishi Beiô Kairan Jikki. Fred Notehelfer notes that while the “overall purpose” of the work was to give credence to the Meiji leaders’ aim to “reform” Japan, these “fundamental changes” were to be “orderly, selective, and implemented with due deliberation” accompanied by respect for “Japanese traditions.” They were also not to “go beyond the people’s capacity to accept them.”100 Vande Walle writes that Kume, in describing porcelain manufacturing in Sèvres, France, warned Japan to take care “not to throw away its past” and underscored the point that this was a lesson “to be absorbed from the West.”101 Rokuhara Hiroko gives us a concrete example of the Meiji leaders’ reaching back to Japanese history when they sought to establish a national conscript army. She says that a proclamation that was issued on the same day as the Conscription Act of 1873 reached back to Japan’s antiquity for justifying a national conscript army, noting that such a system existed before being abolished by the “idle and arrogant” samurai class.102 How can the evolutionary pace of post-1868 reforms be explained? We can approach this question by first looking at a position that is related to the “crash program,” “revolutionary” argument: [T]he new [Meiji] government leaders embarked on a far-reaching program of modernization through the carefully engineered Westernization of Japanese society, government, commerce, industry, and technology—a well known story.103

The notion implicit in this generalization is that the Meiji leaders acted rationally to steer Japan on a careful and smooth path to modernization. Eiko Ikegami’s position is closer to reality: “In any culture, people inevitably behave erratically, irrationally, or unpredictably from time to time. Human beings are not robots, ineluctably programmed to follow mathematically laws of logic—far from it.”104 It is the erratic, unpredictable, error-prone, often irrational, conflict-ridden, self-interested interpersonal behavior of the Meiji leaders in and out of government that may be one reason for the evolutionary, incremental, fits-and-starts character of Meiji reforms. There is absolutely no doubt that the Meiji leaders were consumed by the demands of their competing egos and personal animus toward each other. Itô Miyoji’s letter to Itô Hirobumi (13 February 1891), repeating and confirming the message Hirobumi had asked Miyoji to convey to Yamagata, clearly reveals, in its tone and language, Hirobumi’s contempt for Yamagata.105 Ozaki Yukio

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recalls a firsthand encounter he had with Yamagata that convinced him that the feeling was mutual.106 It is difficult, if not impossible, to link this type of personal feeling and behavior to specific policy questions. An attempt will be made later by rereading the massive number of translated letters and other documents in my files. For the moment, the case must rest on merely asserting the relationship between personal feelings and behavior and the pace and nature of political change. We can, however, present substantive reasons to explain the evolutionary pace of nation building in Meiji-Taishô Japan. Another reason for the slow pace of reform and some of the stumbling about was the newness, the enormity, and the complexity of the challenges of state/nation building. Shibusawa Eiichi’s first and only experience as a central government bureaucrat is a revealing peek into the daunting hurdles that faced the new Meiji government. Ôkuma Shigenobu in 1869 asked Shibusawa to join what later became the Finance Ministry. Ôkuma described the reforms that needed to be achieved in “finance, law, the military, and education; the promotion of industry and commerce; the development and settlement of remote areas.” He then enumerated the specific tasks that faced the ministry: “monetary reform, tax revision, the issuance of government bonds, setting up joint-stock companies, overhauling the communications and transportation system, standardizing weights and measures.” Shibusawa added that the list was “too long to enumerate.” Ôkuma, however, did not stop there and, as was his wont, frankly admitted that “since no one in the ministry, including the two of us, has any professional knowledge or experience in these matters, it’s only by pulling together that we’ll be able to succeed.” If Ôkuma’s “list” was not intimidating enough, the disarray that Shibusawa found at the ministry must have astonished him. He reported to Ôkuma: There is one thing, however, that I could not help noticing, and that is the utter confusion in the office. The way the ministry is run now I’m afraid it will be impossible to carry out the reforms you mentioned the other day. The men, from top to bottom, are swamped with work, without a minute to sit back and think. Then at the end of the day, everyone just packs up and leaves. If we are really serious about our objectives, I think we should go about it more systematically.107

The need then to resolve problems far removed from those involving what Iwakura had called “cardinal principles of governance” may be cited as a major reason for the pace of Meiji reforms. A myriad of pragmatic, downto-earth changes, major and minor, had to be instituted before a modern nation-state could evolve. Inoue Kowashi and Ozaki Saburô, who were deeply involved in these endeavors, discussed and sought to resolve questions such as equitable taxes for urban and rural buildings and which government en-



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tity should bear the costs of street lighting, planting trees, laying pavements, and constructing national roads.108 Moreover, failures large and small abounded, slowing the pace of reform even more. When the provinces dealt with problems involving the width of national roads, tree planting, and bridge construction, Inoue wrote Ozaki that the results were “laughable.” He quickly added the cautionary note, however, that the central government would be “foolish” if it attempted to legislate on these matters.109 Iwakura’s letter to Yamagata on the need to create a pension system for ranking bureaucrats suggests a third reason for the evolutionary pace of changes. In the letter, Iwakura made a remarkable admission, revealing the bane of founding fathers everywhere, then and now: the lack of information and knowledge essential for nation building and effective governing. He confessed to “great shame” at his ignorance of the rationale and principles behind the benefits already given to army and navy officers and those below them.110 This connection between the need for knowledge and governing a nation in the process of being created is addressed directly by a kengensho (petition) that may be one of the more important documents of the early Meiji period. This petition was submitted by an unnamed military officer in 1871 and recommended that the emperor be sent on nationwide tours. One of the several justifications for making this recommendation is related to the issue under discussion here, that is, the tours would help the emperor gain knowledge on the geography, conditions, people, and customs of the country. This in turn would enable him to more effectively “direct” the bureaucrats in carrying out their official duties. In short, one of the greatest benefits would be that he would be better able to “govern.” Not stated, of course, is that the members of his retinue would also benefit from this firsthand exposure to their own country,111 and this in turn, given the reality of the emperor-­bureaucrat relationship, meant that the bureaucrat would be better informed to “direct” the emperor’s activities. Ignorance cannot be equated with the lack of information “out there” that could be harvested, but rather in part stems from the division of Tokugawa Japan into more than 250 domains that often eyed each other with suspicion and were loath to share information. The existence of the great number of 1885–1886 inspection reports, published in Gabe’s twovolume work, as well as Yamagata’s fukumeisho-ikensho speaks to the Meiji leaders’ recognition that they needed to collect accurate information over much of Japan eleven years after the Meiji Restoration. This state of affairs contrasts sharply with the description of America by Daniel J. Boorstin. “Never before,” he writes, “had so populous a modern nation lived in so ill-defined a territory,” and “[America] had begun to flourish before it was explored . . . [and was a] ‘dark continent’ throughout nearly the first century of its national existence.”112 In short, the result of explorations

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by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Zebulon Pike, and the activities of countless unnamed hunters, trappers, boatsmen, and adventurers, was the establishment of a bank of new knowledge. The fukumeisho writers’ problem was of a different order: a surfeit of knowledge that needed to be collected, consolidated, and made sense of by the bureaucracy in Tokyo intent on creating a new, centralized nation-state. This took time and slowed the pace of reform. Michael L. Lewis, in the context of his study of the 1918 “Rice Riots,” gives an indication of the slow pace of nation building in Meiji-Taishô Japan by noting that the “Meiji leadership’s aim of creating a new citizenry, unified ideologically and consistently supportive of national goals, was still a work in progress,” this despite the Meiji government’s “tremendous strides” in creating a modern state out of 250 “feudal” domains.113 In sum, this pace of evolutionary development, one that was agreed upon by all the Meiji leaders save one, may explain in part the successful creation of Japan’s modern state as well as its staying power.114 The political scientist Gerald Curtis provides an apt closing statement on this question and in the process suggests a fourth reason for evolutionary state development in Japan: Throughout this book, I stress how the interplay of change and continuity in Japanese political development created resistance at all levels of the political system to anything more than cautious incremental policy adjustments. . . . But resistance to radical change is anchored deep in Japanese society and its political institutions [what he earlier noted as “tradition-sanctioned patterns of behavior,” p. 15]. Those leaders who have tried to make a case for drastic change have been notably unsuccessful in persuading many people to agree with them.115

Statism, Pluralism, and the Emperor’s Roles Statism is the third of the terms White applies to the post-Restoration state. Statism may be here defined as a system that is pyramidal and hierarchical, with the emperor at the apex, assisted by cabinet ministers and palace advisers. In this system, the lines of control flow from the center downward. A useful way to counter that vision of the Meiji state is to look at its obverse, pluralism. The documentary evidence is overwhelming that a majority of Meiji leaders were from the beginning bent on creating a pluralistic form of government that involved sharing and exercising power among the administration, judiciary, and legislature, with the third branch incorporating representatives of the people elected by enfranchised males. The extent and content of pluralism were debated, but not once was it seriously suggested by the founders of the Meiji state that they would jettison their commitment to pluralism. The Meiji leaders, however, faced a dilemma. They had committed



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themselves to create a pluralistic form of government, but how could they claim to be designing other than a statist structure when its legitimizer stood above all “sacred and inviolable” and endowed with “overwhelming authority and power”? As Fukuzawa Yukichi, looking back at the immediate post-Restoration period, pointed out, since the new government had legitimized itself by restoring imperial rule, it was only natural that the imperial house would be at the center of it.116 Moreover, when the Constitution was enacted in 1889, these powers were, in Carol Gluck’s words, made “legally [italics mine] explicit for the first time in Japan’s history.”117 Yamagata had early recognized that establishing a pluralistic form of government required that the issue of limiting the monarch’s prerogatives had to be confronted. Still, the ever-cautious Yamagata hedged on this issue by asserting, “What is most difficult to define is the emperor’s powers and the people’s rights.”118 Itô’s solution to the problem is a classic statement of political ambiguity. On the one hand, he declared that “only the imperial house can serve as the nation’s axis [kijuku] which is why I concentrated single-mindedly on this point in the draft constitution and endeavored as much as possible not to restrict the imperial prerogatives.”119 On the other hand, he asserted that while he “endeavored as much as possible” not to restrict the emperor’s powers, he knew that a commitment to constitutionalism required setting limits to imperial prerogatives: [I]t is evident that any form of constitutional regime is impossible without full and extended protection of honour, liberty, property, and personal security of citizens, entailing necessarily many important restrictions of the powers of the Crown.120

There is another piece of indirect evidence that appears to confirm Itô’s commitment to restricting the imperial prerogatives. Among Itô’s papers is one of the earliest statements on the “emperor as organ” principle. This principle in the 1920s and early 1930s had become the standard interpretation of the Meiji Constitution largely due to the writings of Minobe Tatsukichi, a University of Tokyo law professor. The statement reads: The monarch is the supreme organ [saikô kikan] of the state, but not an absolute monarch dominating the people . . . whose authority is unlimited [italics in the original]. In the exercise of his powers, he must first, conform to fixed usages, and second, must accept the participation of other organs.121

Osatake Takeshi, writing during the Pacific War, hesitated to commit himself on the extent of Itô’s commitment to the “emperor as organ” theory, confining himself to the innocuous statement that it was “intriguing to note that this view is substantially similar to the theory propounded by a ‘certain professor.’”122

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Hermann Roesler’s comment on one of the Diet’s roles suggests that Itô had established that body to expressly set a limit to the emperor’s prerogatives. His exegesis on Article 5, “The emperor exercises the legislative power with the consent of the Imperial Diet,” is “This article contains the first and most important limit to the exercise of sovereign power by the Monarch.”123 This makes the “emperor as organ” statement discovered among Itô’s papers not merely an “intriguing” matter, but a significant piece of evidence for the study of Meiji constitutional history. Before proceeding, a note on the Hisho Ruisan is in order. The task of editing and publishing the whole series of twenty-seven volumes was undertaken by Hiratsuka Atsushi, who probably had others assist him. The rumor has persisted that the compilation and editing left something to be desired, but there was no way to substantiate the rumors since the whereabouts of the original documents were unknown until April 2001, when the Shoryôbu made available to the public 124 volumes bound in twine and separated into subject matter such as Kempô, Gikai, Nisshin Jiken (Sino-Japanese War). It must be noted that the newly released volumes contain volumes not exploited by Hiratsuka, and that Hiratsuka has published documents not found among the Shoryôbu volumes. This means that still other volumes, perhaps numbering in the dozens, are extant. One example is a volume of unpublished documents on foreign affairs that was held by Itô Hiromasa, Hirobumi’s great-grandson, that contains documents not found in Hiratsuka’s three-volume Hisho Ruisan: Gaikôhen (1934–1936). Hirose, after making an all-out effort, has located the “missing” volumes. These volumes will be combined with the Shoryôbu documents and all will be compared and checked against Hiratsuka’s published documents because, as earlier noted, there are many errors in Hiratsuka’s published volumes. After this step, all the documents, including the published ones, will be combined to form a definitive Hisho Ruisan.124 Itô Hirobumi had the opportunity to put a face to the principle of limits to the emperor’s prerogatives in the very first Diet session (1890–1891). Itô is here literally giving Prime Minister Yamagata a lesson on the Dietemperor power relationship over the impasse between the government and the House of Representatives on the revised budget: All the cabinet members know that, the question of constitutionality aside, the revised budget will be passed by the House of Representatives [given mintô strength there]. And the [anti-government] hardliners in the House of Peers guarantee that it will easily pass the Diet. Given this, the emperor will not withhold his sanction [on the budget].

The context makes it clear that the emperor had no choice but to grant his sanction.125



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Even if Itô and the other Meiji leaders intended that the emperor’s powers were circumscribed, they still faced another dilemma, that is, how those other than the emperor would carry out the emperor’s prerogatives enumerated in Articles 5 through 16. They managed to get around the problem by publicly upholding the fiction that the emperor exercised his constitutional prerogatives, while behind the scenes they manipulated him and the institution he represented. Two examples out of a number can be cited to support this proposition. Yamagata, in the first example, is found facing the prospect of having to dissolve the very first Diet session. Itô, in the same letter just cited, is strongly urging Yamagata via Itô Miyoji that: [The cabinet] must state clearly that it has no choice other than dissolving the House of Representatives [if or when it takes this action]. If the reason cannot be articulated to the public’s satisfaction, the step should not be taken. Moreover, the procedures [tetsuzuki] taken should be thought through carefully. The most important of the procedures involves the question whether the imperial rescript should state the reasons for dissolution, or whether it should merely command the House of Representatives to dissolve, leaving the explanation for the action to the prime minister, one that he will make in a separate statement. In the recent past, Napoleon III of France gave the reasons for dissolution in his imperial order. Japan must not emulate this [narau bekarazu].

The specific injunction that it is the emperor’s prerogative to dissolve the House of Representatives notwithstanding, Itô, the drafter of the Constitution, is telling Yamagata that it is the cabinet that makes the decision on dissolution. Moreover, the emperor’s role would be limited to proclaiming the dissolution, an action that would satisfy the requirement of Article 7. He is also stressing the need to set the precedent that the rescript not mention the reasons for the dissolution, a function that would be handled by the prime minister. This division of functions would shield the emperor from political attacks by those who may disagree with the reasons and redirect the attacks instead to the cabinet. In short, early in Japan’s constitutional era, it is Itô, who is not even a state minister with the right to advise the emperor (Article 55), who is prescribing through Yamagata the manner in which this particular prerogative is to be carried out. If the first example has the overtones of an academic lesson given by Itô to Yamagata, the second reveals the exercise of raw power over the emperor for an expressly political end. The time is the fifth Diet session (December 1893). Anti-government forces are seeking to expel Hoshi Tôru, the president of the House of Representatives, from the House by presenting a nonconfidence memorial to the throne. Hoshi, however, is Itô’s ally at this time, so the latter wrote a letter to Imperial Household Minister Hijikata Hisamoto

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­ irecting Hijikata to prepare for the presentation and acceptance of the med morial in precise detail. These directions resembled stage directions: the imperial household minister and the grand chamberlain must be present; when the memorial is presented, the emperor will limit his remark to “I will read it carefully”; however, if by chance, the memorialist reads the contents out loud, the emperor will say nothing and merely accept it; then the emperor will ask the two questions Itô had prepared for the occasion. On the appointed day, everything went exactly according to the script prepared by Itô.126 The manipulation of the emperor was common knowledge among the Meiji-Taishô leaders, political party members, and segments of the press. However, those closest to the throne made every effort to perpetuate the fiction that the emperor was an active political actor who made political decisions. The nature of the subject means that most of the evidence for this is indirect and requires reading between the lines of documents. The original documents relating to the Ôtsu Jiken provide one such hint.127 Hirose recently was able to obtain originals of the Ôtsu Jiken, some of which had not been incorporated by Hiratsuka in the three-volume Hisho Ruisan: Gaikôhen (Tokyo: Hisho Ruisan Kankôkai, 1934–1936). These originals, as noted, had been kept by Hirobumi’s great-grandson, Hiromasa, who gave Hirose permission to photocopy them. A comparison of the originals with those published by Hiratsuka lends credence to the rumor that Hiratsuka made many errors. There are more than forty errors in thirty published pages.128 Moreover, Hiratsuka, in his compiler’s comments, states that he was specifically asked not to include certain documents in the Gai­ kôhen. The Ôtsu Jiken originals reveal that important documents indeed were not incorporated, such as the draft in Itô’s hand of the telegram of apology for the attack on the crown prince sent by the emperor to the Russian tsar. The omission of the draft is significant because it suggests that although no one believed that the emperor wrote the documents sent out over his signature, any evidence that such was not the case could not be made public, as this would show that he was being manipulated. Another example may buttress the proposition under discussion. Sometime in the early 1930s, a bureaucrat in the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal’s office put together a pamphlet, “Shôchoku no Kenkyû” (Makino Nobuaki Kankei Monjo, KS). The purpose was to clarify authoritatively what constituted a shôchoku (imperial rescript), although a legal definition already existed.129 Yet examples abounded that this legal definition was not being followed. This led to confusion, and sometimes to questions in the press, about the inconsistencies. This in turn had the potential of degrading the dignity of the throne, because it suggested that either the emperor was not following a law of the land or that his “will” was being expressed by others who were also careless. This study was labeled “gokuhi.” In this instance, it probably literally



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meant “top secret” or “absolute secrecy required,” unlike the “gokuhi” Yamagata wrote on his “Sambun Teiritsu.” For one thing, the latter constituted his personal opinion, and its leak would have caused little more than embarrassment. The shôchoku study was a public document and its exposure to other than those authorized to know its contents had the potential to create political destabilization. This is because should the study fall into unauthorized hands, it would be used to say that the august emperor had been confused or mistaken about the form in which he intended to express his will, and that his mistakes were now being corrected by bureaucrats. It should be stressed that alternative explanations are possible for the interpretation of the emperor’s role found in these pages. Paulding’s cautionary words that documents lie (epigraph, chapter 2) are pertinent, especially when dealing with any document, including a diary, that purports to show that the emperor personally made decisions on public policy and politics. However, Paulding provides a way out as well by noting that the lies reveal the purpose behind the document. A Summing Up The Meiji leaders were not spending sleepless nights trying to establish a coercive, statist state. The problem, however, was that this state was headed by an emperor who, on the face of it, possessed prerogatives that made him an absolute sovereign. The Meiji leaders, particularly Itô, resolved this dilemma by interpreting the Constitution and manipulating the person of the emperor and the throne in ways that rendered the Meiji emperor and those who succeeded him symbolic heads of a constitutional monarchy. The emperors had no choice in this, but it was for them a comfortable and secure role with a tradition of nearly two millennia. Put another way, it was in their self-interest to have acquiesced, since this had enabled them to outlast all of the power wielders behind them. Carl Steenstrup points out that the tennô (and courtiers) were the first among major monarchies to come up with the solution that enabled themselves to outlast the actual power wielders, and that by a process of “trial and error” the British, followed by the Dutch and Nordic countries, then adopted the principle and practice that monarchs reigned rather than ruled (even though the tennô were “forceful personalities and behaved accordingly”). Thus, the monarchs who “reigned” were normal from Heian times (794–1185 CE) and monarchs who attempted to “rule” as well, like Go-Toba (1183 or 1184–1198) and Go-Daigo (1318–1339), did not succeed.130 Steenstrup could have added that those among the British monarchs who ruled were beheaded, examples that tend to concentrate the minds of those who followed. The structure and nature of government also was plainly designed to be pluralistic. The local entities were given the right of self-governance, and at

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the center, a balance among the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches was created. It was the academically trained bureaucrats such as Tsuzuki who tried to upset this balance by relegating the Diet and the parties to insignificant roles under an all-knowing and all-powerful central bureaucracy. However, given the founding fathers’ commitment to a constitutionally mandated pluralistic system, Japan’s post-1890 political evolution moved inexorably away from Tsuzuki’s formulation of the bureaucracy’s all-knowing, all-powerful role toward increasing party strength and influence over national policy, so much so that within a decade of the Diet’s establishment, no cabinet could be formed without the tacit or overt support of political parties. Itô’s creation of the Seiyûkai in 1900 is evidence of this development.131 The general acceptance of the Meiji Constitution and pluralism by the end of the nineteenth century explains Miyajima’s desire to share in some of the glory for this achievement, observable in his rationale for selfpublishing his Kokken Hensan Kigen in 1906. And Yamagata’s 1917 “Sambun Teiritsu” clearly shows how far the equilibrium had shifted in favor of the parties; in this ikensho, Yamagata is reduced to proposing that a progovernment minor party be formed that would hold the balance of power between the two parties. This ikensho, along with all of his thoughts on the subject since the late 1870s, should make it clear that he was neither anti– national assembly nor anti-party. He was averse to the concentration of power, whether in the executive or the legislative branch. The combination of party power with executive power, he believed, represented overwhelming concentration of power in the legislature peopled by those who did not have the nation’s good at heart, but who simply pursued personal, parochial aggrandizement. Yamagata, however, from an early date foresaw the inevitability of a party-led cabinet, given the Meiji leaders’ commitment to pluralism. Student of history and political realist that he was, he accepted with not a little grace what all the developments since 1890 had pointed to, the type of “party” cabinet created by Hara in 1918.132 Pluralism as Explanation of Choice before the Pacific War The Helen Hardacre volume, The Postwar Development of Japanese Stud­ ies, is suggestive of the approach and contents that follow. In this section, I will address subject matters as different as the “us vs. them” approach to history, the role of women, and the nature and significance of outside influence on post-Restoration political changes. The difference is that I seldom refer here to Japanese works since there is considerable overlap with the analyses in the preceding pages where I have tried to incorporate published and unpublished Japanese sources. There is another reason for concentrating on English language sources in what follows. This is the striking evidence that the works by the latest generation and some of the



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older generations of Anglophone scholars show an exponential advance over the products of the earliest generations, both in the use of published primary documents and the depth and sophistication of analyses. The Anglophone writers on Japan’s political history were nearly unanimous in their assessment that post-1890 Japan was evolving into an even more politically open, free, competitive, pluralistic polity.133 These writers believed that the Japanese electorate was capable of coping with the responsibilities, complexities, and challenges that their polity demanded of them.134 John W. Dower’s position is somewhat different from the one offered. He asserts that with “few exceptions,” the “old Japan hands,” journalists, and academics reputed to be Asia experts stood front and center in denigrating the ability of the ordinary Japanese for self-government.135 Kenneth Colegrove, who taught at Northwestern University and who in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s was one of the two most prominent American political scientists studying Japan (Harold S. Quigley, who taught at the University of Minnesota, was the other), made the perceptive remark that since “practice is the most profound justification of a doctrine . . . it is not too much to say that the Ikki [sic (Ichiki)]-Minobe theory of ministerial responsibility has been a rationalization of the actual tendency in Japanese practice over the course of half a century.”136 The University of Tokyo professor turned political commentator ­Yoshino Sakuzô also reached the same conclusion. The fundamental difference between their interpretation and mine (found in the foregoing pages) is that both Yoshino and Colegrove saw pluralism evolving in spite of the handicaps imposed by the Meiji Constitution. Yoshino, assuming a position reminiscent of Tsuzuki’s, argued that Itô and the bureaucrats under the influence of Dr. Roesler, who praised the “Prussian monarchical autocracy,” instituted the doctrine of direct and personal rule by the emperor that reduced the Diet’s function to that of merely advising the emperor on legislative matters. It was only after a long struggle by the people against the “despotism of the government,” Yoshino insisted, that a British-style constitutional government evolved.137 My reading of English language works reveals that the major exception to the tendency to see a gradual opening of Japan’s political system is the work by McLaren, who in 1916 wrote about the military-bureaucratic cabal headed by Yamagata and Katsura that prevented the emergence of a democratic Japan.138 This position was eclipsed almost as soon as it was articulated, but was then resurrected during the 1930s by some writers. It may or may not be indicative of the relatively low impact that the Manchurian Incident (September 1931) had on American consciousness as well as the strong isolationist mood in the 1930s, but the two American scholars, Colegrove and Quigley, throughout this decade continued to see Japan as a pluralistic state.139 Sandra Wilson lends substance to my intuited

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proposition by noting that when the fighting in Manchuria approached the end in 1933, most Japanese perceived of their world as returning to normal and began to regard the Manchurian Incident as a “discrete episode.” This sense of returning to normalcy was elevated when conflated by the absence of serious international repercussions following both the conquest of Manchurian territory and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.140 T. A. Bisson takes exception to the generalization that the Manchurian Incident had little impact. Bisson, however, provides an interesting study of how the winds of war could influence one’s views. On the eve of the Manchurian Incident, he was a pluralist who confidently asserted that the bureaucrats’ decline was “an obvious fact” and who believed that the parties were in “virtual control of the government.” He also declared that “moderation” was the hallmark of Japan’s foreign policy, which signified that “Japan’s relations with the foreign countries are at present on a sound basis of amity and respect.”141 The Manchurian Incident, however, marked Bisson’s decisive turn from his positive evaluations of pre-1931 political development to a darker statist position. This is evident by the titles of his subsequent reports: “The Rise of Fascism in Japan” and “The Trend Toward Dictatorship in Japan.”142 Dower is correct in noting that at MacArthur’s Tokyo headquarters, Japan specialists were notable for their absence.143 Theodore McNelly, a political scientist who has written on the origins of Japan’s postwar constitution, met Colegrove and Quigley in Tokyo when the drafting of the constitution was an issue. He says, however, that “there is no indication whatsoever that [the expertise of these two most eminent American professors of political science] was drawn upon by the constitution drafters in Government Section [of General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters].”144 I can only speculate, but it is entirely possible that their published views pointing to prewar trends toward an open political society would pose problems for the postwar reformers in MacArthur’s headquarters, who saw as their charge the need for radical surgery from above to cleanse Japan’s body politic of its authoritarian, even dictatorial, legacies. Wartime and Early Postwar Flowering of the Statist Position It should not be surprising that wartime and early postwar scholarship on modern Japanese political history would emphasize the “what went wrong” thesis.145 Nobutaka Ike, in one of the works most cited by immediate post1945 American scholars, held to the Bisson position on the baneful impact of the Meiji Constitution. He asserted, “The hold of the oligarchy was intact and was to remain so [after 1889]. In fact one could say that its hold was strengthened, for now the autocratic practices, which had been developed in the Meiji era, were ‘legitimatized’ and sanctioned by the constitution.”146



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Robert A. Scalapino published another influential work whose title says it all: Democracy and the Party Movement in Prewar Japan: The Failure of the First Attempt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953).147 It should be added that Herbert P. Bix’s overall view of modern Japan harks back to the statist, dismal view of Japan’s modern political development held by McLaren, Bisson, E. H. Norman, and the immediate postwar writers. There was a reaction against this early postwar statist, “failure” position that is embodied in works by Najita, Duus, and Gordon Berger, as well as by Albert M. Craig and others.148 This so-called rosy view of Japan’s modern political history was followed by a counterreaction espoused especially by those disillusioned by America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, some of whom reached back to Norman and his works to substantiate their position, one that has been articulated by John W. Dower and others.149 Rebirth of the Statist Explanation: Bureaucracy as Engine of Japanese State In an ironic twist, the statist interpretation for the events that led to the Pacific War and Japan’s defeat is the explanation of choice of today’s statists in accounting for Japan’s “miraculous” recovery and economic-industrial achievements. The post-1931 statists believed that Japan’s failure to abide by the rules of acceptable international behavior was a root cause of its imperialistic ventures. The post-1980 statists no longer point to khaki-clad militarists, but charge that high-level bureaucrats, industrialists, and businessmen in dark suits, by not using a level playing field, were on the verge of economic domination over the West. The postwar statists are also, as did the post-1931 statists, finding the roots for statism today in the Meiji period. The resurgence of the statist position reveals that the “statist-pluralist” argument remains a fundamental starting point for analyzing the nature and structure of the Japanese state. It is noteworthy that the statist position generally, but not always, rears its head when Japan is seen as a threat. This threat in turn is said to stem from the “fact” that Japan’s political system differs fundamentally from those found in the “democratic” West. The statist position, in short, rejects the alternative explanation that modern Japan’s political evolution in the main followed the trajectory of other pluralistic, competitive, open, and constitutional polities.150 The opening salvo of this resurrection was fired by Chalmers Johnson with his immensely influential MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982).151 David Williams cannot contain his enthusiasm, writing that “Johnson’s effective case for bureaucratic polity as overseer of a developmental state has made MITI and the Japanese Miracle the most consequential text generated by Western political science about Japan since before the war.”

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And yet again, “[MITI is] the most influential study by a Westerner of modern Asian government.”152 A good measure of the impact that Johnson’s developmental state theory had is the appearance of a popular version of it. Michael Crichton, of “Jurassic Park” and “E. R.” fame, weighed in with his Rising Sun: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 1992). This was followed by a film version that starred Sean Connery.153 The Dutch journalist Karel van Wolferen, however, has probably been most responsible for widely popularizing the theory among both Japanese and non-Japanese lay readers. His The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation (New York: MacMillan, 1989) was called by journalist Peter Hadfield “probably the most brilliant analysis of Japanese society to date,” while Jonathan Alter, senior editor of Newsweek, labeled the work “brilliant.”154 Four closely related propositions follow the statists’ “Japanese miracle” thesis. One, Japan’s bureaucrats engineered this miraculous feat. Two, in contrast to the “extremely strong and comparatively unsupervised” bureaucracy, the political parties have been and continue to be weak and ineffectual, and the people’s political role has never counted for much.155 Three, Japan’s laws, including the Meiji Constitution, were and are mere formalities, outer shells beneath which the powerful bureaucracy exercises its de facto power. Four, the roots of bureaucratic power and party weakness are located in prewar Japan. In another context, Johnson says that these qualities make Japan a “soft authoritarian state.”156 Johnson reiterates Yoshino’s emphasis on Prussian influence on the Meiji leaders, but unlike Yoshino, he believes that the Meiji leaders’ adoption of the Prussian “autocratic” system led directly to Pearl Harbor, a position taken by the post-1931 statists as well.157 Eclipse of Statism Williams’s sturdy support of MITI stems from his view that “[h]istory encourages the conviction that the Japanese bureaucracy will, despite shortterm setbacks, remain the crucial bedrock of the nation.”158 The statists’ hold on scholarly and journalistic imagination, however, has been greatly eroded by considerable skepticism expressed by many political scientists, some of whom talk like the pluralists of old. They point out that since Japan is a representative form of government, we should look at the electoral system as an important contact point for the state, the electorate, and their representatives. Aurelia George describes the interpenetration of interest groups and political parties, and while she limits her discussion to the national level, she also stresses that her “analysis can be applied to local politics.” She concludes that the Japanese political system is “an open one and [that] the strength and variety of direct interest group representation in the Diet attests to this fact.”159 John C. Campbell for his part points to “rule by sub-



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­ overnments in which private [nonstate] interests speak loudly” in budgetary g politics. These subgovernments are located in central government ministries but are influenced by political parties that in turn are penetrated by interests representing the electorate.160 Ellis Krauss may be regarded as a pluralist, but with a difference. He takes the statist position to explain the role of the central bureaucracy from 1868 to just after the end of the Meiji period. He writes that post-Restoration Japan was a strong state that was controlled by a handful of men and that this condition persisted for some forty-five years. In other words, during the “entire period” from 1868 to 1913, the Meiji oligarchy “led” Japan and “controlled” the civil and military services, a thesis early propounded by McLaren. Krauss adds, however, that “by the 1920s . . . the Diet became a more representative institution, and the Cabinet, and thus the bureaucracy, more penetrated by politicians and parties.”161 This is, as noted, the position Colegrove and Bisson had taken in the 1930s. The statist explanation then suffered a double blow with the publication, in the span of a mere two years, of Bradley Richardson’s Japanese De­ mocracy and Gerald Curtis’s The Logic of Japanese Politics. The authors share some important perspectives. They are self-described pluralists and explicitly reject the theory of “capitalist developmental state.”162 At the same time, neither dismisses the bureaucracy’s vital and influential roles. Richardson states, “In Japan the power of the bureaucratic ministries is especially great because of legal, structural, historical, and social factors.” Curtis, for his part, points out that “[b]ureaucrats are far more than ‘agents’ of political leaders. They have political power. They control important information and policy expertise.”163 The two also caution against the statists’ predisposition to compare Japan with the United States. Richardson believes that more light is shed when Japan is compared with the “parliamentary systems in other major industrialized democracies,” whereas Curtis warns against using the United States as the yardstick since its political institutions, structures, and practices are exceptions to those found in “other advanced industrialized countries.”164 Finally, they reject “cultural determinism.” Curtis is much more explicit in warning against using the word “culture,” preferring instead to write of the importance of “values and attitudes” and a “style” that “accords with tradition-sanctioned patterns of behavior.”165 Neither, however, dismisses the impact of “cultural preferences” or “tradition-sanctioned patterns of behavior.” Richardson’s use of the term in the context of leadership is relevant to the understanding of Meiji-Taishô political history. He writes: There is a cultural preference for leadership that is not overly autocratic. Although many people in authority are autocratic—founders and heads of large corporations are a case in point—leaders whose style involves consensus seeking earn more praise than those who are more arbitrary.166

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A Final Thought on Political Scientists as Statists Criticism of the statist explanation is not based solely on the statists’ description of Japan’s political order, but also on their methodology. Margaret McKean, for example, asserts that “many statists” start off with “inaccurate assumptions” and “assume, rather than define and test, [their concept of] state strength.”167 Timothy C. Lim gives an example of this when he singles out Johnson for engaging in a “bit of semantic sleight-of-hand” by defining authoritarianism in such a way as to force Japan into a broader analytical framework in which it does not belong.168 The decline of the statist position, moreover, has made Williams defensive: One achievement of Chalmers Johnson remains unmatched by any of his learned critics. . . . MITI . . . was the first study of the political science of Japan to break with the cycle of theoretical dependence upon the Euro-American social scientific mainstream. He held up the promise of academic significance for the political science of Japan.169

Another consequence, an unfortunate one that has no place in scholarly discourse, is some statists’ acrimonious, emotional rejoinders. This may reflect their increasingly isolated position. Andrew Dewit, using the pages of a distinguished academic newsletter, declares that: [Kent] Calder, [David] Friedman, and [Richard J.] Samuels—fearful at the sight of the reanimated Smithian corpus—fled rather than carry Johnson’s torch to shed more light on the new world of industrial policymaking. . . . Calder and others’ unwillingness to defend the thesis of bureaucratic dominance was an act of desertion.170

The Post-1980 Historian as Statist Johnson and Williams, however, would find much comfort in Andrew Barshay’s intellectual history of Imperial Japan. Indeed, his whole thesis hinges on the premise that the bureaucracy was the “crucial bedrock” of the political system. He maintains that “kanson mimpi: ‘exalt officialdom, slight the people/officialdom is exalted, and the people base,’ is perhaps the key to the process by which the Meiji leadership sought to create a modern state,” a state in which “preponderant power lay with official bureaucracy and a transcendent cabinet rather than with an elected representative body,” and that this “proven power of official bureaucracy” “stamped Japanese political evolution with a heavily statist character.”171 His kanson mimpi proposition is, of course, what Tsuzuki based his arguments on when he wrote his “Chôzenshugi.” Barshay’s belief that bureaucratic preponderance is “proven”



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leads him to erroneously state that “[i]t was illegal, of course, to seek to amend the constitution” (Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan, p. 26). Impolitic perhaps, but not illegal, since Article 73 provides for amendment. Moreover, Barshay’s general description of the kan-min relationship echoes what is found in Scalapino’s pioneering early postwar study of political history. Scalapino had written that Yamagata’s opening speech to the first Diet session in 1890 “typified [in its entirety] the bureaucratic approach which one authority had called yorashimubeshi meaning ‘You should depend on us (and ask no questions).’” Scalapino also prefers a wide definition of the bureaucracy that includes “the whole Meiji officialdom” of “Peers, members of the Privy Council, war and navy groups, and Genro.”172 The uniformly highly regarded works by Sheldon Garon at first glance appear to take issue with the statists.173 His methodology, he states, is based on a “more interactive model” in analyzing state-society interaction, that is, the quest to make Japan “modern” captivated a diverse set of actors from middleclass professionals and village elites to higher civil servants. Indeed, the shared desire to modernize the rest of society lay behind a number of alliances between state and societal groups that significantly contributed to the government’s success in managing society during much of the twentieth century.174

This stress on interaction between state and society is laudable, but Garon’s interactive model is still a top-down schema in which he merely expands the top layer and continues to emphasize state “guidance” and “management,” and one in which the people below the “middle-class professionals and village elites” are still acted upon. This is evident from a newspaper article where he points to the “extent to which the Japanese state has promoted economic development by actively managing society itself.” This piece is replete with that theme. Garon writes of the “government’s continuing efforts to mold the behavior of the people,” “social management,” “mobilization of the populace,” “managerial efforts by the government,” of how officials and the media “persuaded the public,” and of the “few areas of what Americans regard as ‘private’ [that] escaped supervision by the state.” Even when he mentions the “tens of thousands” of the citizenry involved at the local level, Garon adds that they did so “within the many state-sponsored trade associations and neighborhood groups.” The same is true of the “millions of Japanese women [who] belong to local women’s associations” and who “for the most part . . . provide the ground troops for many official campaigns.” What we have, therefore, is an interactive model in which the initiative continues to come from the state, or, in Garon’s own words, “[w]hat we witness all too often are not ‘a thousand points of light’ but a concentrated beam emanating from Tokyo, which reveals patterns of social management [that] remain a fundamental fixture of the Japanese political economy.”175

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Sally A. Hastings lends her support to the kind of vision articulated by Garon. She asserts that the “participation bureaucrats,” especially from the Home Ministry, played a central role in tutoring the urban masses in political participation and in establishing welfare programs.176 Yet she hedges on her generalization and asserts that the citizens of Tokyo sometimes learned “on their own . . . the pragmatic lessons on how to operate within a constitutional framework.” Moreover, she points out that the political parties “continued to mediate much of the popular participation” in urban Tokyo. However, she insists that the role of the bureaucrats remained the most consequential. The result, according to Hastings, was the development only of “semidemocracy.” It took the American occupation, she writes, to bring “unconditional democracy” to Japan.177 She seems unconcerned that the occupation was predicated on a top-down tutelage of the Japanese in “democracy,” with the occupation officials assuming the kind of role she had assigned to prewar bureaucrats. The occupation officials, of course, never equated themselves to Home Ministry bureaucrats. Moreover, whether their efforts resulted in “unconditional democracy” is debatable. The “New Pluralists” The “new pluralists” may or may not be of the same chronological age or academic generation, but they are nonetheless linked by a methodology that relies but little on jargon, shows heavy use of primary sources, and judiciously limits the use of theory to push along the narrative. Historians who are either overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the scintillating theorists in our field can take comfort in the words of the political scientist Gerald Curtis: “There is no theory or methodology that offers a short cut to avoid grappling with the effects of complex and distinctive opportunity structures on the dynamics of political action.”178 Jane Goodall recalls that Louis Leakey “preferred that his chosen researcher should go into the field with a mind unbiased by scientific theory . . . [someone] with an open mind, with a passion for knowledge, with a love of animals, and with monumental patience.”179 This quote suggests a way to understand what lay behind the works of those who are here arbitrarily designated “new pluralists.” Goodall could pass muster on the conditions set by Leakey because she was literally first in the field. The “new pluralists,” however, confronted not a blank slate but what is arguably one of the most significant interpretive frameworks in postwar Japan studies: the so-called modernization theory and its explicit thesis that Japan had successfully met the challenge of modernization. The “new pluralists” question that premise by pointing to, among other things, the price society and the people paid for that achievement, including heavy-handed government pressure, the conflict-ridden rather than the harmonious nature of Japanese society, and the



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need to focus not on Tokyo and the central leadership but on the local entities and commoners, including minority groups, women, and the inhab­ itants of territories acquired in the process of modernization. Their works when taken as a whole present a picture of a state and society of immense complexity that refuses to conform to what Bolitho had called “breathtaking generalization.”180 Rather, these studies present a montage in which individuals and groups are positive actors reacting among themselves and with local and central government entities in trajectories that go from top to bottom, bottom upwards, and in horizontal, zigzagged directions, sometimes simultaneously. Conflicts are not overlooked, but neither are the compromises that result in the slow accumulation of gains that are acceptable by most, even if the gains are at times inequitable. An admirable feature of these works is the quantum leap in the use of published and unpublished primary sources. Jeffrey Mass had earlier led the way with his own work, followed by that of his students of medieval history. Herman Ooms, too, strongly emphasizes the absolute necessity of using these sources by showing that Tokugawa village life was “highly legalistic and formalized” and that written documents were essential for both the “village and supravillage authorities.” Legally binding documents were crucial to resolve conflicts and disputes, and even entries in a headman’s diary could become legal and relevant in a court case. Documents were so central that petitions had to be written “in proper form,” and Ooms cites an instance of one that could not be “suppressed” by the authorities, containing as it did an accusation of murder. Disinheritance documents had to be “written [italics his] and certified” before being forwarded to authorities outside the village. In short, regulating conduct in the village was not possible without a paper trail.181 Ooms, in the process of stressing the importance of a paper trail, introduces another facet to the whole question of the so-called peasant uprisings in the Tokugawa period. He notes that the commoners more often than not contended among themselves.182 He underscores this point with the wry observation that “[o]ne cannot avoid the impression that lawyerless Tokugawa Japan was far more litigious than the Japan of today.”183 This is another indication that in the Tokugawa and post-1868 Japan, the “rule of law” was important. For Ooms’s commoners to contend among themselves armed only with legal documents tells us they were as one with White’s commoners, who were not, in his words, “mindless” or “mystified” lumps of clay but were always able to reason and to “calculate the costs and benefits of their own behavior.” In short, their actions were explicable by what he calls “rationality of contention.” And just as important, their rational behavior had consequences, for they were sometimes able “to turn the ideology of domination against the elite themselves” and on “numerous occasions gained what they sought.”184

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If, as Ooms and White suggest, the commoners complicate the neat, pyramid-shape, top-down schema by refusing to conform to their expected role as mere action addressees, the middle-class intellectuals did not always serve the function assigned to them in Garon’s neat, top-down, three-tiered, state-intermediaries-people model. Michael Lewis provides one example of the “middle class professionals,” such as intellectuals, Protestant social thinkers, and anarchist founders of newspapers, who failed to serve their putative function as intermediaries. He writes that the “lack of participation by socialists and anarchists [in the Rice Riots] reflects the lack of contacts between these groups and the ‘masses.’” Moreover, the “leftists failed to exert any ideological or organizational leadership during the summer riots.” In fact, “they were as surprised as officials had been by the sudden outbreaks of widespread unrest.” Furthermore, the mass groups organized after the riots were “generally opposed to a bureaucratic monopolization of politics.” This involved “workers, women, and outcaste minorities” pushing for enlargement of the franchise and the opportunity to participate in the political process. It is noteworthy that Lewis, instead of then saying that the intellectuals “led” the masses, writes that they “supported” the masses’ demands.185 Earl H. Kinmonth gives us another instance of the disjuncture between the people and their supposed “natural allies,” a coalition of elite “reformist and leftist forces” in the capital. This involved the well-known speech by Minseitô Diet member Saitô Takao on 2 February 1940 that courageously criticized Japan’s “holy war” in China. Kinmonth’s essay in one sense can be read to support the proposition that there existed tight links between the government, top-level bureaucrats (including in this instance the military bureaucrats), and the intellectuals. That said, Kinmonth’s point is the existence of a yawning chasm between the “top” and Saitô’s rural constituency of farmers and small businessmen (petty bourgeoisie). Kinmonth believes Saitô was referring to the small businessmen when he repeatedly mentioned the “suffering of the people.” This constituency remained faithful even after he was betrayed by “progressive” or “reformist” members of the Social Mass Party who had joined with the majority to expel him from the Diet. This loyalty was concretely expressed when he was re-elected with the biggest majority in his long political career. This constituency of “postal-workers, gasoline-stand proprietors, and other ordinary people” continued to “speak in almost worshipful terms of Saitô” even after his death.186 This attitude and other concrete actions of respect, according to Kinmonth, contrast greatly with the attitude of two of Japan’s best-known academics, Ienaga Saburô and Maruyama Masao, who “have avoided treating the incident.”187 This gap between middle-class intellectuals and ordinary citizens contradicts the notion of a “concentrated beam of light” from the center to the rest of Japan.



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Kinmonth, indeed, issues a biting indictment against a whole generation of scholars and journalists (who can safely be categorized as being middle-class) over the Saitô case: More disturbingly, the facts of the Saitô incident and its treatment in post-1945 writing, both by scholars and journalists, raises serious questions about motivations, even basic honesty and intellectual integrity, of a whole generation of Japanese writers and by extension those non-Japanese scholars who have failed to question their interpretations.188

Women in the Limelight Tokugawa Period Pluralism as discussed in these pages rejects the top-down model and the concentration on leaders in the center, and it embraces the notion that many actors share the political stage. Some of the more exciting and fascinating recent studies focus their spotlights on the activities of actors largely ignored up to now in Japanese society: women. We turn to Ooms once more. He takes up the actions of an extraordinary, stubborn, strong, illiterate Tokugawa village woman, Ken, who has become a multidimensional historical figure in Ooms’s hands because of the documents she left in her wake as she confronted authorities, including village officials, headmen, and shogunal representatives, on several levels. She adroitly used the Tokugawa system’s compulsion for maintaining order against it, “strategically subverting it to pursue what she judged to be just.” She ignored her superiors’ wish that she adopt her husband, thereby effectively keeping control of her property and her own life until the end, and in the patriarchal Tokugawa society, she also “controlled her three marriages.”189 Ken is not alone. Tadano Makuzu (1763–1825) wrote an essay, Hitori Kangae, one that a copyist declared would put “robust men to shame.” Even the famous author Takizawa Bakin (1767–1848), after reading the essay paragraph by paragraph, was impressed by its “manly spirit.” Unlike Ken, Tadano belonged to the bushi class, but this did not deter her from lambasting it for its ignorance of the “money-dominated culture of the day.” At the same time, she constructively offered ideas on how the economic hardship suffered by her class could be ameliorated. She delved into subjects as diverse as the nature of the cosmos and the relationship between men and women.190 Whatever one may think about her analyses and judgments, the most impressive things about her essay are her repeated statements, “I have never ceased to wonder,” “I have wondered,” “I have long pondered,” and “I have been trying to think how to . . .” It is difficult to disagree with the copyist’s enthusiastic encomium: “I acclaim her as an extraordinary woman.”191 There is yet another type of source not often exploited in narratives or

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political history that may be used to suggest that women were more active participants in the economic, social, and political life of Tokugawa Japan than is usually believed. This is pictorial evidence. At the 1995 meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, a symposium was presented on “Image as Information in Bakumatsu Japan.” An excerpt from the introductory statement perfectly expresses the points I would like to make here: Japanese woodblock prints, although visually compelling, have only sporadically been tapped for the historical and sociological insights they can provide, and have remained a tantalizing but under exploited source of information. . . . In effect, the papers address questions of the political and intellectual importance of visual information by examining the circumstances of its creation, transmission, and manipulation.192

I had earlier been led to explore this avenue by a cartoon in Duus’s presidential address showing traditionally coiffured and attired women attending an 1877 political rally.193 Duus’s speech triggered a memory upon seeing, in a Japanese encyclopedia, reproductions of woodblock prints depicting women visiting shrines, temples, and famous scenic spots. The distances covered by some of the pilgrims were astounding, given such obstacles as the need for travel permits, existence of control barriers, lack of uniform currency, uncertain medical and welfare facilities, and the sometimes difficult terrain. And yet they went. Shinno Toshikazu, in a most enlightening essay, analyzes travels that were “deeply rooted” in the lives of ordinary people. His sources include sixty-five stone monuments found in Miyako city and environs, Iwate Prefecture, that commemorate pilgrimage circuits made by its inhabitants to ten regions in the Western Provinces, that is, the area encompassing Kyoto and Ise. One couple visited an astonishing 188 sites over several pilgrimages. The monuments in Nagano Prefecture, in Japan’s geographical center, show that Nagano’s inhabitants preferred to travel throughout the whole country, making the so-called “Japan tour.” Shinno adds that the absence of monuments does not suggest that pilgrimages were not made. He looks at travel diaries, especially those written by pilgrims going from Edo to Ise (1792–1850). He also makes the significant point that while these diaries do not mention female travelers, women pilgrims were not at all rare.194 This is pointed out as well by Laura Nenzi, who cites from a work by a female traveler, Kiku­chi Tamiko (1785–1864), that records a tour of Sagami, near Edo.195 Perhaps equally revealing in Nenzi’s telling is that pilgrimages no longer served as the primary reason for travelers in the late Edo period. They traveled for leisure and enjoyment, including visiting therapeutic hot springs, consorting with “singing girls,” tasting culinary delights, and following cultural pursuits. Travel became so commonplace that a “travel



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package” industry that advertised the lure of meisho (famous places) became the rage.196 With respect to the subject of pictorial evidence, I called upon two friends, Susan Chiemi Thomas and Tominaga Izumi, for help on the prints.197 They more than generously responded. Thomas sent me colored photo reproductions of eight prints and Tominaga sent eight large colored reproductions (35 cm x 24 cm), some that duplicated prints sent by Thomas.198 I admit to nearly total ignorance on the subject of woodblock prints, so I asked Thomas to discuss with Mr. Philip Henry Roach, Jr., the idea that these prints collectively may serve as a window to a part of the lifestyle of Tokugawa women, especially from the late eighteenth century to the late Tokugawa. Roach is a renowned specialist on the subject. He has completed a manuscript, Japanese Wood Block Print Artists, 1853–1988. He suggested caution, given that the significance of each print is open to a variety of interpretations. That said, for those interested in pursuing the matter, I suggest the following prints:199 1. Andô Hiroshige (1797–1858), Kiga (1852). Honolulu Academy of Arts (hereafter HAA). Gift of James A. Michener (hereafter JAM), 1991 (Accession No. L23462). Two females depicted. 2. Andô Hiroshige, Ashinoyu (1853). HAA. Gift of JAM, 1991 (L23463). Four females depicted. 3. Kikukawa Eizan (1787–1867), Girls Traveling (ca. 1810). HAA. Purchase, 1936 (HAA10501). Three females depicted. 4. Chokosai Eishô (fl. 1780–1800), Amusing Oneself Fishing (ca. 1795). HAA. Gift of JAM, 1959 (HAA14540). One female is fishing, with five other females depicted. 5. Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), Miya: Kuwana e Kaijô Shichiri (ca. 1804). HAA. Gift of JAM, 1985 (HAA19471). Three females depicted. 6. Utagawa Toyokuni (1785-1829), The Storefront of a Fan Shop (ca. 1800). HAA. Gift of JAM, 1991 (HAA22057). Ten females depicted. 7. Katsushika Hokusai, Hara (ca. 1804). HAA. Gift of JAM, 1991 (HAA22506). Two females depicted, accompanied by a male. 8. Andô Hiroshige, Sôshû Enoshima (n.d.). HAA. Gift of JAM, 1991 (HAA2440). Three females and one female child in forefront. In the distance, at least three others, one in a palanquin. The following are all by Andô Hiroshige in Yoshida’s work, and the numerals indicate the print number: 3. Kawasaki: Rokugô Watashibune. Two females and a merchant being ferried across a river. At least three others depicted on the shore, one in a palanquin.

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6. Totsuka: Motomachi Betsudô. A single female traveler depicted. This is somewhat unusual, as ordinarily at least two females are depicted, and if only one, she is accompanied by a male escort. 13. Numazu: Tasogarezu. A single adult female and a female child, accompanied by male servant. According to Roach, females usually made short trips, but in this instance, the travelers presumably traveled all day and are about to reach Numazu. They will then go to the Kompira Shrine in Kagawa, Shikoku. 14. Hara: Ashinofuji. Two females accompanied by a male servant. 20. Fuchû [in the Meiji period, Shizuoka-shi]: Abekawa. This is a particularly interesting print. The lack of bridges across wide rivers is a part of the bakufu control system, one that also included checkpoints. Yet travelers were not deterred. To traverse the river barriers, porters were required. In this print, four figures are depicted utilizing this service. The focus is clearly on the three females, one in a palanquin, another on a litter, and the third on a porter’s shoulders. The lone male, an inconspicuous figure on the right edge of the print, is shown being borne on a porter’s shoulders. It is likely that some of the females depicted in the prints were women of easy virtue. Some travelers took due note of the many prostitutes on the road from Yotsuya to Fujisawa that made it extremely difficult to get through.200 Still, they, like Ken and Tadano, may not have been passive wilting violets. A. K. Coaldrake’s portrait of the female denizens of the licensed quarters that coexisted with the strict, hierarchical, male-dominated Tokugawa society suggests that such was not totally the case. Here in the quarters, the female denizens and their patrons were freed from the constricting weight of the various duties and obligations to their families, occupations, and communities outside. These quarters also leveled the patrons, for here the samurai and urban and rural dwellers were equal, but perhaps with the females more than equal. They did not lead an existence, as the stereotypic view would have it, of unmitigated horror and exploitation; they were instead at the front and center of the quarters. These centers occupied a crucial place in popular culture where the artistic pursuits of the most refined kind could be engaged in.201 Coaldrake also writes of a Tokugawa female stalwart, Rokuji Namuemon (fl.1600–1629), a female impersonator of males, who through this process and with others like her broke down the existing social constraints and established a pattern that can still be seen today.202 Meiji and Post-Meiji Periods The glaring gap in the documents on which conventional research on the upper reaches of the Meiji-Taishô political world are based is that the documents are written by and for males. This is true even with the docu-



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ments of local “men of influence” (meibôka) such as Abei Iwane. Any study based on the assumption that the Meiji-Taishô political world was pluralistic, that the commoners counted for something, must acknowledge the voices and activities of those who constituted at least half the population of Japan. Given the male-oriented nature of the documents I have worked on for two decades and a half, I admit that I have not paid much attention to this subject, so I now atone for my lapse in judgment. Anyone doing serious work on Meiji-Taishô history can do worse than to start with the memoirs of Andô Teru, Okoi Monogatari (Tokyo: Fukunaga Shoten, 1927), and Zoku Okoi Monogatari (Tokyo: Fukunaga Shoten, 1927). Andô (Okoi) was a Shimbashi geisha who became Katsura Tarô’s mistress. She therefore was able to observe and record the political activities of those on the highest levels as well as her perceptive views on their personal traits. Her memoirs, of course, are not limited to these matters, and this further enhances their value. The text is in colloquial Japanese, and given its fascinating contents, its translation, perhaps by a team, may be worth the lengthy effort that would be required. Hozumi Utako, Shibusawa Eiichi’s eldest daughter, was married to Hozumi Nobushige, the famed jurist and one-time president of the Privy Council. She privately published, in 1930, Hahaso no Ochiba.203 This was on the character and life of her mother Chiyoko, Eiichi’s first wife, who had died at age forty. Utako herself left a diary that was published as Ho­ zumi Utako Nikki—Meiji Ichihôgakusha no Shûhen (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobô, 1988). Two other diaries warrant mention. One is Kishida Toshiko, Shôen Nikki, Oki Motoko and Nishikawa Yûko, eds. (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1986); the other is Wada Ei, Tomioka Nikki (Tokyo: Tokyo Hôreishuppan, 1965). The diary writers were not the only females leaving their mark on Meiji society. The more open Meiji-era political, social, and cultural climate gave female performers more leeway to engage in unconventional behavior on stage, such as cross-dressing, which also involved “added feminine touches” that “challenged the very basis of Japanese social structure.” Unconventional behavior by itself would have only titillating effects. However, with the explosive popularity of female gidayû performers, fan clubs were formed, such as the dô suru ren, made up of male university students including those from Waseda and Keio. Female fans, who “admired [the gidayû performers] for their audacity in breaking with social conventions,” also flocked to their performances. The public, Coaldrake writes, was “transfixed” by these performers, for they and their music symbolized Japan’s traditional culture as well as the “much heralded independence of Japanese women.” And importantly, just as Rokuji Namuemon helped to establish a pattern that has come down to the present, the female gidayû performers laid the “foundation for their future recognition as masters—rather than mistresses—in that tradition.”204

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The faceless commoner women in the Meiji era also were not all passive recipients of influence, but were setting agendas as well. Kathryn Ragsdale narrowly focuses on a specific type of novel, the katei shôsetsu, but her article should not be overlooked. She shows that even while the Meiji government was actively trying to define the family and women’s role in it, what Coaldrake calls “gender construction,”205 the katei shôsetsu, written by males for a female audience aged between fifteen and twenty-two, helped to transform that definition. This was because the female readers, who were regarded as “assertive consumers of such fiction,” were presumed to be capable or able to “negotiate directly” with the male authors without the “protective intervention of husband(s) or father(s).” If we accept Ragsdale’s conclusion, we can say that her late Meiji young women, even without the guidance of middle-class female activists, were as modern in their beliefs and actions as their 1990s counterparts. She stresses that the women who exercised choices as consumers did not hesitate to express their views via the tôsho, or what may be rendered letters to the author, publisher, or periodical. They helped in these ways to create “a popular ideology for the katei.” And just as Coaldrake’s female gi­ dayû’s public was Janus-faced, the senders of these letters wanted to preserve many of the aspects of the government’s new gender construction such as “loyalty, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty.” At the same time, they envisioned “an alternative structure” in which “meddlesome in-laws” should be resisted; children may represent a “happy home,” but they were by no means to be regarded as the family’s end all; and the core of the katei was the relationship between wife and husband that was based firmly on “love and trust.”206 Rumi Yasutake did not intend to do so, but she adds still another episode that rebuts Garon’s thesis. She does this by showing that middleclass female leaders could show disdain for those they considered less than their equals. At the first Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference held in Honolulu in 1928, Yamakawa Kikue, the well-known social activist, was particularly upset that a newspaper reporter and primary school teachers were also in attendance. Moreover, Yasutake points to the existence of “tacit elitism and classism” among the organizers. Thus it was that Kiuchi Kyô, Ichikawa Fusae, and five primary school teachers traveled second class while the others went first class.207 Still, the larger picture Yasutake draws cannot be ignored: Japanese female activists along with fellow activists in the Pacific Basin were working actively and earnestly in the interwar years for world peace and democracy. A thread can be woven to bind all these Tokugawa-Meiji, Taishô–pre1945–Shôwa female stalwarts to those in the late twentieth century.208 Here, studies by social scientists on women in contemporary Japan may help us to put in perspective the lives and roles of their predecessors in Tokugawa and post-Restoration Japan. We turn first to the political scientist Robin M. Le Blanc.



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Le Blanc attacks not only the “top-down” statists, but the narrowly focused pluralists as well. She does this by dividing the interpreters into those who focus “primarily on a single set of elite actors,” that is, those who are engaged in “taxi” political science research,209 and those, such as herself, who use a “bicycle” methodology. She describes her approach as the “only attempt in Japanese or English to capture the nature of the relationship between politics and the daily lives of non-elite and Japanese homemakers in the postwar era.”210 She also applies the “taxi/bicycle” metaphor to the Japanese political world. On the one side are those who ride “taxis,” that is, the elites who are transported in chauffeured sedans or taxis, accompanied by dark-suited men, the “campaign workers who directed parking, pick-ups, and drop-offs,” all of which to her symbolized “power, prestige, industry, and officialdom.”211 On the other side is the bicycle riding, nonelite world of the housewife, the women of volunteer groups and the cooperative meeting, the “bicycle citizens” who traverse the nontraditional routes to political participation.212 Le Blanc acknowledges the need of her “bicycle citizens” to use resources made available by powerful politicians, “especially well-placed conservative leaders who could promote and protect a volunteer project.” They are also impelled to team up with ward administrators to accomplish their goals.213 There is no question, however, that for Le Blanc, the division between the worlds of the taxi and bicycle riders is paramount: “In order to defeat politics, [the] volunteers made a pact with the enemy.”214 This perspective is also evident in her reaction to her participation in the re-election campaign of Ono Kiyoko, House of Councillors member from the Liberal Democratic Party. She plainly found the experience not her cup of tea. She describes the world of the women’s volunteer groups and the Ono world of elite politics as being divided by a gap of “mutual incomprehension” and asserts, “The ‘pedigreed’ participation of Ono’s organized political campaign was distasteful to volunteers who recognized how deeply it contrasted with the ‘grass-roots’ ethos of their organizations.”215 Anthropologist Yûko Ogasawara offers a “must read” study of OLs (office ladies) in large corporations. “Must read” because of the persistence in some quarters of egregious misperceptions of their roles and actions. JeanPierre Lehmann proclaims his disdain of Japan’s corporate practice of having highly educated women using “submissive” words (keigo) in “high-pitched voices,” “bowing and scraping” while serving tea, making photocopies, and generally pandering to their male colleagues. He declares that this is a “quite blatant misuse of resources.” He continues by stating that if the OLs choose to do so, it is their choice to make, but it should neither be expected of them nor enforced. His description is a crude caricature and misreads both the OLs’ ability to fight the system as well as the corporate culture that enables them to do so, just as Ken had exploited Tokugawa culture to assert her in-

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tegrity and independence. Moreover, his statement that the “emancipation” of women in Japanese society would unleash Japan’s “creative forces” suggests that he is unaware of the strides women have made dating back to the Tokugawa era and even earlier.216 Ogasawara shows convincingly that depending on the circumstances, Japanese men in authority have to be more sensitive to the feelings of their women subordinates than the other way around, that they take precautions not to offend the OLs, that they also carefully read their moods and curry their favor. She asserts that the care that men exercise not to “arouse their displeasure is extraordinary.” She points out that it is the corporations’ institutional structure that lends itself to this sort of behavior, so that the men cannot easily shift the balance in their favor. In other words, the deprivation of women’s weapons against their male superiors can only come at the price of seriously eroding the males’ own power base.217 There is no denying, however, that the OLs have vulnerabilities. They occupy the lowest rung of the corporate structure, with salaries commensurate with that status. They are young and considered expendable, since after a few years they are expected to leave to get married. They do the routine drudge work: filing, typing, word processing, copying, and serving tea (a chore they detest the most).218 However, against these vulnerabilities exist the corporate structure and practices that more than balance the scale in their favor. Men are generalists and are routinely rotated so they can never hope to learn the details of a given section. The personnel office is centralized and performances are not judged by face-to-face observation. The structure and practices of the corporation, in short, enable the OLs to turn their “weakness into strength.”219 Specifically, they gossip often and loudly. This gossip about disliked males comes to the ears of the personnel office, where it is duly noted that the superiors are not able to control or manage their subordinates or to create an efficient work environment, which jeopardizes their chances for promotion.220 The OLs may refuse to work overtime and thereby confound the deadlines their superiors face in completing their work. They perform the routine work quickly for those they like or admire but for those they dislike they resort to slowdown tactics by strictly following company work rules and sometimes even refusing to do required chores. They wage psychological warfare against unpopular superiors by withholding or keeping to a minimum boxes of chocolates that are now traditionally given to male employees on Valentine’s Day. They finely calibrate the size of bouquets and types of flowers, depending again on their judgments of their superiors. All these actions duly make their way up to personnel offices and influence personnel decisions.221 All in all, this is a “fun” book to read, not in the sense that it is lightweight in content. The OLs’ clever manipulation of the system provoked



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chuckling on more than one occasion. Reading the book, however, resulted in torn feelings. Even while it is easy to applaud the “underdog” OLs, the sarariman who is sandwiched painfully between the top and bottom can be the object of some sympathy. It is hard indeed to be a sarariman in Japan. Might it not be possible that if a rigorously conducted poll were taken that asked sarariman the question: “What would you prefer to be born as the next time, a sarariman or an OL?” the result may very well surprise us? Finally, it is possible that there is more continuity than meets the eye on the role of women in Japan. History teaches us that while things change, they change but slowly; it was the merchant Jorge Alvares, who in the sixteenth century noted that despite the “absolute power” enjoyed by the husband, it often was “the wife who ruled the roost.”222 “Us” vs. “Them” The “us vs. them” premise that underlies Le Blanc’s methodology and interpretation detracts from her study that in many ways sheds new light on the public activities of energetic, idealistic housewives trying to engage themselves in the “bicycle” world of politics. Her study is reminiscent of the approach taken by Japanese Marxist and minshû historians who concentrated on the “contention” between the Meiji government “enemy” and commoners.223 The consequences of this contention, they maintain, was the stifling of democracy, the rise of militarism, and the disastrous Pacific War.224 We see here, perhaps unintended by the proponents of the contrastive “statist” and “commoners first and foremost” interpretations, a convergence in their conclusions that logically follows from their respective positions. There are two problems with the “us vs. them” approach. One, it creates an artificial and unbridgeable chasm between and among political actors and groups that blinds these scholars from seeing the connections that are actually taking place among them, and it deprives them of the opportunity to note the possibility that these connections can transform all concerned. Two, the approach is highly value-laden and divides political actors and groups into the “good” (the bicycle riders, the commoners), the “bad” (the “taxi riders,” conservative politicians, bureaucrats, militarists, the oppressive, tyrannical governments), the “admirable” (the nearly faultless Norman), and the “less than admirable” (Reischauer).225 A recent version of this approach is the “white hats” vs. “black hats” division of Imperial Japan’s political actors and, in this instance, of the world at large as well. Dickinson, after first paying homage to the “enormous complexity” of Imperial Japan’s political history, then staunchly asserts that historians “can and should [italics mine] identify the most fundamental source of tension” in Imperial Japan and, in the process, “choose . . . a clearly definable roster of heroes and villains.” His hero is Katô Takaaki, the “most ardent Anglophile” of his

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time, while his villains are Yamagata and the members of his military-bureaucratic faction who are pro-Imperial Germany and influenced in their nation-building efforts by German models.226 Gordon Wright, in his presidential address to the American Historical Association, described the “liberal temperament” as one that is, among other things, aware of “ambiguity as a profound and pervasive presence in human affairs.” However, unlike Dickinson, Wright correctly rejects the notion of “a black and white world in which the battalions of good and evil line up in serried ranks.”227 It may be added that those who espouse the “us vs. them,” “white hats vs. black hats” approach are committing what David H. Fischer designates the “fallacy of declarative questions”: If a historian goes to his sources with a simple affirmative proposition that “X was the case,” then he is predisposed to prove it. He will probably be able to find “evidence” sufficient to illustrate his expectations, if not actually to sustain them. . . . If [a historian] substitutes a declarative for an interrogative statement, then the result is literally a foregone conclusion. The best will in the world won’t suffice to keep him honest.228

The foregoing critique cannot by any means detract from the fact that the Marxist and minshû historians and Le Blanc and Groemer have provided needed insights into the “nonelite” world and have shown that these commoners, and in Groemer’s case outcastes, have been and remain positive actors worthy of their places in history. How Much Western Influence? Several questions remain on the subject of the creation of Japan’s modern state. If, for example, the Meiji leaders opted for a pluralistic form of government, why did they so choose? The answers will take us too far afield, but for now it can be said that the documents reveal motives that may shatter preconceived notions. One final issue, however, will be considered here because of the appearance of several studies that shed light on the question of Western influence on a modernizing Japan. The newness and Western nature of the political institutions are two of several reasons for saying that the post-Restoration changes were “revolutionary” or involved a “crash program.” There is no denying that institutions such as public elections, a national assembly, education, conscription, tax, and a local government system, all with nationwide reach, were new. There is also no question that the Meiji government assiduously studied Western precedents. This willingness to learn from the West is one reason why disparate scholars decades apart such as Yoshino and Johnson have concluded that Prussian influence was decisive on Japan’s constitutional government.



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They cannot be blamed because Osatake Takeshi, a prewar doyen of MeijiTaishô political history, had confidentially asserted that: Inoue [Kowashi] sounded out Roesler’s views on every conceivable matter. It would thus not be an exaggeration to say that our constitution was really drafted with Inoue listening with one ear to Roesler.229

There is no question that on issues large and small touching on constitutional and legal questions, one can almost hear those involved saying: “Run this past Roesler.”230 Still, the issue is more complicated than I had believed in 1967, because on some matters more than one adviser was asked, as in the instance where one of the questions asked of Roesler was also asked of Albert Mosse.231 The difficulty is compounded because there is not much on the backgrounds and ideas of these “Prussian” advisers in nonJapanese sources.232 Johannes Siemes is one of the few who has looked into this area. He notes that Itô Hirobumi, in 1882, wrote from Berlin, where he was studying constitutions, and reported that “I have discovered that Roesler is inclined to freedom. He is an adversary of Prussian politics.” Siemes adds, “In Germany, [Roesler] was remembered as a violent adversary of Bismarck.”233 These are interesting observations, since Prussia and Bismarck are commonly assumed to have had a great impact on Itô. The process of adoption involved, of course, something more complex than the relationship between Meiji leaders and their foreign advisers. Ikegami cautions against one danger that the researcher on this subject must avoid: rigidly applying the Weberian hypothesis to different cultures, which would obscure seeing the “logic” and “nature” of a particular culture’s “symbolic resources on its own terms.”234 Moreover, John Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert Craig make an obvious point—one that is, however, often ignored—that Western techniques, institutions, and ideas in the process of being borrowed, “naturally had to be adapted to local conditions” and in the process “greatly modified.”235 Sir Hamilton Gibb, an intellectual historian specializing in Islamic culture, expands on the Fairbank-Reischauer-Craig formulation by proposing what he calls “laws”—but what I would prefer to soften as “general statements”—on the process of cultural borrowing. These “laws” may serve as useful reference points for the Japan specialist interested in this subject. The first “law” is that cultural influences from without are always preceded “by an already existing activity in the related field” found within the recipient culture; this state of affairs is what provided the incentive to borrow in the first place. And it is the lack of this “already existing activity” that forecloses the possibility of “creative assimilation.” The second “law” is that a viable culture permits that which is borrowed to develop only if it adapts and blends with its “native forces,” but opposes “with all its power [its] over-luxuriant

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growth.” And three, a living culture “disregards or rejects all elements in other cultures which conflict with its own fundamental values, emotional attitudes, or aesthetic criteria.”236 Let us see how Japan’s experience in adopting constitutionalism can lend substance to Gibb’s formulations. George B. Sansom, one of the great pioneers of Japan studies in the West at the twentieth century’s midpoint, appears to go beyond Gibb’s first law by his emphatic proposition that the Meiji Constitution was “surprisingly” similar to the constitution that could have been enacted without reference to foreign examples had the government “logically pursued the line of development that it had already taken during its conflict with opposition parties.”237 Sansom’s basic thrust in this work is to use several case studies to accent the great strength of Japan’s indigenous culture over Western influence, and this accounts for the unconditional tone of his statement. A case-by-case, institution-by-institution analysis would better serve the historian’s purpose by revealing that Western influence cannot be summarily dismissed even if the emphasis in this monograph is on the strength of Japan’s institutions and ideas. Here we shall examine three institutions central to the nature and structure of Japan’s modern polity and leaders who helped to shape them. One, Inoue Kowashi, who was deeply involved in providing the intellectual underpinnings for Meiji Japan’s constitutional and legal institutions, undeniably looked to the British model for Japan’s modern monarchy.238 This is a clear instance of the use of a foreign model. But matters are not as simple as they seem on the surface, for here, the purpose served by the foreign model was not to create something “new,” but to justify continuing the centuries-old imperial role as a political symbol. Two, Yamagata and his staff undoubtedly valued Mosse’s views in establishing the local government system. However, Yamagata says that they were also involved from the earliest stages in “studying widely” traditional domestic local government practices and institutions in tandem with foreign precedents. Yamagata condenses into a few words the balance between domestic and foreign influences on the final law. He states that because Japan had relations with the Powers, “it was necessary to use as reference [sankô] the legal form [keishiki] of European systems.” The implication is that the Powers would, because of its familiarity, consider Japan’s “new” local government system as being modern. However, he also left no doubt that he considered Japan’s traditional practices and institutions as the more significant, saying that “for the draft of the law, the foundation was our country’s traditional spirit of local government, but for the [technical] language we turned to the German structure [keitai] since it was the best available.”239 Three, the heart of John O. Haley’s The Spirit of Japanese Law is his argument that except for a handful of countries sharing a legal heritage



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shaped by their history as British colonies, all others reflect the “profound influence of Roman law,” and as a consequence, Japan has “more in common with its industrial peers than with its own past,” especially in civil law.240 One can argue from this that even if we grant the importance of Roesler’s contribution in creating Japan’s legal system, since the Roman law heritage was shared by more than one Western power, it will be difficult to conclude that one country provided the basic inspiration. Furthermore, as Masako Kobayashi Ikeda has shown, Kowashi asked the Frenchman Boissonade more than two hundred questions on the legal system. Moreover, Haley’s approach to his task is to emphasize the Japan perspective since, in keeping with the book’s title, he insists that “[Japan’s] values are important” and that its social actions are conditional on “shared values, beliefs, and expectations, in other words, culture.”241 “The distinctive feature of Japan’s experience is its autonomy,” he adds, and “foreign models were not imposed but truly self-selected.” He also spends many pages analyzing the implications of what he considers the most dominant and enduring value, “Japan’s communitarian orientation.”242 The stress Haley places on “shared values, beliefs, and expectations” is given greater emphasis in the work by Ian Melville, a New Zealander, and for good reason—he had to work directly with the Japanese for his livelihood. He learned firsthand how to export to Japan, then proceeded to set up a company. This compelled him to deal with Japan’s distribution system—a tremendous learning experience. In the end, he was able to successfully market his product. He then became an academic, teaching at Sophia University. David W. Russell, who wrote the foreword, categorically states, “I doubt there is any other Westerner who understands trading with Japan from the inside out.”243 Among the requirements for doing business in Japan, according to Melville, is to be aware of the importance of “attitude” (italics his), such as deep-seated Japanese expectations and values. He is one with Haley in emphasizing the “communitarian orientation” that finds expression in “interdependence” (italics his), which means fitting in a group, cooperating with others, and distrusting the person who goes it alone. In short, because the business of business in Japan is eminently a social matter, the successful businessman must “meet the Japanese on their terms.” Melville, it must be added, talks like a historian when he anchors Japan’s business success to basic and lasting factors that antedate “post-World War II democracy,” that is, historical and deeply imbedded factors.244 The next study is not specifically related to the issue of foreign influence on the nature and structure of Japan’s modern state. It is relevant because it directly addresses itself to the question of foreign impact on Japanese behavior and institutions. William M. Tsutsui takes up the adoption and adaptation by the Japanese of “Taylorism” (after the American mechanical engineer

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Frederick Winston Taylor [1856–1915]), also known as scientific management.245 Tsutsui shows that in the area of scientific management, outside influence was greater than can be said for Meiji-Taishô constitutional and political developments. He asserts that “scientific management spread further, remained relevant longer, and penetrated deeper in twentieth-century Japan” than previously believed by students of Japanese management.246 Yet he also characterizes the penetration of Taylorism in Japan as “a century-long dynamic of foreign inspiration and indigenous adjustment.” In short, Japan’s economic, social, political, and technological development, and the process of “digesting, adjusting, and internalizing” Taylorism, resulted in the “subtle reshaping” by the Japanese of Taylorism into a “specifically” Japanese approach to modern management.247 This is as apt a description of the process of adoption and adaptation as recently seen. His other conclusions also appear to lend credence to some of the generalizations made earlier in this chapter, such as the uneven progress in educational reform. Tsutsui writes that the spread of scientific management’s production techniques in Japan was “relatively slow” as well as “spotty.” This means that some methods were widely applied, others were adopted only after much change by the Japanese, while still others were ignored or abandoned. Moreover, he says that some industries like textiles accepted Taylorism with alacrity, while others seemed to be inoculated against this foreign import.248 Another of his conclusions is a striking one, one that also underscores a major contention made in this chapter. He states that despite the commonly held scholarly contention of “bureaucratic omnipresence,” the amount of “direct state intervention” in the process of managerial modernization was “remarkably limited”: technological embedding and technological diffusion of Taylorism were not the “top-down” accomplishments of an activist Japanese state, but were orchestrated “from the middle out” by an emergent stratum of management intellectuals and professional practitioners.249

Still another conclusion is Tsutsui’s stress on the “broad parallelism” between Japanese and Western practices that shaped the Japanese experience in scientific management.250 This emphasis is redolent of the first of Gibbs’s “laws,” that is, cultural influences from without are always preceded “by an already existing activity in the related field” found within the recipient culture. It is possible that one example of “an already existing activity” with roots in the Meiji period, if not earlier, may in part explain the appeal of Taylorism in Japan. In the following exposition, it is important to keep in mind that a significant element of Taylorism is the “quality control circle.”



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The Abei Iwane papers and my longtime residence in Japan have led me to what I have arbitrarily labeled the “benkyôkai (study group) phenomenon” as one explanation for the relatively widespread understanding and acceptance of Western constitutional principles and practices by the politically involved throughout Japan. These groups, limited here to those found in the localities, whether they were self-help, study, or enlightenment groups, were organized by local leaders. They met regularly and at considerable expenditure of time and funds to learn about Western constitutional government, principles, and practices. They used texts such as Fukuzawa’s Seiyô Jijô, invited Tokyo-based “intellectuals” to lecture, and exchanged information and knowledge with other benkyôkai.251 During the translation of the papers on the activities of the Nihonmatsu “benkyôkai,” I came across an article on W. Edwards Deming and his “key” role in the introduction and spread of quality control circles in Japan. I wondered if the ready “acceptance” of quality control circles was not somehow related to the “benkyôkai” phenomenon, that is, the Japanese had already long practiced their own version of quality control circles. I raised this possibility with a colleague, Professor Robert R. Locke, now retired, who specialized in European business and economic history. He replied that the connection seemed plausible and said that Deming’s contribution was that he superimposed statistical methods on what Japanese already knew and practiced. He added that Deming himself, in later speeches and writings, admitted that he had learned more from the Japanese than they had from him. Tsutsui confirms the correctness of Locke’s explanation. He notes that while the Japanese leaders of quality control circles had “fully embraced” Deming’s statistical approach, they had “arrived at their understanding independently of Deming’s teachings,” and that he was preaching to the choir.252 The proposition that there is a connection between the “benkyôkai” phenomenon and the quality control circles may very well represent a “leap of faith” propelled by my possible misunderstanding of Taylorism and quality control circles. The following anecdote is offered to support the proposition that the practices of benkyôkai and quality control circles may have welled up from within Japanese tradition. On the evening of 11 August 2000, one of our local television stations in Hawai‘i showed a program on ramen (a type of noodle) shops in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, in northern Japan. One segment featured a group of perhaps eight novice proprietors who meet regularly to discuss and share information not only on how to improve the quality of their products, but also on how to attain and maintain uniform quality in their offerings. This segment appears to show an archetypical example of a benkyôkai/quality control circle, one that apparently had come into being without exogenous influence. An alternative explanation is, of course, that it represents a confirmation of Tsutsui’s proposition that Taylorism “penetrated deeper in twentieth-century Japan” than previously imagined.

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It should be evident by now that the Japanese perspective has been emphasized in judging the weight of Western influence on the creation of the modern Japanese state. This emphasis cannot obscure the fact that the Western powers’ existence was never for a moment far from the minds of the Meiji leaders. The motives for establishing a modern state, in short, can in large part be answered by understanding the Meiji leaders’ reactions to the perceived threat from the powers as well as in their reading of the powers’ histories in modernizing. A recent study suggests, however, that it is still essential to weigh more heavily the Japan perspective in order to understand its relationship with the outside world. The political scientist Leonard Schoppa looks at the role of gaiatsu, or “foreign pressure,” in the Japanese policymaking system, in his case, negotiations over U.S.-Japan trade. He emphasizes strongly the perspective from Japan’s side, saying that what needs to be done for the negotiations to succeed is to better understand how “foreign pressure operates within the Japanese political system,” because politics in Japan makes sense in Japanese terms. He asserts that foreign demands work when they are presented as in “Japan’s national interest” and when “latent support” can be found for gaiatsu “outside the bureaucratic and interest group circles,” support that includes public opinion. In short, “allies in Japan.”253

Cha p ter 5

John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix

You become deeply suspicious of any sort of grand answers. You’re always looking at the small print and fussing about detail. You come to mistrust rhetoric, and certainly the evidence of twentieth-century history shows that grand ideas can be killers on a monumental scale. History teaches you that progress is a matter of inching forward, and don’t expect too much, because if you do, you’ll always come a terrible cropper. — Norman Stone

Dower on the “Modernization Theorists” John W. Dower was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for his Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999). In 1975 he wrote a one-hundred-plus-page introductory essay to Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman (New York: Pantheon, 1975).1 It was praised as “brilliant,”2 “eloquent,”3 and a “minor classic.”4 It may be said that this piece marked the beginning of his muchheralded ascent to the rarefied heights occupied by the most highly regarded, active Japan specialists.5 The essay is still being read and commented upon, with Simon Partner describing it as a “classic introduction” characterized by “sustained and often brilliant causticity.”6 Andrew Gordon also praises Dower’s “brilliant polemic” and adds “I doubt I am the only person for whom Dower’s polemic had a major impact on thinking and practice as a graduate student and professor . . . [that his critique] should have been addressed directly at some length, whether to problematize its shortcomings or affirm its ongoing relevance.”7 Perhaps the most explicit affirmation of the widespread and enduring legacy of Dower’s essay on many Anglophone scholars of Japanese history is by Mark Lincicome. He declares that after Dower’s “seminal essay,” a generation of “revisionist” scholars animated by a “common aversion” [italics mine] to modernization theory and its connection to historical works tainted by cold war imperatives gradually altered Anglophone historiography on modern Japan. He states, furthermore, that if their narratives have become “more commonplace” in the marketplace of the post-Dower historiography, it does not detract at all from their “refreshingly creative approaches” toward revising history or “their illuminating conclusions.”8

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The ideological issues Dower raised were based on values that were widely shared by the history writing fraternity in the United States. These values, as noted, still remain at the core of some of the works being published at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries. In 1980, the American Historical Association published a study on the state of the history field in America.9 Michael Kammen, in his introduction, “The Historian’s Vocation and the State of the Discipline in the United States,” notes the “stunning inversion” that has occurred with respect to two traditional values that had informed “American historical writing from its professionalization in the 1880s until the 1960s.” He sees a shift away from the stress on nationalism, the first of these values, to national self-criticism, cynicism regarding the motives of leaders of the country, attacks upon formulators of American policy, and serious doubts about liberalism and the liberal tradition in the United States. He also perceives that detachment, the other value, has given way to the propositions that a historian had a responsibility to make moral judgments and to “admit [and even profess] an emotional or ideological engagement in his or her subject.” He points out as well that nearly all the subdisciplines in the history writing guild in the United States concerned themselves with the theme of “intergenerational relations—often involving conflict— and social change,” and that this concern grew out of the domestic turbulence during the 1960s.10 Dower in his introduction illustrates well all the developments described by Kammen. Mikiso Hane’s position stated a generation ago still retains its relevancy today: “[Dower] does raise serious questions about ideological issues which should be aired and debated.”11 Dower has three basic concerns in his introductory essay. The first is to link Edwin O. Reischauer, John W. Hall, Marius B. Jansen, Robert N. Bellah, Albert M. Craig, Henry Rosovsky, Robert A. Scalapino, and James W. Morley—the “modernization theorists”—to the “relegation of [E. H.] Norman’s writings to the bibliographies of the West.” The second is to show that their views, studies, and activities “assumed the cast of a counter-ideology congruent with the United States Government’s crusade against Marxism and radicalism,” in short, their scholarship was “bent to the contours of the Cold War.”12 The third is to affirm that good values, humane values, are a necessary component of scholarship, including the writing of history. He sustains this position by contrasting Norman the man and his writings with the scholarship of his successors. I discuss his third proposition now since it serves as a backdrop for what follows. Dower justifies Norman’s place on a higher plane than his successors on three grounds. One, Norman, unlike Reischauer, was exhilarated by “genuine people’s history” because he believed in the “decency and innate wisdom of the common man” and in the “cause and ultimate vindication of the little man.”13 Two, Norman focused on the repressiveness of both the



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Tokugawa and Meiji governments that led to the “tragedy of the common people.” Dower contrasts this humane sensibility with the clinical, sterile detachment of Norman’s liberal successors who praise the top-down, gradualist, enlightened, and successful Meiji policies. These successors, moreover, are “gentle on capitalism” and infatuated with “rationalization, mechanization, and [their] belief in progress.”14 Three, Norman believed that the study of history had a didactic function in that it “could set men free,” that history “should [Dower’s emphasis] be political . . . by guiding men toward enlightenment and civilized behavior.”15 In other words, basic human values must be stressed in the writing of history. Dower reminds the reader that Norman, who “made no pretense at hiding his sympathies,” clearly would have been made distraught by his successors’ “apoliticality” and “scholarly detachment” and the “amorality of [their] ‘value-free’” scholarship.16 And, the pivotal figure in the politics of scholarship for Dower is Reischauer, who, as Gary Allinson states, “attracts the greatest invective for reasons that Dower laboriously documents.”17 In other words, Reischauer’s works exhibit qualities that stand in stark contrast to the laudable attributes Dower finds in Norman’s works. A memorandum written by Reischauer in 1942 may compel a reassessment of Dower’s dark portrait of him. I was led to the document by an article on the 442nd Regimental Combat Team titled “Origins of the 442nd” (Hawaii Herald, 3 January 2003), an abridged version of a paper by Ted T. Tsukiyama.18 The last paragraph of the article caught my eye. There Tsukiyama lists five names, the “unsung forefathers of the 442nd,” who, he says, should be honored and remembered for their contribution to the cause of the nisei’s right to bear arms for their country. Among the five is Edwin Reischauer, who, as Tsukiyama writes, conceived and promoted the concept. I was unaware of Reischauer’s role in the establishment of the nisei forces (including language specialists). To pursue the matter, I asked Tsukiyama to send me documentation on Reischauer’s contribution.19 The document was Memorandum on Policy towards Japan, by Edwin O. Reischauer, 14 September 1942.20 On reading it, I recalled going over, in summer 2002, a three-page excerpt of Naoki Sakai’s “‘You Asians’: On the Historical Role of the West and Asia Binary,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 99 (Fall 2000). These pages did not include the footnote pages. Sakai, in these three pages, discusses Reischauer’s position on how the U.S. occupation forces should deal with the emperor. In his article, he notes that Reischauer points to the incarceration of those of Japanese ancestry in internment camps, but not to the specific remedy Reischauer proposed to right this injustice.21 The memorandum is in two parts. The first discusses Reischauer’s proposal on the use of the emperor, as Sakai correctly stresses, as a “puppet” in the service of the occupation.22 This suggestion did not surprise me, and neither did his point that “a healthy political and economic situation cannot be

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created [in the Far East] without the participation of the people of Japan.”23 In one of his lectures, he pointedly stressed that—and I am here paraphrasing, “you simply cannot lead the ninety million people of Japan by the nose, like oxen.” That I would recall this statement more than fifty years later shows the impact these words had on me. It is true that in his works, he praised the role of the Meiji leaders, but he never failed to also emphasize the importance of popular participation in the political, social, and economic life of the nation.24 It is the second part of the memorandum that should decisively put to rest the characterization of Reischauer as being insensitive to the “tragedy of the common people,” “apolitical,” “amoral,” and “detached from the people’s sufferings.” Reischauer starts with the assertion that “the second and more important point [italics mine] I wish to make has to do with the interracial aspects of the conflict in Asia.” He writes that the removal of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and Japanese aliens from the West Coast, “while no doubt” necessitated by “immediate military considerations,” has provided the Japanese government with a “powerful argument” to win over the peoples of Asia by showing them that the “white race” is not willing to look on them as equals, but continues to discriminate against them. He proposed to remedy the situation by enabling the nisei to serve in the armed forces.25 To do this, he wrote, would provide evidence that the war was not a “racial war to preserve white supremacy in Asia, but a war to establish a better world order for all, regardless of race.”26 Let me put Reischauer’s recommendation in a context that sharpens its extraordinary significance. On 26 June 1942, a special board of officers was created by the War Department’s Adjutant General’s Office to make recommendations related to the “Military Utilization of United States Citizens of Japanese Ancestry.” This board met throughout the summer, and its conclusions and recommendations were approved on 14 September 1942, by happenstance, on the same day as Reischauer’s Memorandum. The board’s words speak for themselves:27 Conclusions a. [That the group of 14,000 nisei be used for military and civil purposes]. . . . provided an appropriate placement may be found for such a distinctive class of individuals, so marked by racial appearance, characteristics, and background, that they are particularly repulsive to the military establishment at large and the civilian population of the United States. b. That the lone fact that these individuals are of Japanese ancestry tends to place them in a most questionable light as to their loyalty to the United States. Recommendations a. That in general, the military potential of United States citizens of Japanese ancestry be considered negative because of the universal distrust in which they are held.



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b. That certain individuals . . . be used for intelligence or for specialized purposes.

A final point on Reischauer the person needs to be made. Sakai states that Reischauer, after the war, was involved in the treatment of Korean residents in Japan. He then charges that it is “manifest” that Reischauer harbored a “racist attitude” toward Asians in general, but especially toward the Koreans in Japan, in short, that he was an insensitive, prejudiced individual. As evidence, he directs the reader to Reischauer’s foreword to Edward G. Wagner’s The Korean Minority in Japan, 1904–1950 (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1951).28 It is possible that Sakai came to his conclusion by reading Reischauer’s statements that the Korean minority “created many annoying complications for the American occupation forces” and that it pre­ sents “the seemingly insoluble problem . . . as an unassimilable minority” in Japan. I then went to Wagner’s introduction. Reischauer basically has encapsulated Wagner’s discussion. Let us now follow Sakai’s dictum and place matters in “concrete historical situations.”29 In the immediate postwar period, as Wagner notes, the Korean minority “has been a constantly irritant force.” The Koreans have “in no way identified themselves with the conquered Japanese” but tended to consider themselves as part of the conquering forces. Moreover, they usually acted as if Japanese law was “inapplicable to them.” Their activities in the economic sphere also sometimes hindered efforts to revive the economy, and their interference with education reform resulted in declaring a state of emergency in Kobe in 1948. Therefore, the Korean minority “presented the occupation with a unique and difficult problem.”30 Sakai’s article is relevant for a dissection of Dower’s introduction for another reason. He links Reischauer’s discussion of the emperor’s role in Reischauer’s memorandum to the “overall design” of U.S. policies toward postwar Japan. He declares, furthermore, that Reischauer has been consistent in his positions as revealed in his later works, such as Japan: Past and Present (1947) and Wanted: An Asian Policy (1955). Sakai charges that nearly all of Reischauer’s prescriptions on Japan and East Asia were carried out by the U.S. government after the war. He writes without providing any evidence that “this fact is most uncannily indicated by the marker ‘@ Harvard University’” at the end of Reischauer’s memorandum. Contrary to Sakai’s assertion, what I see at the end is simply: Edwin O. Reischauer Faculty Instructor in Far Eastern Languages Harvard University

There is surely nothing remotely unusual about a self-introduction or identification that is found at the end of any formal letter or presentation

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in official business, social, academic, or professional matters, repeated daily thousands upon thousands of times. Yet for Sakai, the “marker” had “intimated the historical destiny and political significance of Japanese studies at Harvard University in the U.S. domination of Japan.”31 It does nothing of this sort, but Sakai’s article provides further evidence that the “Dower line” is clearly alive and well in the last year of the twentieth century. Dower on Reischauer Dower’s whole case against the modernization theorists stands or falls on the validity of his charges against Reischauer. I propose to question Dower’s “indictment” by the positivist method. I have read every document he cites and more. I have also corresponded with those on whom Dower constructs his case.32 Dower, throughout his introduction, allows that the views and scholarship of the modernization theorists are complex and differing and not of one piece. Moreover, he concedes that Reischauer’s specific positions have been challenged.33 These nods to complexity, however, are invariably followed by either an explicit or implicit “yet,” “but,” or “still,” after which Dower makes a positive, declarative statement that nullifies the qualification. This approach is especially evident in his case against Reischauer, which rests on the premises that Reischauer the scholar and his works established the “orthodoxy,” the “line,” and “agenda” for the field that coincided with the five political objectives of the U.S. government, and that this “Reischauer line” influenced the modernization theorists.34 Dower develops his arguments against Reischauer by using four written sources and the Hakone Conference (1960), where modernization theory was discussed.35 I will limit my critique to the four written sources with brief references to other sources Dower cites throughout his introduction and to personal correspondence. Dower on Japan: Past and Present Dower notes correctly that Reischauer “endorsed some of the basic general themes of Norman’s [Japan’s Emergence].”36 Actually, it is much more than “some” given that Dower lists eleven major points on which Reischauer and Norman agreed. Since all these points come from two chapters, 10 and 11, of a very short work, one can agree with Dower that “Reischauer’s debt to Norman’s pioneer formulations was considerable.”37 Indeed, in his autobiography, Reischauer admitted that when he published Japan: Past and Present in 1946, he was “much under the influence of the dominant Marxist interpretation of the day,” and he pointed specifically to the strong influence that Norman’s Japan’s Emergence had had on his writing.38 Dower’s stress on “some,” in spite of the great overlap between Japan’s Emergence and Japan:



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Past and Present, is to show that from “an early date . . . Reischauer’s emphasis was on the more successful aspects of prewar Japanese developments and particularly on the democratic tradition in presurrender Japan [italics Dower’s].”39 This proposition serves as the backdrop for Dower’s allegation that after April 1952, one of the “political objectives of the American Government . . . [was] to woo the Japanese to the capitalist camp . . . [by] emphasizing . . . the most successful aspects of Japan’s modern development.”40 There is more to Japan: Past and Present about which Dower does not inform his readers. In the prefaces to the second and third editions, Reischauer writes that the “principal change in my interpretation has been to stress those forces opposed to the growth of democracy rather than the democratic tendencies themselves.” He goes on to state that his basic view has not changed but that he felt the “need to adjust the argument to the reader.” In 1946, he had noted a “marked tendency among Americans” not to see the “spontaneous growth of democracy in prewar Japan,” whereas at present the tendency is to “over estimate its strength.”41 Moreover, and this is crucial, Reischauer in the third edition italicized the word “opposed.” In short, the stress on the existence of antidemocratic forces in prewar Japan is the impression this reader took with him in the later editions. One more aspect of Japan: Past and Present should give pause to anyone who asserts that it was intended to influence American scholars studying Japan. Reischauer was clearly writing for the general public. George B. Sansom recognized fully the scope of Reischauer’s aim when he wrote in the foreword that the book was intended for the “average educated reader” and the “average reader.” Reischauer included this foreword in all editions of the book as well as in Japan: The Story of a Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), which Reischauer calls “a successor volume to my Japan: Past and Present.”42 The aptness of Sansom’s depiction is reinforced by Donald Keene, by most accounts probably the greatest still-active translator of Japanese literature and the author of numerous works on Japanese culture and civilization. He recalls that the year he spent at Harvard, from 1947 to 1948,43 was particularly memorable because it was the start of his “most lasting relationship” with the young Reischauer.44 Keene notes that Reischauer was not as famous then, but he impressed Keene by the scholarly authority he radiated as well as by his receptiveness to any student’s disagreement with him; he accepted with grace whenever he was proved wrong by expressing “pleasure a real scholar feels over a discovery, whoever’s discovery it may be.”45 Keene points to the two-volume Japanese language textbook Reischauer coauthored with Serge Elisséeff designed for the serious language student more interested in reading than in conversational competence.46 Keene tells the reader that he attended a reading course taught by Elisséeff and Reischauer on the Konjaku Monogatari and Hôgen Monogatari. Keene also expressed admiration

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for the volume of translations of classical literature Reischauer coauthored with Professor Joseph K. Yamagiwa because of the “immaculate scholarly accuracy” of the translations.47 Keene’s lengthy description of Reischauer as a scholar serves as a counterpoint to his remembrance of Reischauer’s lasting and most influential impact on him. This was fueled by his awareness that Reischauer about this time was becoming increasingly concerned about “communicating his ideas about Japan to the widest possible public.”48 Keene confesses that he also began as one who wanted to be “a ‘pure’ scholar,” one who would expend time and energy on research and then publish in learned journals “two- or three-page articles” of “pure gold.” Yet, as did Reischauer, he too became a “missionary” dedicated to wide dissemination of knowledge on Japan. Keene is convinced that if his [Keene’s] body of work is to be remembered, it would “be because of the books addressed to the general public, not [his] attempts at ‘pure’ scholarship.”49 Guohe Zheng calls attention to Keene’s latest, Five Modern Japanese Novelists (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), and other publications such as Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers (London: J. Murray, 1953) and The Pleasures of Japanese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) as being precisely the products of Keene’s purposeful attempt to communicate with the general public.50 Keene’s first impression of Reischauer that the latter was, early in his academic career, a serious student of Japanese language and premodern Chinese and Japanese history dovetails with Reischauer’s own recollection that even while he was writing Japan: Past and Present for a popular audience, he was “working only in ancient [Japanese] history,” that is, this was where he located his scholarly home.51 Reischauer in his autobiography writes that the greatest part “by far” of his scholarly effort during these years was directed toward completing work on the diary of Ennin, a Japanese Buddhist monk. He discusses the difficulties of translating the diary, which, when finished, had 1,550 footnotes. He published the diary as well as a more general companion volume to flesh out topics found in the diary— this one with a “mere 346 footnotes.” The two volumes are, respectively, Ennin’s Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law and Ennin’s Travels in T’ang China (New York: Ronald Press, 1955). It should be added that only after Reischauer had completed his translation did Japanese scholars follow suit and translate the whole diary, written in “a difficult mixture of classical and colloquial Chinese,” into Japanese.52 George Packard contributes to the portrait drawn by Keene and Reischauer by noting the reason for Reischauer’s shift to modern Japanese history. Reischauer believed that had his older brother, Robert Reischauer, not died in Shanghai in 1937, Robert would have become the “dominant” American scholar on modern Japanese history, and he, Edwin, would have gone on



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to be “an obscure specialist in ancient Chinese and Japanese history.”53 It was Edwin O. Reischauer himself who left no doubt that he took pride in being an academic missionary. Reischauer was asked in 1964 by Presbyterian Life why he did not follow in the footsteps of his father, August Karl Reischauer, as a missionary in Japan. The son smiled and replied, “Ah, but I am.”54 Another point on Reischauer as popularizer is in order. In Japan: The Story of a Nation, Reischauer confesses that his analysis of prewar Japan was “jotted down hastily during the first two months after the end of the war.”55 Taken together with his statement that he was adjusting his argument to the reader, this is further evidence that he was not writing for the scholar. No scholar would accept anything that was admittedly “jotted down hastily” and was baldly aimed at trying to alter his perception of a historical development. I admit to some puzzlement on Dower’s steadfast position on the demerits of historical “objectivity” and his use of Norman to sustain his argument. Dower acknowledges that Norman’s review of Reischauer’s Japan: Past and Present was “generally complimentary.”56 It was much more than that. Let us first read Dower’s description of Norman’s definition of a historian. It is important here to quote in detail. Dower asks: “What sort of craftsman must a historian be? He must be scientific, but also a painter.” He then continues: “Elsewhere, Norman described this in terms of the difficulty of avoiding the ‘Scylla of platitudinous generalization and the Charybdis of multiplication of qualifications.’ To discern the grand outline and select the relevant detail is no easy task.”57 Dower fails to tell his reader that Norman described Reischauer’s Japan: Past and Present in nearly identical terms: “thus in any work of his I would expect to see both an impeccable care for detail and a well-balanced objectivity [italics mine]. I was not disappointed in these expectations when I read his Japan: Past and Present. Anyone who has tried to summarize history knows how difficult it is to avoid the Scylla of platitudinous generalizations and the Charybdis of multiplication of qualifications. The author has avoided both these dangers and compressed the history of Japan into the narrow compass of 50,000 words.”58 Norman’s review brings to mind Kammen’s characterization of the historians influenced by the Vietnam War. He noted that they rejected the notion of scholarly detachment. They believed instead that historians had the responsibility to make moral judgments and that emotional and ideological commitment to the subjects of the studies were admirable. Dower throughout his introduction held up Norman as the shining paragon of these virtues and, in starkly contrastive language, condemned Reischauer and the modernization theorists for their apoliticality and scholarly detachment, and for the “amorality” of their value-free scholarship. Yet, in the late 1940s, Norman had praised without qualification Reischauer’s Japan: Past and Present for its “well-balanced objectivity.”59

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Norman’s position on the role of moral judgments in scholarly tomes is found in Japan’s Emergence, annotated bibliography, p. 219. There he writes that: The same writer [Walter W. McLaren] has given what is still one of the fullest accounts of Meiji political history, A Political History of Japan during the Meiji Era, 1867­– 1912, New York, 1916; although some readers may consider it marred by the author’s tendency to moralize, it is nevertheless a penetrating description of Meiji public life.

If, as I tend to believe, Norman shares the view of “some readers,” he, in his most influential work, regarded moralizing as detracting from an otherwise praiseworthy study; otherwise, he probably would not have seen fit to make the point.60 In any event, Norman’s position on moral judgments in historical works is not as straightforward as Dower declares, but is ambiguous at best. Dower on Wanted: An Asian Policy Dower begins by postulating two linkages: the first by indirection, the second directly. He states that Reischauer was writing Wanted “while the United States was undertaking to subvert the Geneva Accords in Indochina.” He had preceded that statement by asserting that Wanted “remains an illuminating introduction to the politics of postwar American scholarship on Asia, a position also strongly posited by Sakai.”61 Let us place the first statement in context. Dower on the previous page declares that “the date of Reischauer’s State Department statement (1949) is significant” because it “coincided” with the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the attendant “loss of China” obsession that gripped the “American ruling circles.” This proposition segues seamlessly into Dower’s statement linking Wanted’s date of publication with the American government’s attempt to “subvert the Geneva Accords.”62 I asked Reischauer whether he had anything to do with the Geneva Accords. His reply was unequivocal: “Nothing could be more absurd than the implication that I was in any way associated with those who decided to subvert the Geneva Accords. I wrote Wanted during the summer of 1954. . . . At that time I had no contact at all with Washington.” He noted that he had been used as a consultant on matters pertaining to Japan, but in the spring of 1950, Dulles was made the chief consultant and Reischauer was “dropped completely.” He speculates that this was due to McCarthy’s attack on universities and intellectuals, which turned him into “an embarrassment” to the State Department. Furthermore, when the Republicans came to power in Washington (1952), he was “cut off even further from Washington thinking,” and by 1954, the year before Wanted was published, he thought of himself as an “outside critic.”63



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Dower is selective in his use of evidence because in Wanted, Reischauer vigorously argues against the kind of involvement that the United States got into in Vietnam: Indochina is the classic case in which the Communists have utilized nationalism effectively against us. There we find a sobering example of the weakness of ­defending the status quo against the offensive of Communist-dominated nationalism.64

Reischauer ends his discussion of the Indochina problem with a chillingly accurate forecast: “The French failure to relinquish Indochina has put a heavy burden on the United States financially and could end by costing us dearly in lives.”65 One would think that Dower would find unexceptionable Reischauer’s sentiments on Indochina. Moreover, Dower concedes that Wanted is not a work of scholarship and is not aimed at “developing Japan studies in America.”66 And yet Dower, without presenting any evidence, declares that Wanted “has a bearing as a background piece” to the scholarship of Japan studies in America that had “gestated under Reischauer’s own strong influence.”67 It is, moreover, difficult to expect any scholar to follow Reischauer’s “agenda” for the scholarly study of Japan in the face of the latter’s candid admission that most of the book “extends far beyond my professional competence” and is made up largely of opinion and conjecture but not scholarship.68 Therefore, Dower is reduced to inferring Reischauer’s putative influence on scholars as he does in discussing Robert A. Scalapino, who wrote the Asia sections of the “influential Conlon Report to the United States Government.”69 Dower notes that “Scalapino in effect picked up some of the themes of Wanted: An Asian Policy.”70 At a minimum, to support this allegation, Dower should have shown that Scalapino was aware of the existence of Wanted and had read it. This would have been impossible, since Scalapino in reply to my inquiry wrote: “I have never read Wanted: An Asian Policy. . . . When was Reischauer’s book published?”71 Reischauer, in fact, has provided the most fitting “requiem” for Wanted: “To think that anybody there [in Washington] was influenced by my book is laughable. In fact I have always pointed out that the book dropped into the foreign policy sea without even provoking a single ripple.”72 In short, if Wanted had no influence on one of its primary targets, is it not too much to have expected it to have helped set the “agenda” for the modernization theorists? One final word on Wanted is in order. Dower maintains that the “main line of [Japan studies] scholarship . . . failed to repair the mutilations of the McCarthyist assault.”73 He should have at least added a footnote to that statement by noting that, in Wanted, Reischauer in several instances took strong, courageous, principled stands against McCarthyism.74

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Dower and the 1949 State Department Conference Three of Dower’s basic aims in discussing Reischauer are to show that Reischauer’s political ideas infected his scholarship, that his political-scholarly ideas influenced the modernization theorists, and that among the modernization theorists, Reischauer took the lead in working to bend scholarship on Japan to the requirements of the United States government’s “crusade” against Marxism and Communism. Reischauer’s participation in the 1949 State Department conference is used to support all three contentions. Specifically, Reischauer is linked to the “sense of urgency” reflecting the “loss of China obsession” that possessed the ruling circles of America. Moreover, Reischauer, by participating, is said to have identified himself with the aims of a specific state and to have conceived of scholarship as “propaganda work” without qualms. Dower then connects both of these propositions to his conclusion that they are part and parcel of postwar American scholarship on Japan.75 Dower is correct when he says that Reischauer is anti-Marxist. He is also correct when he says that Reischauer’s statements in this State Department conference were political. Reischauer’s statements at this conference were intended to be political. The conference was held so that the participants could give views the State Department felt might be helpful to its officers in charge of formulating policies on China. There is not a word about influencing scholars or scholarship on Japan. The first speaker, presumedly representing the State Department, assured the participants that “[t]here will be no effort to arrive at a set of resolutions or recommendations or even a consensus of views, or even try to persuade anyone of anything.” In short, no specific agenda or plan of action was to result. The convener added that the stenographic records would not be made available to people outside the department, that these records would not even be made available to the participants, and “the press will be told that anything that has been said up here is wholly confidential and is between the participants and the State Department.” Later, a suggestion by Harold Stassen that each participant be given transcripts of his own remarks was approved.76 It would be difficult to prove that Reischauer’s words at this particular conference influenced scholars in the field of Japan studies without at a minimum showing that the modernization theorists had read the transcript.77 I see no evidence that this occurred. Even Reischauer went back to it only once, and only for a very specific purpose: I don’t remember ever reading the transcript of the 1949 State Department conference except to look up a statement about recognizing Communist China I had made on which I was being attacked by Colegrove and others.78

Let us now take a close look at the State Department conference itself. Reischauer was but one of nearly thirty participants.79 Twenty-five partici-



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pants are listed at the beginning of the transcript, and of these, thirteen are clearly academicians, including Kenneth W. Colegrove, John K. Fairbank, Owen Lattimore, Harold S. Quigley, George E. Taylor, Harold M. Vinacke, and Reischauer. This point is crucial in my discussion of Reischauer’s speech at the University of Arizona. The “loss of China obsession” is central to Dower’s attempt to link the United States government and Japan scholarship. How does the transcript treat this issue? The conference was held before the Communist forces were in full control of China. None of the participants had any illusion that the Nationalist government would be able to stop the Communists from winning. The important question therefore was what should the United States government’s position be on recognizing the Communist regime. Eighteen views are recorded on this issue ranging from positive affirmation for recognition to lukewarm support, including “watching and waiting.”80 Reischauer, who spoke in favor of recognition, recalls, “The impression I took away was a consensus for recognizing ‘Communist China’ as we called it then, and I believe the government would have done this if the Korean War had not broken out before they got around to it. I argued for this course and took a certain amount of flak subsequently for having done so. I don’t remember that Japan itself was much of an issue, but the record may prove me wrong on this.”81 The transcript, moreover, shows that when strong statements were made against the Nationalist regime and for recognition, these remarks were followed by “applause,” and “hear, hear.”82 Reischauer also spoke about Japan’s great admiration for China despite the looming Communist takeover, noting that “it would be a highly disastrous situation if we seemed to be creating a wall between Japan and China.”83 If indeed the State Department, as part of Dower’s American ruling circles, was obsessed by the loss of China, it would help to explain the participation of John K. Fairbank, who was accused of being either a Communist or Communist sympathizer, as was another participant, Owen Lattimore. Lawrence Rosinger, who had been pointed out as being “spoken of as a Communist” by the staunch anti-Communist Karl A. Wittfogel, was another attendee. Wittfogel was not a participant, and he believed that his written accusation against Rosinger was the reason he had not been invited.84 Finally, I have no evidence that this in fact happened, but if McCarthy or his staff had read the transcript, it would help to explain McCarthy’s actions against the State Department in 1950. Dower on the University of Arizona Speech Dower’s discussion of Reischauer’s pronouncements in the State Department conference in 1949 is followed by a shift to the University of Arizona, where Reischauer, on 19 March 1958, delivered a talk, “Our Asian Frontiers of Knowledge.” This speech is unquestionably pivotal for Dower’s

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purposes because he uses it to bridge the gap between the State Department conference and the world of scholarship. He notes, “In a 1958 presentation directed toward a more scholarly audience [at the University of Arizona].”85 We have already seen that many scholars were in attendance at the State Department conference. The convener, in fact, was constrained to remark that the participants were “the greatest aggregation of intelligent thinkers there is in this country on this subject [policy toward China].”86 But what of the “more scholarly audience” at the University of Arizona? An inquiry sent to the University of Arizona Library elicited the following from Phyllis Ball: I have checked with our Liberal Arts College, which sponsors these lectures. . . . Lecturers are chosen by a committee and cover a wide range. . . . They are not [italics hers] intended to appeal only to an academic audience, but rather the general public.87

Charles O. Hucker, who had nominated Reischauer, substantiates Ball’s position: As Miss Ball has indicated to you, the Riecker lectures were intended to be public events of interest to nonacademics as well as academics—I would even say, primarily to nonacademics. I am sure that I was asked to nominate East Asian specialists who could be expected to interest a general audience, and I am sure that President [Richard] Harvill’s invitation to Eddie made it clear that he was to expect a nonspecialist audience.88

Let us turn to Reischauer’s address. It is evident that Dower wanted to show that at Arizona, Reischauer was concerned with establishing an “agenda” for the serious, scholarly modernization theorists: The main point of Reischauer’s Arizona address is one which Norman and most serious scholars would presumedly share: that the study of Asia can contribute to the refinement and revision of prevailing historical theories at the highest levels.89

That is not what Reischauer said or intended, for in the main he talked about the need “to raise general standards of knowledge about Asia” and stressed that “American understanding of Asia forms the most important frontier of knowledge, at least in education, in the whole world today.” This could be achieved, he said, by concentrating this effort “on the campuses of our colleges, in primary and secondary school rooms, and in the forums of public debate.”90 The reporter of the student newspaper, Dana Nichols, who did not work



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from a published text and therefore recorded his immediate reactions, caught the essence of Reischauer’s talk more accurately than did Dower. He began his article with: The inevitable rise of Asia to an ever more important place in world affairs demands that Americans informed themselves about this vast, almost unknown region. . . . Stressing the need for more general understanding of the Far East by Americans, Reischauer said that our foreign policy is most effective in those areas that are best known and understood by the American “man-in-the-street.”91

Reischauer’s recollection of the speech coincides with Nichols’s article: “The main thrust of my Arizona speech obviously was for a more general understanding of Japan. I have always felt this was the most important point, and my audience after all was the general public, not a group of historians.” He later re-emphasizes this point by writing that “obviously my main point [italics his] was general understanding.”92 This, it should be recalled, was also the “main point” in writing Japan: Past and Present. Dower, however, uses the Arizona speech to argue that its “main point” is part and parcel of Reischauer’s “agenda” to have scholarship on Asia “contribute to the refinement and revision of prevailing historical theories at the highest level.” This statement, in turn, is related to his charge that since many Japanese scholars who have stood in the forefront of opposition to American policy are “more or less associated with the Marxist tradition and critical of capitalism,” it had become necessary to discredit them in toto, that is, both their politics and their scholarship.93 He cites Henry Rosovsky’s work to substantiate his charge. He does this by first introducing the economic historian Ôuchi Hyôe, who was associated with the Rônôha, a Marxist school of analysis, but who was not a “dogmatic Marxist.” He then declares that the “tone of postwar American scholarship” in Ôuchi’s specialization was established when Capital Formation in Japan (New York: Free Press, 1961) was published by Henry Rosovsky in “close” collaboration with Ohkawa Kazushi, a leading figure in Japan’s anti-Marxist analytical approach. Rosovsky’s comments on this are cited in some detail for the historical record. He specifically addresses himself to the question of Reischauer’s putative influence on him and to Dower’s indictment against him and his work. Rosovsky writes in his letter to me that: I have never studied anything with Reischauer except the Japanese language. My training in Japanese history was entirely accomplished through reading on my own. In fact, I do not recall Reischauer even making suggestions concerning likely books.

He then notes that:

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John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix I certainly never “admonished” Ôuchi. On the contrary, I first met him in Japan during the period 1956­–58, read some of his books, and was an admirer of his work. I particularly was interested in his work on Japanese agriculture, and I believe that Ohkawa first called it to my attention. The Ohkawa-Rosovsky collaboration had nothing whatever to do with Reischauer or with anti-Marxism. I went to Japan in 1956 to do a dissertation . . . my main advisor was Professor Simon Kuznets. . . . My main contact with Japan was Professor Shigeto Tsuru, . . . not [italics his] exactly an anti-Marxist. Our collaboration [Rosovsky-Ohkawa] actually became active after [italics his] my completion of the study on capital formation. . . . We were neither Marxists nor anti-Marxists. Our analysis certainly was non-Marxist.94

Dower so far has failed to show a causal link between Wanted: An Asian Policy and Scalapino’s contribution to the Conlon Report. Rosovsky also without qualification writes that he had learned about Japan through self-study and is equally positive that he had never “admonished” Ôuchi. What then about Dower’s charges about the alleged influence of Reischauer’s views on the other modernization theorists? It is hard to believe that Marius Jansen, John Hall, Robert Bellah, James Morley, and Albert Craig would sacrifice their scholarly integrity to follow any given line, no matter how distinguished the source of the line. Gary Allinson, who is generally positive in his reaction to the introduction, is nevertheless on target in his judgment that Dower, by his inclination to see a “consonance of views . . . attributes more power to Reischauer’s ideas than they actually exercised.” He then substantiates the existence of what Kammen had pointed out as the phenomenon of “intergenerational relationship” that “often involved conflict.” Allinson does this by correctly noting that “a good many of Rei­s­ chauer’s own students have completely reversed his conceptions of the Tokugawa period.”95 I therefore conclude that Dower nowhere in his introduction presents documentary evidence that links Reischauer’s views with those of the modernization theorists. Nor does Dower present evidence that the modernization theorists have all supported the government’s agenda or its political objectives vis-à-vis Japan. He is in fact reduced to infer influence and followership when perhaps only coincidence is present. The introduction is replete with the language of inference: “ethos which prevailed,” “tended to be congruent,” “broadly suggested,” “overtly or covertly enlisting,” “may suggest,” “partly in the questions it does not emphasize,” “suggests the Manichaean atmosphere,” “materialized . . . five years later,” “even where not consciously envisaged,” “hardly a coincidence that the tone,” and “in effect picked up some of the themes.”96 Given all of the foregoing, I am one with Fred G. Notehelfer, who was a lonely voice when he had concluded that Dower’s case against the modern-



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ization theorists is “less than convincing” and that there is something less than “historical objectivity” involved.97 Bix on Emperor Hirohito Herbert P. Bix burst upon the consciousness not only of Japan specialists but of the American public when he was awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: Harper Collins, 2000). The award had been preceded by a groundswell of highly positive reviews by journalists and scholars. Nakamura Masanori, Bix’s former colleague at Hitotsubashi University, emphatically states that the work, written in a “lucid style” with “vivid” portrayals, is testament to Bix’s “extraordinary ability as a historian.” He notes that Bix’s contribution, above all else, lies in his “exhaustive reliance on Japanese sources.” This is shown, Nakamura says, by the 1,530 footnotes, of which 80 to 90 percent refer to Japanese sources.98 This point is agreed to by most reviewers. The Japanese edition of Newsweek, for example, states that Bix has “assiduously” (tannen ni) examined “memos and diaries,” and Ronald Spector of George Washington University calls attention to Bix’s “exhaustive research.”99 In the same vein, J. L. Hazelton of the Associated Press states that Bix “documents meticulously,” while the Economist refers to Bix’s “detailed, compelling account.”100 Two of the most emphatic expressions of this position are by Jeff Kingston of Temple University-Japan, who proclaims that Bix’s work represents a “thoroughly researched tour de force,” and by Patrick Smith, who harbors no doubts that the work is “an exhaustive new biography . . . [that] establishes beyond dispute the true Hirohito,” and that as a consequence, “myths will crumble, lifelong beliefs collapse.” This, he continues, represents “creative destruction of the most useful kind” and one that will cast Hirohito into “history’s rubbish pile.”101 Bix scored a huge coup when Howard W. French, Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times, wrote a highly laudatory article based on an interview. He writes of Bix’s fluency in Japanese and his “almost jarringly unassuming figure.” Bix’s “triumph,” he continues, reminded him of a “tailor” who is able to sew “disparate scraps of material . . . into a seamless whole” that resulted in a “defining book about the emperor.” French adds that American “authorities on Japan” have fallen over themselves to assert that Bix’s work without doubt alters the view of Hirohito as a benign peace lover who was a hostage of a military clique.102 Kingston also gives Bix an unconditional stamp of approval, asserting that he has written a “blistering,” “persuasive,” and “magnificent book” with “100 pages of notes, with references” to support his “controversial assessments and assertions.” And he dares the “architects of denial to counter Bix’s carefully argued, thoroughly researched tour de force by a historian at the peak of his craft.”103

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The passage of time appears not to have diminished the torrent of praise. Michael Schaller predicts that Takemae Eiji’s monograph of the postwar policies of the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers, together with Bix’s Hirohito and John Dower’s Embracing Defeat, will become the standard big three of Occupation Japan.104 In late 2005, Japan Times columnist Roger Pulvers, author, playwright, theater director, professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, and a long-time resident of Japan who has written eighteen books in English and Japanese, declared, “[Bix’s work] is the best single work about modern Japan in English. . . . Bix manages to be faithful to historical fact and make it relevant to events in Japan and elsewhere in Asia today.”105 Peter Frost, in his interview with James McClain, elicited the following response from McClain on Bix and the role of the emperor. McClain declared his admiration of the scholarship “so richly” evident in Bix’s “monumental” work. He went on to say that while he uses the book for his own work, Bix’s concentration on the emperor’s role draws attention away from the “more comprehensive, shared responsibility for Japan’s belligerence after 1931.”106 The encomiums seem endless. Eric Prideaux, a Japan Times staff writer, asked Bix about Hirohito. The result is a lengthy online article, dated 7 August 2005, titled “Close Up: Herbert P. Bix, Showa Scholar Supreme,” in which, in question and answer format, Bix reiterates his main themes.107 I now find myself in the unenviable position of raining on the parade. This task is attenuated somewhat by questions raised by those who are otherwise impressed by Bix’s work. Some of those who are taken by the book point out that his basic premise of a strong, activist emperor is not an original insight. Nakamura, for example, mentions the pioneering work by Inoue Kiyoshi, Tennôsei no Sensô Sekinin (Tokyo: Gendai Hyôronsha, 1975).108 Bix graciously acknowledges his indebtedness to Japanese scholars.109 Others, such as Kingston, point out that Bix’s book “builds on many of the arguments” in David Bergamini’s Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy (New York: William Morrow, 1971).110 Kingston and Nakamura, who also refer to Bergamini’s study, are nonetheless quick to point out that Bix’s use of recently available sources makes his work by far a more empirical, scholarly product. A more serious point is raised even by those who praise Bix’s exhaustive exploitation of new sources. This is that Bix does not place enough emphasis on the complicated, knotty nature of the decision-making process involving the emperor. Carol Gluck, who is generally favorably disposed toward the book, citing Bix’s “prodigious” research, nonetheless emphasizes the complexity and unwieldiness of the decision-making process that Bix’s own analysis reveals.111 Spector, on his part, raises the issue of the danger of military intervention that the emperor and his court faced in the mid-1930s and in 1940 had the military felt threatened by any decision that contravened its interests.112 Even Nakamura, who among Japa-



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nese scholar-reviewers is almost unstinting in his praise, is not totally unquestioning. He faults Bix for not paying full attention to Japan’s “bottom-up” decision-making process, specifically the role played by middlelevel military officers.113 I agree with the “complexity of the decision-making” postulation, but let us first see what Bix sets out to prove. Bix grounds his case against the Shôwa emperor on three premises. One, the Shôwa emperor possessed immense powers and he abused them. He was at the center of Japan’s political, military, and religious order and was capable of firm, decisive, unconditional exercise of his powers. Moreover, since he was considered a “god” in human form (arahitogami), he was absolutely certain that he would be obeyed. Two, the result of his exercise of power was tragic. For example, as commander-in-chief, he instituted the army’s “burn all–kill all–steal all” strategy (sankô sakusen) against Asian countries that caused unspeakable suffering among their people. He also personally directed Japan’s war against the United States and Great Britain. Three, the emperor stubbornly and needlessly prolonged the war to preserve the imperial system and his powers that cost the lives of millions of his own subjects. In other words, the Allied powers’ demand for Japan’s unconditional surrender was not the cause of the war’s prolongation after defeat already had become a foregone conclusion. The three premises are all of one piece, what French has called a “seamless whole.” I shall concentrate principally on Bix’s first indictment: that the Shôwa emperor possessed real powers, initiated actions, and acted decisively in the exercise of his powers. I am here dealing with the emperor’s political responsibility and culpability for his actions. The emperor’s “moral responsibility” for which, according to many Japanese even today, he should have abdicated, is a separate issue that will be addressed only in passing here.114 I propose to rebut Bix’s position of an activist emperor by the positivist approach.115 Bix, in fact, welcomed scrutiny of his sources in his speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. He expressed pride in the fact that he cites only one interview and that his whole case rests on the “written published record” as well as on unpublished materials that he located to buttress his themes. Any scholar, he continued, is welcome to check his sources and translations.116 Bix restates his invitation in a later interview by saying that if the “conservatives” were willing to carefully read his book, including the footnotes, the resulting disputation or debate (ronsô) would be instructive or beneficial (yûeki). He further notes that given that historical explanations are not immutable, controversies will persist, but that this is desirable.117 A point on sources must first be raised. Bix relies heavily on the Makino Shinken (Nobuaki) Nikki (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, 1990, ed. Itô Takashi, ­Hirose Yoshihiro) and the two-volume Kido Kôichi Nikki (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1969), as well as the Kido Kôichi Nikki-Tokyo Saibanki (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1980). He relies to a lesser extent on

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Kido Kôichi Kankei Monjo (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1969), Masaki Jinsaburô [Mazaki Jizaburô] Nikki, 4 vols. (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1981–1983), Satô Eisaku Nikki, 6 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyo Asahi Shimbunsha, 1998–1999), and Shigemitsu Mamoru Shuki, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, 1988–1990). This is not to say that he uses the sources in their entirety. Itô Takashi, regarded as the premier authority on Shôwa political history but tarred as a right-wing historian, has either been the primary editor of or a principal person involved in editing and guiding to publication these and other primary sources on the Shôwa period. This may be the appropriate place to suggest that to clear the air, a roundtable discussion (zadankai) be held, with the results to be published, involving, on the one hand, Bix and the Japanese authors of the secondary sources he cites to sustain his case, and, on the other hand, Itô Takashi, Hirose Yoshihiro (who may be the premier specialist on Meiji-Taishô primary sources), and the editors, all positivists, of the Jijûbukanchô Nara Takeji Nikki . Kaikoroku, 4 vols. (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobô, 2000).118 I shall be happy to participate in such an activity, but given my doubts that the opposite numbers will agree to this zadankai, I will proceed with a written rebuttal. I will limit myself to the central issue on which Bix rests his whole case, whether the modern Japanese emperor possessed real power and acted decisively to exercise it. I will look at some of the methods by which Bix constructs his arguments, including how he uses his sources. I will limit myself to the Meiji-Taishô periods since the Shôwa era lies beyond my scholarly competence. My colleagues, Itô, Hirose, Kurosawa, and Kobayashi, I am confident, can attest that what the Meiji leaders had wrought probably existed throughout the prewar Shôwa period. Bix and History as Creative Imagination Bix recognizes that sources personally written by the Shôwa emperor are virtually nonexistent. He concedes, moreover, that “source gaps” are far too numerous.119 How does Bix propose to surmount these obstacles that surely would discourage a graduate student? He does this first by making a virtue out of the emperor’s veil of silence; second by imagining what the emperor could have thought, said, or meant; and third, the lack of evidence notwithstanding, by asking the reader to accept his explanation of what could have happened. Bix, in the first place, asserts that the emperor sometimes was at his most eloquent best by remaining silent. Even when this silence extended to the many experiences that had the most important impact on his life, ­values, and ideas, the emperor’s “mask of silence” reverberated loudly with significance, Bix insists.120 Bix furthermore captions a photo with the words that the emperor supported a stronger military policy against China with-



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out saying a word.121 Bix describes this as the “voiceless order technique,” one that is “routinely” employed by top officials in most countries and is not unique to Japan.122 Using the “voiceless order technique” to explain causal relations compels the reader to accept Bix’s interpretation, given without evi­ dence, that a certain action was precisely based on the emperor’s intention. The legal scholar John O. Haley explains the methodological fallacy of the “voiceless order technique” better than I could ever hope to. In a review of Measuring Judicial Independence: The Political Economy of Judging in Japan, Haley writes that “the book’s central claim is an academic folktale and ends in tautology.” The “central claim” is that politicians control the courts through senior judges. How do the scholars who assert this prove their point, Haley asks. They base their claim on what they see as the shared knowledge between politicians and senior judges that had developed out of the years of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rule so that the politicians: need not even communicate with [the senior judges] for them to know what [the politicians] wanted them to do . . . [the former] know by long experience what the politicians desire. Thus, like the best English butlers, these prescient [judges] could carry out the [politicians’] wishes without any need for instruction, indeed in silence with nary a whisper, wink, or nod.123

Haley also repeats a proposition he had made in an earlier work, that “while the Japanese judiciary may be conservative and institutionally controlling . . . it is still staunchly politically independent, indeed the most politically independent judiciary in the world.”124 In the second place, Bix exhibits the remarkable ability to penetrate into the heads of the emperor and his advisers. In one example, he asserts that certain “ethics questions may inadvertently have raised questions in Hirohito’s mind.”125 A second example requires fuller citation to appreciate the full sense of Bix’s approach: In the end it was precisely the vagueness and ambiguity of Shimizu’s thought that most appealed to Hirohito, who despite his later claims to the contrary, was inclined to the same thing.126

Bix goes on and on: “Hirohito may also come to feel,” “in Hirohito’s imaginings,” “[the emperor] may even have had the most satisfactory personal relations with military men who were not scientists,” “at some level of mental awareness he had to believe,” “while continuing to imagine,” “in the imaginations of both Makino and Hirohito,” “This was the mindset of the moderate Shidehara; it was probably shared by Hirohito.”127 Bix’s singular ability to fathom the thoughts of others jogged my memory to recall another instance of it in an article he wrote nearly a quarter of a century ago. In 1977,

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I published an article, “An Examination of E. H. Norman’s Scholarship” (Journal of Japanese Studies 3 [1977]: pp. 375–419). I undertook in this essay to document carefully several grave charges against the premier scholar on modern Japanese history in the West. The most serious of these charges was that Norman had not used the Japanese sources he purported to have used to sustain his many points. He had instead, I believe I showed, depended upon English language translations of the sources he used, but then cited as his evidence the Japanese language works that existed in translation. I should have known that to criticize a towering figure would inevitably invite a vehement response.128 Herbert Bix almost immediately paid me the compliment of writing a twenty-page, almost point-by-point, rebuttal.129 He declared flatly that my “charges were unwarranted and false in nearly every instance.”130 Ouch again! One of the many points he questioned was a statement on p. 385 of my article. I wrote that Norman had asserted that Wheaton’s International Law had first been translated into Chinese and then had been introduced to Japan by Townsend Harris. This was followed, Norman continued, by a translation into Japanese. Norman, I noted, referred to a Japanese work by Osatake Takeshi. Osatake, I pointed out, does not mention Townsend Harris. Norman, I wrote, was following instead the account by Chitoshi Yanaga, who does mention Townsend Harris, but Norman did not credit Yanaga as his source.131 It appears that Bix was troubled by the similarity between the two versions and concedes that “Osatake . . . does not mention Townsend Harris.” Yet he does not simply drop the matter after his admission but attempts to speculate on the possible reason for the appearance of “Townsend Harris” in the quotation attributed by Norman to Osatake. He writes that Norman “could have” learned about Townsend Harris’s role “elsewhere,” and what “probably” occurred as a result was that Osatake and Townsend Harris were then “linked” in Norman’s mind. He does not stop here but follows with an unconditional statement that “he had read about Townsend Harris, later read Osatake, and the two then became connected in his mind.” Bix, of course, cites no source.132 The third way Bix overcomes the burden of the lack of tangible evidence is related to his second approach. He merely assumes that the emperor “probably” knew, “would have known,” and in one instance bluntly asserts that the emperor “should be” charged with an atrocity even if he had not known. The manner in which Bix, for example, attempts to link the emperor with the Nanking atrocities is suffused with an Alice-in-Wonderland quality and reveals that he has not significantly changed his approach since his 1977 article. He starts with two facts, one, that the diplomat Hidaka Shinrokurô had been in Nanking and, two, that on his return had given a detailed report to foreign minister Hirota Kôki. Bix then makes a speculative



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leap by writing that Hidaka or Hirota “may even have briefed the emperor on the atrocities in late January though the evidence for this is conjectural.” He continues in this vein and states that “if” the emperor had been briefed, then he “would have been very well informed indeed.” Bix appears to be so intent on linking the emperor with knowledge of the Nanking massacre that he persists in pursuing this line of argument. He writes that even if the emperor had not been “officially informed,” he had available “secondary intelligence” such as the domestic and foreign press, and “perhaps” his brothers might even have been a source, in which case, they “might” have conveyed to him “orally” the “rumors” circulating about Nanking.133 Two more examples may suffice to make the point. One, he admits that no documents exist to “directly link” the emperor to bacteriological warfare, but he was “probably” cognizant of the meaning of the orders he had approved. Here again, he overcomes the lack of evidence with an ability to penetrate the mind of the emperor.134 Two, even as he concedes that there are no documents to directly tie the emperor with one of the “brutal” acts of the China war, viz., the strategic bombing of Chungking, he “should be” charged with responsibility for it.135 Fairness requires the recognition on my part that Bix’s methodology, though it has left me shaking my head with disbelief, may in fact now represent an acceptable, establishmentarian approach to history, and that I may be tilting at windmills by standing fast on positivism. Bix is awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. Professor Joseph Ellis is given the 1997 National Book Award for American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). In this highly acclaimed work, Ellis imaginatively enters the young Jefferson’s mind to show how Jefferson created “interior worlds of great imaginative appeal” and how he had the “internal ability to generate multiple versions of the truth.” It appears that Ellis did not limit his imagination to creatively analyzing Jefferson’s thoughts. He fashioned as well, much to the embarrassment of Mount Holyoke College, an imaginative persona for himself as a platoon leader in Vietnam whose unit was close by when the My Lai atrocity was carried out and who served on General William Westmoreland’s staff—all this in the name of enlivening his lectures.136 Still, I was able to find some solace for what may be my imagined sense of isolation from contemporary mainstream historiography, not from historians, but from two journalists and a famed cartoonist. A reviewer, along with his praise for a novel (coincidentally, on an emotionally charged political issue), made the telling distinction between journalism (for which I “read” history) and fiction: “Good journalists [historians] don’t claim to know what their subjects are thinking; good novelists do so for a living.”137 Garry B. Trudeau, wielding his pen in his trademark Swiftian manner, satirized the coverage by one of the twenty-four-hour cable networks (not CNN) of the scandal involving a congressman and his

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i­ ntern. He had his principal character ask the news chief of the network how he managed to sustain the interest of an audience for the twentyfour-hour coverage of the scandal. The opposite number replied that an “actual story” was not required, that only parts of it were, such as “potential facts, likely scenarios, gut feelings.” He then boasted that his network was better than the others in covering “speculation.” When the principal, incredulous, questioned the “speculation as news” format, the retort was “we report it, you decide.”138 This is precisely what I have come to designate as Bix’s “fill in the blanks” methodology, with Bix, by eloquently presenting what is plainly speculation, still succeeding, apparently, in prodding a goodly number of readers to go along with him. Richard Halloran, formerly a correspondent for the New York Times and the Washington Post who has spent a number of years in Japan, was one of the early few who declined to be swayed by Bix. After a thorough reading, he concluded that Bix has “contrived a case built on shaky circumstantial evidence,” and this made for an “unconvincing” book.139 But ultimately it is Bix himself who warns against speculation as history when, during his presentation at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, he said of Bergamini’s work: “Many passages in the book can never be corroborated [and] seem to have been, well, imaginatively constructed.”140 Japan’s Pre-1945 Emperors as Power Wielders The Meiji Emperor’s Military Role Bix’s characterization of Japan’s pre-1945 emperors is that they have not been constitutional monarchs. They were, he says, “theocratic” rulers possessing well-nigh “absolute” political and military powers.141 He describes the Shôwa emperor as the embodiment of a proactive, “dynamic,” and “energetic” ruler who truly exercised his political and military powers.142 He apparently grounds his contention on Articles 3, 4, and 11 of the Meiji Constitution, which he declares made indivisible in practice and theory the emperor’s real role and decision-making authority. His argument is that the emperor’s constitutionally based “formidable powers” remained “essentially absolute” from 1889 until August 1945.143 Given the constraints of space, I shall here primarily focus on the Meiji emperor and his military role.144 Article 11 does specify that the emperor is the supreme commander of the army and navy. I assume that it is on this article, as well as on Articles 3 and 4, that Bix calls the Meiji emperor a “pure autocrat” who took personal command of the army and navy during military maneuvers and exercised “direct command” over the armed forces.145 And well might Bix emphasize military maneuvers since they are the closest approximation to actual warfare engaged in by standing military forces everywhere. In any event, Bix is required to adopt



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this strictly literal interpretation of the Meiji Constitution to logically or deductively make his case. His approach, moreover, eliminates the need for him to look at sources that may lead to alternative interpretations. In short, if we do not accept his literal view of the emperor’s constitutionally mandated powers, however, a more complex picture emerges. Let us start with K. F. Hermann Roesler’s commentary on Article 11. Roesler’s credentials are not trivial. He was in Japan from 1878 to 1893 as a legal adviser and was the most deeply involved non-Japanese assisting in the drafting of the Meiji Constitution. He begins his lengthy exegesis on Article 11 with an eye-catching statement that places the emperor and his role vis-à-vis the military in proper contemporaneous, international perspective: “This is a principle universally acknowledged in all constitutions, republican [italics mine] as well as monarchical.” This principle, he continues, is to assure the “unity of civil and military power in a single person.” This does not mean that the unity will lead to the head of state’s becoming a powerful military leader. Rather, he stresses that without this unity, it is the civil government that will lose its “strength and efficiency” or worse, the military will “in fact” supersede the “civil power,” resulting in the constitution becoming “paralyzed.”146 Therefore, the intent of Article 11, according to Roesler, is to foreclose the very development that Bix asserts logically follows from it, that is, a military-led government that makes a mockery of constitutional government controlled by civilians. Ian Beckett, in his essay on George V, reveals that in World War I, the military role of European monarchs differed. Victor Emmanuel III was “commander-in-chief” but the de facto commander-in-chief was the chief of the general staff. Tsar Nicholas II assumed overall command with “disastrous” consequences. King Albert I of Belgium was unusual in that he exercised actual field command.147 Where in this continuum did the Meiji and Shôwa emperors fit? Bix asserts, without citing sources, that the Meiji emperor “personally directed” war maneuvers, or “directly commanded” the armed forces. The indispensable source on the Meiji emperor is the thirteen-volume Meiji Tennôki, modeled after China’s dynastic histories and Japan’s Rikkokushi and Tokugawa Jikki.148 It is based on a wide range of primary documents, such as letters, memoirs, and diaries, collected by the Rinji Teishitsu Henshûkyoku in the Imperial Household Ministry. The connection with the Imperial Household Ministry enabled the Henshûkyoku to call in documents that otherwise would not have seen the light of day. The usefulness of the Meiji Tennôki, however, is diluted by its only partial use of the documents.149 The Meiji Tennôki reveals that the Meiji emperor not only did not directly command the army during maneuvers, but was less than enthusiastic, serious, or energetic about this particular responsibility. The compilers (all distinguished scholars) moreover suggest by their presentation that

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there was a separation between theory and practice in the emperor’s authority or powers, and they do so in a matter-of-fact manner. What then does the Meiji Tennôki tell the reader about the role of the emperor in three maneuvers? In the first instance, a maneuver of the Imperial “Division” (Konoe Shohei) involving battalion and regiment-size infantry, artillery, and cavalry units took place on 30 April 1886. The emperor, the empress, Prince Taruhito, and several princesses “observed” (mitamau, esshite, mitsutsu) the maneuver. The commander-in-chief (sôshikikan) of the wargame was Prince Akihito, commanding general of the Imperial “Division.” The maneuver was a serious undertaking with live ammunition; a stray round “some twenty or thirty feet from the royal carriage” pierced the leg of a groom.150 On the first day of the 1902 fall grand maneuvers, the emperor is described as standing in a “rice field” to “review” (esshi) the battle between the north and south armies. He then performs the ceremonial function of granting an audience to two lowly soldiers chosen to represent the others. On the second day, he merely “witnesses” (mitamau) the battle for a “brief time” (shôji). What follows next is an episode that reveals the reality of the relationship between the emperor, theoretically the supreme commander, and Yamagata Aritomo, a subordinate but the actual wielder of power. In the aftermath of the maneuvers, the emperor was scheduled to attend the customary banquet for officials and the area’s important personages. He suddenly decided not to attend. He had, in fact, almost not even gone to Kumamoto Prefecture where the maneuvers were held because his advisers were concerned about an epidemic there. The military command overruled the advice, compelling his presence. He now saw no reason to attend the banquet, where he would be expected to eat and drink and thus expose himself to illness. Yamagata was “shocked” upon hearing this and went directly to the emperor and “heatedly and excitedly” told the emperor to attend. The emperor reluctantly relented, went to the banquet, and proved to be less than gracious, limiting himself merely to greeting the guests, neither eating nor drinking, and leaving immediately.151 The next episode suggests even more strongly that military maneuvers were not necessarily important in the emperor’s scheme of things. Yamagata on this occasion is about to go to Kyushu to “supervise” (tôkan) the maneuvers between two divisions. He goes to the imperial palace to report to the emperor, but the emperor, pleading “illness,” refuses to see him. Yamagata is “extremely displeased” by this rebuff. He tells the grand chamberlain to tell the emperor that on such a vital matter involving the military, he should not refuse to see the tôkan. Moreover, he takes umbrage that the emperor would send the grand chamberlain to relay his refusal. He demands that the grand chamberlain tell the emperor that he is being negligent of his “fundamental duty” (tenshoku) vis-à-vis the mili-



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tary. He then issues the grave threat of resigning. Unfortunately, the Tennôki’s narrative on this incident ends at this point.152 These entries suggest that the emperor’s role in the grand maneuvers was basically ceremonial, akin to his constitutionally mandated duties (Article 7) to convoke, open, close, prorogue, and dissolve the Teikoku Gikai. They also show that he did not consider his presence particularly necessary for the success of the maneuvers. They reveal, as well, that he did express his personal views, or at least those of his advisers. The 1902 episode nonetheless shows that, when push came to shove, the emperor had to bend and conform to the demands of power wielders, grounded as they were on policy and official requirements. The compiler-editors of the Meiji Tennôki by their editorial practice also reveal that they were cognizant of the division between the wording of the Meiji Constitution and actual practice. The narrative, as noted, is based on documentary sources. Therefore, when they wrote that the emperor was “observing” or “witnessing” the maneuvers, they were, as scholars, following the wording of the sources. They then used the upper margins for their subheadings. In the specific situation under consideration, they wrote that the emperor “commands/supervises” (tôkan) the maneuvers. This is the same word used by Yamagata to describe his role in the two-division maneuvers, but there is no doubt that he actually performed that function. The compiler­editors’ use of the word tôkan stems from the literal interpretation of the constitution (the word used is tôsui). This is an obligatory requirement, given the Meiji Tennôki’s sponsorship by the Imperial Household Ministry. The Crown Prince/Shôwa Emperor, Commander-in-Chief? It is necessary to look at the way Bix uses the Nara Takeji diary before we proceed because I was puzzled at first glance by his errors of commission and omission in his discussion of the crown prince’s European tour (3 March–3 September 1921). This tour and its aftermath are related to the subject of this subsection as well as those that follow. Nara is important because he accompanied the crown prince on the tour as his military aide-decamp, kept a diary, and later wrote his reminiscences.153 His words, therefore, constitute one of the most important primary sources on the crown prince/Shôwa emperor. I am assuming that Bix went to the Kaikoroku (Bix mistakenly identifies it as Kaisôroku in most of his citations) for his discussion of the European tour. It is written in a hand that is close to kaisho (block, square, printed style). Both the Kaikoroku and Nikki are written by pen, but the latter is in sôsho. Although the diary entries that deal with the European tour and its aftermath are “easier” to read than those of the early Taishô period, it is still hard going.154 I may be mistaken, but I believe that Bix, for the Shôwa era, relied mostly on those parts of the Nara diary that had

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been transcribed and published in articles.155 This practice considerably limits Bix’s documentary base, but worse, leads him to make statements contradicted by the Nikki. One way to determine whether the crown prince/Shôwa emperor was an active, decisive military leader is to judge him by the standard Bix set for the Meiji emperor as one who took personal command of the army and navy during military maneuvers. The monarch’s role in military maneuvers remained unchanged from the late Taishô to the prewar Shôwa periods. The crown prince, for example, had returned from Europe on 3 September 1921. Soon afterwards, he participated in that year’s special grand maneuvers held in mid-November. Nara repeatedly uses the word “tôkan” to describe his role.156 If we limit ourselves to these statements, they would indeed appear to substantiate Bix’s contention that the crown prince directly commanded the military during maneuvers. Yet, another word in Nara’s description caught my attention. Nara wrote that the crown prince was prepared to “observe” (tairan) the landing operation phase of the naval maneuvers. That word, according to my Kanwa Daijiten, is an honorific term for “observing” that is used when the imperial family is involved. The narrative that follows is even more interesting. Nara records that the landing operation had to be cancelled because of bad weather, so the crown prince heard a lecture on the subject instead. Simply stated, a lecture was regarded as a legitimate substitute for “tairan/tôkan.”157 That said, it must be added that while the crown prince/Shôwa emperor may have been a passive listener, he was reputed to have been more attentive to and serious about his monarchical duties than the Meiji emperor had been. As students in our lecture classes know full well, listening to us drone on is a passive experience.158 A military historian of note in a work cited by Bix has a brief chronological survey at the end of the work. There, the author points out correctly that in 1921, 1922, 1924, and 1925, the crown prince served as the “proxy supervisor/commander” (tôkan o daikô) of the maneuvers (in place of the ailing Taishô emperor). Moreover, in his description of all the maneuvers, he repeatedly uses “tôkan,” with eye-catching exceptions. In 1927, the Shôwa emperor “personally reviewed” (shin’etsu) the combined fleet’s firing and bombardment maneuvers as well as the army’s special maneuvers. In 1939 and 1940, he also “personally reviewed” the combined fleet’s maneuvers.159 The dates of the last two maneuvers are significant, since they took place at the height of the Sino-Japanese War and on the eve of the Pacific War, and one would expect that the emperor, following Bix, would not merely “review” but take “command” of the maneuvers. This brief discussion of the crown prince/Shôwa emperor’s role in military maneuvers reveals as well that Bix, notwithstanding the outpouring of positive reviews, did not carefully read sources that he cites, or, if he did, made no attempt to reconcile two disparate descriptions of the crown prince/Shôwa emperor’s role in the maneuvers.



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Shôwa Emperor as Sham Constitutional Monarch To sustain his proposition that Japan’s modern monarchs possessed real power and exercised actual military leadership, Bix must show that they were not constitutional monarchs. Portraying the Shôwa emperor as a constitutional monarch, Bix contends, was a well-choreographed deceit that had its genesis in the crown prince’s European tour (3 March–3 September 1921), a tour that even now, he says, is much heralded as the beginning of his “alleged commitment to constitutional ‘democracy.’”160 To make his case, Bix takes two approaches. He paints George V as an activist monarch who exercised political judgments “behind the scenes” but who “always” pretended to be “neutral” and “above the fray.” This was the “lesson,” the “real image” that George V conveyed to the crown prince.161 Bix again provides no evidence for this statement; rather, he writes that the crown prince later “implied” that that was what George V had taught him. In short, according to Bix, “George’s ‘lessons’ had nothing to do with ‘constitutional monarchy.’” It must be stressed that all of the above is conjectural, but Bix proceeds from conjectures to an unconditional factual statement, omitting in the process the use of quotation marks enclosing “lessons”: “the real lessons of George V. . . .”162 Bix is correct in depicting George V as one who sought to be actively involved in military and political affairs. Still, George V, according to a recent study based on archival research, could not have showed, much less have taught, the crown prince this activist role. The author of the essay declares that there can be little question that “in public, George V was a model of scrupulous rectitude.” The author is convinced that George V desired that much of his participation in events should remain hidden from scrutiny. In pursuing this end, the monarch limited himself to peripheral activities, such as inspecting munitions factories and occasionally making national appeals.163 Therefore, unless it can be shown that George V shed his scruples in private and actually commented on his activist political and military roles to the crown prince, Bix’s proposition on the “real lessons [that] George V” “conveyed” to the crown prince is speculative at best. Bix’s second approach to dispensing with the notion that the crown prince’s European tour resulted in his commitment to constitutional government begins with quoting at length from Nara Takeji’s reminiscences. Nara, according to Bix, recorded shortly after the tour ended that the crown prince confessed to his disbelief that the ancestors of the imperial house were “truly gods,” but that he would still like to maintain the status quo on the kokutai [national polity].164 I cite the rest of Bix’s translation: [the crown prince] seems to think that it is too much to completely separate the emperor as a god from the nation. He thinks it would be best to maintain the imperial house [along British lines] and that the relationship between the state and the people should be that [in which] the monarch “reigns but does not rule.”165

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Bix then proceeds to question the record by suggesting that it is doubtful that the crown prince could have meant what he was reported to have said in favor of constitutional monarchy by asserting: “If Nara was correctly reporting Hirohito’s moment of candor . . .”166 Since Bix does not provide any evidence, there is no way to know that he is justified in even raising the possibility that Nara may have misunderstood the crown prince on such a vital question. Moreover, Bix again proceeds to enter into Nara’s and the crown prince’s minds with statements such as “[the crown prince] was not really uncomfortable in his unbelief”; “rather than defend what he [the crown prince] now seemed to believe, . . . he felt he should accept the deceit”; “Hirohito inadvertently challenged”; “at some level of mental awareness he had to believe.”167 I was also perplexed by Bix’s translation, since the second portion does not logically follow from the one that precedes it. I went to the original and concluded that he mistranslated the first part. It should read: “[the crown prince] seems to think that it would be going too far if the emperor is regarded as a kami and will, as a consequence, be separated from the people.”168 Moreover, in the second sentence, Nara does make a distinction between “state” (kokka) and “the people” (kokumin). Bix, by rendering kokumin as “nation,” appears to be giving the words of the crown prince and Nara a nationalistic tinge.169 Nara’s record of the crown prince’s words poses a major predicament for Bix. If Nara correctly understood the crown prince to mean that Japan’s imperial house would best follow the British example and that the relationship between “the state and the people should be that [in which] the monarch ‘reigns but does not rule,’” this would undercut Bix’s rationale for writing his book. This accounts for his attempt to “prove” that the crown prince did not mean what he had told Nara or that Nara may have misunderstood the crown prince. It is why Bix emphatically iterates before and after these efforts the proposition that since in the prewar imperial system, “politics, religion, and military command were inseparably connected, the emperor had [italics mine] dictatorial authority and vast powers . . . and he was expected to rule [italics mine] in order for the system to function properly” and that “prewar Japanese nationalism also demanded a real monarch who ruled, not a nominal one who merely reigned.”170 In his exegesis, Bix also condemns the crown prince for not taking the opportunity to “change the kokutai” and for choosing instead to “accept the deceit” and retain the “kokutai just ‘as it is.’”171 The crown prince simply could not have denied the kokutai. To have done so would have been akin to the British monarch’s rejecting the British kokutai with the Crown as the legitimizer of the state. This is precisely Stephen Large’s point when he notes that it is inconceivable that any monarch would be unconcerned about the need to preserve the imperial institution he represented.172 Moreover, while



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elected members of the House of Representatives of Japan’s Imperial Diet may not in Bix’s view represent “ordinary Japanese” in Taishô Japan, Peter Duus is correct in noting that no candidate could stand a chance at being elected to public office without affirming the throne’s place in Japan’s political order or refuting a republican form of government.173 I end this section with another note on methodology. Bix had cast doubt on Nara’s record in the first instance by writing, “If Nara was correctly reporting Hirohito’s moment of candor.”174 By so doing, he holds others with whom he disagrees to a higher standard of evidence than he does himself. Another example of this is Masuda Tomoko’s essay in which she, as Bix notes, argues that the emperor indirectly supported Minobe Tatsukichi and his “organ theory,” according to which the emperor is a constitutional monarch. Bix’s comment to this is that “there appears to be no concrete evidence to support that view.”175 Irokawa Daikichi, whose interpretation of the Shôwa emperor often parallels Bix’s, on this occasion supports Masuda’s position and flatly asserts that the emperor “agreed with Minobe’s theory and sought to remain a constitutional monarch.”176 Bix and Guilt by Association Bix engages in what may be charitably called a dubious method to bolster his case against those who say that the crown prince evolved into a constitutional monarch thanks to his European tour. His approach in this instance evokes memories of the damage to intellectual freedom and scholarly integrity in the wake of McCarthyism. Bix employs the “guilt by association” tactic to taint the crown prince with fascism. Italy was one of the crown prince’s stops on his European tour. The crown prince arrived in Italy on 10 July 1921, and this was, according to Bix, “some fifteen months before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power.” He then states that the crown prince spent eight days in Italy, much of the time in the company of King Victor Emmanuel III, who would “soon” become “a keen admirer of Mussolini.” Finally, Bix writes that one of the events to which the crown prince and his entourage were invited was a sporting event “sponsored” [italics mine] by the Italian military, which was “already” influenced by “Mussolini’s Fascist Movement.”177 In fact, Nara properly records that the military “participated” (sanka) in the day’s sporting events, a significantly different role than that which Bix attributes to it.178 In a paragraph of fifteen lines, Bix uses the words, “Mussolini and Fascists” twice, and “Mussolini” alone once, associating these words with the crown prince in the process. This juxtaposition of “Mussolini” and “fascism” with the crown prince’s visit to Italy is all the more perplexing given his categorical assertion that “[Hirohito was] in no way comparable to a Hitler or a Mussolini, to a Churchill or a Roosevelt or any other Western leader.”179 Since

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Bix grants that the visit occurred “some fifteen months before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power,” linking the crown prince to Mussolini is not only anachronistic, but gratuitous. Moreover, the king may not even have been Mussolini’s “keen admirer” fifteen months after the crown prince’s visit. I recalled reading a world history textbook once used by University of Hawai‘i freshmen that described Mussolini’s accession to power. The authors write that in October 1922, a large contingent of Fascists marched on Rome to “threaten” the king and to “force him” to call on Mussolini to form a government. Their comment on the denouement of this incident is pithy: “The threat worked.”180 I am not a specialist on Western European history, so to confirm the description in the world history text, I consulted two other works, one a general history of modern Europe, the other a history of modern Italy. Both say nothing of the king’s “keen” admiration of Mussolini at the time Mussolini assumed power. They analyze the developments in Italy that led to Mussolini’s rise and the king’s recognition of political realities that made him accede to Mussolini’s power grab.181 More to the point is that there is not a single word about Mussolini and fascism in either Nara’s diary or his reminiscences.182 Instead, where Nara is silent in his diary about any “lesson” George V is said to have taught the crown prince, he describes Victor Emmanuel III in a positive vein. This suggests that the latter, at least, exhibited qualities of proper monarchical behavior worthy of emulation. Nara writes that the king of Italy is sensitive to the mood of public opinion and has made an effort to encourage simplicity and frugality and in his daily life, as well, for state receptions practices great frugality. Victor Emmanuel III remained on the throne throughout the war and for a period of time after. He was a “survivor” to say the least. He may have become “a keen admirer of Mussolini” after the crown prince’s visit in order to survive, but I have no way of knowing since this subject is outside of my field. Nara’s diary and reminiscences may shed a little light on a reason for his longevity. He clearly had an acute sense for the direction the wind blew and acted accordingly. Some may call this crass opportunism, but if all opportunists were removed from politics, there would be none left in the arena. And let us not forget that a basic law of politics is to survive or to get re-elected. There is yet another example suggesting that Bix limited himself mainly to published articles when citing Nara’s diary. Bix writes that when the imperial entourage arrived in Colombo, it felt released from danger for the first time because no Japanese or Korean expatriates “were living” in isolated Ceylon.183 The entry for 28 March 1921 of Nara’s diary tells us instead that “three Japanese residents” (zairyû hôjin) brought gifts which were accepted, and they were given an audience. I am assuming that the three represented a larger number of Japanese living in Ceylon.184 A final note on the crown prince’s 1921 European tour is in order. Iro-



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kawa also discusses the “lessons” learned by the crown prince. He writes of two experiences that “deeply impressed” the crown prince. The first was the British royal family’s relatively open and close relationship with the people. This revelation, Irokawa writes, made the crown prince decide to emulate that sort of relationship between the crown and the people of Japan. The second was the shock he experienced in seeing the utter devastation at Verdun that convinced him that modern war was no longer an option for humanity.185 It can be concluded from Nara and Irokawa that the lessons the crown prince absorbed in Europe were positive and enlightened: to love peace and hate war and to make the monarchy more open and accessible, and one that is based on a constitutional monarchical system. Concluding Remarks on Bix Ronald Spector in his review correctly notes that there will in all likelihood always be conflicting views of the prewar Shôwa era.186 Stephen Large seconds that notion by pointing to the “intractable problems” involving documents relating to the Shôwa emperor. Bix himself laments the “source gaps” that hinder historians. He compounds this problem by not utilizing the secondary works by scholars specializing in the Shôwa emperor, based on the same sources he uses, thus depriving himself of the option of considering alternative explanations. Large points out that Bix does not direct his readers to studies by Charles Sheldon, David Titus, Lesley Connors, Edward Drea, and Large himself, whose interpretations, based on “documentary evidence that Bix ignores, differ from his own.”187 Large’s complaint is legitimate, and one of the “intractable problems” is that “documents lie,” especially when it concerns the emperor and the imperial institution. Irokawa refers to this problem by pointing out that the Kido Kôichi Nikki is “full of distortions.”188 The historian’s responsibility is to see beyond the “lies” based on intensive and wide documentary research, and then to make a reasoned explanation, taking care always to signify that the explanation is speculative. I believe that Bix actually held an important key to understanding the import of documentary sources that purport to represent the emperor’s words and actions. He writes that the Shôwa emperor stood at the center of a coterie of advisers who “exerted influence on others through him because they exerted influence on him.”189 In other words, it is possible that for personal and/or political self-interest, these advisers claimed that the emperor had taken a specific position or had given voice to a certain view they had suggested in order to advance their own agenda or policy. This is speculative and is offered only as an alternative interpretation. All in all, Bix confronts a formidable historical conundrum, one that is almost impossible to unravel. Bix is not deterred and proceeds to make

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definitive statements. I believe he has failed in making his case against the Shôwa emperor. Sam Jameson has lived and worked in Japan from November 1960 to the present and was Tokyo bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune (1963–1971) and the Los Angeles Times (1971–1996).190 He concludes that Bix’s work, despite its Pulitzer Prize, is marred by “unsubstantiated conclusions and sweeping assertions.” He goes on to say that Bix has failed to provide “convincing evidence” on the “central issue” of whether the emperor personally made all or any of the decisions that carry the imperial seal.191 In early July 2003, I happened to meet Sam, after some months, at a reception. He asked me if I had read his article on Bix that had appeared in Shokun! (December 2002). When I said no, he offered to send me a copy. He faxed his six-page, single-spaced article, in English, titled “Bix on Hirohito.”192 In it, he gives specific examples of his basic conclusions found in his Japan Times review. He told me that he had spent hours trying to match Bix’s emphatic declarations on the personal decisions made by the emperor with the sources provided by Bix. He discovered that Bix either does not provide sources for his assertions or that Bix fails to show “how the information in the footnotes proves the point that [he] makes in his narrative.”193 Moreover, Jameson gives examples of Bix’s dismissive approach to statements and documents that contradict his emperor-as-“positive actor” proposition. For instance, when Bernard Krisher of Newsweek interviewed the emperor in 1975, the emperor said that “at the time of the opening of hostilities [the attack on Pearl Harbor], the cabinet made the decision and I was unable to overturn it.” Bix makes note of this quotation, but “dismisses it as a lie.” Bix also declares as a “false litany” the several statements that the emperor made personally declaring himself a constitutional monarch. Perhaps even more revealing of Bix as a scholar is his reaction to the statement by Jameson during another of Bix’s presentations, this time at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in July 2002. Jameson asked Bix to reply to Ben-Ami Shillony’s conclusion that after all is said and done, Bix does not differ from others who assert that the emperor was used by his coterie.194 His reply was not only testy, it did not comport with a fundamental scholarly standard, that is, a willingness to exchange freely in give and take over interpretation and documentation. Bix declared, “The reviewer’s comment seems to me a misreading. . . . I don’t see the reviewer’s point. It struck me as silly . . . there is no contradiction. I don’t need to defend myself. I’m not being arrogant. I’m not being arrogant about this.”195 Bix’s unwillingness to entertain alternative explanations is probably why, as Large points out, Bix does not cite works by authors who do not agree with him. I end this section on Jameson on Bix on a personal note. Many years ago, the late Hiroshi Wagatsuma told me that “Sam Jameson is the best foreign correspondent in Japan. He also speaks Japanese fluently, he reads the lan-



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guage with ease, and writes it as well. You should make it a point to seek him out.” I do not regret following his advice. It is a Japanese journalist who may have dealt Bix and his work what is perhaps an irreparably damaging blow in a brief three-page article in AERA, a weekly. A background sketch of the author and journal will place the article in perspective. In late November 2001, I received a faxed message from Ueda Yoriko of Shôyû Kurabu urging me to be sure to come to my scheduled weekly meeting there. The reason, she added, was that Hasegawa Hiroshi, a writer for AERA, wanted to interview me about Yamagata. AERA, one of the flagship journals of Asahi Shimbun, had a bumpy beginning but has found its footing and is now expanding its readership. Hasegawa, after reading snippets on Yamagata, had come to think there could be more to Yamagata than the stereotypic view of him as an aggressive militarist concerned primarily with continental expansion. He had interviewed Itô Takashi and afterward was told to talk with the American scholar, Akita. This turn of events intrigued me since Asahi Shimbun is generally regarded as being the most “progressive” among the major newspapers in Japan. The interview took place on 4 December. I asked Hirose Yoshihiro to join us since he had been associated with the Yamagata project from its inception. The interview lasted for an hour and a half, with Hasegawa asking pertinent questions and taking voluminous notes. The interview ended with my promising to send him an article jointly written with Itô that was based on primary sources and seemed to address many of his concerns.196 Hasegawa’s article appeared in January 2002.197 The positive assessment of Yamagata can be seen from the title and the subtitle, part of which is in the form of a question: “Why is it that Yamagata, stereotyped as the personification of a militarist, is the one who persisted in thoroughly criticizing foreign policy [that relied on] military force?” Hasegawa, it should be added, is critical of Katô Kômei, who is generally regarded as a pro-Western liberal. His positive portrait of Yamagata was not unexpected given the thrust of his questions and from reports I heard later that he was renowned for being a hard-digging revisionist. I do admit being pleasantly surprised that AERA published his piece. Almost exactly a year later, Hasegawa again called. Since the first volume of Bix’s work had been published in the summer and the second was due in late October, I suspected that it was about Bix, a point he confirmed. I then asked him who asked him to call me. He replied, “Professor Kurosawa Fumitaka, of Tokyo Joshi Daigaku,” one of the editors of the Nara Takeji Nikki and Kaikoroku. We met again at Shôyû Kurabu with Ueda Yoriko in attendance. In his hands was the first volume of Bix’s Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan in translation, with countless greenish tabs inserted. He also said that he had asked for and received the galleys for the second volume. He began with the remark that he was very

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i­ mpressed by Bix’s detailed description of Daijôsai and at this point was inclined to review the book favorably. Yet, as he continued reading, he was astonished by Bix’s unscholarly use of sources and his unsubstantiated statements, so much so that his astonishment increasingly turned to exasperation and irritation. He also wondered how it was that scholars had praised it or supported Bix’s position. He specifically asked me about Carol Gluck since he had read her statement in the Japanese edition of Newsweek that “it is an indisputable fact that the emperor actively and intimately participated in politics.”198 I replied that she is an eminent historian of modern Japan at one of the premier centers of Japan studies in the United States, and past president of the Association for Asian Studies. He merely shook his head. Hasegawa’s article, titled “Shôwa Tennô Kenkyû no Giman” (A deceptive study of the Shôwa emperor), appeared in AERA in December 2002.199 Hasegawa’s patience must have been severely tested since he contacted Tabata Norishige, vice bureau chief for academic publications at Kôdansha, and asked how Bix was able in his narrative to reach conclusions without providing substantiation. Tabata replied, “It may have been because [Bix] had no choice but to arbitrarily (chikarawaza) push his case in order to ensure the logical consistency [of his narrative].”200 If Tabata is being quoted correctly, this is an astonishing admission from one who had shepherded a putatively scholarly work from start to finish.201 Bix’s first statement to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, quoted here in full, reveals, as it were, his basic approach to scholarship, one that exasperated Hasegawa and put Tabata in an untenable position: I would like you to know that when I began the research that eventually produced this biography, I was already convinced that the American image of Hirohito, the Shôwa emperor, was inaccurate, little more than a simplified . . . well, a simplified repeat of the official Japanese portrayal [italics mine].202

Banno Junji, a renowned scholar of modern Japanese political history, is among the very few who have noted what I argue is Bix’s flawed methodology, as shown by his declaration at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. The context in which his critique should be read is that he, like Bix, is convinced that the Shôwa emperor and his advisers were active political actors. Unlike Bix, however, he asserts that they at times [italics mine] tried to avoid war. Bix develops his case by assuming from the start that the Shôwa emperor was a villain (akudama). Therefore, (in Bix’s hands) his efforts to avoid war become transformed into a purposeful affirmation of war.203

George Mulgan warned against precisely this kind of deductive approach.



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Ideology and Scholarship I close this chapter on Dower and Bix to lament, as a positivist, their practice, one that is shared by some others, to postulate a linkage between the putative ideology of those with whom they disagree and their scholarship. Underlying this presumed relationship between ideology and scholarship is the further assumption that there is “good” ideology, that is, one that they share, and “bad” ideology that motivates those with whom they disagree. They do so without evidence or in the face of contrary evidence—that is, they speculate. Dower’s criticism of Reischauer and the modernization theorists is based on the supposed connection between their liberal ideology and their criticism of Norman as well as their support for the United States government’s anti-communist, anti-Marxist policies. Bix, in his essay “The Pitfalls of Scholastic Criticism,” criticizes the economic historian Honjô Eijirô, whose scholarly views, he says, are understandable given that he was a “strongly conservative economist” and “anti-Marxist.” He saw no reason, therefore, for Norman to have shared Honjô’s “political biases.” Bix’s charge against Honjô is based on the latter’s The Social and Economic History of Japan (Kyoto: Institute for Research in Economic History of Japan, 1935). In this case, Bix again exhibits his ability to read another’s mind by specifically stating a causal relationship between Honjô’s “conservative ideology” and anti-Marxism and many of the interpretations in the work just cited. A careful reading of Honjô shows that there are similarities, for example, between Honjô and Norman in their discussion of the plight of peasants in the Tokugawa period, the subject that caused Bix’s ire. Indeed, Tsuchiya Takao, a scholar of the Marxist Rônô school, writes that Honjô’s description of rural Tokugawa is “dark enough.”204 The danger of casually assuming a causal relationship between ideology and scholarship is also evident in the following instance. At the heart of my article on Norman is the premise that Norman, when he wrote Japan’s Emergence, did not have control of the Japanese language, contrary to the impression given by his extensive citations of Japanese sources. Bix concedes that “Norman’s ability to use primary sources was not adequate in 1940.” However, he then goes on to claim that “it was inevitable and entirely proper for Norman, writing between 1938 and 1940, to have used many Japanese secondary sources,” and that “he not only used these sources, but the primary sources contained therein as well.”205 Dower also writes that Norman, in Japan’s Emergence, “relied primarily on several secondary works written or edited by Tsuchiya Takao, plus documentary materials compiled by Tsuchiya and Ôuchi Hyôe.”206 Roger Bowen is a sympathetic observer of Norman’s life and works and has been granted access to Norman’s papers. One of his findings should put

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to rest the question of Norman’s ability to use Japanese sources when he wrote Japan’s Emergence. Bowen concludes that “as of 1936, Norman was functionally illiterate in Japanese . . . [and] it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was inadequately prepared to conduct serious research in Japanese by the time he began writing his dissertation in 1938.”207 He repeats the point that “Norman’s reading abilities were very weak,” and that “an examination of his collection” reveals that “just one or two pages of twoand three-hundred page books have been examined, let alone translated or translated properly.”208 Bowen, however, turns this weakness into a strength by asserting that Norman “accomplished so much because he knew so little Japanese.”209 Bowen is not only generous in his view of Norman, but he is also critical about my motives. He confirms that “several of [Akita’s] many criticisms of Norman’s scholarship are objectively on the mark,” but that the motivation for the “controversial vivisection of JE appears all too political,” and that the “account” was “ideologically biased.”210 I am grateful to Bowen for sustaining my main contention. To counter his allegations, however, letters written during the process of writing the article and after the submission of the manuscript are cited here. I had been corresponding with Dower to inform him that I was going to be critical of him and Norman, but that in the spirit of fair play and collegiality I should tell him of my motives, approaches, and findings. One such letter is dated 13 October 1976: As I said in my previous letter, I am not interested in Norman’s membership in the Communist Party. I don’t even want to suggest that there is a connection between his political activities and his scholarship.211

Moreover, when the manuscript was submitted to the Journal of Japanese Studies, Kenneth B. Pyle, the editor, in a letter dated 24 August 1976, wrote, “I would suggest as a title ‘Ideology and Modern History: An Examination of E. H. Norman’s Scholarship.’” My reply, dated 27 August 1976, was consistent with the position taken in the letter to Dower: “The [suggested] title bothers me a bit . . . you will note that I do not even bother with the question of Norman’s ideology. I . . . have my own opinion about his ideology, but in this piece, I was simply interested in Norman as a scholar.” The linkage between ideology supposedly held by a scholar and his scholarship also involves Itô Takashi. He contributed to one of the high school history textbooks used until April 2003, when new editions were adopted. The history textbook to which Itô had contributed never stirred the kind of controversy that had occurred in 2002 over the proposed revisions in the middle school textbook. In fact, it had been well received, with 50.6 percent of all high schools adopting it. A more telling statistic is that of the



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high schools that had adopted it and are known to emphasize a college preparatory curriculum, the figure rises to more than 80 percent.212 Nevertheless, since he is a member of the Atarashii Rekishi Kyôkasho o Tsukurukai (Society for Writing New History Textbooks), Itô is believed among certain quarters to be a nationalist and a conservative. I had met Itô in 1967 when he was a graduate assistant in Tokyo University’s Institute of Social Science (Shaken), not exactly a hotbed of nationalists and conservatives. I have worked closely with him since 1977. I have never considered that his ideological bent, whatever it may be, is relevant.213 Human beings defy simplistic labeling, and Itô cannot be pigeonholed but for one outstanding trait: he is a positivist.

Concluding Remarks

So much to do, so little time. . . . — Commonly ascribed to Cecil Rhodes

Peter Duus was also a frequent user of Kensei Shiryôshitsu in the sum-

mer of 1981, when he was doing research on what ultimately became his The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). He said one day, “George, I would go crazy if I were doing what I see you doing,” to which I replied, “But Peter, I am going crazy!” “Crazy,” “obsessed,” or “possessed” may well be part of the reason for continuing to transcribe documents. The greater reason is that I had as onshi Itô, Hirose, Sakeda, and Kobayashi Kazuyuki, who were willing to work with an American scholar. A more honest and realistic way of putting it is that they gained nothing by working with me, and indeed I may very well have impeded their work, and yet their help continued unabated. I am indebted to them since I could not have done anything without their guidance. This relationship holds true even to this day. I am also convinced that there will not be for decades, if ever, another Itô, Hirose, and Kobayashi, who bring to bear desire, focus, dedication, and organizational skills to locating primary documents, and then, with others, transcribing and publishing them.1 Moreover, just when we despaired that we would ever be able to publish Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM) and Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM), Ueda Yoriko and Shôyû Kurabu offered to participate as full partners in putting them out.2 This confluence of personalities sharing similar interests, values, and goals happened by extraordinary coincidence, a phenomenon that I am convinced will not again occur.3 This is why I welcomed the recommendation by a reader of the manuscript that I describe my experiences as an outsider with a unique insider’s perspective (chapter 1). The reader also noted that although I had not made the point explicitly, it was obvious to him that I was a “positivist.” He suggested that I define positivism and test that definition against theoretically based studies in the Japan field favored by postmodernization theory scholars. This is the only major suggestion with which I could not comply, and this was because of my total ignorance of the subject.4 His recommendation otherwise was so compelling that I decided to test the “positivist” approach on



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two studies published to wide acclaim in which there is a modicum of theory, which are unquestionably well-written with smoothly flowing narrative of the old-fashioned sort, but begin by accepting certain premises and deductively making their respective cases (chapter 5). The original title of the manuscript was Reading Primary Documents. Clearly, the contents of chapter 4 and chapter 5 called for a different title, the one finally adopted. The main thrust of chapter 4 was to show that doing “particularistic” work and a more comprehensive study are not mutually exclusive activities. I have tried to read as widely as possible works in English on the bakumatsu and post–Meiji Restoration periods to do the chapter. I did not limit myself to history and its subspecialties, and I read works by anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists. In the process, I found that this was most satisfying as well as a great learning experience. An important reason for the rewarding experience is that there is no doubt that the field of Japan studies has moved ahead considerably in many positive ways since Itô made his observations in 1977 on the tendency of many foreign scholars on Japan to “disappear” from the field after getting their degrees. James McClain pays homage to the “growing and increasingly innovative scholarship” in English on modern Japan.5 I am indebted, as McClain is, to the latest Anglophone literature in this book, especially in chapter 4. However, while in Japan: A Modern History, McClain limits himself almost exclusively to works in English,6 I shall continue to rely as well on Japanese primary sources and secondary literature for interpretive ends. The younger scholars are better equipped to handle Japanese language sources than many of the generation that followed the wartimetrained specialists. The Inter-University Center and the great improvement in language training at universities may be cited for this development. They also—and this statement is not limited to American researchers— are producing works much more variegated and sophisticated, and seen from perspectives that had escaped the older generation.7 The bar of excellence, in short, has been raised, and we fail to pay heed to these works at our great risk. Still, there is one minor “failing” I have noted in the recent studies, that is, the apparent lack of interest in the Anglophone literature produced from the mid-nineteenth century through the early postwar years. There is a rich lode in these works that can be exploited to give historical continuity to any analysis and interpretation of modern Japanese history. I have done some of this in chapter 4, but then, I have had the advantage of being a student of Japanese history since the late 1940s. The Future There are two more projects I would like to do with my Japanese colleagues. One is the publication of the letters written by Yamagata Aritomo to his co-

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horts (Yamagata Aritomo Monjo). I did most of the transcriptions of approximately two thousand letters, and naturally they have been checked by Itô, Hirose, Sakeda, or Kobayashi. These letters were easier to transcribe than those found in Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo since, after initial difficulties, I became inured to Yamagata’s writing idiosyncrasies. Itô, in December 2001, agreed that we should try to publish these letters as well as those discovered after the first time around. Unfortunately, the Shôyû Kurabu calendar of future publications is too full to enable it to help in this enterprise. Therefore, unless a source of funding as well as assistance by others can be arranged, these transcribed letters will remain unpublished. In 2005, Ueda suggested that these transcriptions, which had been held for safekeeping by Kobayashi Kazuyuki in his office at Komazawa Daigaku, be brought to the Shôyû Kurabu, where they will be gradually input into word processors, an onerous task that Matsudaira Haruko has bravely volunteered to undertake. This will make it much easier to publish them when circumstances are more favorable. One spring evening in 2004 found me with Kurosawa Fumitaka and Kobayashi at our favorite watering hole in Shinjuku, where, as is usually the case, I was being brought up to date on the latest developments in our field. During a lull in the conversation, I offhandedly remarked that I had just passed my seventy-seventh birthday (kiju). Kobayashi suddenly sat upright and said, “We should produce a festschrift for Akita-sensei for his eightieth birthday (sanju).” The two offered on the spot to serve as coeditors. This proposal was such a rare honor that I could hardly turn my back on it. When they asked Itô Takashi to contribute, he did not merely assent, but took it upon himself to find a publisher. He succeeded in persuading a top-of-the-line publisher of scholarly works, Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, to commit itself to the rombunshû. It set several conditions, among them that contributors be limited to fifteen, and contributions adhere strictly to fifty 200-kanji pages. Itô also went along with Kurosawa’s and Kobayashi’s suggestion that he be the general editor on the condition that the two serve as coeditors. A list of ten contributors was made, some of who have already accepted. All this came together in less than two months, in part because most of us have worked together during my long residence in Japan. One thought crossed my mind during all that transpired: the three editors seemed to take it for granted that I would continue to return to Japan to collaborate with them and others on various projects. I intend to do so.8 In the meanwhile, for several years I have been working with Hirose to reacquaint myself with the translations I had done with Itô during the earliest stages of the Yamagata Aritomo project. Since more than two decades have elapsed, what is involved now is rereading the documents as we scan the translations. After Itô moved on to Shôwa political history and oral ­history, I began translating other documents with Hirose. The results are



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hundreds of pages of typed translations, mostly Yamagata’s policy recommendations and letters by and to Yamagata and those of other Meiji leaders. They will form the crux of the study centered on Yamagata that will be coauthored with Itô and Hirose, without whom the translations could not have been done. The knowledge and insights they brought to the annotations and commentaries will undoubtedly raise the level of the final product, which will include newly uncovered position papers and letters. Commentaries, building on topics on Meiji-Taishô political history touched upon in chapter 4 as well as other topics, will accompany the annotated translations. The whole of the project will begin with a lengthy and detailed introduction on Yamagata, a draft of which was started in the late 1960s. It will include the trajectories of his adult careers as soldier, politician-statesman, and genro; his persona; evolution of his thinking; relationships with his cohorts; and the ebb and flow of his reputations, deserved and undeserved. This will be a multivolume project—an admission that probably signals to potential publishers its death knell—with no pretense at all to being a definitive window to Meiji-Taishô political history, even granting Yamagata’s decades-long and undoubted prominence in it. Realism compels me to acknowledge to more than a sneaking suspicion, given the average lifespan of those born in the mid-1920s, that all may be for naught. Hope, however, springs eternal, and it is in that spirit that I am proceeding with this “new” project. It is in the same spirit that I propose the following. The late Sakeda Masatoshi and I had spent more than a decade translating and typing selected papers of Abei Iwane. These provide, I am persuaded, insights into the ideas and activities of an “anti-Meiji government” local person of influence, who was also “anti-mainstream” even among opponents of the Meiji government. I have long despaired that these translations would ever see the light of day. If a younger scholar or two would like to bring them out to a wider audience, I happily share them, with Sakeda and me as junior partners in the enterprise.9 This is admittedly more a cry for help than a gesture of generosity. It would be a pity if they were to gather dust in my files and then be heard from no more.

Notes

Preface and Acknowledgments 1.  Some years ago, John Hall wrote in a Christmas card that as far as he knew I was one of a handful still doing history the old-fashioned way. I took this as a compliment. Many years later, I derived some satisfaction from an article by Kirk Cheyfitz that provided precisely the rationale I needed for steadfastly adhering to the “positivist” approach. (Cheyfitz, “If It’s New, Be Just a Bit Wary,” Japan Times, 30 May 2003, reprinted from Los Angeles Times, 19 May 2003. Cheyfitz is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: The 12 Timeless Rules for Managing a Successful Business.) He noted that our obsession with the new has blinded us to “what really works in business: the old, tested ideas [e.g., honesty and trust, customer satisfaction, fiscal responsibility] that never change.” He also cited Robert Sutton, a management specialist and author at Stanford, who asserted that “most old ideas are good and most new ideas are bad.” In short, ideas that persist happen to work, whereas the “attrition rate among new ideas is always high.” 2.  This description is based on lessons learned and practiced since 1950, when I took the course Scientific Method. For a much more elegant exegesis, see William M. Trochim, “Deductive and Inductive Thinking,” The Research Methods Knowledge Base, second edition, at http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.htm. Trochim has requested that citations of his database online include the URL http://www  .socialresearchmethods.net/kb. My discussion is similar to Trochim’s description of “positivism and post-positivism,” but I was unaware of the term “post-positivism” until I read Trochim. See William M. Trochim, “Positivism and Post-Positivism,” The Research Methods Knowledge Base, http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/positvsm  .htm (last revised 20 October 2006). 3.  It is encouraging to note that others are pausing in their careers to do what is being attempted in this chapter. The following item was contributed to Japan Political Research, An Annual Review 31 (March 2000): p. 24, by Professor Patricia Steinhoff: You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching: Doing Fieldwork in Japan, edited by Ted Bestor, Pat Steinhoff, and Vickey Lyon-Bestor, is nearly finished and we hope to have it out with University of Hawai‘i Press by early 2001. [Update: the book was published as Doing Fieldwork in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003).]

This is a multidisciplinary set of essays on various aspects of doing research in Japan, based on the personal experience of the contributors and designed to be useful to new researchers. It includes essays by Joy Hendry, Suzanne Coulter, Ian Reader, Helen Hardacre, Merry White, Ellis Krauss, John Campbell, David T. Johnson, David McConnell, Samuel Coleman, Sheila Smith, Mary Brinton, Andrew Gordon, Robert Smith, Ted

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­Bestor, and Pat Steinhoff. The work has been given the highest marks. Historian Kenneth Ruoff has called it “a gem” of a book (review of Doing Fieldwork in Japan, International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 11 October 2003). See also review of Doing Fieldwork in Japan by William W. Kelly, who obviously knows well the subject at hand, in Journal of Japanese Studies 31 (Winter 2005). See also Hugh Patrick, “Personal Recollections by Hugh Patrick: An Interview by Edward J. Lincoln,” Journal of Japanese Studies 31 (Winter 2005): pp. 121­–140. Also Hugh Patrick, “The Development of Studies of the Japanese Economy in the United States: A Personal Odyssey,” in Finance, Governance, and Competitiveness in Japan, ed. Masahiko Aoki and Gary R. Saxonhouse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 121 n.1. 4.  This sort of exercise occurs all the time across all academic disciplines. A quarter of a century ago, I was intrigued by the exchange on the uses of documentary evidence involving George F. Kennan. See C. Ben Wright, “Mr. ‘X’ and Containment,” Slavic Review 35 (March 1976): pp. 1–31; “George F. Kennan Replies,” Slavic Review 35 (March 1976): pp. 32–36; C. Ben Wright, “A Reply to George F. Kennan,” Slavic Review 35 (June 1976): pp. 318–320. 5.  Malcolm Jones, with John Horn, “Publishing: King of the Mountain,” Newsweek, 15 April 2002. Introduction 1.  Robert Katayama, Yale-educated attorney and former schoolmate, recently reminded me that we lived in what was known as “Hell’s Half Acre,” with roadways sporting names such as “Tin Can Alley.” 2.  One of the books we used for the first course was Claude Bernard’s Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, translated by Henry Copley Greene (New York: Henry Schuman, Inc., 1949), a work I still go to at times. 3.  The title of the paper is “An Annotated Translation of the Han Shu Notice in the Ssu-ku Ch’üan-shu tsung-mu t’i yao.” 4.  Personality in Japanese History, ed. Albert M. Craig and Donald H. Shively (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 335–372. 5.  H. D. Harootunian, review of “The Other Itô: A Political Failure,” by George Akita, in American Historical Review 77 (April 1972): p. 566. Actually, I believe that the biggest weakness of the article was the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Itô Miyoji. He was surely not an attractive personality, but if the article can be redone, I shall aim for a more balanced portrayal in straightforward narrative style. I will stress also political factors to explain the relationship between the two Itôs. 6.  Wagatsuma and I became fast friends, corresponded regularly, and made it a point to see each other when we were both in Japan. He was a gifted person who wrote poetry and composed music even as he maintained a sedulous schedule of research and writing. His untimely death in 1985 at age fifty-eight from esophageal cancer was a great loss to Japan studies. 7.  J. Thomas Rimer hits the right notes on this matter in his “From Art to Interpretation: Reflections on the Changing Field of Japanese Literature,” Asian Studies Newsletter (Fall 1999): pp. 13–14. F. G. Notehelfer’s commentaries in his review article of New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, edited by Helen Hardacre with Adam L. Kern, in Monumenta Nipponica 53 (Autumn 1998): pp. 359–373, are also illuminating. Notehelfer is a



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“mish kid,” or a “BOJ” (born in Japan) of missionary parents, as were Norman, the Reischauer brothers, Robert K. and Edwin O., J. W. Hall, Otis Carey, Roger F. Hackett, and Shively. His article “Japan’s First Pollution Incident,” Journal of Japanese Studies 1 (Summer 1975): pp. 351–383, is balanced, insightful, ahead of its time, and worth reading. 8.  Herbert P. Bix, “The Pitfalls of Scholastic Criticism: A Reply to Norman’s Critics,” Journal of Japanese Studies 4 (Summer 1978): pp. 392, 393. 9.  Sometimes the best effort to strictly adhere to the mechanics of footnoting confronts scholars with the frustrating reality that although they are convinced they have read and recorded supporting evidence, they cannot locate the source amid the mountain of documents collected for a study. A colleague once remarked in such a situation that “that piece of paper has legs.” Two scholars, separated half a world apart, reacted to this problem in similar fashion. One, a Japanese who always amply footnoted, wrote, “shussho shitsunen” (I cannot remember the source). Masumi Junnosuke, Nihon Seitô Shiron (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1965), vol. 1, p. 133 n. 11. The other, recently retired from Harvard, quoted a Meiji leader and footnoted, “This quotation is from a lecture [for] which I no longer have the original citation” (Albert M. Craig, “The Meiji Restoration: A Historiographical Overview,” in The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States, ed. Helen Hardacre [Leiden: Brill, 1998], p. 137 n. 28). More recently, Midorikawa Machiko confesses frankly, “I have read that Mishima Yukio confided something similar to a close acquaintance, although whether it was Dômoto Masaki or Fukushima Jirô, I do not remember.” Midorikawa, review of Orienting Arthur Waley: Japonism, Orientalism, and the Creation of Japanese Literature in English, by John Walter de Gruchy, in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Winter 2004): p. 566. 10.  Thomas F. Gieryn, “Merton, Teacher,” Items & Issues 4 (Spring–Summer 2003): p. 17. This is one of several articles, arranged under the collective heading “Remembering Robert K. Merton,” that address various aspects of Merton’s life and work. David L. Sills, who with Merton coedited Social Science Quotations: Who Said What, When, and Where, said that a basic editorial policy was that all authors of quotations would be identified by “nationality, date, and occupation or profession,” that the “date, source, and page” will be given in the text, and that the bibliography at the end would give full documentation. He concludes that this “meticulous documentation” was costly in editorial and photocopying time, but both never regretted requiring it. Sills, “Editing with Merton,” Items & Issues 4 (Spring–Summer 2003): p. 20. 11.  The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: My Country Right or Left, 1940–1943, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), vol. 2, p. 258. Peter Gay used the term “perspectival realism,” meaning that “objects of historical study [can] be studied and understood, and that objectivity, though difficult, is possible.” Style in History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), p. x. 12.  Harold Bolitho, “Tokugawa Japan: The Return of the Other?” in The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States, ed. Helen Hardacre, p. 101 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). Robert Fish, formerly a graduate assistant in our department (more about whom in chapter 1), first called my attention to this volume just before I had left again for Japan. Assistant professor Theodore Jun Yoo, our new historian on modern Korea, kindly photocopied articles in the volume he thought would be of interest to me. 13.  Robin W. Winks discusses the many types of evidence available to the historian in his edited work The Historian as Detective: Essays on Evidence (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), especially pp. xiii–xxiv.

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14.  Kate Robertson, “It’s All in Your Head,” Island Scene (Summer 2001): pp. 11– 14. Island Scene is published by the Hawai‘i Medical Service Association. 15.  Henry S. Commager, The Nature and the Study of History (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Books, Inc., 1965), p. 53. See also his discussion, “Interpretation— and Bias,” pp. 53–60; and “Judgment in History,” pp. 60–71. I apply Commager’s expression “manfully” in the broader sense of “humanly,” that is, to strive insofar as humanly possible to avoid bias. 16.  See David H. Fischer’s definition of the “fallacy of declarative questions.” Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), pp. 124–125. 17.  We surely can learn from the candid admission by an economist to the question, “What happens to the United States and global economies if the U.S. attacks Iraq?” The response by Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist of High Frequency Economics, Ltd., in Valhalla, New York, is: “Each time we were asked [about the impact of a war] we responded with the same answers. We do not know, and we have no way of knowing.” John M. Berry, The Washington Post, in Japan Times, 23 September 2002. Robert J. Samuelson, the respected columnist for Newsweek who writes on these matters, is just as forthcoming, and his words are shots across the bow of those who persist in taking refuge in theorizing: “If economics were a boat, it would be a leaky tub. The pumps would be straining, and the captain would be trying to prevent it from capsizing. Which is to say: our ideas for explaining trends in output, employment, and living standards—what we call ‘microeconomics’—are in a state of disarray.” He ends his piece with “[i]t could be all of the above or just dumb luck. We don’t know.” “Time to Toss the Textbook,” Newsweek, 27 June 2005. 18.  James A. Fujii seems somewhat defensive in declaring that “[Bourdaghs’] study shows how wrongheaded are the recent triumphal declarations touting the death of theory.” Fujii, review of The Dawn That Never Comes: Shimazaki Tôson and Japanese Nationalism, by Michael K. Bourdaghs, in Journal of Asian Studies 63 (August 2004): p. 796. It needs to be restressed that my questions on the usefulness of theory in humanistic studies reflect my “druthers” and are not pontifications on the demise of theory in academia. 19.  David L. Howell, review of Frontier Contact between Chosôn Korea and Tokugawa Japan, by James B. Lewis, in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Winter 2004): p. 543. 20.  Klaus Antoni, review of Japans Karneval der Krise: Ejanaika und die Meiji Renovation, by Reinhard Zöllner, in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Winter 2004): p. 546. Zöllner’s study is but one example of erudite works being published by European Japan specialists. 21.  Midorikawa Machiko, review of Orienting Arthur Waley: Japonism, Orientalism, and the Creation of Japanese Literature in English, pp. 565–567. 22.  Joshua Wolf Shenk, “The True Lincoln,” Time, 4 July 2005, p. 42. 23.  Penelope Francks, “Rural Industry, Growth Linkages, and Economic Development in Nineteenth Century Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies 61 (February 2002): pp. 33–34, 49, 51–52. 24.  Ibid., pp. 49, 51–52. 25.  Ibid., p. 38 n. 4. There is little doubt in my mind that the same can be said of the political development of Meiji-Taishô Japan. 26.  Jennifer Robertson, “When and Where Japan Enters: American Anthropology Since 1945,” in The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States, ed. Helen Hardacre, pp. 299, 316 (Leiden: Brill, 1998).



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27.  Ibid., pp. 316, 318. 28.  Aurelia George Mulgan, The Politics of Agriculture in Japan (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. xvii–xx. Her interest and research on her study began twentyfive years ago and has resulted in an eight-hundred-page volume, the first of three. 29.  George Mulgan, Politics of Agriculture, p. 37. Gerald L. Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and the Limits of Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 59 n. 62. Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University won the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics. He had designed experiments to explain why people make irrational economic decisions in a “theoretically ‘rational’ marketplace.” His work is said to counter the widely held theory that “self-interest and rational decisionmaking” propel the economic choices that people make. “Princeton Psychologist Lands Share of Nobel Economics Prize,” Japan Times, 11 October 2002. George Mulgan and Curtis would probably applaud. 30.  Bolitho, “Tokugawa Japan: The Return of the Other?” pp. 100–101. 31.  Donald Richie, “Reassessing Kurosawa’s Neglected Masterpiece,” review of Seven Samurai: The Film by Akira Kurosawa, by Joan Mellen, in Japan Times, 13 January 2002. 32.  Terry M. Perline, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” Transaction: Social Science and Modern Society 10 (November–December 1972): p. 119. See also Peter Gay’s criticism of “Carl Becker’s Heavenly City,” Political Science Quarterly 72 (June 1957): pp. 182­–183. Chapter 1: Japan’s Postwar Positivists Epigraph. Keith Windschuttle, quoting Peter Geyl, The Real Stuff of History. 1. An excellent discussion of the House of Peers is by Andrew Fraser, “The House of Peers (1890–1905): Structure, Groups, and Role,” in Fraser, R. H. P. Mason, and Philip Mitchell, Japan’s Early Parliaments, 1890–1905: Structure, Issues, and Trends (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 8–36, especially pp. 9–10. 2. Inter-University Center Newsletter, December 2000 (in pdf format), p. 3. The 2000–2001 recipients were Keith Casner, Colin Hsu, Lindsey Ricker, Bruce Rusk, and Robin Tierney (ibid.). 3. A detailed depiction of this activity is found in George Akita, “The Shôyû Kurabu and the Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM),” forthcoming as a Shôyû Kurabu publication. 4. Ueda descends directly from Mizuno Katsunari, who had fought for years alongside Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu’s mother, Odai, was from the Mizuno house. As a reward for his loyal service, Mizuno was given the 100,000-koku Fukuyama domain in Hiroshima near the Okayama border. The house was later abolished when it failed to produce an heir, but out of consideration that Odai was Ieyasu’s mother, a distant relative was selected to become the new head and given a domain of 20,000 koku in Yûki, Ibaraki. Ueda’s grandmother on her mother’s side, Kiyoko, was Katsura Tarô’s second daughter, and she is also related by marriage to Inoue Kaoru. The widespread practice of adoption and intermarriage among forebears of present members in Shôyû Kurabu has given rise to an unwritten code among them: one speaks ill of another’s ancestors at great risk. 5. See bibliography for full citation. 6. The Shôyû Kurabu is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, so the publications

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are given without charge to research institutions and university libraries anywhere in the world. There is a one-time postage charge for in-print back volumes that will be sent in a single packet. The Shôyû Kurabu subsequently assumes mailing costs of publications as they are produced. A letter written on official stationery and signed by the responsible person of the organization is all that is required to get on the mailing list. Requests should be directed to: Shôyû Kurabu 3, 3, 1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo (100-0013) Japan Attn: Yoriko Ueda

7. Ôkubo Yôko is, starting with the progenitor Ôkubo Toshimichi (1830–1878), the fifth and last direct descendant, so this line will end with her. On her own initiative, she has been downloading information from the Internet that has been very helpful for my research. 8. Yamao Yôzô (1837–1917) of Chôshû was kôbukyô (minister of construction) from 1880 to 1881. 9. Tsutsumi is directly descended from a collateral branch of Fujiwara Kamatari (614–669). The family grave is no ordinary thing but a kofun (burial mound, tomb), which has become an eyesore because it is overgrown with weeds and other vegetation. Tsutsumi has laughingly said that the family is occasionally criticized for not clearing away the growth. 10. I have found the Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History, comp. Janet E. Hunter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), useful to check factual data on this and several other items. I hope Hunter will update and expand this valuable sourcebook. The formal title of the San Francisco accord is Treaty of Peace with Japan. 11. This section is a revised, abridged, and updated version of my article “Trends in Modern Japanese Political History: The ‘Positivist’ Studies,” Monumenta Nipponica 37 (Winter 1982): pp. 497–521. The author was a participant-observer in the project, having been involved in four of the nine volumes, two of them as a coeditor. 12. Tokyo Toritsu Daigaku was reorganized and in April 2005 became known as Shuto Daigaku Tokyo. The English name will remain Tokyo Metropolitan University. 13. Kuroda Kiyotaka, a leading figure from Satsuma whose correspondence to Itô is included in IHKM (1976), had the admirable habit of writing down the year, but unfortunately the contents of his letters are insignificant. 14. As an aside, I admit that computer technology has completely passed me by, so that every word of this manuscript was handwritten with resort to cutting and pasting when necessary, which was often the case. My digital illiteracy is obvious from the following incident. One day, I was fiddling with my daughter’s cell phone, but try as I might, I could not get it to work, not even to produce the dial tone. When she returned, I asked her, “Please teach me how to work your cell phone.” She could not stop laughing for a full minute before she replied, “Dad, that is the TV remote, this is the cell phone; and by the way, this is a table, that is a chair, and here we have a pencil.” The cell phone intimidates me still. 15. Itô Takashi and Banno Junji, “Itô Hirobumi Ate Meiji Genkun no Tegami,” Rekishi to Jimbutsu (June 1977): pp. 210–218.



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16. Nihon Dokusho Shimbun, 9 April 1973. 17. The back pages of each volume list the coeditors and their academic positions. Reading the list as the volumes appear gives a picture of the participants’ career paths. 18. Itô Takashi and Sakeda Masatoshi, eds., Okazaki Kunisuke Kankei Monjo . Kaisetsu to Shôden (Jiyû Minshutô Wakayama-ken Shibu Rengôkai, 1985), pp. 108–109. 19. The Inoue Kowashi project at Kokugakuin Daigaku preceded the IHKM project by some years. Still, the large number of participants, the University of Tokyo connection, and the undeniable importance of Itô Hirobumi may be said to have enhanced the IHKM project’s overall impact. 20. Sadly, Itô and Banno have had a parting of their ways. 21. Kuroda’s The Core of Japanese Democracy: Latent Interparty Politics, published by Palgrave Macmillan, was released in June 2005. The Palgrave catalogue reads, “This book seeks to explain how politics actually operates in the Japanese Diet using the author’s bilayer theory or dual power structure theory. It is about how politics in Japan operates behind closed doors and how laws are actually made in the Diet. While some parts of the process remain hidden—subterfuge is inherently part of politics” (http:// www.palgrave.com/products/Catalogue.aspx?is=1403969019). Prof. Kuroda recently informed me that work is in progress on another book, the subject of which is the first hundred years of recruitment to the [Diet] House of Representatives. 22. Good kanwa and sôsho dictionaries are required when working alone. Among the latter that are useful are Kodama Kôta, comp., Kuzushiji Yôrei Jiten (Tokyo: Kondô Shuppansha, 1958), and Fujiwara Sosui, Bokujô Hikki: Shodô Rikutai Daijiten (Tokyo: Sanseidô, 1980). Naturally, the transcriptions are later always checked with colleagues. 23. Sakihara suspects that when Haraguchi began, transcription was not regarded as a “mainstream” activity compared to interpretive history, so he was considered a madogiwazoku (someone not useful to the group) and placed in the Suisangakubu. 24. Other participants were Kazuko Yamada and the late Masato Matsui. Their efforts resulted in The Status System and Social Organization of Satsuma: A Translation of the Shûmon Tefuda Aratame Jômoku (Tokyo and Honolulu: University of Tokyo Press/ University Press of Hawai‘i, 1975). 25. One result of the collaboration is Sakeda Masatoshi and George Akita, “The Samurai Disestablished: Abei Iwane and His Stipend,” Monumenta Nipponica 41 (Autumn 1986): pp. 299–330. 26. Sakeda was also a gifted administrator, and there were indications that he was a prime candidate for the presidency of his university. However, he passed away in 1996, a tragic loss for scholarship on modern Japan’s political history. 27. One reason for the change is that he is focusing his attention on Shôwa documents and history, although he has not completely abandoned his interest in MeijiTaishô documents. See Itô Takashi, Kindai Nihon no Jimbutsu to Shiryô (Tokyo: Seishi Shuppan, 2000); Shôwashi no Shiryô o Saguru (Tokyo: Seishi Shuppan, 2000). 28. Hirose told me many years ago that a young professor, when he could not read a compound, would never ask a graduate student for help, but waited until either Itô or Banno was free and then asked one of them for help. 29. Hirose paid the transportation and living expenses for himself and his wife, Haiko. Sakeda earlier had done the same for himself, his wife, Michiko, and his son, Kôsaku. Their willingness to do so may indicate the strength of the bonding that had

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developed among those of us who have worked together for many years on several transcription and translation projects. 30. Numata Satoshi’s father is the distinguished kinsei (Tokugawa period) scholar the late Numata Jirô. The younger Numata passed away in 2004 at age sixty-two. He was a genuinely gentle, giving, unassuming person who was respected and beloved by all who had worked with him. 31. Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), p. 119. This subject is treated in more detail in chapter 5. 32. Hirose and I go to the Shôyû Kurabu regularly; Itô now only occasionally. Other scholar-participants, including Nagai Jun’ichi (Hôsei Daigaku), Nishikawa Makoto (Kawamura Gakuen Joshi Daigaku), Sasaki Takashi (Seishin Joshi Daigaku), Kobayashi Kazuyuki, and Suetake Yoshiya (Sôka Daigaku) are sent documents both to transcribe and later assist the nonacademic volunteers in transcribing and crosschecking each others’ transcriptions. 33. I made a point of spending four months in Hawai‘i, divided into summer and winter “seasons,” and Akiko visited me in Japan for a month to six weeks twice a year. This schedule eased somewhat the pain of separation. We also corresponded daily. The letters usually came in bunches. Once, the letters did not arrive for a longer than usual time, so I sent her a blank air letter. She later said gently, “Oh, you forgot to write anything in one letter,” to which I replied, “I did not forget, I was cross at you so I was not talking to you”—measures of her inherent goodness—and my immaturity. Jennifer Robertson lists several requirements that must be met in order to raise the level of anthropological studies in Japan. I am in agreement with her propositions and feel that they are applicable to other fields of Japan studies. One ideal, however, may be difficult for many to attain, that is, that a scholar aim for “extended periods of residence in Japan and regular and short return visits.” Jennifer Robertson, “When and Where Japan Enters: American Anthropology Since 1945,” in The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States, ed. Helen Hardacre, p. 307 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). I have probably spent more time in Japan than in Honolulu and this includes annual summer trips since 1962. Still, my case may be exceptional since my wife did not begrudge my extensive absences and the drain on a growing family’s budget. 34. My speech and that of the other main speaker, Professor Satô Isao, were given in the morning; the speeches and the comments of the participants in the symposium held in the afternoon have been published in Gikai Kaisetsu Hyakunen Kinen: Kôenkai . Shimpojiamu—Waga Kuni Gikai no Kako, Genzai, Mirai (Tokyo: Shûgiin-Sangiin, 1991). 35. Robert A. Fish received his doctorate in August 2002. He taught at Indiana State University prior to filling his current position as director of education and public programs for the Japan Society. 36. Jeff Kingston, “A Lonely Struggle for Recognition,” review of Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II, by Margaret Stetz and Bonnie B. C. Oh, eds., Japan Times, 7 October 2001. 37. Robert A. Fish, “From the Manchurian Incident to Nagasaki in Twenty Pages: The Pacific War as Seen in Postwar Japanese High School History Textbooks” (typescript), p. 9. 38. Ibid., p. 28. 39. Fish, personal communication, 9 October 2001; cited with his permission, 1 November 2001.



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40. Eguchi Keiichi, review of Shôwa Shoki Seijishi Kenkyû: Rondon Kaigun Gunshuku Mondai o Meguru Shoseiji Shûdan no Taikô to Teikei, by Itô Takashi (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1969), in Asahi Jânaru 11 (7 September 1969): pp. 60–61; Eguchi is even harsher in the review article of the same work, “Nihon Gendaishi Kenkyû no Saikin no Dôkô,” Rekishi no Riron to Kyôiku 18 (13 October 1969): pp. 1–10. 41. Eguchi Keiichi, “Nihon Gendaishi Kenkyû no Saikin no Dôkô,” p. 5. 42. Eguchi Keiichi, “Manshû Jihenki Kenkyû no Saikentô,” Rekishi Hyôron 9 (1981): p. 4. Kurosawa Fumitaka’s “Sengo Nihon no Kindaishi Ninshiki,” Keio Gijuku Daigaku, Hôgaku Kenkyû 73 (January 2000): pp. 507–529, is an excellent overview of three subjects with which the “left-leaning” mainstream of Japan’s historians concerned themselves—Japan’s war guilt as determined by the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the tennô fashizumuron favored by the Kôza school of Marxism, and Japan’s aggression in Asia—and of the rebuttals by the positivists, an approach that brings to mind Windschuttle’s in the epigraph to this chapter. 43. Taiundô Mokuroku 2 (January 1988): p. 11. 44. Mikiso Hane, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey (Boulder, Colo., and London: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 360–362. I agree with John Dower that this work is an “excellent, even-handed, up-to-date survey of modern Japanese history.” Back cover. 45. Japan Times, 18 March 2004. 46. Harry Wray, Japanese and American Education: Attitudes and Practices (Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1999), pp. 244–245. 47. I recall a comment made sometime in the 1960s at the University of Hawai‘i by the late Harry Oshima, an economist. He was at that time working closely with economists in Japan and told me that “the best economists there have moved away from Marxism because as they work with hard data such as statistics, they find it hard to reconcile their data with Marxian analysis.” A similar pattern appears to be occurring among the highest level of South Korea’s specialists on modern Korean history. To prepare for the expanded version of “Eigoken ni okeru Nihon Tôchika Chôsen Kenkyû no Shin Chôryû,” Nihon Rekishi, December 2005, I initiated correspondence with Mr. Y., a graduate student from South Korea attending a national university in Japan. I asked if there are any works by South Korean scholars akin to studies by American specialists who point out that the history of Japanese rule over Korea (1910–1945) is more complex and nuanced than is generally pictured. I specifically cited Carter J. Eckert, who, in Nihon teikoku no môshigo: Kôshô (Kochian) no Kin (Kimu) ichizoku to Kankoku shihonshugi no shokuminchi kigen: 1876–1945, trans. Kotani Masayo (Tokyo: Sôshisha, 2004), the Japanese version of his Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991), voiced dismay at South Korean critics who dismiss his findings by only citing portions that appear to support their positions, but worse, on hearsay alone. Kôshô (Kochian) no Kin (Kimu) ichizoku, p. 4. Mr. Y. replied (naming names and pointing to Seoul University in particular) that there was now a bitter, vociferous debate between economic historians and historians that had been triggered by the former’s “bold” assertion that their data show that the activities of the Japanese in 1910–1945 contributed to the measurable growth of Korea’s economic development, which, in turn, is directly linked to South Korea’s economic advances (this is of course a major theme in Eckert’s study). The latter, however, continue to strongly emphasize the depredations of the Japanese and the Korean opposi-

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tion to colonial rule—positions that continue to be influential. Mr. Y., undated letter postmarked 3 June 2005, second letter dated 23 June 2005. 48. Itô Takashi, “Shôwa Seijishi Kenkyû e no Ichishikaku,” in 1930 Nendai no Nihon, a special issue of Shisô 6 (1976). 49. Abe Hirozumi, “Nihon Fuashizumu no Kenkyûshikaku,” and Mibu Shirô [pseudonym], “Nihon Fuashizumu Kenkyû ni Yosete: Bemmei Shikan Hihan,” in Reki­ shigaku Kenkyû 12 (1977): pp. 2–11 and 12–19. 50. Rekishigaku 4 (1979): pp. 1–11. This is a review article Kindai Nihon Kenkyû Nyûmon, ed. Itô Takashi and Nakamura Takafusa (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1977), but it is evident that the primary object of attack was Itô’s article in Shisô. See especially pp. 3–5 of the review article. 51. Nishikawa Masao, Yamaguchi Yasushi, and Yoshimi Yoshiaki, “Zadankai: Gendankai ni okeru Fuashizumu Kenkyû no Kaidai,” Rekishi Hyôron 11 (1980): pp. 9–10. Robertson and Bolitho make the irrefutable point that Anglophone scholars would be remiss if they fail to familiarize themselves with the latest findings of their Japanese colleagues. The use of “fascism” as a descriptive analytical term to discuss Japan of the 1930s, when Japanese scholars no longer pay serious heed to it, is a case in point. This practice appears to be more noticeable among the “older generation” of American Japan specialists. See Harry Harootunian, “Hirohito Redux,” review article on Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix, in Critical Asian Studies 33 (December 2001): see, for example, pp. 615, 620, 623, 625, 626; Ronald A. Morse, “Once Again at Ground Zero,” Japan Times (11 September 2002). Tokiko Bazzell thoughtfully sent me a copy of Harootunian’s review article. 52. Eguchi Keiichi, “Manshû Jihenki,” p. 5, also p. 10. Kurosawa, in his “rebuttal” section, discusses how Itô became, in Rob Fish’s words, “one of the [deservedly] most respected scholars specializing in the political history of the interwar years.” Kurosawa, “Sengo Nihon no Kindaishi Ninshiki,” pp. 517–524. He sent me a reprint after I had completed the draft of this chapter, so it is coincidental that we agree in large measure on Itô’s role. 53. Itô Takashi and Arima Manabu, “Japanese History—Modern Period,” in An Introductory Bibliography for Japanese Studies, I, Part 2, p. 55 (Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1975). Itô and Arima wrote in Japanese and it was translated for incorporation in the source just cited. Itô once complained to me that the process took so long—by his estimation more than two years—that their judgments lost some value for readers seeking evaluations of “recent” works written in Japanese. Miyaji was formerly head of Tôdai’s Shiryôhensanjo and on retiring has become the head of Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan. 54. Itô Takashi and Arima Manabu, “Japanese History—Modern Period,” in An Introductory Bibliography for Japanese Studies, II, Part 2, p. 71 (Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1977). 55. Itô Takashi, in a conversation during one of our transcription sessions, right after publication of the article. 56. I am grateful to Kobayashi Kazuyuki for sending me a list of her publications at my request. 57. Given my computer illiteracy, I had to wait for a copy of Katô Yôko’s statement from Hirose. Kurosawa Fumitaka and Kobayashi Kazuyuki, two of the editors of Jijûbukanchô Nara Takeji Nikki . Kaikoroku, also mentioned the Web contents to me, and Kobayashi kindly sent me a copy.



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58. Please see the bibliography for full citation. 59. The use of den (biography) in these instances may or may not include a biography but most certainly includes volumes of documents. 60. Yamada’s papers are located at Nihon Daigaku, Tokyo. He was the founder of the university. 61. Saionji’s papers can be found at Ritsumeikan Daigaku, Kyoto. One of the founders of Ritsumeikan Daigaku was Nakagawa Shôjûrô, who had been Saionji’s secretary during the latter’s first tenure as prime minister (1906–1908). 62. More than a decade ago, I was invited one afternoon to Daitô Daigaku, where the transcriptions took place, to read Yamagata’s letters to Matsukata. In this book, I have been citing from the originals in KS. 63. Yamamoto Shirô, Kyoto Joshi Daigaku, led a group of graduate students from Kyoto Daigaku on this project. 64. The nikki is written neatly in kaisho. It has been retained by Ozaki Harumori, who has, however, donated letters and documents to KS. See Ozaki Saburô Kankei Monjo, KS. 65. Tokiko Bazzell rendered sterling and prompt assistance in replying to my requests from Japan to check the NDL Web site for the latest information on these publications. Yôko Okunishi, who received her M.A. in Library Science from the University of Hawai‘i, December 2001, has also been helpful in answering my questions on bibliographical matters. 66. I would be remiss not to mention several non-Japanese scholars who have worked, or are still working, with unpublished documents written in sôsho, though I may be missing others in the process. They are Anne Walthall, University of Utah (Tokugawa); Philip Brown, Ohio State University (Kaga han); Robert G. and Yoshiko N. Flershem, independent scholars (Japan Sea coast and Kaga han); Bob T. Wakabayashi, York University (political thought); Andrew Fraser, Australian National University (Meiji); Sidney Crawcour, A.N.U. (economic history); the late Masato Matsui, Mitsugu Sakihara, and Robert Sakai, University of Hawai‘i (Tokugawa); William M. Steele, International Christian University (Bakumatsu, Meiji); Mark Ravina, Emory University (Tokugawa); and Luke S. Roberts, University of California at Santa Barbara (Tokugawa). 67. Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 12. 68. Two years were spent on preliminary preparations, which adds up to a decadelong effort. Chapter 2: Reading Primary Documents Epigraph. Gouverneur Paulding, The Reporter, 9 January 1958. 1. Miyajima Seiichirô Monjo Mokuroku (Tokyo: Waseda Daigaku Toshokan, 1997), p. 2. 2. The 1906 version in kaisho in one volume (kan) is deposited in Kensei Shiryôshitsu (KS), National Diet Library. Among the items in the Miyajima Seiichirô Monjo, KS, are invoices for publication costs, including expenses for a publication party, and a list of those to whom he distributed the Kokken Hensan Kigen. A printed version is found in Meiji Bunka Zenshû, comp. and ed. Osatake Takeshi (Tokyo: Nihon Hyôronsha, 1961), vol. 1, pp. 343–360. 3. The strength of Miyajima’s feelings about leaving this record behind is his unceas-

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ing effort at revising it even after 1906. He has made emendations and added stress marks (\\\\\\\ and ◦◦◦◦) in red (a few in black) India ink in the KS document. Osatake’s version does not show these revisions. A narrative of the Genrôin’s efforts is lacking, so it was left to historians to reconstruct the process. See, for example, Osatake Takeshi, Nihon Kenseishi Taikô (Tokyo: Nihon Hyôronsha, 1938–1939), vol. 2, pp. 460–486; and Inada Masatsugu, Meiji Kempô Seiritsushi (Tokyo: Yûhikaku, 1960–1961), vol. 1, pp. 283–337. Osatake and Inada used the Genrôin papers, but these were unavailable to the general public until 1972, the year the Kokuritsu Kôbunshokan was established. 4. For a brief discussion, see George Akita, Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan, 1868–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 8–9, 203–204. 5. This is Pauline Maier, cited in Robert E. McGlone, “Deciphering Memory: John Adams and the Authorship of the Declaration of Independence,” The Journal of American History 85 (1998): p. 427 n. 44. This article is an impressive example of historical detective work that not only analyzes Adams’s recollection of his role, but also helpfully brings together all recent studies and developments on the role of memory of the participants in historical events. 6. McGlone, “Deciphering Memory,” p. 429. 7. Ibid., pp. 427, 429. 8. The copy in Itô’s hand is in the Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo, KS. 9. The image of Ôkuma Shigenobu’s memorandum is at http://www.ndl.go.jp/site_ nippon/kenseie/shiryou/simage/Gazou_7_1.html. It is included in the permanent National Diet Library (NDL) exhibition “Modern Japan in Archives: 100-Year History from the Opening of the Country to the San Francisco Peace Treaty,” at http://www.ndl.go.jp/ modern/e/index.html. This exhibition opened in July 2006. It was a pleasure to have worked closely with the Kensei Shiryôshitsu staff in preparing to make these documents available on the NDL Web site. The NDL online gallery titled “Memories of Japan” features many more outstanding exhibitions including “Meiji and Taishô Eras in Photographs,” “Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures,” “Flora and Fauna in Illustrations—Natural History of the Edo Era,” and more. The gallery can be seen at http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/gallery/index.html. 10. His long-time personal secretary recalls a consistent complaint by Yamagata: “This is not consistent or logical.” Irie Kan’ichi, Yamagata Kô no Omokage (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1922), pp. 44–45; also, the reminiscence of Tanaka Giichi in Irie Kan’ichi, Yamagata Gensui Tsuioku Hyakuwa (Tokyo: Kaigyôsha, 1930), p. 230. 11. The draft is in Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo, KS. The second is in Mutsu Munemitsu Kankei Monjo, KS. 12. Tsurumoto Uchinosuke, ed., Yamagata Aritomo Ikô: Koshi no Yamakaze (Tokyo: Tokyo Shobô, 1939), pp. 7–9, 76–77. This work is based on a manuscript Yamagata wrote (1903–1904) on his experiences as commander of the Kiheitai. Yamagata should have been aware that wartime reports from both the field and government offices are prone to suffer from a surfeit of lies and exaggerations. Napoleon was apparently inclined to lie or exaggerate, and when he once dictated a report of “particularly outrageous falsehood,” his secretary noted duly in his diary that “the Emperor had wounded the truth.” Lance Morrow, “Stories Sacred, Lies Mundane,” Time, 27 July 1998, p. 72. 13. Melissa Müller, Anne Frank: The Biography, trans. Rita and Robert Kimber (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998), p. xi.



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14. Ibid., pp. xvi–xvii. 15. Quoted in McGlone, “Deciphering Memory,” p. 416. 16. Gerald L. Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and Limits of Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 123–129, 264–265 nn. 25, 29. 17. Gerald Curtis, conversation, Honolulu, 6 January 2000. 18. Itô Takashi et al., eds., Tokutomi Sohô Kankei Monjo (TSKM) (Tokyo: Yama­kawa Shuppansha, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 394–395; 395. 19. Müller, Anne Frank, pp. xi–xii. 20. McGlone, “Deciphering Memory,” p. 411 n. 2. 21. Ibid., pp. 414, 425, 431, 435, 438. 22. Ibid., pp. 414, 433, 438. Maier has found “one mistake after another” in the two men’s recollections about the drafting of the Declaration (McGlone, “Deciphering Memory,” p. 412 n. 3). 23. There are, of course, countless others. See, for example, Masatoshi Sakeda and George Akita, “The Samurai Disestablished: Abei Iwane and His Stipend,” Monumenta Nipponica 41 (Autumn 1986). 24. The majority of ikensho are untitled. Editors and compilers arbitrarily, and in most cases accurately, provide titles. 25. In Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho (YAI), ed. Ôyama Azusa (Tokyo: Hara Shobô, 1966), pp. 339–340, 340–345. There are several such examples in this volume, which is the best single published collection of ikensho. Yamagata’s personality explains the large number of his ikensho. Unlike Itô, who was a spellbinding speaker, Yamagata, as Hackett notes, was ill at ease even with a prepared text in his hands, and his hands often trembled when he spoke. His forte, fortunately for historians, was in putting his ideas on paper. Roger F. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838–1922 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 137–138. At least eighteen additional ikensho in KS and the Kokuritsu Kôbunshokan have been located. 26. Den Kenjirô Kankei Monjo, KS. 27. The original in Kido’s hand is not found in KS. It may be deposited in the Imperial Household Agency Archives. The published version is in Kido Denki Hensanjo, ed., Shôgiku Kido Kô Den (Tokyo: Meiji Shoin, 1927), vol. 2, pp. 1560–1569. 28. Yamagata to Terauchi Masatake, Terauchi Masatake Kankei Monjo, KS (22 September 1907); and to Katsura Tarô in the Katsura Tarô Kankei Monjo, KS (1 May 1909). He also asked Katsura to pass on the ikensho to former foreign minister Komura Jutarô and added that he would later solicit Komura’s views on the ikensho’s contents. 29. Younger bureaucrats, of course, had long written ikensho for their superiors. Yano Fumio, for example, states that he wrote Ôkuma’s 1881 ikensho on constitutional government “in its entirety.” Quoted in Hiratsuka Atsushi, Itô Hirobumi Hiroku (Tokyo: Shunshûsha, 1929), p. 216. Also, Ôkubo Toshiaki, “Meiji Jûyonen no Seihen,” in Meijishi Sôsho: Meiji Seiken no Kakuritsu Katei (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobô, 1957), pp. 113, 115, 119. 30. Tsuzuki was in Tokyo University’s first graduating class (1881) with a degree from the Bungakubu Seijirizaigakka, the equivalent of today’s Hôgakubu. He was then sent to Germany for political studies (1882–1885) and on his return immediately entered the foreign ministry. 31. His biodata and other documents are in the Tsuzuki Keiroku Kankei Monjo, KS.

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32. Sakatani Yoshirô Kankei Monjo, KS. Sakatani married Shibusawa Eiichi’s second daughter, Kotoko. In the fall of 1887, Shibusawa invited Sakatani, Tsuzuki, and several promising bureaucrats to his villa on the pretext that he wanted to hear their views on economics. Kotoko just “happened” to appear at the gathering. Shibusawa had known Sakatani’s father, Sakatani Rôro, a distinguished Confucian scholar from Okayama han, so this meeting probably was set up as a miai (prenuptial meeting) for Kotoko and Sakatani. When the others learned that they had served merely as foils for this purpose, they were mortified, because Kotoko was an extremely comely lady, a good match for the handsome Sakatani. Tsuzuki was especially chagrined, for he was said to have had an eye for Kotoko. “Mukoerabi,” Senshû Daigaku Hyakugonen (10 September 1984), p. 84. Sakatani later taught at and was president of Senshû University. I am grateful to Sakatani Yoshinao, Yoshirô’s grandson, for sending me these materials on Yoshirô. 33. Tsuzuki was also attacking Genrô Inoue Kaoru’s chôzenshugi position. This was a mere two months after he had married Inoue’s daughter, Mitsuko (May 1892). 34. Sasaki Takashi states that Banno in his writings seems to present Tsuzuki’s positions on chôzenshugi and the Meiji Constitution as being representative of the views of high-level bureaucrats from the former domains of Satsuma and Chôshû, or the hambatsu. Sasaki, however, doubts that Tsuzuki represented the thinking of the hambatsu-dominated government. Hambatsu Seifu to Rikken Seiji (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, 1992), p. 121. 35. Inoue Kowashi Denki Hensan Iinkaihen, Inoue Kowashi Den, Shiryôhen (Tokyo: Kokugakuin Daigaku Toshokan, 1988), vol. 2, pp. 526–529; also in Itô Hirobumi, comp., Hisho Ruisan: Teikoku Gikai Shiryô (Tokyo: Hisho Ruisan Kankôkai, 1934), vol. 1, pp. 429–433. Itô was assassinated in 1909, but since the volumes are based on his holdings and he directed his secretaries to put them in comprehensive order, he is credited as being the compiler. 36. Banno Junji, Meiji Kempô Taisei no Kakuritsu—Fukoku Kyôhei to Min’ryoku Kyûyô (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1971), p. 30. 37. Ibid., p. 36. Yamagata’s “Chôhei Seido oyobi . . . ,” cited earlier, is another example where the distinction among documents is blurred. It is clearly a speech, and Ôyama’s inclusion of it in his Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho is puzzling, all the more so because it had been published in Meiji Kensei Keizaishiron (Tokyo: Kokka Gakkai, 1919), pp. 375–431. He did so perhaps as a “filler” to increase the volume’s heft. 38. A massive two-volume work of fukumeisho exists that is a treasure-trove of information on bakumatsu-Meiji Japan. Gabe Masao, comp. and ed., Meiji Jûgonen . Jûrokunen Chihô Junsatsushi Fukumeisho (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobô, 1980, 1981). Professor Gabe, who in 1983 was at Ryûkyû Daigaku and is now at Yamanashi Gakuin Daigaku, introduced me to Ozaki Harumori. I then introduced him to Itô Takashi, and the result is the three-volume Ozaki Saburô Nikki. 39. Mission members also submitted hôkokusho (similar to the fukumeisho), such as the Mombushô Riji Kôtei. These can be found in the Iwakura Tomomi Kankei Monjo, KS. The first English translation of Kume Kunitake’s five-volume record of the Iwakura Mission was published in 2002 with the title The Iwakura Embassy, 1871–1873: A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary’s Journal of Observation through the United States of America and Europe, by The Japan Documents, Chiba, Japan (distributed in the United States and Canada by Princeton University Press). Editors-inchief are Graham Healey (University of Sheffield) and Chushichi Tsuzuki (professor



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emeritus, Hitotsubashi University). Introduction by Tanaka Akira (professor emeritus, Hokkaido University, editor of the Japanese edition published by Iwanami Shoten). Vol. 1: The United States, translated by Martin Collcutt (Princeton); vol. 2: Britain, translated by Graham Healey (Sheffield); vol. 3: Continental Europe, 1 (France, Belgium, Holland, Prussia), translated by Andrew Cobbing (Kyushu University); vol. 4: Continental Europe, 2 (Russia, northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria), translated by P. F. Kornicki (University of Cambridge); vol. 5: Continental Europe, 3, and the Voyage Home (Switzerland, France, Egypt and the Red Sea, Ceylon, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Shanghai), translated by Graham Healey, Eugene Soviak (Washington University, St. Louis), and Chushichi Tsuzuki. A team of translators led by Peter Pantzer has produced a one-volume work in German, Die Iwakura-Mission: Das Logbuch des Kume Kunitake über den Besuch der japanischen Sondergesandtschaft in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz im Jahre 1873 (Munich: Iudicium, 2002), that touches upon the embassy’s travels in the Germanspeaking countries, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. These are extraordinary achievements that compel the attention of scholars on Meiji Japan as well as those interested in the general question of modernization. A fine, learned introduction that should be read before grappling with the diary is F. G. Notehelfer, Igor R. Saveliev, and W. F. Vande Walle, “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The Iwakura Embassy Translated,” review article, Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Spring 2004): pp. 83–119. 40. This “Fukumeisho” is found in Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo, KS. 41. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Becoming Japanese: Imperial Expansion and Identity Crisis in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Japan’s Competing Modernities: Issues in Culture and Democracy, 1900–1930, ed. Sharon A. Minichiello (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), pp. 164–165, 171–172. 42. These letter-ikensho are not necessarily accompanied by a covering statement, and a large number of letters must be read to discover them, as the example of Yamagata’s “Fukumeisho” attests. This is probably why Ôyama did not include these two in his collection. 43. George Akita and Hirose Yoshihiro, “The British Model: Inoue Kowashi and the Ideal Monarchical System,” Monumenta Nipponica 49 (Winter 1994). See especially photographs of Inoue’s letter, pp. 415 and 421. Herbert P. Bix, in Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, does not cite this article that shows that Inoue Kowashi, one of the drafters of the Meiji Constitution, did not believe that an authoritarian monarchy was proper for Japan. He preferred to model it after the British monarchy. Bix did not miss an article published just two years later in the same journal: John Breen, “The Imperial Oath of April 1868: Ritual, Politics, and Power in the Restoration,” Monumenta Nipponica 51 (Winter 1996). Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 757 n. 57. 44. Inoue Kaoru Kankei Monjo, KS. Banno designates this a letter shokan (Banno Junji, Meiji Kempô Taisei no Kakuritsu, p. 46). 45. The editors of the useful Sources of the Japanese Tradition designate Yamagata’s ikensho on “racial competition” a letter (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), vol. 2, p. 207. Ôyama correctly designates it “Tai-Shi Seisaku Ikensho,” Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, pp. 339–345. Hackett also calls it an ikensho or “memorandum” (Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, p. 270). 46. Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo, KS. This ikensho is not found in Ôyama. 47. Osatake Takeshi, Meiji Taishô Seijishi Kôwa (Tokyo: Ichigensha, 1943), pp. 197–199.

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48. See, for example, Inoue’s angry letter to Matsukata threatening to cut off their relationship. Matsukata Masayoshi Kankei Monjo, KS, 11 March 1892. 49. Kido Denki Hensanjo, ed., Shôgiku Kido Kô Den, vol. 2, p. 1569. 50. Ibid., p. 1571. 51. Akita and Hirose, “The British Model,” p. 419. 52. Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM) (9 February 1920). This letter is among several thousand by Yamagata to his cohorts, most of them transcribed for the first time and many translated for eventual publication. Tokutomi’s letter is in response to a letter from Yamagata (2 February 1920) accompanying a volume of Yamagata’s ikensho. Itô Takashi et al., eds., Tokutomi Sohô Kankei Monjo, vol. 2, p. 399. Yamagata must have prepared multiple copies of this volume, since he expressed the hope that “the cabinet would deliberate fully on my views.” 53. “Tegami o Tsûjite-2: Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan.” This article was written six years after Yamagata’s death in 1922. 54. Takarabe Takeshi Nikki, edited by Hirose Yoshihiro, Banno Junji, Watanabe Yasuo, and Masuda Tomoko (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1983), p. 3; and Hirose Yoshihiro, personal conversation. 55. Fujinuma Shôhei Kankei Monjo-Nikki, KS. 56. Den Kenjirô Kankei Monjo and Den Kenjirô Nikki, KS. 57. Ozaki Saburô. Ozaki Saburô Nikki, edited by Ozaki Harumori and Itô Takashi (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha, 1991–1992), vol. 2, pp. 317, 342–343. The nikki is written neatly in kaisho. It has been retained by Ozaki Harumori, who has, however, donated letters and documents to KS. Ozaki Saburô Kankei Monjo, KS. 58. Ozaki Saburô Nikki, vol. 2, p. 258. 59. Sanjô Sanetomi wrote to Yamagata on 2 September 1883 and asked him to support Inoue Kowashi as prime minister (sôri no nin). YAKM, KS. Why Sanjô would recommend Inoue—as talented as the latter may have been—for a post to which he stood no chance of being appointed is puzzling. One possible explanation is that Sanjô was an “outsider” as was Inoue, who was from Kumamoto, and he shared Ozaki’s antipathy toward the Sat-Chô “insiders.” 60. Asahi, evening edition, 2 February 1922. This date is found at the top of the page and every subsequent page. However, the date under the masthead is 1 February 1922, the day of Yamagata’s death. All major newspapers until sometime midway into the Pacific War carried dual dates in their evening editions. A researcher using the evening edition of major Japanese newspapers should therefore be aware of this practice. 61. Hara, HKN 5, p. 156 (17 October 1919); HKN 5, p. 156 (19 October 1919). The sensitive Yamagata must have perceived that others felt this way about his lack of expertise on these matters because he earlier complained to Matsumoto Gôkichi that Hara was ignoring his views on the problem of prices. Oka Yoshitake and Hayashi Shigeru, eds., Taishô Demokurashiiki no Seiji: Matsumoto Gôkichi Seiji Nisshi (TDS: MG) (Tokyo: Iwa­ nami Shoten, 1959), p. 36 (18 September 1919). In fact, Yamagata throughout the Taishô period faced this kind of doubt about his competence, in spite of his well-known assiduity in studying economic and political problems. Other political leaders have faced this kind of doubt. John M. Keynes, for example, was “disappointed that [Franklin D. Roosevelt] was not more literate in economics.” James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1956), p. 332. 62. Kaneko Kentarô, Itô Hirobumi Den (IHD) (Tokyo: Tôseisha, 1943), vol. 2, p. 810.



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63. Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, pp. 86–87. 64. Letter to Tanaka Kôken and Yoshikawa Kensei, 5 April 1889, from Berlin, in YAM. 65. This is also the definition found in Morohashi Tetsuji, comp., Dai Kanwa Jiten (Tokyo: Taishûkan Shoten, 1960), vol. 7, p. 368. Hei and tei are respectively the third and fourth calendrical signs hinoe and hinoto. See Sasaki Takashi, “Dokugo Gokachû no Nazo,” Nihon Rekishi (October 1997): pp. 78–79. Before reading this two-page gem of an article, I had blithely assumed that the senders meant precisely what they wrote. 66. Inoue did not always engage in circumlocution. In his letter-ikensho on policy toward the Diet (29 December 1892), cited earlier, addressed to Prime Minister Itô, Home Minister Inoue, and Justice Minister Yamagata, he stressed that the contents were his personal opinions. He also asked them in an accompanying letter to keep the contents secret. 67. Two examples out of many are Yamagata and Tokutomi both ignoring their respective requests to “consign the letter to flames.” Yamagata to Tokutomi (29 January 1916) in Itô Takashi et al., eds., Tokutomi Sohô Kankei Monjo, vol. 2, p. 343; Tokutomi to Yamagata (9 February 1920), YAKM. 68. Itô and Sakeda, Okazaki Kunisuke Kankei Monjo, pp. 108–109. 69. Mutsu Munemitsu Kankei Monjo, KS. Mutsu also had a reputation of being a sieve-like leaker. Gordon Berger writes that he was mistrusted by his fellow state ministers who “believed [that] he was leaking Cabinet secrets to his friends in the opposition.” “Reflections on Mutsu Munemitsu and Kenkenroku on the 100th Anniversary of the SinoJapanese War,” unpublished paper, Association for Asian Studies, 25 March 1994, p. 2. 70. SYKM, KS. 71. “Suisen no Ji” (Recommendation) for the Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN), 17 vols., edited by Hirose Yoshihiro and Iwakabe Yoshimitsu (Tokyo: Hokusensha, 1998). 72. Marius B. Jansen, then an assistant professor at the University of Washington, published a path-breaking review article of Taishô Seiji Shi (TSS), “From Hatoyama to Hatoyama,” in the Far Eastern Quarterly 14 (1954): pp. 65–79. 73. Matsuo may be overestimating Shinobu’s status as “kaitakusha” of modern Japan’s political history. Osatake Takeshi, for his many works, including his classic Nihon Kenseishi Taikô, 2 vols., Ôtsu Jun’ichirô, for his ten-volume Dai Nihon Kenseishi (Tokyo: Hôbunkan, 1927–1928), and Inada Masatsugu, who published articles on the making of the Meiji Constitution in the late 1930s and early 1940s and who followed them up with his definitive, two-volume Meiji Kempô Seiritsushi, deserve to be called “kaitakusha,” especially for their use of primary sources. Matsuo may be more to the point if he had said that Shinobu was a pioneer in writing a certain kind of political history (see Marius Jansen’s review). 74. HKN, Fukumura edition (Fukumura) (Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan, 1965–1967) is being used. Vols. 1–5 were edited by Hara Keiichirô; vol. 6 was coedited by Hara Keiichirô and Hayashi Shigeru. 75. The English version of Oka’s work is Five Political Leaders of Modern Japan: Itô Hirobumi, Ôkuma Shigenobu, Hara Takashi, Inukai Tsuyoshi, and Saionji Kimmochi, trans. Andrew Fraser and Patricia Murray (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1986). 76. Microfilm nos. 1333 and 1334 respectively, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai‘i. 77. Tetsuo Najita, Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, 1905–1915 (Cambridge,

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Notes to Pages 47–50

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967); Duus, Party Rivalry and Political Change in Taishô Japan. 78. Michael L. Lewis, Rioters and Citizens: Mass Protest in Imperial Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 243, 257 n. 19, 273–274 n. 35, 280 n. 1. 79. Professor Itô and I have translated most of the HKN entries on Yamagata to get a feel for this relationship, which was clearly very important as seen by the nearly two hundred single-spaced typewritten pages in my file. This “feel” for the relationship caused me to pause when I read Bix’s note 41, p. 701, in which he writes, “On Dec. 11, 1920 [Hara] while pleading [italics mine] with Yamagata not to resign his presidency of the privy council.” I never sensed, based on the translation that Itô and I did, that Hara had a supplicant’s relationship with Yamagata, so I went back to HKN 5, p. 322. The entry reads that Hara called on Yamagata and “strongly asserted [setsugen] that it was wrong [fuka] to resign.” Even earlier, Hara dismissed the genro as a whole by stating that “the genro’s worth has declined dramatically” (HKN 3, 13 December 1912, p. 273). 80. Masumi Junnosuke, Nihon Seitô Shiron (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1965– 1968), vol. 4, p. 373. Of the two, Yamagata also may have been the more generous of spirit. When he learned of Hara’s assassination, “he wept” (5 November 1921). And a few weeks before his death on 1 February 1922, Yamagata told Matsumoto Gôkichi that he dreamed a lot about Hara and added that Hara was a “truly great man,” and all the while bitterly lamented his passing (10 January 1922). Oka and Hayashi, eds., TDS: MG, pp. 120, 134. 81. Frederick R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), pp. 244–247; also, pp. 60, 82. 82. Ibid., pp. 81, 157, 218. 83. Letter to Tanaka Kôken and Yoshikawa Kensei, Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM), KS. When letters are grouped by recipients, that collection is designated a kankei monjo, as in Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo. When they are grouped according to the sender, the collection is called a monjo, as in Yamagata Aritomo Monjo. 84. These recollections are extensive, detailed, and marked by the kind of exactitude for which Yamagata is famous. These were in all probability dictated to Irie Kan’ichi, Yamagata’s long-time personal secretary. They were first published as a series of five articles (1966–1968) in the Shigaku Zasshi. 85. Given the political circle in which Matsumoto moved freely, the title given to his nisshi is misleading, if not anachronistic. 86. HKN (Fukumura) 6, appendix, p. 192. Fortunately for scholars, Keiichirô took this admonition to heart. Kei had placed the diary in a box made of camphor wood. Keiichirô took the box to Morioka and stored it deep in the recesses of the family godown. The diary thus survived both the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the spring 1945 firebombings of Tokyo (ibid., 1, introduction, p. 4). 87. Takarabe had made it very difficult for his contemporaries to read his nikki, but he too probably had his eye on the future. He faithfully wrote his nikki until the year he died, and it is the only document in the Takarabe Takeshi Monjo. This is highly unusual, because almost all monjo contain other documents, such as letters, ikensho, and even newspaper clippings. It was as if he was forcing attention on the nikki by not leaving behind anything else. 88. The source for this is Harumasa, who was a journalist with Mainichi Shimbun, as told to Ôkubo Toshiaki and Hirose Yoshihiro, who were with the KS at the time.



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89. If, as Andrew Fraser has pointed out, among those in the House of Peers were “the brightest and best of their generation,” Ozaki is amply justified in his antipathy toward the Sat-Chô–dominated central government. Andrew Fraser, R. H. P. Mason, and Philip Mitchell, Japan’s Early Parliaments, 1890–1905 (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 248. 90. Ozaki was entrusted the task of editing the Sanjô Ke Monjo (SKM), a fact that illustrates his long and intimate ties with Sanjô. Hirose Yoshihiro, “‘Kaisetsu,’ Sanjô Sanetomi Kankei Monjo ni tsuite,” supplement to Sanjô Sanetomi Kankei Monjo (III) (microfilm) (Tokyo: Hokusensha, 1998), pp. 8–9. The Hokusensha microfilm is based on the SKM (microfilm), KS. There is another SKM housed in the Jingû Bunko, Ise Jingû, but its contents and how it got there are not clear (Hirose, “Kaisetsu,” p. 6). 91. George Akita, “Trends in Modern Japanese Political History: The ‘Positivist’ Studies,” Monumenta Nipponica 37 (Winter 1982): p. 500. 92. Hirose Yoshihiro and Sakurai Yoshiki, eds., Ijûin Hikokichi Kankei Monjo, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Shôyû Kurabu, 1996–1997), see especially vol. 1; Takeshita Isamu Kenkyûkai, ed., Takeshita Isamu Nikki (Tokyo: Fuyô Shobô, 1998). 93. The Hokusensha is an example of a small publishing firm that carved out a highly specialized role for itself. In this case, the role is to locate, reproduce, and make available primary documents. The EHKN is one of the latest in a series and is the first to be reproduced in photocopy; the others are in more than two hundred reels of microfilm. Unfortunately, the company recently declared bankruptcy. 94. Misako married Itsumi Toshikazu, who then took the Hara name. She was the daughter of Mitsugu and Hisako. Mitsugu, who was Hara Kei’s older brother’s second son, also had been adopted. Hara Kei Kinenkan, Morioka, Iwate Ken, Hara Ke: Hara Kei Ke no “Keizu” to “Mon.” 95. Asahi Shimbun, morning ed., 22 September 1980. There is no suggestion that any quid pro quo had been involved since Matsuo’s Suisen no Ji came long after the documents had been received. 96. Copy of memorandum from Hirose to Hashimoto Satoru, dated 31 July 1997; supplemented by Hirose, personal conversation, 6 May 1998. Hirose spent from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. with Toshikazu. Mrs. Hara joined them from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. The Haras had donated the original to the Moriokashi Hara Kei Kinnenkan, which is overseen by the Moriokashi Kyôikuiinkai, and is therefore in the public domain. Thus, Professor Hirose’s Kyoto visit was a courtesy call. 97. The very valuable primary sources jiden, jijoden (autobiographies), and kaisôroku (memoirs) have not been analyzed because the emphasis here has been on diaries, position papers, and letters. There is no doubt, however, that the same kind of problems encountered in the documents discussed here—partisanship, fragility of memory, self-aggrandizement, and misrepresentation—also are found in these memoirs and autobiographies. Ôta Masao, in his “‘Jiden’ no Yomikata—Jisshôshugi no Tachibakara,” points out these dangers in his dissection of Kiryû Yûyû’s Kiryû Yûyû Jiden, Katayama Sen’s Waga Kaisô, and Ôsugi Sakae’s Jijoden (Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku Kenkyûjo, Kenkyû Kiyô 9 [March 2000]: pp. 159–178). These problems, of course, are not limited to Japanese works. Maurice Herzog, a former state minister of sports and wartime resistance worker, became a national hero for the conquest of Annapurna. He now stands accused by Jean Claude, son of Louis Lachenal, who had accompanied him to the pinnacle, of denigrating his father in his version of the

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achievement. Herzog’s version, he charges, was written as a “monument to his personal glory,” and, worse, Herzog censored Lachenal’s autobiography that would have shown that Lachenal’s contribution was equally heroic (Paul Webster, “A French Climbing Triumph Turns Bitter,” The Observer, reprinted in Japan Times, 1 June 2000). Chapter 3: Hara Kei Nikki and Eiin Hara Kei Nikki Compared 1. Hara Kei, Hara Kei Nikki, edited by Hara Keiichirô (Tokyo: Kangensha, 1950– 1951), introduction, p. 7. Successive references to this edition are cited as Kangensha. 2. See, for example, Hara Kei, Hara Kei Nikki 4, edited by Hara Keiichirô (Tokyo: Fukumura, 1965–1967), 5 and 6 June 1914, pp. 4–5. Volumes 1–6 were edited by Hara Keiichirô; volume 6 was coedited by Hayashi Shigeru. Successive references to this edition are cited as Fukumura. See also Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN) 10, edited by Hirose Yoshihiro and Iwakabe Yoshimitsu (Tokyo: Hokusensha, 1998), pp. 188–191. EHKN pagination by Hirose and Iwakabe. 3. See glossary for Japanese rendering. 4. Hara wrote on lined washi and bound them with twine into eighty-two volumes. Fukumura, introduction, p. 3. 5. Hara’s contemporaries used both pronunciations. Mutsu Munemitsu’s son, Hirokichi, kept a diary in fifty-five small notebook-sized volumes written primarily in English. In the 5 January 1906 entry, he recorded that he wrote a letter to Kei Hara, and in the 2 November 1915 entry, he noted that T. Hara was one of the guests at a dinner he attended. I am indebted to Mutsu Munemitsu’s grandson, the late Ian Mutsu, for showing me the diary. 6. Fukumura, introduction, p. 3. Fukumura is being used here for the initial comparisons. 7. Copy of memorandum from Hirose to Hashimoto, 31 July 1997; supplemented by Hirose, personal conversation, 6 May 1998. 8. Reconfirmed in a conversation, February 2000. I also recall distinctly having a sense of awe that an American scholar would accept the challenge of reading sôsho, and this feeling no doubt had something to do with my decision to do the same. 9. Fukumura 5, 7–13 September 1921, pp. 438–443. 10. Fukumura 5, 7–8 September 1921, pp. 438–439. 11. EHKN 16, pp. 272–274; Fukumura 5, 21 February 1921, pp. 352–353. 12. Itô Takashi, as a graduate assistant at Tokyo University’s Social Science Research Institute, was asked by the late Professor Hayashi Shigeru to compile the name and subject matter indices for Fukumura. He bluntly stated that the two editions were “totally identical” (mattaku onaji). Itô Takashi, personal conversation, 31 October 1999. 13. W. F. Vande Walle, pp. 86–87, in F. G. Notehelfer, Igor R. Saveliev, W. F. Vande Walle, review of “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The Iwakura Embassy Translated,” in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Spring 2004). 14. Fukumura 5, 13 September 1921, p. 442; 4, 5 June 1914, pp. 2, 5. In this context, the katakana ke can also be read as ka. 15. Fukumura 1, 12 October 1896, p. 256. 16. Fukumura 4, 6 June 1914, p. 5. 17. Fukumura 1, 7–8 November 1896, p. 257.



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18. Tetsuo Najita, Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, 1905–1915 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967). 19. Kuratomi Yûzaburô Monjo, Kensei Shiryôshitsu (KS). The nikki forms the bulk of this monjo. 20. Hirose as a young researcher at KS went to the Kuratomi residence to accept the diary. He asked the widow how it was possible for Kuratomi to have written at such great length. She said that he went every working day to his office located near the Ôtemon in the Imperial Palace. He always carried with him small pieces of paper on which he scribbled all the activities and conversations that caught his interest. The day would end at 2:00 p.m., after which he returned to their residence in Akasaka, a short distance away. He would then go to his study to write. Hirose, personal conversation, 5 November 1999. 21. EHKN 7, pp. 294–295. Cf. Fukumura 3, p. 99. 22. Fukumura 5, pp. 463–464. 23. Fukumura 4, 7 July 1914, p. 17. 24. Fukumura 3, 4 February 1911, p. 86. 25. Najita has an excellent discussion of this in his “The Broad-Gauge Issue,” which is here being followed. In Tetsuo Najita, Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, 1905–1915, pp. 69–79, 82. 26. EHKN 7, p. 330; Fukumura 3, 26 January 1911, p. 83. 27. Ibid. 28. Professor Hirose Yoshihiro of Komazawa University, personal conversation, 24 June 2000. Hirose is a specialist on medieval history and is not the Hirose with whom I have been collaborating. His comments provide support for the emphasis here on the importance of noting the position of the rangai comments in HKN. 29. “Ishii Tominosuke and the Establishment of the Prince Yamagata Collection,” taped interview, 18 September 1971, by Kimbara Samon, trans. George Akita (typescript, 32 pages). The fifty-seven books are part of the larger Yamagata Collection and are listed in Odawara-shi Toshokan, Yamagata Kô Bunko Mokuroku, 1969. The late Ishii Tominosuke, former curator, Odawara Municipal Library, generously shared with me a copy of the “Sakuin” microfilm and the Yamagata Kô Bunko Mokuroku. 30. The editors took on the onerous tasks of proofreading the galleys and preparing the name index. 31. Elsewhere, we find the example of a quid pro quo involving a biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry by one of his mistresses, Helene de Vogüé, under the pseudonym Pierre Chevrier. In the biography, Consuelo, Saint-Exupéry’s much-maligned wife, is dismissed with a paragraph. Most biographers after the publication “agreed to protect de Vogüé’s anonymity in exchange for letters written to her by Saint-Exupéry.” Paul Webster, “A Rose Blossoms Again under the Sea,” The Observer, reprinted in Japan Times, 15 November 1998. 32. Patricia G. Steinhoff, “Kidnapped Japanese in North Korea: The New Left Connection,” Journal of Japanese Studies 30 (Winter 2004): pp. 131, 131 n. 18, 133 n. 21, 136– 137. The two different publication dates as well as two different titles for Takazawa’s prize-winning work Shukumei: Yodogô Bômeisha no Himitsu Kôsaku (1998) and Shukumei: “Yodogô” Bômeishatachi no Himitsu Kôsaku (2002) are apt to confuse but are pro­ bably typographical errors (ibid., p. 124, 124 n. 3). Shukumei: Yodogô Bômeishatachi no Himitsu Kôsaku (Destiny: The Secret Activities of the Yodogô Exiles) (Tokyo: Shinchôsha, 1998) was awarded the twenty-first Kodansha Non-Fiction Award in 1999.

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33. Steinhoff, “Kidnapped Japanese in North Korea,” pp. 137–138. 34. Tokutomi Iichirô [Tokutomi Sohô], Kôshaku Katsura Tarô Den, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Ko Katsura Kôshaku Kinen Jigyôkai, 1917). Tokutomi was a long-lived, prolific, controversial journalist, critic, essayist, and newspaper publisher. A full-length study of his life, times, and achievements is John D. Pierson, Tokutomi Sohô, 1863–1957: A Journalist for Modern Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980). 35. Tokutomi, Kôshaku Katsura Tarô Den 2, pp. 222–223. 36. Fukumura 2, 7 April 1903, p. 56. See also Fukumura 2, 7 November 1909, p. 383; Fukumura 2, 1 December 1909, p. 388; and Fukumura 3, 1 May 1911, pp. 120–121. 37. Itô Takashi et al., eds., Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo 2, pp. 126–127. See also Itô Takashi and George Akita, “The Yamagata-Tokutomi Correspondence: Press and Politics in Meiji-Taishô Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 36 (Winter 1981): pp. 402–403. Tokutomi is not alone in this. Walter Lippman, the icon of modern American journalism, is shown not to be as aloof and disinterested as he appeared to be, and was not averse to receiving perquisites and having access to the powerful. Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston: Little Brown, 1980). 38. Otto Frank edited Het Achterhuis (The Diary of a Young Girl), trans. B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: Doubleday, 1952). 39. Melissa Müller, Anne Frank: The Biography, trans. Rita Kimber and Robert Kimber (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998), pp. xiii, 205–212, 274–275. 40. Ibid., pp. 183–186, 266–267. 41. Cynthia Ozick, “Who Owns Anne Frank?” New Yorker, 6 October 1997, p. 87. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Fukumura 2, 17 December 1905, p. 158. 45. Ibid. 46. Fukumura 2, 6 May 1906, pp. 178–179. 47. Fukumura 2, 17 December 1905, p. 158. 48. Najita, Hara Kei in the Politics of Compromise, pp. 13–15. 49. The EHKN also has pedagogic utility. If used in conjunction with Fukumura, a student will be able to decipher gyôsho, then hopefully gain confidence to go on to the more difficult sôsho. The Shôyû Kurabu’s transcription team (Ueda Yoriko, Ôta Nobuko, Naitô Yoshii, Tsutsumi Koretake) has formed a benkyôkai with several others who meet once a month to hone their skills in deciphering letters written in sôsho. The members would welcome participation by others, especially from outside Japan, who wish to learn to decipher sôsho. There are only two requirements: an ability to read kaisho and perseverance. The members assuredly are gentle and personable and will make the experience a pleasant one. Chapter 4: Now That We Have These Primary Sources Epigraph. Peter Duus, “Presidential Address: Weapons of the Weak, Weapons of the Strong: The Development of the Japanese Political Cartoon,” Journal of Asian Studies 60 (November 2001). 1. Kent Calder, “Linking Welfare and the Developmental State: Postal Savings in Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies 16 (Winter 1990): pp. 36–37.



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2. Jeffrey Mass, “Communication to the Editor,” Journal of Asian Studies 54 (February 1995): p. 161, in response to Masao Miyoshi’s review of Mass’s Antiquity and Anachronism in Japanese History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992). 3. Conrad Totman, “English-Language Studies of Medieval Japan: An Assessment,” Journal of Asian Studies 38 (May 1979): pp. 547 n. 33, 548, 551. 4. Soon after Totman’s article appeared, Carl Steenstrup took the side of the “nittygritticists” (such as Jeffrey Mass and his students) against the Totman position. Steenstrup, “Pushing the Papers of Kamakura: The Nitty-gritticists versus the Grand Sweepers,” review of The Development of Kamakura Rule, 1180–1250: A History with Documents, by Jeffrey Mass (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1979), in Monumenta Nipponica 35 (Autumn 1980): pp. 340–341. 5. Harold Bolitho, “Tokugawa Japan: The Return of the Other?” in The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States, ed. Helen Hardacre, pp. 100–101 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). Bolitho is deservedly renowned for his ability to puncture scholarly pretensions in his field, all the more effective because he does so with a combination of healthy skepticism and rapier-like wit. These qualities come to life throughout this article. May his pen never run dry. 6. Kevin M. Doak, “Building National Identity through Ethnicity: Ethnology in Wartime Japan and After,” Journal of Japanese Studies 27 (Winter 2001): pp. 1–39. Professor Jun’ichi Nagai, an accomplished transcriber-participant in several projects, including Ozaki Saburô Nikki, SYKM, and YAKM, spent 2004 and 2005 at Georgetown University, where he had been invited by Kevin Doak. We met briefly at a gathering honoring Itô Takashi just as I was about to leave Japan in July 2005 for two months in Hawai‘i. He was enthused about his experience, describing it as “very fulfilling.” 7. Douglas R. Howland, “Samurai Status, Class, and Bureaucracy: A Historiographical Essay,” Journal of Asian Studies 60 (May 2001): pp. 353–380; Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order,” Journal of Japanese Studies 27 (Summer 2001): pp. 263–293. See also his “The Guild of the Blind in Tokugawa Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Autumn 2001): pp. 349–380. 8. Groemer, “Edo Outcaste Order,” pp. 287, 292–293. 9. Ibid., p. 273. I also wonder why he devotes a lengthy paragraph on an incident based on “records whose reliability is highly questionable” and one that may not have taken place at all (ibid., p. 279, 279–280 n. 55). 10. The kawata, who worked with animal hides, were regarded as outcastes. 11. Howland, “Samurai Status,” pp. 359–362. 12. There is no assurance, of course, that one’s best effort at translation will satisfy others. It is also possible that scholars who have built their reputations for broad, theoretical constructs aimed at the non-Japanese reader may still find themselves, by Totman’s standard, also charged with producing “exotica.” See W. J. Boot’s review article of L’empire du rite: La pensée politique d’Ogyû Sorai, Japon 1666–1728, by Olivier Ansart (Genève/Paris: Librairie Droz, 1998), and Tokugawa Political Writings, ed. Tetsuo Najita (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998), in which Ansart criticizes Najita on these two points (Monumenta Nipponica 54 [Summer 1999]: pp. 249–258). 13. Hari Harutounian and Sakai Naoki [Harry (D.) Harootunian and Naoki Sakai], Taidan: Nihon Kenkyû to Bunka Kenkyû (Karuchiyuraru.sutadei-zu), trans. Okazaki Seiki, Shisô (July 1997), pp. 4–53. The taidan is apparently based on the manu-

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script later published (Duke University Press) as “Dialogue: Japan Studies and Cultural Studies,” positions: east asia cultures critique 7 (Fall 1999): pp. 593–647. 14. Dennis Washburn, “Performing Theory,” review of Recontextualizing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction, by Atsuko Sakaki, in Monumenta Nipponica 55 (Summer 2000): p. 272. Also recommended reading are pp. 271–273. 15. Harootunian is correct in pointing out that in the 1950s, the University of Washington’s Asian studies program had the reputation of being “right-wing,” anticommunist, and anti–People’s Republic of China (“Dialogue: Japan Studies and Cultural Studies,” p. 643 n. 9). See also Frank Conlon, “George Edmond Taylor, 1905–2000,” Journal of Asian Studies 59 (August 2000): pp. 807–809. Conlon, however, takes note of the words of Professor Andrew Nathan of Columbia University published in the New York Times, 20 April 2000, that in the ideological divisions of China studies in the 1950s, Taylor always “conducted himself with courtesy and kept those disputes at a level of scholarly discourse” (ibid.). One fervently hopes that Taylor’s standard of conduct continues to dominate scholarly discourse in our own field. 16. Harootunian and Sakai, “Dialogue: Japan Studies and Cultural Studies,” p. 617 (all quotes are Harootunian’s). Earlier, Harootunian asserted that “introduction of theory is seen as so dangerous” that academic journals such as JJS “will do anything to suppress it” (ibid., p. 611). Monumenta Nipponica, which according to Harootunian, “had a rather shady history in the late 1930s and in the early years of World War II,” also stands condemned for its hostility to theory (ibid., p. 617). 17. “Dr. Bolitho replies [to Harootunian’s letter rebutting Bolitho’s review of Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, eds., Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period, 1600– 1868: Methods and Metaphors].” See full exchange, Monumenta Nipponica 35 (Autumn 1980): pp. 368–374. 18. Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 348. 19. Albert M. Craig, “The Meiji Restoration: A Historiographical Overview,” in The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States, ed. Helen Hardacre, p. 121 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). 20. James White, Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 10 n. 7, also pp. 290, 297. 21. Patricia Sippel, “Abandoned Fields: Negotiating Taxes in the Bakufu Domain,” Monumenta Nipponica 53 (Summer 1998): pp. 200, 220. 22. Ronald P. Toby, “Rescuing the Nation from History: The State of the State in Early Modern Japan,” review of Land and Leadership in Early Modern Japan, by Mark Ravina, and Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th-Century Tosa, by Luke S. Roberts, in Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Summer 2001): pp. 199–200. 23. Brian W. Platt’s essay on “school teaching” in the Edo period is a pioneering, detailed study on how the village schools spread in the second half of the Edo period. In the process, he writes, many village elders, who could be teachers as well, were transformed into literati, and this in turn led to the establishment of countrywide information and cultural networks among them. Two numbers speak to the importance of these educators and village schools. Platt points out that by 1868, fifty thousand individuals had become schoolteachers, and that there were 6,163 schools in Edo-period Shinano alone. Brian W. Platt, “Elegance, Prosperity, Crisis: Three Generations of



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Tokugawa Village Elites,” Monumenta Nipponica 55 (Spring 2000): pp. 52 n. 29, 52–53. 24. Craig, “The Meiji Restoration: A Historiographical Overview,” pp. 122–126, 137. 25. W. F. Vande Walle, review of The Satsuma Students in Britain: Japan’s Early Search for the “Essence of the West,” by Andrew Cobbing, in Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Autumn 2001): pp. 406, 408. 26. Brett L. Walker, “Commercial Growth and Environmental Change in Early Modern Japan: Hachinohe’s Wild Boar Famine of 1749,” Journal of Asian Studies 60 (May 2001): pp. 329–332, 339–340. 27. Yamagata Aritomo, Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, ed. Ôyama Azusa (Tokyo: Hara Shobô, 1966), pp. 393–395. 28. Ibid. 29. Richard Staubitz, “The Establishment of the System of Self-Government (1888–1890) in Meiji Japan: Yamagata Aritomo and the Meaning of ‘Jichi’ (self-government)” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1973), p. viii. See also Sally Ann Hastings, Neighborhood and Nation in Tokyo, 1905–1937 (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), p. 196. 30. Kurt Steiner’s Local Government in Japan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1965) was for years the standard interpretation on Tokyo’s controlling power prior to 1945. 31. Neil Waters, Japan’s Local Pragmatists: The Transition from Bakumatsu to Meiji in the Kawasaki Region (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 124–130. 32. Richard J. Smethurst, Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870–1940 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). This is a revisionist work that has invited the ire and disparagement of those with whom he had disagreed. One of the most prominent Japanese economic historians, Nishida Yoshiaki, wrote an impassioned twenty-six-page rebuttal that ends with an unduly scathing denunciation of the kind that can close all avenues to scholarly exchange and mutual growth: “It is obvious by now that Smethurst’s book on modern Japanese agricultural history merits no serious consideration. Smethurst’s biased use of the work of other scholars, his distortion of source materials, and the inevitably flawed conclusions that result, render it wholly worthless.” Journal of Japanese Studies 15 (Summer 1989): p. 415. See also Ann Waswo, “Review of Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870– 1940,” in Monumenta Nipponica 42 (Autumn 1987): pp. 364–366; and Nakamura Masanori, “The Japanese Landlord System and Tenancy Disputes: A Reply to Richard Smethurst’s Criticism,” The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 20 (1985); pp. 36–50. Scholarship is a serious business, but surely there is still room for a light touch even while disagreeing with others. Sir Cyril Burt was known as the “most prestigious, powerful, and influential psychologist since William James.” He had come under scrutiny for fudging his data and using nonexistent “coauthors” for his studies on the IQs of identical twins. An eminent geneticist, L. S. Penrose, who had heard him hold forth brilliantly in a lecture, was moved to declare: “I don’t believe a word the old rogue says, but, by God, I admire the way he says it.” Charles Panati, with Malcolm Macpherson, “An Epitaph for Sir Cyril,” Newsweek, 20 December 1976, p. 76. 33. I tend to favor an interpretation that sees a more messy, unpredictable process in the building of institutions and think that choices are not always “rational.” This disagreement does not lessen my esteem for this work.

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34. Smethurst, Agricultural Development, pp. 3–4, 19–21, 27–32, 33–37, 40, 56, 432–433. 35. Penelope Francks, Technology and Agricultural Development in Pre-War Japan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 44–46, 245, 277–285. 36. Michael Lewis, “The Meandering Meaning of Local Autonomy: Bosses, Bureaucrats, and Toyama’s Rivers,” in New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, ed. Helen Hardacre and Adam I. Kern, pp. 441, 449 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 37. Ibid., p. 450. See also James L. McClain, “Kanazawa City Politics,” in New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, ed. Helen Hardacre and Adam I. Kern, pp. 466–475 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 38. Lewis, “The Meandering Meaning of Local Autonomy,” p. 441. 39. F. G. Notehelfer, p. 94, in F. G. Notehelfer, Igor R. Saveliev, W. F. Vande Walle, review of “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The Iwakura Embassy Translated,” in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Spring 2004). 40. W. F. Vande Walle, p. 105, 106, 108, 109, in F. G. Notehelfer, Igor R. Saveliev, W. F. Vande Walle, review of “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The Iwakura Embassy Translated,” in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Spring 2004). 41. Roger Pulvers, “Bidding Goodbye to the Monoculture Myth,” Japan Times, 22 October 2000. 42. Ronald Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965). 43. “Flyer” announcing the presentation. Unfortunately, I was in Japan on that date. Abigail Schweber received her doctorate in June 2003, upon the completion of her dissertation, “Imposing Education: The Establishment of Japan’s First National Education System, 1872–1879.” She is presently an associate professor of history at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. 44. Schweber “flyer.” 45. For an interesting and lively commentary on Schweber’s paper that induced me to contact the author, see Jonathan Dresner’s posting “AHA Day Three: Oligarchs and Patriarchs,” on the Web log Cliopatria, January 9, 2005, at http://hnn.us/blogs/  entries/9487.html. 46. The dissertation chapter and the two papers are altogether satisfying. 47. Richard Rubinger, “Who Can’t Read and Write? Illiteracy in Meiji Japan,” Monumenta Nipponica 55 (Summer 2000): pp. 163–198. 48. Richard Torrance, “Literacy and Literature in Osaka, 1890–1940,” Journal of Japanese Studies 31 (Winter 2005): pp. 31, 37–38, 40, 42–43, 59. 49. P. F. Kornicki, “Literacy Revisited: Some Reflections on Richard Rubinger’s Findings,” Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Autumn 2001), pp. 381–394; Rubinger’s response, Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Autumn 2001), p. 395. 50. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, in Japan’s Competing Modernities, ed. Sharon A. Minichiello, pp. 157–180 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998). She enhances her reputation as a trailblazer with her study on Karafuto, a matter little looked at by Japanese and non-Japanese scholars. Karafuto adds another dimension to the subject because it was a settler colony, one that involved the assimilation and the making of colonial identity of Japanese subjects. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Northern Lights: The Making and Unmaking of Karafuto Identity,” Journal of Asian Studies 60 (August 2001): pp. 645–671. 51. Richard Devine, “Japanese Rule in Korea after the March First Uprising: Gov-



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ernor-General Hasegawa’s Recommendation,” Monumenta Nipponica 52 (Winter 1997): pp. 523–540. 52. Prof. Choe generously shared his prepublication translation of Yanagi Mune­ yoshi’s article for the revised edition of Sources of Japanese Tradition. Volume 1 (from earliest times to 1600), edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley, was published in April 2001 (cloth) and March 2002 (paper). Volume 2 (1600 to 2000), edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Arthur Tiedemann, and Carol Gluck, was published in May 2005. 53. Tadao Yanaihara, “Problems of Japanese Administration in Korea,” Pacific Affairs 11 (June 1938): pp. 198–207. 54. Soon-Won Park, “Making Colonial Policies in Korea: The Factory Law Debate, Peace Preservation Law, and Land Reform Laws in the Interwar Years,” Korean Studies 22 (1998): pp. 41, 54–55. See Soon-Won Park, Colonial Industrialization and Labor in Korea: The Onoda Cement Factory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), for the expanded version of the article. 55. The discussion here is based in part on his spring 2004 dissertation draft and exchanges of faxed and telephonic messages between Honolulu and Japan. He eliminated the chapter on comfort women in the version submitted for his degree. He is now assistant professor of history at Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina. 56. This system lasted from 1938 to 1944, after which it was replaced by conscription. The student volunteer program was instituted in 1943, followed in 1944 by the navy volunteer system. Brandon Palmer, personal conversation, 15 January 2004. 57. Others in this genre include Carter J. Eckert’s Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876–1945 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991) and Gi-Wook Shin’s Peasant Protest and Social Change in Colonial Korea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996). (Eckert’s study has appeared in Japanese as Nihon teikoku no môshigo: Kôshô (Kochian) no Kin (Kimu) ichizoku to Kankoku shihonshugi no shokuminchi kigen: 1876–1945 [Tokyo: Sôshisha, 2004], trans. Kotani Masayo.) Eckert is a professor of Korean history and director of the Korea Institute at Harvard University. Gi-Wook Shin is an associate professor of sociology and director of the Korean Studies Program at Stanford University. 58. Brandon Palmer, “Japan’s Mobilization of Koreans for War, 1937–1945,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawai‘i, 2005), chapter 1, pp. 12–14. 59. Ibid., chapter 1, pp. 2–3, 8. The phrase “more complicated” was removed in the final draft. 60. Ibid., chapter 1, pp. 15–16; chapter 4, pp. 127, 168. 61. Ibid., chapter 3, “Volunteer Soldier Systems,” pp. 90–92, 108. 62. Ibid., chapter 3, pp. 61–62. 63. Ibid., chapter 3, pp. 95–100. 64. Ibid., chapter 4, pp. 128–130, 157. 65. Ibid., p. 157. I suspect that an article on the Diet’s debates on this subject may produce further surprises. 66. Ibid., pp. 186–187. 67. This statement is from the 2004 draft of Palmer’s dissertation, pp. 7, 40. 68. Palmer, “Japan’s Mobilization of Koreans for War, 1937–1945,” chapter 4, p. 154. 69. Ibid., p. 151. 70. Ibid., p. 143.

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Notes to Pages 82–85

71. Ibid., pp. 176–177. 72. Ibid., p. 150. 73. Waters, Japan’s Local Pragmatists: The Transition from Bakumatsu to Meiji in the Kawasaki Region, p. 3–4, 29–30. 74. Mark Caprio (Rikkyô Daigaku, Japan), review of Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910–1945, by Hildi Kang (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 2001), in Korean Studies Review (2002 no. 2), and online at http:// koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr02-02.htm. The work was not available to me in Japan. My reading of it in Hawai‘i confirms Caprio’s accurate rendering of it. Kang deserves kudos for letting her interviewees speak for themselves even when their answers apparently went against the perceptions intimated by the title of her book. 75. Andre Schmid, “Colonialism and the ‘Korea Problem’ in the Historiography of Modern Japan: A Review Article,” Journal of Japanese Studies 59, no. 4 (November 2000): pp. 951–976; especially, pp. 953, 958, 964, 972. See “Communications to the Editors,” for reactions to the article by Mark Peattie and Ramon Myers, and Schmid’s response in Journal of Asian Studies 60 (August 2001): pp. 813–816. Schmid cautions historians using Japanese sources to be “more chary of the self-serving claims and discursive contours of colonial archives” (“Response,” p. 816). No historian would deny that archival sources are “self-serving,” a point discussed in detail in chapter 2. It is hoped that scholars would not let this hazard deter them from using a fundamental tool for historical research. Schmid was awarded the Association for Asian Studies 2004 John Whitney Hall Book Prize for his Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). 76. Wonmo Dong, “The Japanese Colonial Policy and Practice in Korea, 1905– 1945: A Study in Assimilation” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1965), pp. iii–viii. Brandon Palmer, who stands among the revisionists, shared with me this source. 77. Ibid., p. iv. 78. Ibid., p. v. 79. Ibid., p. viii. 80. Wonmo Dong remains very active in the field of Korean studies. He is now Korea Program Scholar in Residence, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington in Seattle, Washington (http://faculty.washington.edu/wdong). 81. Dong, “The Japanese Colonial Policy and Practice in Korea,” table 37, p. 341. The results of the survey also showed that 9.3 percent of intellectuals reported that they always thought of independence, while 15.4 percent wanted independence at a favorable time. Among students, the figures were 5.6 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively. Interestingly, 6.5 percent of farmers/laborers always thought of independence and 68.3 percent did not care, whereas religious leaders were fairly evenly divided on these issues at 27.1 percent and 25.2 percent, respectively. 82. Ibid., table 39, p. 345. 83. In spring 2005, I was invited by Nihon Rekishi (Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, Tokyo), probably the premier academic journal covering all of Japanese history, to submit a brief essay on a subject of my choosing. The topic I chose, “Eigoken ni okeru Nihon Tôchika no Shin Chôryû,” is based on my discussion of Japan’s colonization of Korea (1910­–1945) as analyzed by scholars listed above. A much-expanded version was published in the April 2006 issue of Shokun! 84. David L. Howell, “The Meiji State and the Logic of Ainu ‘Protection,’” in New



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Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, ed. Helen Hardacre and Adam I. Kern, pp. 631– 634 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). This article should be read in conjunction with his “Making ‘Useful Citizens’ of Ainu Subjects in Early Twentieth-century Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies 63 (February 2004): pp. 5–29. He re-emphasizes the point that a distinct Ainu ethnicity persists in the face of the nearly complete eradication of Ainu cultural practices (p. 11). This transformation of the Ainu’s “daily lives” was hastened by the implementation of the Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Act (1889–1997), an ill-conceived attempt to transform the Ainu into agriculturalists (pp. 7–11). 85. Chang Han-yu and Ramon Myers, “Japanese Colonial Development Policy in Taiwan, 1895–1906: A Case of Bureaucratic Entrepreneurship,” Journal of Asian Studies 22 (August 1963): pp. 433–449; Samuel P. S. Ho, “The Economic Development of Colonial Taiwan: Evidence and Interpretations,” Journal of Asian Studies 34 (February 1975): pp. 417–439. 86. Steven Phillips, “Taiwanese Political Aspirations Under Nationalist Chinese Rule, 1945–1948,” in Taiwan: A New History, ed. Murray A. Rubinstein, p. 277 (New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1999). 87. Harry J. Lamley, “Taiwan Under Japanese Rule, 1895–1945: The Vicissitudes of Colonialism,” in Taiwan: A New History, ed. Murray A. Rubinstein, p. 240 (New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1999). This lengthy article (pp. 202–260) provides an extremely helpful overview of the ups and downs of Japan’s colonial rule of Taiwan. Lamley is professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Hawai‘i-Manoa. We have been colleagues since the 1960s. His personal library of primary sources on Taiwan is extensive and, outside of Taiwan and Japan, may be unmatched in terms of a private holding. Some of the statements in this section on Taiwan under Japanese rule are based on several lengthy conversations I had with him. 88. Ibid., pp. 240–246. 89. Ibid., p. 242. He believes that if there had been no war and Japan had remained in Taiwan, the kôminka movement may have been successful within a generation. He concedes that this conclusion is conjectural. This was said during a conversation the date of which was not recorded since it long preceded my research interest in the assimilation of areas peripheral to Japan. 90. Phillips, “Taiwanese Political Aspirations,” pp. 290–292. 91. Steve Rabson, “Meiji Assimilation Policy in Okinawa: Promotion, Resistance, and ‘Reconstruction,’” in New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, ed. Helen Hardacre and Adam I. Kern, pp. 642, 648 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 92. Morris-Suzuki, “Becoming Japanese,” in Japan’s Competing Modernities, ed. Sharon A. Minichiello, p. 159 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998). 93. Frederick C. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, 1914–1919 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), p. 240. 94. White, Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan, p. 6; also, pp. 277, 280, 291. He adds that the key element of a revolutionary transfer of power was lacking in Japan, that is, the people’s active, positive role (ibid., p. 19 n. 24). 95. He encapsulates his positions on “revolution” and “revolutionary” as follows: “The Meiji regime may have imposed a revolutionary transformation on Japan, but the Restoration itself was not a revolutionary transfer of power.” White, Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan, p. 19 n. 24; also, p. 280 n. 5. 96. Ibid., p. 10 n. 6; also, pp. 20, 284, 289, 292, 297, 298, 300.

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97. Ibid., p. 298. 98. Yamagata was so moved by Iwakura’s letter that he added a notation to the letter: “Iwakura was on his deathbed so he had a scribe write down his views on national affairs. This is a clear indication of Iwakura’s deep feelings for the nation’s welfare. This is my notation, Aritomo.” Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo, KS, 16 July 1883. 99. Rokuhara Hiroko, “Local Officials and the Meiji Conscription Campaign,” Monumenta Nipponica 60 (Spring 2005): pp. 89–91. This is another sterling example of what I call a “building block” study, exemplified by exactitude of details in dates, names of persons and offices, and translations of terms, that the younger generation of Anglophone scholars have been producing. 100. F. G. Notehelfer, p. 92, in F. G. Notehelfer, Igor R. Saveliev, W. F. Vande Walle, review of “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The Iwakura Embassy Translated,” in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Spring 2004). 101. W. F. Vande Walle, p. 103, in F. G. Notehelfer, Igor R. Saveliev, W. F. Vande Walle, review of “An Extraordinary Odyssey: The Iwakura Embassy Translated,” in Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Spring 2004). 102. Rokuhara, “Local Officials and the Meiji Conscription Campaign,” p. 84. 103. A. Kimi Coaldrake, “Women in Gidayû during Meiji: Masters or Mistresses of the Tradition?” in New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, ed. Helen Hardacre and Adam I. Kern, p. 209 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). This doubtful generalization notwithstanding, Coaldrake’s article is an impressive, persuasive, satisfying piece. Equally striking and admirable is her fifteen years of immersion in the iemoto system that gained her the “status as koto teacher . . . in the school of Nakada Hiroyuki, a Living National Treasure,” as well as her membership in the Gidayû Association, which has given her insight into an “alternative system of meritocratic transition.” Coaldrake, “Women in Gidayû During Meiji,” p. 203 n. 1. 104. Eiko Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 375. 105. This letter confirming what Itô Hirobumi had asked Mijoyi to convey to Yamagata is a lengthy and, for the historian, extremely important record of Itô’s views on constitutional government. Itô Hirobumi, comp., Hisho Ruisan: Teikoku Gikai Shiryô (Tokyo: Hisho Ruisan Kankôkai, 1934), vol. 1, p. 182. 106. Ozaki Yukio, Minken Tôsô Shichijûnen (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1952), pp. 33–34. 107. The Autobiography of Shibusawa Eiichi: From Peasant to Entrepreneur, translated, with an introduction and notes, by Teruko Craig (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1994), pp. 128–129. Naoko Shibusawa, formerly an Americanist in the University of Hawai‘i History Department and now an assistant professor of history at Brown University, is the great-granddaughter of Shibusawa Eiichi. Her father is the son of Eiichi’s eldest son. Naoko Shibusawa’s book, America’s Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japanese Enemy, was published in 2006 by Harvard University Press. 108. Letters from Inoue to Ozaki, 25 November 1886 and 10 May (year not given, but probably late 1880s), Ozaki Saburô Kankei Monjo, KS. 109. Ozaki Saburô Kankei Monjo, KS, 7 October 1890. 110. It is not surprising that the fledgling government would take care of the military before the civil bureaucracy. This is in keeping with the perfectly legitimate concern of all states—self-preservation. In the bill of particulars section of the Declaration



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of Independence, for example, the “King of Great Britain” is castigated for actions that “exposed [the states] to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.” Yamagata, in his 1919 speech, stressed that because the new Meiji government lacked a military force of any significance, it had ample cause to fear both dangers, with the disgruntled samurai posing the greatest internal threat. 111. “Zenkoku Yôchi Junkô no Kengi,” Gunji Kankei Meiji Tennô Godenki Shiryô, Shoryôbu. 112. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience (New York: Random House, 1966), pp. 221, 223. 113. Michael L. Lewis, Rioters and Citizens: Mass Protest in Imperial Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. vii–viii. 114. Ôkuma Shigenobu proposed in March 1881 what was believed by his colleagues a radical departure from this evolutionary approach. He called for an election by the end of 1882 to fill the national assembly, which would be convoked in early 1883. This political blunder of not marching in lockstep with the others resulted in his purge from the government. 115. Gerald L. Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and Limits of Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 19; also p. 37. Dower offers a contrastive view, writing that “rapid change had been the watchword of millions of Japanese ever since the mid-nineteenth century,” and “ever since the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s they had been involved in a whirlwind of change.” John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 178; also p. 19. 116. “Nihon Kokka Engi,” Fukuzawa Yukichi Zenshû (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1960), vol. 12, p. 29. 117. Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 76. 118. “Kokkai Kaisetsu ni kansuru Kengi,” Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, p. 87. 119. Speech to the privy councilors gathered to deliberate on the draft constitution, 18 June 1888. Kentarô Kaneko, Itô Hirobumi Den 2 (Tokyo: Tôseisha, 1943): p. 810. 120. “Some Reminiscences of the Grant of the New Constitution,” in Fifty Years of New Japan 1, comp. Count Shigenobu Ôkuma, p. 128 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1910). 121. Itô Hirobumi, comp., Hisho Ruisan: Hôsei Kankei Shiryô (Tokyo: Hisho Ruisan Kankôkai, 1934), pp. 242–243. 122. Osatake Takeshi, Nihon Kenseishi no Kenkyû (Tokyo: Ichigensha, 1943), pp. 321–322. If the originals someday could be checked, it would be significant if Itô’s organ theory statement is in his own handwriting as opposed to the writing of a scribe for, say, someone like Roesler replying to Itô’s inquiry on the subject. If it is in Itô’s handwriting, it would raise its significance several-fold, although there is no denying that its very existence, even if not in his hand, is important. 123. Hermann Roesler, Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, in Kindai Nihon Kempôgaku Sôsho 2, Itô Miyoji Ikô: Eibun Dai Nihon Teikoku Kempô Engi, 1891, ed. Miura Yûji, p. 22 (Tokyo: Shizansha, 1994). The work, in English, is a part of Itô Miyoji’s holdings that survived 1940s firebombs. 124. The first published volume of the definitive new series titled Itô Hirobumi Monjo, Genten Hisho Ruisan, compiled by the Itô Hirobumi Monjo Kenkyûkai, is vol. 17, Nisshin Jiken 1, Nisshin Jiken 2, Nisshin Jiken 3, ed. Itô Hiromasa and Hirose Yoshihiro (Tokyo:

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Hokusensha, 2002). This will be a multiyear project. “The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men,” as Robert Burns had deftly put it, “gang aft a-gley.” And so it is with the Hisho Ruisan project. The Hokusensha declared bankruptcy in July 2003. Given the highly specialized and costly nature of its publications and the parlous state of Japan’s economy in the 1990s, the wonder is that it survived so long. Hirose is in talks with several potential publishers and is hopeful that the series will continue as planned. 125. Itô Miyoji to Itô Hirobumi, 13 February 1891, Hisho Ruisan: Teikoku Gikai Shiryô, vol. 1, p. 182. 126. Kaneko, Itô Hirobumi Den, vol. 2, pp. 926–929. It is very surprising that this description of lèse majesté published at the height of the Pacific War was either missed or ignored by the censors. 127. The Ôtsu Jiken involved the attack by a policeman on the crown prince, later Tsar Nicholas II, in Ôtsu, Shiga-ken. See Barbara Teters, “The Ôtsu Affair: The Formation of Japan’s Judicial Conscience,” in Meiji Japan’s Centennial: Aspects of Political Thought and Action, ed. David Wurfel, pp. 37–62 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1971). For the Russian perspective, see George A. Lensen, “The Attempt on the Life of Nicholas II in Japan,” Russian Review 20 (1961): pp. 232–253. 128. This is another example of the problem arising from third-party interventions between primary documents and the reader. 129. See Hirose Yoshihiro, “Shôsho. Chokusho. Chokugo,” Shiryô Kampô, Kokuritsu Kokubungaku Kenkyû Shiryôkan Shiryôkan (September 2000), pp. 1–3, for a close examination of the difference between shôchoku, chokugo, shôsho, chokusho, and other expressions of the imperial will. 130. Carl Steenstrup, review of Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467–1880: Resilience and Renewal, by Lee Butler, in Journal of Japanese Studies 30 (Winter 2004): pp. 148–149, 151. 131. Tsuzuki, in fact, was swallowed by this trend. He joined the Seiyûkai in 1900. 132. His “Jihei o Ronji Seikô o Shinkisen to suru Hôhô o Ronzu, (Jôsô) (1882)” is a crystal-clear exposition of his position on the inevitability of a party-led cabinet. Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, pp. 108–113, esp. p. 110. 133. I prefer this description to “democracy,” since Japan has been a constitutional-parliamentary monarchy since 1890. Moreover, “democracy” is so freely and loosely bandied about that it can mean whatever a writer wishes it to signify. JeanPierre Lehmann, professor of international political economy at the Institute for Management Development and founding director of the Evian Group, Lausanne, Switzerland, declared that “never had the world seen so many democracies,” yet, “risks [exist] that the conditions for maintaining the momentum of global democratization would not be met.” “Japan in the Global Era: Benefits of Opening Up to Foreign Labor,” Japan Times, 18 November 2002, thirty-first in a series appearing in JT. This is a nearly analytically meaningless use of the word “democracy.” 134. My interest in the subject matter is of long standing. In May 1968, I presented a talk to the Asiatic Society of Japan (Sophia University) on “The Meiji Leaders and Political History of Modern Japan as Seen by Writers in the English-speaking World.” The 1980 article cited earlier, “Trends in Modern Japanese Political History: The ‘Positivist’ Studies,” was an in-depth look at younger Japanese “non-Marxist” scholars and their works. This was followed in June 1989 by a presentation at Nichibunken (Kyoto), “Amerika no Nihon Kenkyû no Daiichi Sedai.”



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135. Dower, Embracing Defeat, pp. 217, 218. 136. Kenneth Colegrove, “The Japanese Cabinet,” American Political Science Review 30 (1936): p. 913. 137. Yoshino Sakuzô, “In the Name of the People,” Pacific Affairs 4 (1931): pp. 193– 198. Colegrove also started with the dismal premise that the intent of the Constitution’s drafters was to avoid “democratic rule and ministerial responsibility to an elected parliament.” This design, he says, was clearly evident in Itô’s Commentaries on the Constitution. “The Japanese Privy Council,” American Political Science Review 26, part 2 (1931): p. 905. Colegrove cites Count Hirobumi Itô, Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, trans. Miyoji Itô (Tokyo: Finance Ministry, 1889). Dower is the latest to add his voice to the notion that “a tiny elite” looked to the German constitutional model for postMeiji Japan and that their aim was to establish a “Japanized” “German-style authoritarianism” by using the emperor. Roesler’s Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan should disabuse any reader of the view of overwhelming German influence on the Meiji Constitution. Dower also asks the reader to compare the Meiji Constitution with the “more liberal (and radical Western) proposals” made by the jiyû minken undô (liberty and people’s rights movement) participants and others outside the government (Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 358). Even if it is a given that the Meiji leaders did not purposefully seek inspiration from America, a comparison between the intents and motivations of America’s founding fathers and the Meiji leaders may well provide a perspective to balance the Yoshino, Dower, and Chalmers Johnson position. See also Donarudo Robinson and Jôji Akita, “Meiji no L   dâ to Gasshûkokukenkoku no Chichitachi,” trans. Gedatsu Otsu, Chûô Kôron (December 1990), pp. 168–187. Donald L. Robinson is a professor of government, Smith College. In the 1980s, he directed research for the Committee on the Constitutional System, led by C. Douglas Dillon, Lloyd Cutler, and then Senator Nancy Kassebaum, organized to consider structural reforms of the American system of government. He served as editor of Reforming American Government: The Bicentennial Papers of the Committee on the Constitutional System (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985). Among his works are “To the Best of My Ability”: The Presidency and the Constitution (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988); The Constitution of Japan: A Documentary History of its Framing and Adoption, 1945–1947 [CD-ROM] (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998); and Ray A. Moore and Donald L. Robinson, Partners for Democracy: Crafting the New Japanese State under MacArthur (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2002). 138. Walter W. McLaren, A Political History of Japan during the Meiji Era, 1867– 1912 (London: Scribner’s, 1916). I have called McLaren’s position “the failure thesis,” one that I have noted earlier is reiterated by Dickinson. 139. Harold S. Quigley, Japanese Government and Politics (New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1932). This was probably the most widely read work of its kind in the 1930s and early 1940s. It is still worth reading for its lack of moralistic posturing. See also Kenneth Colegrove, “Powers and Functions of the Japanese Diet,” American Political Science Review 27, part 1 (1933), p. 889; 28, part 2 (1934), p. 39. 140. Y. Tak Matsusaka, review of The Manchurian Crisis and Japanese Society, 1931– 1933, by Sandra Wilson, in Journal of Japanese Studies 30 (Winter 2004): pp. 178–179. 141. Thomas A. Bisson, “Democracy in Japan,” Foreign Policy Association Information Service (FPAIS) 6 (25 June 1930): pp. 151–156, 159, 166; “The Re-orientation of Japan’s Foreign Policy,” FPAIS 6 (15 October 1930): p. 295. 142. Bisson, FPAIS 8 (26 October 1932); FPAIS 10 (13 February 1935). And at the

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height of the war, he assured his readers that the Meiji Constitution had been framed in such a way to guarantee that the Japanese would be “ruled by a set of self-perpetuating bureaucrats.” T. A. Bisson, “Japan as a Political Organism,” Pacific Affairs 17 (1944): pp. 393–394, 401–402. 143. Dower, Embracing Defeat, pp. 222–224. 144. Theodore McNelly, The Origins of Japan’s Democratic Constitution (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000), pp. 62–63. 145. Some, however, held firm against the war-generated passions. John F. Embree, for example, even before Japan’s surrender, positively assessed the fact that Japan was the only nation in Asia that could boast of a popularly elected legislature and had a government sensitive to the people’s needs. “Democracy in Postwar Japan,” American Journal of Sociology 50 (November 1944): p. 89; also his The Japanese Nation: A Social Survey (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1945), pp. 61, 109, 127. See also Kenneth Latourette and M. S. Bates, “The Future of Japan,” Pacific Affairs 17 (1944): p. 192. 146. Nobutaka Ike, The Beginnings of Political Democracy in Japan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1950), pp. 188, 197. 147. See also Robert A. Scalapino, “Japan: Between Traditionalism and Democracy,” in Modern Political Parties: Approaches in Comparative Politics, ed. Sigmund Neumann, p. 317 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956). 148. One of the finest studies on the political history of the 1930s is Gordon M. Berger, Parties Out of Power in Japan, 1931–1941 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977). Berger shows that the pluralistic political structure persisted after 1931 despite the tilt in favor of the military bureaucracy, a natural enough consequence of wartime conditions. See Craig, “Imperial Japan: From Triumph to Tragedy,” chap. 7 in John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert M. Craig, East Asia: The Modern Transformation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965). 149. See also issues of the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars; Patrick Smith, Japan: A Reinterpretation (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), especially chap. 1, “The Invisible Japanese,” and pp. 29–30, 56, 335–336, 339. 150. Constitutional scholar Lawrence Beer strongly disagrees with this interpretation and asserts that “from 1868 to 1945 Japan was a society led from the top, and remains so today.” Freedom of Expression in Japan Today: A Study in Comparative Law, Politics and Society (New York: Kodansha International, 1984), p. 70. 151. See Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, pp. 57–58, 259. 152. David Williams, Japan: Beyond the End of History (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 42; David Williams, review of Japan, Who Governs?: The Rise of the Developmental State, by Chalmers Johnson, in Japan Times, 9 May 1995. Margaret A. McKean looks at some “comparativist” scholars who have been “greatly influenced” by Johnson and other statists who place the state and the bureaucracy at the center of Japan’s political system in “State Strength and the Public Interest,” in Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan, ed. Gary D. Allinson and Yasunori Sone, p.73 n. 5 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993). See also J. Mark Ramseyer and Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Japan’s Political Marketplace (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 100–102. 153. Crichton lashed back at those who condemned “Revisionists” as being antiJapanese and anti-Asian in his “America Bound and Gagged: Political Correctness and Censorship of the U.S.-Japan Relationship” (paper presented at a symposium sponsored by the America-Japan Society of Southern California, 5 June 1992).



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154. Peter Hadfield, “‘Japan Bashing’ Paranoia Ridden with Fuzzy Logic,” Daily Yomiuri, 13 August 1991; Jonathan Alter, “In Praise of Karel van Wolferen,” Newsweek, 5 July 1993. An important difference between Johnson and Wolferen is that the latter is extremely critical of Japan, so much so that it has moved Doug Henwood to declare that “[Enigma] is an antivalentine of impressive malice. . . . One wonders how this piqued correspondent . . . has managed to spend nearly 25 years in a country he clearly loathes . . . [he] judges Japan against timeless Occidental principles and surprise, surprise, finds it wanting” (“The Empire’s New Clothes,” Village Voice, 18 April 1989). The “Revisionists”—Johnson, Wolferen, Clyde V. P. Prestowitz, James M. Fallows, and others—are dissected in some detail in Jôji Akita, Taikoku Nihon: Amerika no Kyôi to Chôsen: Ribijonisto no Shikô to Kôdô, trans. with Hirose Yoshihiro and Ushio Shirô (Tokyo: Nihon Hyôronsha, 1993). 155. The reason Tsuzuki submitted his “Chôzenshugi” ikensho is that he believed that these two points are how matters “should” be, whereas contemporary statists maintain that this is the reality today. 156. Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982), pp. 20–21, 35–36, 38, 49–50; Chalmers Johnson, “Political Institutions and Economic Performance: The Government-Business Relationship in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan,” in The Political Economy of New Asian Industrialism, ed. Frederic C. Deyo, pp. 137–143, 145, 147 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987). 157. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle, p. 36. John W. Hall rejects the unilinear development position, declaring flatly, “What was created in the Meiji period did not lead directly to the national bankruptcy of the 1940s” (“A Monarch for Modern Japan,” in Political Development in Modern Japan, ed. Robert E. Ward, pp. 53–54, 57 [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968]). Mark Metzler seems to suggest that Johnson also may wish to revisit his position that Japan’s distinctive industrial policy came to be in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and that prior to its emergence, Japan’s economic policy was “a more or less orthodox version of laissez-faire” (MITI and the Japanese Miracle, p. 88). Metzler writes that American business leaders had a different view of Japan’s economic policy. They saw it as already being “distinctively statist” and believed that Japan’s economy had stagnated because it had been adhering to state-led development. Their vision was that a healthy dose of economic liberalism would resolve Japan’s economic stagnation. The Minseitô Cabinet acted on this liberal vision (11 January 1930–13 December 1931) with gaiatsu from Wall Street’s J. P. Morgan. This resulted in the “Shôwa panic,” one of the greatest policy disasters in the modern history of Japan. One consequence was the rise of Japan’s distinctive “capitalist development state.” Mark Metzler, “American Pressure for Financial Internationalization in Japan on the Eve of the Great Depression,” Journal of Japanese Studies 28 (Summer 2002): pp. 285–286, 297–300. 158. Williams, Beyond the End of History, p. 40. 159. Aurelia George, “Japanese Interest Group Behavior: An Institutional Approach,” in Dynamic and Immobilist Politics in Japan, ed. J. A. A. Stockwin, pp. 107, 108, 112–113, 119, 132 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1988). 160. John C. Campbell, “Fragmentation and Power: Politicians and Bureaucrats in the Japanese Decision-Making System” (paper presented to the Midwest Seminar on Japanese Studies, Ann Arbor, Mich., 24 October 1987, cited in McKean, “State Strength and the Public Interest,” p. 87 n. 40). See Michio Muramatsu, “Patterned Pluralism

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Under Challenge: The Politics of the 1980s,” in Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan, ed. Gary D. Allinson and Yasunori Sone, pp. 51–53 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), for a description of subgovernments and how “politicians inject their views into the deliberations of sub-governments.” See also discussions in Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, pp. 57–60, 259–260; and Bradley Richardson, Japanese Democracy: Power, Coordination, and Performance (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 268–269. 161. Ellis Krauss, “Japan: Divided Bureaucracy in the Modern State in a Unified Regime,” in Bureaucracy in the Modern State: An Introduction to Comparative Public Administration, ed. Jon Pierre, p. 119 (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995). 162. Richardson designates it as the “vertical-integrative model” and specifically links it with Johnson’s “soft-authoritarianism” metaphor. Japanese Democracy, pp. viii, 2, 95, 124, 240, 267–268; Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, pp. 10, 58. 163. Richardson, Japanese Democracy, pp. 108, 124–125; Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, pp. 60–61. 164. Richardson, Japanese Democracy, pp. viii, 122–124; Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, p. 10. 165. Richardson, Japanese Democracy, pp. 11–12, 15, 37, 253; Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, pp. 10–15, especially pp. 14–15. 166. Richardson, Japanese Democracy, p. 104; also pp. 7–8, 23. I suggest that the word “paternalistic,” rather than “autocratic,” better describes the Meiji leaders’ leadership style. 167. McKean, “State Strength and the Public Interest,” p. 75, also pp. 74, 82. As she succinctly puts it, “the strong state may have been a fiction all along” (ibid., p. 87). 168. Timothy C. Lim, “Explaining Development in South Korea and East Asia: A Review of the Last Dozen Years of Research,” Korean Studies 18 (1994): p. 199 n. 6. 169. David Williams, Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 135. 170. Andrew Dewit, Social Science Japan, Newsletter of the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo (February 1996), pp. 38, 39. Williams says much the same thing, but in a temperate, even-handed vein (Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science, pp. 137–139). Chalmers Johnson and E. B. Keehn’s “A Disaster in the Making: Rational Choice and Asian Studies,” The National Interest (Summer 1994), however, is an extremely harsh, impassioned attack on another work, Japan’s Political Marketplace. It is thus refreshing to see an example of being able to disagree without acrimony: Michael Lewis’s review of Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000). Lewis makes it clear that he thinks Jansen is too sanguine in his analyses and conclusions. Still, he does not go beyond the civil suggestions that “alternate explanations” are possible and that Jansen’s work is an “interpretation whose assertions are not beyond question.” Japan Times, 8 July 2001, excerpted from Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Autumn 2001). See also Warren E. Kimball, “The Cold War Warmed Over,” American Historical Review 79 (October 1974): p. 1135, also p. 1136. 171. Andrew Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan: Public Man in Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 3, 4–5, 10; also xiii, 8–9. 172. Robert A. Scalapino, Democracy and the Party Movement in Prewar Japan: The Failure of the First Attempt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), pp. 149 n. 1, 155.



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173. David R. Ambaras, in his positive assessment of Garon’s work, says, “The activities of the new middle-class demonstrate that the dynamics of power in modern Japan cannot be described in terms of either a unilinear flow from rulers to ruled or a simple dichotomy between state and society.” “Social Knowledge, Cultural Capital, and the New Middle Class in Japan, 1895–1912,” Journal of Japanese Studies 24 (Winter 1998): p. 1. 174. Sheldon Garon, “Management in Twentieth-Century Japan,” Kindai Nihon Kenkyû Tsûshin (25 January 1988), p. 15. 175. Garon, “The Long Arm of the State,” The Los Angeles Times, reprinted in Japan Times, 6 June 1997. He elsewhere states his position on state management of prewar and postwar Japanese society in no uncertain terms: “the modern Japanese state has managed its society in peacetime much as Western democracies have done only while at war. . . . And when not at war, the government was often occupied with postwar management or preparations for the next war.” Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 13. See also his “Rethinking Modernization and Modernity in Japanese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 53 (May 1994), and “Fashioning a Culture of Diligence and Thrift: Savings and Frugality Campaigns in Japan, 1900–1931,” in Japan’s Competing Modernities, ed. Sharon A. Minichiello, pp. 330, 331 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998). Kerry Smith points to recent works by Garon and others that “argue for more ambiguous and sometimes cooperative ties between the state and citizens.” Review of Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women, by Mariko Asano Tamanoi, in Monumenta Nipponica 54 (Spring 1999): p. 156. This is a true enough representation of Garon’s position, but it misses the point that Garon’s emphasis is on the interaction that occurs primarily between the government and the middle class as well as on the former’s management role. 176. Hastings, Neighborhood and Nation in Tokyo, 1905–1937, pp. 4–5, 7, 12–13, 195–197. 177. Ibid., pp. 3, 7, 14, 195, 203. 178. Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics, p. 4. 179. Jane Goodall with Phillip Berman, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (New York: Warner Books, 1999), p. 55. 180. Harold Bolitho, review of Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period, 1600– 1868: Methods and Metaphors, ed. Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, in Monumenta Nipponica 35 (Spring 1980): p. 92. 181. Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice, p. 70. 182. Ibid. 183. Ibid., p. 8. 184. White, Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan, pp. 6– 8, 11, 14, 16, 20–21, 270–272, 279–282, 284, 292, 302–311. 185. Lewis, Rioters and Citizens, pp. xviii, 21–22, 250. 186. Earl H. Kinmonth, “The Mouse that Roared: Saitô Takao, Conservative Critic of Japan’s ‘Holy War’ in China,” Journal of Japanese Studies 25 (Summer 1999): pp. 331, 344, 346–347, 350, 354–357, 359. 187. Ibid., pp. 347–352. Kinmonth notes that Ienaga dismisses Saitô in a single sentence, in his The Pacific War, 1931–1945: A Critical Perspective on Japan’s Role in World War (New York: Pantheon, 1978), a work that is much praised and cited by the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars set (ibid., p. 348). 188. Ibid, p. 360.

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189. Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice, pp. 67–69. This is probably an inadequate overview that does not do Ken justice. See chap. 1, “Mountains of Resentment: One Woman’s Struggle Against Tokugawa Authority” (Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice, pp. 11–70). 190. Bettina Gramlich-Oka, “Tadano Makuzu and Her Hitori Kangae,” Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Spring 2001): pp. 1–20. 191. Janet R. Goodwin et al., “Solitary Thoughts: A Translation of Tadano Makuzu’s Hitori Kangae,” Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Summer 2001): pp. 178, 182, 187, 189, 194. I note with distinct interest that the translation is a collaborative effort by Goodwin, Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Elizabeth A. Leicester, Yuki Terazawa, and Anne Walthall. This enterprise mirrors my thirty-year collaboration with Japanese colleagues in transcribing and translating published and unpublished primary documents. If my experience is any measure, the five must have found their collaboration an exciting, stimulating, and thoroughly enjoyable learning process. 192. “Image as Information in Bakumatsu Japan,” Association of Asian Studies Abstracts, Session 162, 1995. Posted online at www.aasianst.org/absts/1995abst/japan/ jses162.htm. The panel participants were Robert Eskildsen, Stanford University; M. William Steele, International Christian University; Henry D. Smith, II, Columbia University; and Tetsunori Iwashita, Aoyama Gakuin University. 193. Peter Duus, “Presidential Address: Weapons of the Weak, Weapons of the Strong: The Development of the Japanese Political Cartoon,” Journal of Asian Studies 60 (November 2001): p. 993. 194. Shinno Toshikazu, “Journeys, Pilgrimages, Excursions: Religious Travels in the Early Modern Period,” trans. Laura Nenzi. Monumenta Nipponica 57 (Winter 2002): pp. 451–452, 455, 460, 463. 195. Laura Nenzi, “Cultured Travelers and Consumer Tourists in Edo-Sagami Period,” Monumenta Nipponica 59 (Autumn 2004): p. 285. Kikuchi found it easier to travel because “there were no barriers [or checkpoints] controlling women” in Sagami. 196. Ibid. Also pp. 287, 293. 197. Thomas is a paper technician with the Honolulu Academy of Arts and is responsible for the conservation and management of the woodblock collection. Anyone who wishes to view the collection should get in touch with Shawn Eichman, curator of the Asian arts collection. In the July/August 2003 issue of Calendar News, in an article titled “Digital Imaging Project Initiated in the Asian Art Department,” the academy announced the undertaking of a massive effort to create a text and image database of the approximately 9,400 woodblock prints in its collection. High-resolution color digital images of each print would be made accessible by computer, at first on the academy premises and later on the Internet. It was anticipated that the project would take five years to complete. As of December 2006, this remarkable text/image resource, known as the Robert F. Lange Foundation Japanese Print Database, contained approximately 1,500 entries, now available to the public (log in with guest account) on line at http:// cms.honoluluacademy.org/cmshaa/academy/index.aspx?id=1620. 198. Tominaga’s reproductions are from Yoshida Susugu, Tôkaidô Gojûsantsugi (Tokyo: Shûeisha, 1944). 199. The Japanese title is not given in three photo reproductions sent by Thomas, so I am using either the transliteration or the English translation used by the academy.



Notes to Pages 112–115

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200. Nenzi, “Cultured Travelers and Consumer Tourists in Edo-Sagami Period,” pp. 304–305, 310. 201. Coaldrake, “Women in Gidayû during Meiji: Masters or Mistresses of the Tradition,” pp. 206–208. Also see Cecilia Segawa Seigle, Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993). 202. Coaldrake, “Women in Gidayû during Meiji: Masters or Mistresses of the Tradition,” p. 209. 203. Hahaso no Ochiba has been reprinted as Shôyû Booklet no. 6 (Tokyo: Shôyû Kurabu, 1996). 204. Coaldrake, “Women in Gidayû during Meiji: Masters or Mistresses of the Tradition,” pp. 210–218. She presents a fascinating statistic, citing an 1899 source in English, that “some 8,710,219 prostitutes” were registered in government rolls between 1898 and 1904 (ibid., p. 214). The population was “close to forty million” at the time of the first general election. R. H. P. Mason, Japan’s First General Election, 1890 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 30. Given this, and even granting multiple registration of some persons, her figure seems rather high. 205. Coaldrake, “Women in Gidayû during Meiji: Masters or Mistresses of the Tradition,” p. 209. 206. Kathryn Ragsdale, “Marriage, the Newspaper Business, and the NationState: Ideology in the Late Meiji Serialized Katei Shôsetsu,” Journal of Japanese Studies 24 (Summer 1998): pp. 229, 235–237, 240–241, 255. Ken K. Ito analyzes a katei shôsetsu at great length. He refers to Sigmund Freud, Jane Tompkins, Peter Brooks, and Louis Althusser, among others, for his “deconstruction” of the work in question. My use of the word deconstruction—most likely inappropriately—means that it would be foolish of me to pretend total comprehension of his article, lacking as I do the background and vocabulary required. See Ken K. Ito, “Class and Gender in a Meiji Family Romance: Kikuchi Yûhô’s Chikyôdai,” Journal of Japanese Studies 28 (Summer 2002): pp. 339–378. 207. Rumi Yasutake, “Feminism, Nationalism, and Internationalism: Japanese Women at the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conferences (PPWC), 1928–1940” (paper presented at the Crossroads Conference, University of Hawai‘i, 8–11 August 2001). I was a commentator and can attest that the papers were on the whole excellent. 208. Tamanoi’s study should fit seamlessly into this narrative. She has shared the reminiscences of rural women from throughout Nagano Prefecture and read the narratives of those who have long since died. In short, she has “organized [her] argument around a pattern of cycles of several generations of Nagano rural women.” Mariko Asano Tamanoi, Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), pp. 1–3, 21. 209. Robin M. Le Blanc [also LeBlanc], Bicycle Citizens: The Political World of the Japanese Housewife, with a foreword by Saskia Sassen (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 7–8 n. 7, 13, 16–17, 62, 206. A hint of her attitude toward “taxi” research is her description of the “behavioralist perspective” as being “conservative [and] elite” and tainted by “white American cultural biases” (ibid., p. 7). 210. Ibid., p. 8. 211. Ibid., pp. 3, 20, 24. 212. Ibid., pp. 20–21, 60, 64, 123. 213. Ibid., pp. 90–91, 98, 112. 214. Ibid., p. 91.

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215. Ibid., pp. 20, 100–101, 108. Sassen also writes of the “disjuncture” as well as the lack of “resonance” between the two worlds. Foreword, pp. x, xii. Ono Kiyoko was appointed National Public Safety Commission chairwoman in the second Koizumi Jun’ichirô Cabinet (September 2003). She is in her third term in the House of Councillors. 216. Jean-Pierre Lehmann, “Women’s Creativity Waiting to be Tapped,” Japan Times, 2 December 2002. 217. Yûko Ogasawara, Office Ladies and Salaried Men: Power, Gender and Work in Japanese Companies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 8–10, 141–142. See also her discussion of the growing literature on women in the work force, as well as her “References” section, which is also helpful (ibid., pp. 10–12, 203–211). 218. Ibid., pp. 24–26, 34, 39–42, 56–64. 219. Ibid., pp. 81, 137, 155, 161. 220. Ibid., pp. 95, 127–128, 133–135, 159. 221. Ibid., pp. 98–111, 115–126, 156. Ogasawara’s insights were confirmed by several OL friends of mine. 222. Michael Cooper, ed., They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543–1640 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), p. 69 unnumbered note. Cooper says that Alvares produced the first European eyewitness account on Japan and judges it to be a “remarkably informative account” (ibid., p. 437). 223. Groemer is by no means a “Marxist” historian, but the underlying thrust of his detailed studies is the pitting of the oppressive bakufu against the downtrodden outcastes. 224. A good discussion is found in Neil Waters, Japan’s Local Pragmatists: The Transition from Bakumatsu to Meiji in the Kawasaki Region, pp. 3–30, “The Historiographical Context: Local Political History in the Meiji Period.” 225. Anthropologist Mariko Asano Tamanoi observes that for the “progressive intellectuals,” “prewar nationalism rooted in the imperial ideology” was “an evil,” as is the government of postwar Japan, a government which to them has not changed its character “since the prewar period.” Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women, p. 5. 226. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention, pp. 244–247. 227. Gordon Wright, “History as a Moral Science,” The American Historical Review 81 (February 1976): pp. 7, 8–9. 228. David H. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970), pp. 24–25. 229. Osatake Takeshi, Nihon Kenseishi Taikô, p. 728, translated and, in 1967, cited approvingly by Akita, Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan, 1868–1900, p. 235 n. 38; see also pp. 10, 166. 230. See, for examples, Itô Hirobumi, comp., Hisho Ruisan: Teikoku Gikai Shiryô, vol. 1, pp. 275–284, 367–372. 231. Mosse’s reply is found in Itô Hirobumi, comp., Hisho Ruisan: Teikoku Gikai Shiryô, vol. 1, pp. 285–296. 232. Masako Kobayashi Ikeda does this for Boissonade by providing a fairly detailed biography, “French Legal Adviser in Meiji Japan (1873–1895): Gustave Emile Boissonade de Fontarabie” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawai‘i, 1996). See chap. 1, “The Early Years.” On the question of Boissonade’s influence on the Meiji leaders, she con-



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cludes that despite his close ties with Inoue Kowashi, who asked him more than two hundred questions, his role was that of an adviser; that he recognized that “the tasks given to him were ultimately Japan’s, and not his”; and that “Boissonade’s career in Japan is proof that the integration of the two systems and philosophies [that is, Western and Japanese] was not very easy.” Ibid., pp. 262–263, 265, 270–271. 233. Johannes Siemes, Hermann Roesler and the Making of the Meiji State: An Examination of His Background and His Influence on the Founders of Modern Japan and the Complete Text of the Meiji Constitution Accompanied by His Personal Commentaries and Notes (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt.: Sophia University in cooperation with Charles E. Tuttle, 1968), p. xii. Siemes corrects the misconceptions surrounding Roesler’s background, discusses his work in Japan, his ideas on constitutionalism, and his “thought” (ibid., pp. 3–46). Junko Andô has written a work in German that deals with Roesler’s background, his contributions in Japan, and his ideas. I can only share the hope of the reviewer’s comment that the monograph will eventually be translated into English. F. B. Verwayen, review of Die Entstehung der Meiji-Verfassung: Zur Rolle des deutschen Konstitutionalismus im modernen japanischen Staatswesen, by Junko Andô (Munich: Iudicium, 2000), in Monumenta Nipponica 57 (Spring 2002): pp. 101–106. 234. Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai, pp. 10–11. 235. Fairbank, Reischauer, and Craig, East Asia: The Modern Transformation, p. 8. 236. Sir Hamilton Gibb, “The Influence of Islamic Culture on Medieval Europe,” in Change in Medieval Society, ed. Sylvia L. Thrupp, pp. 157, 158­–159 (New York: Appleton-Century-Croft, 1964). 237. George A. Sansom, The Western World and Japan: A Study of Interaction of European and Asiatic Cultures (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), p. 358. 238. George Akita and Hirose Yoshihiro, “The British Model: Inoue Kowashi and the Ideal Monarchical System,” Monumenta Nipponica 49 (Winter 1994): pp. 413–421. 239. Yamagata Aritomo, “Chôhei Seido oyobi Jichi Seido Kakuritsu no Enkaku,” in Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, p. 369. 240. Haley also makes some insightful points about the Meiji Constitution. He notes, for example, that although none of the rights guaranteed to the “emperor’s subjects” were absolute, they were all subject to legislative—but not administrative—curtailment. John O. Haley, The Spirit of Japanese Law (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, 1998), p. 177. This fact would appear to undercut the statist view of an all-powerful bureaucracy existing from the Meiji period to the present. 241. Haley, The Spirit of Japanese Law, pp. xv–xvii, xiv–xx, 9. The Spirit of Laws series will deal with “Roman law, Chinese law, biblical law, Talmudic law, canon law, common law, Hindu law, Islamic law, Japanese law, and international law” (General Editor’s Note). The range of coverage makes clear that the “Editor” and others engaged in this series believe that there are distinctive values inhering in each of the subjects; otherwise, it would seem that a single monograph would have sufficed. 242. Ibid., pp. 11, 14–19. 243. Ian Melville, Marketing in Japan (Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1999), p. viii. 244. Ibid., pp. 3, 71, also 69–72, 78, 95 n. 1, 116, 634. 245. William M. Tsutsui, Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in TwentiethCentury Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998). It was awarded the Association for Asian Studies John Whitney Hall Book Prize for 2000.

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Notes to Pages 122–126

246. Ibid., p. 236. 247. Ibid., pp. 7, 11, 240, 242. 248. Ibid., p. 238. 249. Ibid., pp. 240–241. 250. Ibid., p. 240. 251. Timothy S. George, “Private Draft Constitutions in Early Meiji Japan” (M.A. thesis, University of Hawai‘i, 1984), writes of some of these groups in this impressive study. 252. Tsutsui, Manufacturing Ideology, p. 199. Tsutsui, for reasons he gives, is somewhat hard on Deming. See his discussion, pp. 197–206. 253. Leonard J. Schoppa, Bargaining with Japan: What American Pressure Can and Cannot Do (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 4, 7–8, 10, 23–25, 28–29, 47. Chapter 5: John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix Epigraph. Norman Stone, Oxford Professor of History, London Times, 6 October 1984. 1. John W. Dower, “E. H. Norman, Japan and the Uses of History,” introduction to Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman (New York: Pantheon, 1975), pp. 3–108. 2.  Lewis C. Austin, “A Brief Sketch of Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman,” Foreign Affairs 53 (July 1975): p. 793. 3.  Herschel Webb, review of Origins of the Modern Japanese State: Selected Writings of E. H. Norman, by John W. Dower, in American Historical Review 81 (October 1976): p. 942. 4.  Gary D. Allinson, “E. H. Norman, Modern Japan, and the Historian’s Agenda,” Japan Interpreter 10 (Winter 1976): p. 399. 5.  Jeff Kingston describes him as “perhaps the foremost historian of Japan” (Jeff Kingston, review of Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan, by Richard J. Samuels, in Japan Times, 2 November 2003). 6.  Simon Partner, review of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, by John W. Dower, in Monumenta Nipponica 55 (Spring 2000): p. 129; Andre Schmid, “Colonialism and the ‘Korea Problem’ in the Historiography of Modern Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies 59 (November 2000): p. 959 n. 11. Paul Varley, filling in for a colleague on leave, taught History of Japan (Modern) in 2002 and placed this essay on his list of required readings. 7.  Andrew Gordon, “Rethinking Area Studies, Once More,” review of Learning Places: The Afterlives of Area Studies, ed. Masao Miyoshi and H. D. Harootunian, in Journal of Japanese Studies 30 (Summer 2004): p. 418. On the whole, the review was a learning experience, and I am sure I would have enjoyed it even more had I been more knowledgeable about current “social and cultural” theories. 8.  Mark Lincicome, review of Translating the West: Language and Political Reason in Nineteenth-Century Japan, in Journal of Asian Studies 62 (February 2003): p. 285. 9.  Michael Kammen, ed., The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, American Historical Association (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 1980). 10.  Ibid., pp. 22–24, 37. Those interested in pursuing further the questions of those



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involved, their methodology, premises, and conclusions should read the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. Its first issue appeared in May 1968 as the CCAS Newsletter. The name became Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars from issue no. 4, May 1968, to vol. 32, October–December 2000. It became the Critical Asian Studies from January 2001. Dower is listed as a member of the advisory board. 11.  Mikiso Hane, The Asian Student 25 (6 November 1976): p. 11. Hane is the author of Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). It is clear from this that his view of modern Japanese history was darker than mine. This may, and I emphasize my tentativeness, have stemmed from his stay in Japan in the 1930s as a student. Despite our differences, I held him in the highest regard as a gentleman-scholar and I cherished his friendship. The field is poorer with his passing in January 2004. 12.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” pp. 33, 34, 39, 41, 43–46, 54, 59, 64, 90. 13.  Ibid., pp. 5, 8, 10, 13–14, 30, 67–68, 70, 75. Dower reiterates his basic themes throughout the introduction and this accounts for the numerous citations. It is possible that my summaries, because of my overly skeptical critical perspective or biases, may do Dower less than justice and be unfair to him. 14.  Ibid., pp. 10, 13, 23–24, 31, 34, 58, 64, 74, 75–76, 88–90. 15.  Ibid., pp. 7, 34. 16.  Ibid., pp. 13, 34, 56, 68–69, 84. 17.  Allinson, “E. H. Norman, Modern Japan, and the Historian’s Agenda,” p. 399. 18.  Tsukiyama, Yale Law School, 1950, is the official historian of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (442nd) and the Military Intelligence Service (MIS). He had volunteered for the 442nd, but was dragooned by recruiters from the MIS to become a language specialist even after he had deliberately failed the language test and in the face of his stated desire to remain in the 442nd. 19.  My interest was piqued because Reischauer was my mentor at Harvard. I have, over the years, also given talks in Japan on the nikkei (issei and nisei) experience in Hawai‘i. Given that Reischauer has been U.S. ambassador to Japan, I thought that adding the information on his role would be of particular interest to the Japanese-speaking audience. 20.  Tsukiyama later generously lent me his whole file on the subject of the 442nd’s formation, based on archival research in Washington, D.C. His correspondence with Aiko Herzig, a nisei friend, reveals that she is sharing documents with him on material unearthed after her own extensive archival research in Washington, D.C., and its environs. 21.  Naoki Sakai, “‘You Asians’: On the Historical Role of the West and Asia Binary,” South Atlantic Quarterly 99 (Fall 2000): pp. 805, 814 nn. 12, 16. I had obtained the whole article (including footnotes) wherein the reader is directed to the March 2000 issue of Sekai for the entire memorandum (p. 813 n. 8). The memorandum is also available on the Internet at http://www.iwanami.co.jp/sekai/2000/03/146.html. 22.  Edwin O. Reischauer, Memorandum on Policy towards Japan, 14 September 1942, pp. 1–2. Since the source of Tsukiyama’s copy of the Memorandum is not known on the basis of the file he lent me, I am citing the copy available on line through Sekai at http://www.iwanami.co.jp/sekai/2000/03/146.html. 23.  Ibid., p. 1. 24.  George R. Packard III, former special assistant to Ambassador Reischauer in

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Tokyo (1963–1965), presents several concrete and I believe compelling examples of this aspect of Reischauer’s persona. Packard, “Edwin O. Reischauer: Historian, Missionary, Prophet,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 17 (fourth series, 2002–2003): pp. 73–74, 78–81. 25.  Several months after 7 December 1941, all nisei of draft age were classified as 4C, “enemy aliens,” making them ineligible to serve. There were some four thousand nisei already in uniform—for example, the 100th Infantry Battalion made up of those drafted prior to Pearl Harbor, and linguists (Ted T. Tsukiyama, “Origins of the 442nd” [abridged version], Hawaii Herald, 3 January 2003). See also Ted T. Tsukiyama, “The One Puka Puka [100]: The Purple-Heart Battalion: A Salute,” Hawaii Herald, 6 June 2003. 26.  Reischauer, Memorandum, pp. 2–3. 27.  WDGAP 291 (6-26-42). Unfortunately, the document approved on 14 September 1942 does not show a reference number. At the end of the document, however, can be found: “Approved, by order of the Secretary of War, Joseph T. McNarley, Deputy Chief of Staff,” and date stamped Sep 14, 1942. See WDGCT 320 (12-16-42), War Department General Staff, Operations and Training Division G-3, that refers to the board’s negative recommendation. 28.  Sakai, “You Asians,” p. 815 n. 24. 29.  Ibid., p. 807. 30.  Edward G. Wagner, The Korean Minority in Japan, 1904–1950 (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1951), pp. 1–3. I asked Professor Edward J. Shultz, former director of the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i, to read the foreword. His reaction mirrored mine. He also stressed that Sakai should have taken into consideration the history of the period. I also asked emeritus Professor Yong-ho Choe, modern Korea specialist at the Department of History. Professor Choe’s reply was, “I see nothing resembling racism. I wonder why [Sakai] came to that conclusion.” 31.  Sakai, “You Asians,” p. 803. 32.  Dower is one of those with whom I corresponded, because I needed sources he cites that were unavailable to me, and to forewarn him of my intentions. The exchange lasted for more than two years. To prepare for this section, I asked for his permission to cite from his letters. He asked me not to (23 February 1998). It is a pity, for the reader will now have to take my word for it that throughout the exchange Dower was courteous, frank, accommodating, and generous in his assistance, and citing his own words would give the reader a good feel for Dower as a person and scholar. He was also very helpful to my advisee, Gail M. Nomura, who was in Japan doing research on what became her Ph.D. dissertation: “The Allied Occupation of Japan: Reform of the Japanese Government Labor Policy on Women,” University of Hawai‘i, 1978. She is now assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies, University of Washington, Seattle. 33.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” pp. 10, 43, 52, 66. 34.  Ibid. See p. 41, for a listing of these five “tasks on the intellectual front.” 35.  The written sources are Edwin O. Reischauer, Japan: Past and Present (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, first edition, 1946; second edition, 1953; third edition, 1964); Edwin O. Reischauer, Wanted: An Asian Policy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955); Senate Committee of the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, The Institute of Pacific Relations, 82nd Congress, 1st session, part 5, 12, 17, 18, and 19 October 1951; and Edwin O. Reischauer, “Our Asian Frontiers of Knowledge,” University of Arizona Bulletin 29 (September 1958).



Notes to Pages 130–134

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36.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 50. 37.  Ibid. 38.  Edwin O. Reischauer, My Life Between Japan and America (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), pp. 119, 126. 39.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” pp. 50, 51. 40.  Ibid., p. 41. 41.  Reischauer, Japan: Past and Present, second and third editions, p. x. 42.  Reischauer, Japan: Past and Present, second edition, pp. vii–viii; Japan: The Story of a Nation, pp. ix­–x. 43.  The Donald Keene Foundation for Japanese Culture, “About Donald Keene: Education and Academic Career,” http://www.keenefoundation.org/english/about_ ed.asp?keyID=7. 2003. 44.  Donald Keene, On Familiar Terms: To Japan and Back, A Lifetime Across Cultures (New York, Tokyo, London: Kodansha International, 1996), pp. 87, 90. 45.  Ibid., p. 92. 46.  Ibid., p. 91. The text is Serge Elisséeff, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Yoshihashi Takehiko, Elementary Japanese for College Students (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University Press, 1944). Keene remembers using this text in 1941, before entering the Navy Japanese Language School in February 1942. It may be that he was referring to an unpublished syllabus. 47.  Ibid., pp. 90–93. Translations from Early Japanese Literature was published by Harvard University Press in 1951. 48.  Ibid., p. 93. Keene’s mention of “about this time” would indicate about 1951, but Japan: Past and Present had already been published in 1946. 49.  Ibid., p. 94. 50.  Guohe Zheng, review of Donald Keene, Five Modern Japanese Novelists, in Journal of Asian Studies 62 (November 2003): p. 1245. 51.  Edwin O. Reischauer, personal communication, 21 June 1976. As in the case with Dower, I initiated correspondence with Reischauer as well as with others cited in this section. 52.  Reischauer, My Life Between Japan and America, pp. 120–121; also, pp. 58–59; Keene, On Familiar Terms, p. 92. 53.  Packard, “Edwin O. Reischauer: Historian, Missionary, Prophet,” p. 70. 54.  Ibid., pp. 80–81. 55.  Reischauer, Japan: The Story of a Nation, p. vii. 56.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 51. 57.  Ibid., pp. 7–8. 58.  E. Herbert Norman, Pacific Affairs 20 (September 1947): p. 358. 59.  Ibid. 60.  This point was reiterated nine years later by Paul H. Clyde, who states that McLaren’s work is “marred by a regrettable tendency to moralize.” “Japan’s March to Empire: Some Bibliographical Evaluations,” Journal of Modern History 21 (December 1949): p. 337. 61.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 46. 62.  Ibid., pp. 45–46. 63.  Reischauer, personal communication, 21 June 1976. If Dower had questioned Reischauer about this point, he would have found the latter ready to respond: “He

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should never have had any doubt that I would have responded to questions from him.” Personal communication, 14 July 1976. 64.  Reischauer, Wanted, pp. 251–252, 253, 255–256; also pp. 178–179. 65.  Ibid., p. 257. He also defined the United States as a colonial power for its presence in Okinawa and urged at this early date, a mere ten years after the end of the war against Japan, the reversion of Okinawa to Japan (ibid., pp. 261–262). 66.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 46. 67.  Ibid. 68.  Reischauer, Wanted, p. viii. 69.  Scalapino actually wrote only section 4: “U.S. Foreign Policy in Northeast Asia,” pp. 85–155. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Foreign Policy—Asia; Studies Prepared at the Request of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, by Conlon Associates, Ltd., 1 November 1959, 86th Congress, 1st session, 1959. 70.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” pp. 53–54. 71.  Scalapino, personal communication, 16 July 1976. 72.  Reischauer, personal communication, 21 June 1976. 73.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 43. 74.  Reischauer, Wanted, pp. 6, 12–13, 133, 195, 224, 274. 75.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” pp. 45–46, 49. 76.  U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, The Institute of Pacific Relations, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, Part 5, 12, 17, 18, and 19 October 1951, pp. 1551–1552, 1553. 77.  The transcript, titled “Transcript of Roundtable Discussion on American Policy toward China Held in the Department of State, October 6, 7, and 8, 1949,” was apparently read into the proceedings of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, The Institute of Pacific Relations, 82nd Congress (1951), noted immediately above. 78.  Reischauer, personal communication, 14 July 1976. 79.  Reischauer at this time was not exactly a household name among part of the Washington ruling circles. J. G. Sourwine, committee counsel, asked, “Who is Mr. Rei­ schauer?” Harold Stassen replied, “He is a professor at Harvard.” Robert Morris, subcommittee counsel, had to be reminded immediately afterward about Reischauer’s name. To add insult to injury, he is listed in the index more times as “Edmund Reischauer” than as Edwin O. Reischauer (“Transcript,” p. 1260). An index is found at the end of each volume. 80.  “Transcript,” pp. 1658–1671. 81.  Reischauer, personal communication, 21 June 1976. 82.  “Transcript,” pp. 1659–1660, 1660–1661. 83.  “Transcript,” p. 1673. 84.  Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Institute of Pacific Relations, 82nd Congress, 1st session (1951), part 1, pp. 312–315. Dower mentions that Lattimore, in the early 1950s, became a prominent victim of McCarthyism (Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 589 n. 28; see also pp. 221–222). 85.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 44.



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86.  “Transcript,” p. 1555; also 1554. See Fairbank’s wryly humorous comment on the gathering of the “best in the nation” (“Transcript,” p. 1615). 87.  I wish to thank Ms. Phyllis Ball, manuscripts librarian, for her letter of 28 May 1976, and for enclosing a copy of the student newspaper that will be cited presently. Mr. W. David Laird, university librarian, was also helpful. 88.  Charles O. Hucker, personal communication, 5 July 1976. Reischauer’s own recollection is that “the audience was the usual general audience at such affairs—students, faculty, townspeople” (personal communication, 21 June 1976). 89.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 45. 90.  Reischauer, “Asian Frontiers,” p. 25. 91.  Dana Nichols, Arizona Wildcat, Friday, 21 March 1958. The fact that he did not work from a prepared text was confirmed by Nichols in an e-mail dated 11 January 2003. Alberta Freidus-Flagg, my editor in Hawai‘i, perplexed because the name Dana gave no clue as to gender but wanting to avoid an awkward he/she/his/her construction, discovered by Internet that a Dana Nichols was an assistant editor of a California newspaper. An inquiry by e-mail brought a prompt reply from Dana M. Nichols that the Arizona Wildcat reporter was his father, Dana W. Nichols, whose e-mail address and telephone number he helpfully provided. Alberta immediately faxed me in Japan, and with my enthusiastic encouragement, she contacted Dana W. Nichols. The exchange revealed a warm, very bright, engaging person who had attended Harvard in 1949 prior to military service in Okinawa during the Korean War. Nichols wrote: I vaguely recall taking at least one course in Far Eastern History. . . . The only faculty I have any real recollection of at Harvard are James Ware, who taught “Chinese 10” (about which one fellow student said to me, “I thought this was going to be a gut course, but, gee, you’ve got to think!”), and a grad student who was Section Instructor for a history or econ course who had a terrible Germanic accent and who, I believe, grew up to be Henry Kissinger.

After a short postwar stint at Harvard, Nichols moved to Arizona. With respect to his report on Reischauer’s speech for the Arizona Wildcat, he writes: I am sure I did not work from a published text—I don’t recall ever reporting on that basis. As a student reporter I was expected to go, observe, listen, ask, report. Of course, having spent some time on the fringe of Asia, and having taken that course [on far eastern history], I couldn’t help but be in agreement with EOR’s main point. I think I should like to repeat very loudly right now and apply it to right now that “our foreign policy is most effective in those areas that are best known and understood by the American ‘man-in-the-street.’” Regrettably, too little is really known and still less is truly understood. (e-mail, 11 January 2003)

Edwin O. Reischauer, like Dower’s Norman, believed that “the man in the street” can imbibe new knowledge and can act on it, a process that is unending, as is seen in Nichols’s case.

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92.  Reischauer, personal communication, 4 July 1976. 93.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 33. 94.  Henry Rosovsky, personal communication, 5 April 1976. 95.  Allinson, “E. H. Norman, Modern Japan, and the Historian’s Agenda,” p. 399. 96.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” pp. 33–34, 41–42, 44, 46–47, 52, 54, 59. 97.  Fred G. Notehelfer, review of Origins of the Japanese State, ed. John W. Dower, in Monumenta Nipponica 30 (Winter 1975): p. 471. 98.  Nakamura Masanori, “Hirohito to Kindai Nihon no Keisei ga Motarasumono,” Asahi Shimbun, evening edition, 8 November 2000. 99.  “Shôwa Tennô o Aratamete Egaku,” Newsweek, Japanese edition, 6 September 2000; Ronald Spector, “The Chrysanthemum Throne,” review of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix, in the New York Times, 19 November 2000. 100.  J. L. Hazelton, “Hirohito Helped Plan Dec. 7 Attack, Book Says,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 31 August 2000; “A God Dethroned,” Economist, 2 September 2000. 101.  Jeff Kingston, “An Activist Emperor, Pulling the Strings,” review of Herbert P. Bix, in Japan Times, 15 September 2000; Patrick Smith, “Japan: The Real Hirohito Returns,” International Herald Tribune, 21 August 2000. 102.  Howard W. French, “Out from the Shadows of the Imperial Mystique,” New York Times, 12 September 2000. French may be referring to the statements found in the back of the book’s jacket, and they are indeed laudatory: “the rare work of impeccable scholarship . . . [a] convincing picture of an active political leader” (James Fallows); “a riveting portrait,” “[an] excellent and incisive study,” that reveals a “stunning” picture of the emperor in “new clothes,” based on a “wealth of fascinating new Japanese materials” (John W. Dower); “[Bix] documents meticulously” (Lester C. Thurow); “a truly outstanding contribution” (Noam Chomsky); a “monumental work” that is “one of the most important books ever written on World War II in the Pacific” (Chalmers Johnson); “an important controversial book” that is a “persuasive account” (Andrew Gordon). This is surely what is meant by an embarrassment of riches. 103.  Kingston, “An Activist Emperor, Pulling the Strings,” Japan Times. 104.  Michael Schaller, review of Inside GHQ: The Allied Occupation of Japan and Its Legacy, by Takemae Eiji, in Journal of Asian Studies 62 (February 2003): p. 291. 105.  Japan Times, 30 October 2005. 106.  James McClain, “Interview with James McClain, Author of Japan: A Modern History,” by Peter Frost, Education about Asia 7 (Winter 2002): p. 53. 107.  Herbert P. Bix, “Showa Scholar Supreme,” interview with Herbert P. Bix by Eric Prideaux, Japan Times Online, 7 August 2005, p. 1, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/ cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20050807x1.htm. 108.  Nakamura, Asahi Shimbun. Carol Gluck is the only non-Japanese so far who has correctly pointed out that Bix’s views are similar to those of the “progressive Left” among Japanese scholars (“Puppet on His Own String,” Times Literary Supplement, 10 November 2000). Inoue died on 23 November 2001, at age eighty-seven (Japan Times, 25 November 2001). Matsumoto Ken’ichi and Shôji Jun’ichirô name the scholars on whom Bix relies and assert that “in terms of historical research, Hirohito doesn’t go one step beyond the work that these scholars have already done.” “Critiquing Herbert Bix’s ‘Hirohito,’” Japan Echo 29 (December 2002): pp. 65–66. The Japanese version, “Pyûrittsuâ shô ‘Shôwa Tennô’ Kaidoku,” was published in Bungei Shunjû (October 2002): pp. 222–228.



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109.  No. 1 Shimbun (publication of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan), “Author Bix Says Hirohito was Guilty,” 30 September 2000. I am grateful to Hiroaki Satô for sending me a photocopy. Satô is an intriguing person. He is with the New York office of JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), but finds time to translate Japanese literature, primarily poetry, that is published to favorable reviews. He is also an essayist who contributes a regular column to the Japan Times in which he reviews not only literature but comments on works on Japanese history, politics, and economics. I have long appreciated his skeptical, contrarian stance on simplistic, black-and-white interpretations he finds among recent works on Japan. His was one of the few critical voices in the initial wave of accolades for Bix’s work. I haven’t met Satô, but, given my own skepticism, I wrote to him to tell him I shared his doubts. 110.  Kingston, “An Activist Emperor, Pulling the Strings,” Japan Times; see also comment by Bob Neff of Business Week in No. 1 Shimbun, 30 September 2000; Stephen S. Large, review of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix, in Monumenta Nipponica 56 (Spring 2001): p. 107. 111.  Gluck, “Puppet,” p. 3. 112.  Spector, “The Chrysanthemum Throne”; see also Large, review of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 109. 113.  Nakamura, Asahi Shimbun. 114.  Gluck’s position is that the emperor “never wavered” from his determination to retain his hold on the throne, “dug in his heels,” and rejected the advice to abdicate each time it was given in 1948 and 1952 (“Puppet,” p. 4). Large argues otherwise, noting that the Shôwa emperor did accept moral responsibility for the war and wanted to abdicate, but was “repeatedly” stopped from doing so by MacArthur’s headquarters. Large, review of The Japanese Monarchy, 1931–1991: Ambassador Joseph Grew and the Making of the “Symbol Emperor System,” by Nakamura Masanori, trans. Herbert P. Bix, Jonathan Baker-Bates, and Derek Bowen, in Monumenta Nipponica 48 (Autumn 1993): pp. 392–393; also, Large’s review of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 109. Bix also differs with Gluck and writes that the emperor on three occasions “indeed contemplated stepping down.” Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 767 n. 3. 115.  Gluck agrees with Bix’s position. She declares that it is an “indisputable fact” (meihaku na jijitsu) that the emperor actively and intimately participated in politics (Newsweek, Japanese edition, 13 September 2000). She also writes that the emperor was “energetically engaged” (“Puppet,” p. 3). 116.  No. 1 Shimbun, “Author Bix Says Hirohito Was Guilty.” Bix’s contention is supported by Andrew Gordon of Harvard, who declares that Bix’s work is “an exhaustively documented, detailed inquiry . . . with the intent to withstand the careful scrutiny of scholars.” Andrew Gordon, www.fas.harvard.edu/~rijs/director-arts-gordon  .html, 10 January 2002. I am indebted to an OL friend, Tominaga Izumi, for sending me a photocopy. 117.  Herbert P. Bix, “Chosha ni Kiku,” interview with Herbert Bix by Fukuhara Hiroshi, Shûkan Tôyô Keizai, 24 August 2002, p. 55. 118.  The editors of the Jijûbukanchô Nara Takeji Nikki . Kaikoroku are Hatano Sumio, Kurosawa Fumitaka, Hatano Masaru, Sakurai Ryôju, and Kobayashi Kazuyuki. 119.  Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), pp. 6, 7.

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Notes to Pages 144–148

120.  Ibid., pp. 5, 12, 88. 121.  Carol Gluck agrees with Bix and writes that the emperor’s opinions could make a difference even if they were “indirectly” or “mutely” expressed (“Puppet,” p. 3). I must confess that in my very early days as a scholar, I did subscribe to a version of the “voiceless order technique (haragei).” I did, however, pause to add that “the difficulty in dealing with haragei is that, to assert it was practiced at any given time, one must contradict the record of events.” If I had been more sophisticated and mature, I would have added “as well as in the absence of any evidence.” See my discussion of haragei in Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan, 1868–1900, pp. 139–140. 122.  Herbert P. Bix, “Showa Scholar Supreme,” p. 4. 123.  John O. Haley, review of Measuring Judicial Independence: The Political Economy of Judging in Japan, by J. Mark Ramseyer and Eric B. Rasmussen, in Journal of Japanese Studies 30 (Winter 2004): pp. 236–237. 124.  Ibid., p. 237. 125.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 69. 126.  Ibid., p. 80. 127.  Ibid., pp. 37, 43, 90, 121, 127, 129, 492, 692 n. 20, 714 n. 63. 128.  One example is the furor surrounding a complex case in what appears to involve questionable methodology in immunology, one that touched a Nobel laureate. One scientist concluded in this instance that science “favor[s] quiet correction or suppression of problems with hostility toward those who brought accusations.” S. Begley and M. Hager, “The Antibodies That Weren’t,” Newsweek, 1 April 1991, p. 60. Derek Freeman, who questioned in print Margaret Mead’s classic Coming of Age in Samoa, well knows these pitfalls. Freeman did not set out to disprove Mead and, in fact, used her findings as a starting point for his research. But in the course of his research, he discovered evidence that to him could not but disprove her (“Bursting the South Sea Bubble,” Time, 14 February 1983). I heard Freeman level his accusations at the University of Hawai‘i about the time his Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983) was published. 129.  Herbert P. Bix, “The Pitfalls of Scholastic Criticism: A Reply to Norman’s Critics,” Journal of Japanese Studies 4 (Summer 1978): pp. 391–411. 130.  Ibid., p. 392. 131.  Chitoshi Yanaga, “Theory of the Japanese State” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1935), p. 253. Norman had used Yanaga earlier in his work (Japan’s Emergence, pp. 90–91 n. 101), so he was aware of the dissertation. 132.  Bix, “Pitfalls,” p. 398. 133.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 337–338. Bix says, “I believe Hirohito had to know.” Bix, “Showa Scholar Supreme,” Japan Times Online, p. 4. 134.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 362. 135.  Ibid., p. 367. 136.  Josh Tyrangiel, “A History of His Own Making,” Time, 2 July 2001. 137.  Paul Gray, “Ripped from the Headlines,” Time, 2 April 2001. 138.  Doonesbury, Honolulu Advertiser, Sunday, 16 September 2001. I was in Honolulu for six weeks in the summer of 2001, and, as a moth is attracted to a flame, I sometimes watched the network. Trudeau truly grasped the essence of the network’s style of coverage. I happened at that time to be working on my rebuttal of Bix, which is why that particular strip caught my attention.



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139.  Richard Halloran, “Questioning the Emperor,” I nR eview Books, Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 November 2000. I had met Halloran in Tokyo years ago. He was until early 2002 the editorial director of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 140.  Bix, presentation to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, 31 August 2000. 141.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. Photo caption showing Itô Hirobumi as the primary creator of Japan’s modern monarchy. 142.  Ibid., pp. 2–5, 12, 15, 31, 120, 435, 436, 520. 143.  Herbert P. Bix, “Rethinking ‘Emperor-System Fascism’: Ruptures and Continuities in Modern Japanese History,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 2 (1982): p. 9. This is a major, lengthy article of eighteen closely printed pages and presages some of Bix’s basic premises in his Hirohito book. 144.  Bix himself stresses the point that the Meiji emperor was the Shôwa emperor’s “model.” Bix, “Showa Scholar Supreme,” Japan Times Online, pp. 3, 5. 145.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 87, 89, 155. 146.  K. F. Hermann Roesler, Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 1891, in Johannes Siemes, Hermann Roesler and the Making of the Meiji State: An Examination of His Background and His Influence on the Founders of Modern Japan and the Complete Text of the Meiji Constitution Accompanied by His Personal Commentaries and Notes (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt.: Sophia University in cooperation with Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle, 1968) pp. 56–57. See also Johannes Siemes, “Hermann Roesler’s Commentaries on the Meiji Constitution,” Monumenta Nipponica 17 (1962) and Monumenta Nipponica 19 (Spring/Summer 1964). Roesler also points out that the head of government need not personally command, though he may do so (Siemes, “Commentaries”). 147.  Ian F. W. Beckett, “King George V and His Generals,” in Leadership in Conflict, 1914–1918, ed. Matthew Hughes and Matthew Seligmann (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books, 2000), p. 247. 148.  Kunaishô Rinji Teishitsu Henshûkyoku, Meiji Tennôki (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kôbunkan, 1968–1977). Bix describes this source almost in passing, citing a secondary work, but there is no sign that he used it (Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 76, 698 n. 44). 149.  The Taishô Tennôjitsuroku exists in manuscript. In March 2002, the pages spanning the first two to three years of the reign were opened to the public, with portions blacked out by brush in India ink. This is a vivid example of a third party intervening between the scholar and a primary source (chapter 3). The Shoryôbu, Imperial Household Agency, is in the midst of collecting documents for the Shôwa Tennôjitsuroku. 150.  Meiji Tennôki, 6, pp. 571–573; Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 404, 804 n. 4. Keene, after spending years on this study, appears not to be convinced of the Meiji emperor’s absolute powers, describing him as one “who (in theory at least) had absolute power. . . .” (Keene, Emperor, pp. 720–721). 151.  Meiji Tennôki, 10, entries for 11, 12, 13, and 14 November 1902, pp. 312–320. 152.  Meiji Tennôki, 9, entry for 4 November 1897, pp. 334–335. 153.  Nara made it a daily routine to keep a diary from 1896, when he entered the army military academy, to just before he died in November 1957. The published Nara diary, in three volumes, spans the years 1920—when he became the military aide to the crown prince (in 1922, he became the chief aide-de-camp)—to 1933. The Kaikoroku

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(Reminiscences) constitutes a fourth volume. Hatano Sumio, “Kaisetsu,” in Hatano et al., Jijûbukanchô Nara Takeji Nikki . Kaikoroku, 4 vols. (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobô, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 259–261, 270–271. 154.  Kurosawa Fumitaka, conversation, 21 December 2001. Kurosawa and Hatano Sumio are the primary editors of the four-volume work. The project took ten years to complete. Most transcribers will say that reading a document written by pen is more troublesome than that by brush. I have also found that the bakumatsu and early Meiji letters by Itô and Yamagata are harder to decipher than those written as they became more prominent in the Meiji government. 155.  Examples are: Bix cites an article by Tanaka Hiromi (Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 699 n. 3) and later expresses his appreciation to Tanaka for a copy of this portion of the Nara diary (p. 699 n. 5). He repeats the practice with respect to an article by Hatano Sumio (pp. 714–715, 717, 718 nn. 2, 9, 16, 66, 72, 74, 76). He then cites from the September 1990 issue of Chûô Kôron, but does not give the names of authors, Hatano and Kurosawa, the title of the article, and full pagination (p. 715 nn. 12, 14, 17). This unorthodox method of citation means that Hatano and Kurosawa are not extended the courtesy of being credited for their efforts. Kurosawa expressed “disappointment” when I informed him of what I found. And well might Kurosawa have been disappointed. Bix, by his unorthodox citation method, is using less rigor than is acceptable for scholars in American history. Stephen Ambrose, the well-known American historian, was taken to task over improper footnoting, including questionable use of quotation marks. Roger Rosenblatt writes that Ambrose defended himself by declaring that he had used footnotes to indicate his use of materials from other works, but that he “was working too hastily” to insert quotation marks in places others believe are required by acceptable scholarly standards. Rosenblatt’s retort is, “[his excuse] seems to be that his narrative momentum would have been impeded by the use of quotation marks. . . . a defense a shoplifter might use when explaining that he would have paid for the stolen items, but that would have broken his stride on the way out of the store.” Roger Rosenblatt, “When the Hero Takes a Fall,” Time, 21 January 2002; see also article by Hillel Italie, Honolulu Advertiser, 24 January 2002. 156.  Hatano et al., Jijûbukanchô, vol. 1, pp. 189–191. 157.  Ibid., p. 190. 158.  It is more likely our conceit to think that our students are merely passive learners. A comic strip has a character stating that “the crocs are going to college to get smarter.” His opposite number argues that college lectures do no such thing. And when asked what then is the effect, the final panel shows two crocodiles snoring. Stephan Pastis, Pearls before Swine, Honolulu Advertiser, 21 August 2006. 159.  Yamada Akira, Daigensui: Shôwa Tennô (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1994), pp. 321–323. 160.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 103, 106–107. 161.  Ibid., photo caption; also, p. 117. 162.  Ibid., pp. 118–119. 163.  Beckett, “King George V and His Generals,” p. 260. 164.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 119. 165.  Ibid. Initial brackets [the crown prince] mine. 166.  Ibid., p. 119. 167.  Ibid., pp. 120–121.



Notes to Pages 154–156

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168.  I have used “people” instead of Bix’s “nation” here. Kokumin may be translated as “nation,” but one kanwa daijiten defines it as “people,” another as “subjects of a polity.” Nelson’s dictionary has it as “the people,” “a national,” “national.” Mathew’s Chinese-English dictionary simply says “citizen.” Professor Kurosawa, on his sabbatical, visited me in Hawai‘i in summer 2005. There I showed him Bix’s translation and mine. He agreed that Bix had mistranslated. On his return to Tokyo, he asked a former colleague, Professor Shimizu Sayuri, now teaching American history at Michigan State University, who happened to be in Tokyo, to double-check. She also concurred. 169.  Bix also translates kami as “god,” thus obfuscating the real differences between the two. Stephen A. Large, a well-regarded specialist on the imperial institution, agrees with my position (that is, the one on obfuscating) and also with Ben-Ami Shillony, who “rejects the shaky claim by Herbert Bix in his book . . . that Hirohito actively directed Japan’s wars in the 1931–1945 period” (Large, review of Enigma of the Emperors: Sacred Subservience in Japanese History, by Ben-Ami Shillony, in Monumenta Nipponica 61 [Spring 2006]: p. 106). Shillony’s work (Dorset, U.K.: Global Oriental, 2005) presents a detailed, analytical, scholarly exposition of the Japanese emperor as kami. Much earlier, the late (1983) Herschel Webb of Columbia also wrote along the same lines (The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa Period [New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1968]). 170.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 118, 120. 171.  Ibid., p. 120. 172.  Stephen S. Large, review of Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan, by Peter Wetzler, in Monumenta Nipponica 53 (Winter 1998): p. 569. 173.  Peter Duus, Party Rivalry and Political Change in Taishô Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 241. 174.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 119. 175.  Ibid., p. 721 n. 29. 176.  Irokawa Daikichi, The Age of Hirohito: In Search of Modern Japan (New York: The Free Press, 1995), p. 84. Bix makes it difficult to accept his invitation to check his use of sources by not having a bibliography. I went through his index of 1,530 footnotes at least twice, but could not find mention of Irokawa, although I admit I may have missed the reference. He also does not refer to Wetzler’s work, which, like Irokawa’s study, anticipates Bix’s in important ways. 177.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 109–110. 178.  Hatano et al., Jijûbukanchô, vol. 1, p. 148. 179.  Bix, “Showa Scholar Supreme,” interview with Herbert P. Bix by Eric Prideaux, p. 2 (on line). 180.  John P. McKay, Bennett D. Hill, and John Bucker, A History of World Societies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 2, p. 1146. 181.  David Thomson, Europe Since Napoleon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962 ed.), pp. 556–557; Serge Hughes, The Fall and Rise of Modern Italy (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1967), p. 137. 182.  Hatano et al., Jijûbukanchô, vol. 1, pp. 146–151; vol. 4, pp. 125–126. 183.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 107. 184.  Hatano et al., Jijûbukanchô, vol. 1, pp. 94–95. I admit that I have the advantage of the published version of the diary that Bix lacked.

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Notes to Pages 157–160

185.  Irokawa, The Age of Hirohito, p. 73. 186.  Spector, “The Chrysanthemum Throne.” 187.  Large, review of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 108–109. I cannot fathom why Bix does not cite his own major essay, “Tennôsei Fascism,” especially in the light of his explicit statement in the introduction to Hirohito that “[t]he history of the Shôwa monarchy and its justifying ideologies up to 1945 is inextricably bound up with the history of Japanese militarism and fascism.” Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 13. 188.  Irokawa, The Age of Hirohito, pp. 79–80. 189.  Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, p. 16; also p. 726 n. 35. 190.  This information is based on the vitae that Sam Jameson sent me. 191.  Sam Jameson, “Another Blast from Mr. Bix,” Japan Times, 25 June 2001. 192.  Sam Jameson, “Bix on Hirohito” (unpublished English article). The Japanese title is “Ate to fundoshi ga hazureta H. Bitsukusu cho Shôwa tennô no koke (koke) odoshi—Nihon no kenkyûsha wa naze chimmoku suru no ka,” Shokun! (December 2002): pp. 226–233. 193.  Matsumoto and Shôji have reached the same conclusion, declaring that throughout Hirohito, a check of Bix’s references would indicate that Bix has “made an exaggerated interpretation of the original material” (“Critiquing Herbert Bix’s ‘Hirohito,’” p. 67). 194.  Ben-Ami Shillony, review of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert Bix, Journal of Japanese Studies 28 (Winter 2002): pp. 141–146. 195.  Jameson, “Bix on Hirohito,” unpaginated. This was reconfirmed by Jameson in a recent telephone conversation. 196.  Itô Takashi and Jôji Akita, “Yamagata Aritomo to ‘Jinshu Kyôsô’ Ron,” Nempô, Kindai Nihon Kenkyû, 7, Nihon Gaikô no Kiki Ninshiki (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppan, 1985), pp. 95–118. I had written the manuscript in English under Itô’s close supervision. I showed it to Marius Jansen, who was spending a semester at the University of Hawai‘i. He discouraged me from submitting it to the Journal of Japanese Studies. I was disappointed, but Jansen’s advice was not something to take casually, so I went along. Itô disagreed and undertook the onerous task of translating the sixty-one-page manuscript (typescript). I also sent Hasegawa a copy of Jôji Akita, “Yamagata Aritomo Monjo,” Nihon Kindai Shisô Taikei, Bekkan Kindai Shiryô Kaisetsu, Sômokuji . Sakuin (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1992), pp. 107–116. 197.  Hasegawa Hiroshi, “Yamagata Aritomo no Chokkanryoku,” Asahi Shimbun Weekly, AERA, 14 January 2002, pp. 26–29. 198.  Carol Gluck, “Shôwa Tennô to Sensô to Heiwa,” Newsweek, Japanese edition, 13 September 2000. 199.  Hasegawa Hiroshi, “Shôwa Tennô Kenkyû no Giman,” AERA, 2 December 2002, pp. 36–38. Gimanteki can also mean “deceitful,” “fraudulent,” “false.” 200.  Ibid., p. 38. 201.  Hasegawa faxed and e-mailed an English version of the foregoing to Bix, inviting his reaction. He has not received a reply (ibid.). Let me end this narrative on Bix and the Shôwa emperor on a lighter note. A recent Dilbert by Scott Adams (Japan Times, 30 May 2003) starts with a character informing Dilbert that a new product brochure has won awards. Dilbert sets himself up for a come down by pointing out that the product will do nothing claimed for it in the brochure. In the final panel, the ax falls with



Notes to Pages 160–163

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the character asking acerbically who should be believed, the designer who had won the awards, or the one [such as Akita] who “can’t stop complaining”? 202.  No. 1 Shimbun, “Author Bix Says Hirohito Was Guilty.” 203.  Banno Junji, Shôwashi no Ketteiteki Shunkan (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 2004), p. 102, examples, pp. 102–104. Kobayashi Kazuyuki led me to this source. See also George Akita, review of The Emperor System in Modern Japan, in the Japan Foundation Newsletter, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 21–22. 204.  Tsuchiya Takao, “An Economic History of Japan,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, second series, 15, Tokyo (1937): p. 266 n. 67. 205.  Bix, “Pitfalls,” pp. 395–396. 206.  Dower, “E. H. Norman,” p. 37. Charles Taylor repeats Dower’s position on Norman’s use of Japanese sources. Taylor, Six Journeys: A Canadian Pattern (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1977), pp. 120–121. 207.  Actually, Norman’s Japan’s Emergence was not based on a dissertation. He had submitted proofs of Japan’s Emergence in place of one. This is acceptable at Harvard, but the late John K. Fairbank, who was the chairman of the “dissertation” committee, told me in Honolulu that he and other members of the committee had wanted to “censure” (the word he used) Norman for doing this, for by so doing, he made it “impossible” for the committee to make changes. My letter to Kenneth B. Pyle, then editor of the Journal of Japanese Studies, dated 11 January 1977, based on a memo written soon after my conversation. 208.  Roger Bowen, Innocence Is Not Enough: The Life and Death of Herbert Norman (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1986), pp. 86–88. 209.  Ibid., p. 88. The position taken by Dower, Bix, and Taylor on Norman’s use of Japanese may be an example of “standardized error,” one that I had helped to perpetuate in print by stressing his ability to read Japanese when he wrote Japan’s Emergence. See my “Eikokuken ni okeru Kindai Nihon Kenkyû,” Kokka Gakkai Zasshi (KGZ) 81 (1969), p. 72; also p. 82 n. 6. This was, of course, before I had started the Norman article. 210.  Bowen, Innocence, p. 87. Bix also accuses me of attacking Norman for being a “value oriented intellectual” (Bix, “Pitfalls,” p. 391). 211.  One source on Norman’s party membership was the late Richard Storry, who in turn had heard of it from Norman’s brother, Howard. In a letter to Dower dated 30 September 1976, I suggested that he contact Charles Taylor, 96 Dunloe Road, Toronto, Canada M5P 2T8, who would be able to confirm this, and I added that Taylor was “writing a sympathetic account of Norman.” Professor Shiori Takashi of Nagano Kôgyô Kôtôsemmon Gakkô stopped over in Hawai‘i on his way back to Japan after spending one and a half months in Toronto working on archival materials relating to missionaries in Japan. He also confirmed this fact. He had been a house guest of Howard Norman. Memo dated 29 October 1976. See also Taylor, Six Journeys, pp. 118–119. 212.  Hata Yukihiko, “Yamakawa ‘Shôsetsu [Advanced] Nihonshi’ Shippitsusha no Shôtai,” Shokun! (January 2003): p. 157. 213.  I’ve enjoyed many spirited exchanges with colleagues with differing points of view. My oldest professional colleague and friend in Japan is Professor Masumi Junnosuke, whom I have known since 1962. He admits to being an “anti-monarchist,” so we sometimes disagree on our views of the modern emperor. Over lunch in May 2004, he expressed great admiration for Tokugawa Japan’s achievements and contended that Japan went downhill after 1868—this in reaction to my positive statement on the Meiji leaders’

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accomplishments. (I should have made him pay for the lunch!) I have known Professor Kimbara Samon since the mid-1970s, and he too has been very helpful during my stays in Japan. He is a former editor of the Rekishigaku Kenkyû, which long has been a voice for those who publish research in the Marxist tradition. In short, I have been guided by two thoughts in my relationship with Japanese colleagues: I will learn from whoever will teach me; I also will try to establish close personal ties with them, which may involve some serious elbow bending in izakaya (pubs). Concluding Remarks 1.  Sakeda was more of a quiet, gentle loner. He could work well with others but preferred to locate documents by himself—as witness the Abei Iwane papers. Still, as head of the political science department at Meiji Gakuin Daigaku, he exhibited unexpected administrative talent as well as a toughness forged by an extremely impoverished and hard early life. 2.  As of December 2006, six volumes of Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM) have been published. Two more are scheduled. The first two volumes of Yamagata Ari­ tomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) appeared in 2004 and 2006, produced for Shôyû Kurabu by Yamakawa Shuppansha. The third volume will be published in 2008. A listing of the nonacademic participants in these two, as well as other current projects, reveals a pattern reminiscent of the group translation of Tadano Makuzu’s Hitori Kangae (chapter 4 n. 191). In the earliest days of my transcription efforts, I remember only one female participant, Kitsunezuka (née Suzuki) Yûko. The opposite holds true among the nonacademic participants. The only male is Tsutsumi Koretake. The others who gather at the Shôyû Kurabu are all female: Naitô Yoshii, Ôta Nobuko, Nakajima Kazuko, Ishikawa Yôko, Saitô Keiko, and Hasegawa Makiko. Then there are three who work at home, inputting the handwritten transcriptions—a great help in doing the five or more recheckings of the galleys: Matsudaira Haruko, Kawamata Masako, and Watanabe Yoriko. 3.  There is another aspect to timing. From the start of my commitment to transcribing sôsho, American colleagues were sympathetic and consistently supported my applications for this purpose. This support at the early stages was crucial and gave me the momentum to continue on my own resources after funding stopped. I have been up to now a coeditor in fifteen volumes. 4.  Jefferson Humphries, in his “Japan in Theory,” New Literary History 28 (1997): pp. 601–623, has done this better than I can ever hope to do. 5.  James McClain, in “Interview with James McClain, Author of Japan: A Modern History,” by Peter Frost, Education about Asia 7 (Winter 2002): p. 52. 6.  See James McClain, Japan: A Modern History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). 7.  I note that among the senior generation of Anglophone historians on modern Japan—and here I may be missing a few—Richard Mitchell, Richard Smethurst, James Huffman, Peter Duus, Tetsuo Najita, John Stephan, Beatrice Bodart-Bailey, and BenAmi Shillony (as well as a number of non-Anglophone European colleagues) have not laid down their pens. 8.  The Yagis, whose hospitality I have enjoyed since 1992, also appear to believe that I will continue to use the second floor of the clinic as my home away from home. In winter 2002, the son, Naoto, who recently assumed most of the duties at the clinic, perhaps concerned that the temperature extremes may be too much for my aging body, pur-



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chased a room-sized heated carpet for the study and an electric blanket for my bedroom. These were followed by installation of an air conditioner/heater in spring 2003—all at no cost to me. 9.  I participate since I am now the only one who can explain the criteria Sakeda and I agreed on in choosing which documents to translate and adding the kind of annotations and commentaries needed to clarify the contents of a given document. Truth be told, the points of disagreement centered on what Sakeda believed was common knowledge and not worth the time to translate and my “insistence” that such is not the case with Anglophone scholars. He, gentleman-scholar that he was, invariably went along.

Glossary

Abei Iwane  安部井　磐根 　　 akuji o nasu mono ni arazu  悪事を為 す者にあらず akuji o nasu mono ni narazu  悪事をな す者にならず Andô Hiroshige  安藤　広重 arahitogami  現人神 Asanofuji  朝之富士 Ashinoyu  芦の湯 Banno Junji  坂野　潤二　 benkyôkai  勉強会 besshi  別紙 bôdô  暴動 Boshin Nikki  戊辰日記 chihôjichi  地方自治 chikarawaza  力技 Chinzansô  椿山荘 Chôkôsai Eishô  鳥高斉　栄昌 chôson  町村 chôzenshugi  超然主義 Chûkyô Daigaku (Nagoya)  中京大学 （名古屋） Daijôsai  大嘗祭 daikô  代行 Den Kenjirô  田　健治郎 Doi Takeo  土居　健郎 dôka  同化 dokugo go kachû  読後御火中 Eguchi Keiichi  江口　圭一 eiin  影印 Ennin  円仁 esshi  閲し Etô Shimpei  江藤　新平 fu  府 Fuchû: Abekawa  府中阿部川

Fujimura Michio  藤村　道生 Fujiwara no Kamatari  藤原　鎌足 fukumeisho-ikensho  復命書—意見書 Fukumura (edition)  福村 Fukuyama han  福山藩 Fukuzawa Yukichi  福沢　諭吉 fushin  不振 Fûten Chin’an Nikki  瘋癲椿庵日記 Fûten no Tora  ふうてんの寅 Gabe Masao  我部　政男 gaiatsu  外圧 Gaikoku kara Mita Nihon Kensei no Ayumi  外国から見た日本憲政の 歩み gakusei  学制 gankotô  頑固党 Genrôin Kaigi Hikki  元老院会議筆記 gidayû  義太夫 gikai  議会 gimanteki  欺瞞的 goichidokugo heitei dôji e gotôji kudasarubeki sôrô 御一読後丙丁童子へ御 投じ可被候 gokuhi  極秘 gônô  豪農 gôshi  郷士 Gotô Shimpei  後藤　新平 gyôsei kenryoku  行政権力 gyôsho  行書 Hachinohe  八戸 Hahaso no Ochiba  ははその落ち葉 haihan chiken  廃藩置県 Hanawa Shobô  塙書房 Hara Asa  原　あさ（浅） Hara Hisako  原　久子

228

Glossary

Hara Kei  原　敬 Hara Misako  原　ミサ子 Hara Mitsugu (Keiichirô)  原　貢（敬 一郎） Hara Sadako  原　貞子 Hara (Itsumi) Toshikazu  原（逸見）利 和 haragei 腹芸 Haraguchi Torao  原口　虎雄 Hasegawa Yoshimichi  長谷川　好道 Hashimoto Satoru  橋本　哲 heitei ni fuseraretashi  丙丁に付せられ たし heitei ni negai tatematsurisôrô  丙丁に 願い奉り候 hensha  編者 Hidaka Shinrokurô  日高　信六郎 higaisha ishiki  被害者意識 Hijikata Hisamoto  土方　久元 hinoe  丙 hinoto  丁 Hirata Tôsuke  平田 東助 Hiratsuka Atsushi  平塚　篤 Hirose Yoshihiro  広瀬　好弘（駒沢大 学） Hirose Yoshihiro  広瀬　順皓　（駿河 台大学） Hirota Kôki  広田　弘毅 Hisho Ruisan  秘書類纂 Hitori Kangae  独考 Hiyama Yukio  桧山　幸夫 hoeki  補益 Hokkaidô Hyakunen Kinenkan  北海 道百年記念館 hôkokusho  報告書 Honjô Eijirô  本庄　英治郎 Hoshi Tôru  星　亨 hotei  補訂 Hozumi Nobushige  穂積　陳重 Hozumi Utako  穂積　歌子 hyôjungo  標準語 Ibuka Masaru  井深　大 iemoto  家元

Ienaga Saburô  家永　三郎 ihe  云へ ihi  云ひ Ijûin Hikokichi  伊集院　彦吉 ikensho  意見書 ikko no iken  一己の意見 imbô  陰謀 Inoue Kaoru  井上　馨　 Inoue Kiyoshi  井上　清 Inoue Kowashi  井上　毅 Irie Kan’ichi  入江　貫一 Irokawa Daikichi  色川　大吉 Ishii Tominosuke  石井　富之助 issai massatsu  一切抹殺 Itô Harumasa  伊藤　春雅 Itô Hirobumi  伊藤　博文 Itô Miyoji  伊東　巳代治 Itô Takashi  伊藤　隆 Iwakura Tomomi  岩倉　具視 izakaya  居酒屋 Jichitô  自治党 jiden  自伝 Jiji Shimpô  時事新報 jijoden  自叙伝 Jikkyô  実教 Jingû Bunko  神宮文庫 jisei  時勢 jisha  自写 jitsugyôka  実業家 Jiyûminken (undô)  自由民権 （運動） Jiyûtô  自由党　 jôsho  上書 jôsô  上奏 jukugo  熟語 Kaei (era)  嘉永 kaidai  解題 Kaiho Mineo  海保　嶺夫 Kaikatô  開化党 kaikoroku  回顧録 kaikyû  階級 kaisho  楷書 kaisôroku  回想録 kaitakusha  開拓者



Glossary

Kaizô  改造 Kajiyama Toshiyuki  梶山季之 Kakugi teppei tetsuzuki  閣議撤兵手続 kambun  漢文 kamon  家門 Kangensha (edition)  乾元社 kanson mimpi  官尊民卑 Kanwa Daijiten  漢和大辞典 karimokuroku  仮目録 karô  家老 katei shôsetsu  家庭小説 Katô Chikako  加藤　千香子 Katô Takaaki  　加藤　高明 Katô Tomosaburô  加藤　友三郎 Katô Yôko  加藤　陽子 Katsu Kaishû  勝　海舟 Katsura Kiyoko  桂　潔子 Katsura Tarô  桂　太郎 Katsushika Hokusai  葛飾　北斎 Kawamura Gakuen  川村学園 Kawasaki: Rokugô Watashibune  川崎 六郷渡し船 kazoku  華族 Kazunomiya Chikako  静実院　親子 keigo  敬語 Keiô (era)  慶応 keishiki  形式 keishisôkan  警視総監 keitai  形態 kempakusho  建白書 kempô  憲法 kenen  懸念 kengensho  建言書 kengi  建議 Kensei Shiryôshitsu  憲政資料室 Kenseishi Hensankai  憲政史編纂会 Kido Kôichi  木戸　幸一 Kido Takayoshi  木戸　孝允 Kiga 木賀 Kiheitai  奇兵隊 kijiku  機軸 kikansetsu  機関説 Kikukawa Eizan  菊川　栄山

229

Kimbara Samon  金原　左門 kinnô  謹王 Kitsunezuka (née Suzuki) Yôko  狐塚 （鈴木）裕子 Kobayashi Kazuyuki  小林　和幸　 kôbu gattai  公武合体 Kôbukyô  工部卿 Kodama Hideo  児玉秀雄 kôji  公示 kokka  国家 Kokkai Toshokan  国会図書館 Kokken Hensan Kigen  国憲編纂起源 Kokugakuin Daigaku  国学院大学 kokumin  国民 Kokumin Shimbun  国民新聞 Kokuritsu Kôbunshokan  国立公文書館 Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Haku­ butsukan  国立歴史民俗博物館 kokutai  国体 Komazawa Daigaku  駒沢大学 kôminka  公民化 Komura Jutarô  小村　寿太郎 kôri  行李 kôshiki  公式 kuge  公家 Kunaichô Shoryôbu  宮内庁書稜部 Kuninomiya Nagako  久邇宮　良子 Kuroda Kiyotaka  黒田　清隆 Kurosawa Akira  黒澤　明 Kurosawa Fumitaka  黒沢　文貴 kuwadate  企て madogiwazoku  窓際族 Makibuse (Nagano)  牧布施（長野） Makino Shinken  牧野　伸顕 makoto ni kachû  真に火中 Maruyama Masao  丸山　正雄 Masaki Jinsaburô  真崎  甚三郎 Mashikochô-shi  益子町史 Masumi Junnosuke  升味　準之輔 Matsukata Masayoshi  松方　正義 Matsuo Takayoshi  松尾　尊允 Matsushiro han  松代藩 meibôka  名望家

230

Glossary

Meiji Gakuin Daigaku  明治学院大学 Meiji Rikkensei to Itô Hirobumi  明治 立憲制と伊藤博文 Meiji Tennôki  明治天皇記 Meiji Zaiseishi  明治財政史 Minobe Tatsukichi  美濃部　達吉 Minseitô  民政党 minshû  民衆 mintô  民党 Mishima Akiko  三島　晶子 Mishima Tsûyô  三島　通庸 Mishima Yatarô  三島　弥太郎 Mishima Yoshiyasu  三島義温 mitamau  観たまふ Mitani Hiroshi  三谷　博 Mitani Taichirô  三谷　太一郎 Miya: Kuwana e Kaijô shichiri  宮：桑 名へ海上七里 Miyaji Masato  宮地　正人 Miyajima Kishirô  宮島　季四郎 Miyajima Seiichirô  宮島　誠一郎 Miyazaki Ryûji  宮崎　隆次 Morikubo Sakuzô  森久保　作造（蔵） Morito Tatsuo  森戸　辰男 mune o utsu  胸を打つ Murayama Tomiichi  村山　富市 Mutsu Hirokichi  陸奥　広吉 Mutsu Ian  陸奥　イアン Mutsu Munemitsu  睦奥　宗光 Nagai Jun’ichi  長井　純市 Nagai Uta  長井　雅楽 Nagano Kôgyô Kôtô Senmon Gakkô  長野工業高等専門学校 Nagata-chô  永田町 Naitô Yoshii  内藤　好以 naiwa  内話 Nakai Hiroshi  中井　弘 Nakamura Masanori  中村　政則 Nakanome Akira  中目　覚 Nambu han  南部藩 Nankô Nikki Kyûshû Chihô Junkai Nikki  南行日記九州地方巡回日記 Nara Takeji  奈良　武次

naraubekarazu  倣ふべからず Narusawa Akira  成沢　光 nengô  年号 Nichiro Sengo Seijishi no Kenkyû  日露 戦後政治史の研究 Nihon Kyôshokuin Kumiai (Nikkyôso) 日本教職委員会（日教組） Nihon: Ura/Omote  日本　裏／表 Nihonmatsu (Fukushima)  日本松 (福島) nikkei  日系 nisei  二世 Nishikawa Makoto  西川　誠 Nishikawa Yûko  西川　裕子 Nisshin Jihen  日清事変 Nisshô Gakusha Daigaku  二松学舎大学 Numata Jirô  沼田　次郎 Numata Satoshi  沼田　哲 Numazu: Tasogarezu  沼津：黄昏図 Ôbei  欧米 Odai  お大 Odawara  小田原 Ogawa Heikichi  小川　平吉 Ôki Motoko  大木　素子 Okoi Monogatari  お鯉物語 Ôkubo Toshihiro  大久保　利泰 Ôkubo Toshimichi  大久保　利通   Ôkubo Yôko  大久保　洋子 Ôkuma Shigenobu  大隈　重信 Ono Kiyoko  小野　清子 onshi  恩師 Osatake Takeshi (Takeki)  尾佐竹　猛 Ôshû  欧州 Ôta Nobuko  太田　展子 Ôtsu Jiken  大津事件 Ôuchi Hyôe  大内　兵衛 Ozaki Harumori  尾崎　春盛 Ozaki Saburô  尾崎　三郎 Ozaki Yukiya  尾崎行也 rangai  欄外 rangakusha  蘭学者 Rekishi Hyôron  歴史評論 Rekishigaku Kenkyû  歴史学研究 Rikkokushi  六国史



Glossary

Rinji Teishitsu Hensankyoku  臨時帝 室編纂局 Risshisha  立志社 rôjû  老中 Rokuji Namuemon  六字　南無右衛門 rombun ikensho  論文意見書 rônin  浪人 Rônô(ha)  労農（派） ronsetsu  論説 Ryûmon Zasshi  龍門雑誌 Saigô Tsugumichi  西郷　従道 saikô kikan  最高機関 Sain  左院 Saionji Kimmochi  西園寺　公望 Saitô Takao  斉藤　隆雄 Sakatani Rôro  阪谷　朗虜 Sakatani Yoshinao  阪谷　芳直 Sakeda Masatoshi  酒田　正敏 sangi  参議 Sanjô Sanetomi  三条　実美 sankin kôtai  参勤交代 sankô sakusen  三光作戦 Sanseidô  三省堂 Sasaki Takashi  佐々木　隆 Sat-chô-do-hi  薩—長—土—肥 Satsuma  薩摩 Seisen Joshi Daigaku  清泉女子大学 Seiyûkai  政友会 Sekai  世界 Senshû Daigaku  専修大学 shahon  写本 Shakaikagaku Kenkyûjo  社会科学研 究所 Shibusawa Eiichi  渋沢　栄一 Shibusawa Kotoko  渋沢　琴子 shi-chô-son  市町村 Shidehara Kijûrô  幣原　喜重郎 Shigaku Zasshi  史学雑誌 shimbatsu  神罰 shimin  市民 shimmitsu  親密 Shinagawa Yajirô  品川　弥二郎 shin’etsu  親閲

231

Shiryôhensanjo (Tokyo University)  史 料編纂所（東京大学） Shisô  思想 shizoku  士族 shôchoku  詔勅 Shôen Nikki  相煙日記 shôji  少時 shokan  書簡 Shokun!  諸君! Shoryôbu  書陵部 Shôwa Shoki Seiji-shi Kenkyû  昭和初 期政治史研究 Shôwa Tennôjitsuroku  昭和天皇実録 Shôyû Kaikan  尚友会館 Shôyû Kurabu  尚友倶楽部 Shûmon Tefuda Aratame Jômoku  宗門 手札改条目 shûso  愁訴 sonnô  尊王 sôri no nin  総理の任 sôrôbun  候文 sôshikikan  総指揮官 sôsho  草書 Sôshû Enoshima  相州江之島 Sôtokufu  総督府 Sugita Gempaku  杉田　玄白 Suisangakubu, Kagoshima Kokuritsu Daigaku  水産学部、国立鹿児島大学 Suisen no ji  推薦の辞 Surugadai Daigaku  駿河台大学 Tadano Makuzu  只野　真葛 Taichû (Taichong)  台中 tairan  台覧 Taishô seihen  大正政変 Taishô Tennôjitsuroku  大正天皇実録 Taiwan Sôtokufu Monjo Mokuroku  台 湾総督府文書目録 Takahashi Korekiyo  高橋　是清 一 Takaoka-shi (Toyama)  高岡市（富山） Takarabe Takeshi  財部　彪 Takasaki Goroku  高崎　五六 Takemae Eiji  竹前　栄治 Takeshita Isamu  竹下　勇

232

Glossary

Takizawa Bakin  滝沢　馬琴 Tanaka Giichi  田中　義一 Tanaka Kôken  田中　光顕 tannen ni  丹念に taraimawashi  たらい回し Teikoku Gikai  帝国議会 Teikokushugibukai Wakate Gurûpu 帝国主義部会若手グループ tenshoku  天職 tôkan  統監 Tokudaiji Sanenori  徳大寺　実則 Tokugawa Jikki  徳川実紀 Tokutomi Sohô  徳富　蘇峰 Tokyo Toritsu Daigaku  東京都立大学 Tominaga Izumi  富永　泉 Torii Ryûzô  鳥居　龍蔵 Toriumi Yasushi  鳥海　靖 Tosa  土佐 tôshaban  謄写版 tôsho  投書 tôsui  統帥 Totsuka: Motomachi Betsudô  戸塚：元 町別道 Toyama ken  富山県 tozama  外様 Tozawa Keizaburô  戸沢　奎三郎 Tsutsumi Koretake  堤　伊雄 Tsuzuki Keiroku  都築　馨六　 Tsuzuki (née Inoue) Mitsuko  都築　 光子

uchikowashi  打ち壊し Ueda Katsunari  上田　勝成 Ueda Yoriko  上田　和子 Uehara Yûsaku  上原　勇作 Utagawa Toyokuni  歌川　豊国 utsushi  写し Waseda  早稲田 washi  和紙 Watanabe Kunitake  渡辺　国武 Yamagata Aritomo  山県　有朋 Yamagata Kô Bunko Kakiire Bôsenbon Sakuin  山県公文庫書入傍線本 索引 Yamakawa Kikue  山川　菊栄 Yamakawa Shuppan  山川出版 Yamanouchi Yôdô  山内　容堂 Yamao Yôzô  山尾　庸三 Yanagi Muneyoshi  柳　宗悦 Yanaihara Tadao  矢内原　忠雄 Yano Fumio  矢野　文雄 yônen  幼年 yorashimubeshi  依らしむべし Yoshida Shigeru Zaidan  吉田茂財団 Yoshida Shôin  吉田　松陰 Yoshikawa Kensei  芳川　顕正 Yoshimi Yoshiaki  吉見　義明 yôtô no gotoki moji  蝿頭の如き文字 Yûki han  結城藩 zadankai  座談会 zairyûhôjin  在留邦人

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Index

Abei Iwane: as influential “anti-Meiji government” figure, 167; papers, 18–19, 123, 167, 175n. 25. See also George (Jôji) Akita; Sakeda Masatoshi agriculture: agricultural and non-agricultural linkages, 6; agricultural extension, 74; Ainu and, 196n. 84; government and farmers, 73–74; Hachinohe wild boar famine, 70; tenant farmers, 73; village groups, 73–74 Ainu: and agriculture, 196n. 84; assimilation of, 79, 85, 87, 196n. 84 Akita, Akiko, 22, 176n. 33 Akita, George (Jôji): Abei Iwane transcription and translation projects, 18–19, 123, 167, 175n. 25; collaborative work with Sakeda Masatoshi, 18–19, 164, 167, 175n. 25, 225n. 9; festschrift, 166; Hirose Yoshihiro and, 10, 15, 19–21, 164, 166–167, 183n. 43; Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo (IHKM) project, ix, 17–18, 60; Itô ­Takashi and, ix, 16–22, 163–164, 166–167, 186n. 79; Kobayashi Kazuyuki and, 21, 164, 166; on MeijiTaishô emperors’ powers, 144; on Norman’s scholarship, 146, 161–162; on relationship between Hara Kei and Yamagata Aritomo, 186n. 79; on relationship between Itô Hirobumi and Itô Miyoji, 2, 49, 89, 170n. 5 (introduction); Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM) project, 21; Shôyû Kurabu, 10, 176n. 32; Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project, ix, 10, 19, 21, 173n. 3; Yamagata Aritomo Monjo project, x–xi, 165–167, 184n. 52 Allied Occupation of Japan: Michael Schaller predicts the “big three” books on Occupied Japan, 142; occupation and democracy, 106; occupa-

tion officials likened to prewar bureaucrats, 106; Reischauer on emperor as puppet, 127; Reischauer on Japanese popular participation in national life, 128; Reischauer on the Korean minority in Occupied Japan, 129; survey of postwar Japanese high school history textbooks, 22–23 Andô Teru (Andô Okoi) (former geisha and mistress of Katsura Tarô), whose memoirs recorded her observations of the political activities and personal traits of prominent figures, 113. See also Katsura Tarô Anglophone literature: Anglophone “Asia experts” denigrate the ability of ordinary Japanese for self-government, but most Anglophone writers see post-1890 Japan evolving into more open, freer pluralistic polity, 99; Anglophone scholars need to keep current with Japanese colleagues, 178n. 51; on criteria in selecting and annotating documents for use by Anglophone scholars, 225n. 9; Dower’s influence on Anglophone scholars of Japanese history, 125; innovative Anglophone scholarship on Japan, 165; lack of interest in midnineteenth century to early postwar Anglophone studies overlooks rich lode, 165; recent scholarship decried as particularistic, 65–66; senior Anglophone scholars still active, 224n. 7; tendency toward simplistic black and white interpretation, 84; use of published primary documents, depth and sophistication of analysis advance Anglophone scholarship, 98–99; younger Anglophone scholars producing excellent “building block” work, 198n. 99

258

Index

assimilation: Ainu, 79, 85, 87, 196n. 84; complexities of, 66, 84; evolutionary approach, 85; Korea, 79–85, 177n. 47, 196n. 83; Korean attitudes toward “independence thoughts” and the Japanese government, 1936, 84–85; nationality and identity, 79; Okinawa, 38–39, 71, 78–79, 85–87; paternalism vs. oppression, 80; Taiwan, 21, 79, 82, 85–86; Taiwan, dôka (assimilation) and kôminka (imperialization) in, 85–86, 197n. 89. See also colonialism; and individual peripheral entities bakufu, 37; center-local relationships, 68–69, 74, 77, 208n. 223; and han, 66, 68–69, 191n. 9; han kokka (domain state), 69–70 bakumatsu, 37, 72, 182n. 38; domains self-governing, 70 Banno Junji: categorization of documents, 37; collaboration with Itô Takashi on Itô-ke Monjo and Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo projects, 12–14; on Herbert Bix, 160; on Shôwa emperor, 160; on Tsuzuki’s position on chôzenshugi and Meiji Constitution, 182n. 34 benkyôkai (study group), 123, 190n. 49 Bix, Herbert P.: acclaimed 2001 Pulitzer Prize awardee, 141–142; charges against Shôwa emperor, 143, 146, 158; on crown prince and fascism, 155–156, 222n. 187; on crown prince as military leader, 152; as historian, xi, 141–148, 157–161; and history as creative imagination, 144–148; ideology and scholarship, 161; on pre1945 emperors’ military role, 148; on Shôwa emperor as sham constitutional monarch, 148, 153–154; theme of powerful activist emperor central to Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 143, 144, 148, 154, 158, 160–161; use of sources, 141–144 Boissonade de Fontarabie, Gustave Emile, close adviser to Inoue Kowashi, 121, 208n. 232 British model (constitutional monarchy), 120, 153, 157, 183n. 43. See also German influence; Western influence bureaucracy: bureaucrat-commoner rela-

tionship, 72, 104–108; central bureaucracy in Tokyo, 71, 74, 77; contempt for parties, 37, 98; as de facto power, 102, 209n. 240; emperor-bureaucracy relationship, 91; kanson mimpi, 104–105; knowledge and nation building, 91–92; as overseer of developmental state, 101, 106; pension system for, 88, 91, 198n. 110; and statism, 101–105, 202n. 142, 202n. 152. See also Tsuzuki Keiroku cabinet: and chihô jichi (local autonomy), 74–75; and Diet, 40, 95; party-led cabinet seen as inevitable, 47, 98, 200n. 132; and Pearl Harbor decision, 158; representative membership, 103; in statist structure, 92 center-local government relationship. See under localities, local governments chôzenshugi: defined, 36–37; Tsuzuki’s “Chôzenshugi” (Principle of Transcendental Cabinets), 36–37 colonialism: Hokkaido (Ainu), 85; Korea, 79–85; Korean attitudes toward “independence thoughts” and the Japanese government, 1936, 84–85; Okinawa, 38–39, 71, 78–79, 85–87; paternalism vs. oppression, 80; revisionism, 80, 81, 83; Taiwan, 21, 197n. 87; Taiwan, kôminka (imperialization) in, 85–86, 197n. 89; Taiwan Sôtokufu Monjo Mokuroku (Index of Documents relating to the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan), 21. See also assimilation; and individual peripheral areas commoners: “bicycle citizens” and “taxi elites” political metaphor, 115, 117; bureaucrat-commoner relationship, 72, 104–108; “rationality of contention,” 107 conscription, 77–78, 88–89. See also assimilation Constitution, Meiji: amendment of, 105; Articles, 94–95, 105, 148–149, 151; autocracy sanctioned by, 93, 100, 148–149; constitutional monarchy, 97, 154, 157–158; Diet-emperor relationship, 94–96; division between wording and practice, 148, 150–151; drawbacks to pluralism, 99; emper-



Index

or’s powers and people’s rights, 93, 209n. 240; founding of constitutional system, 31, 71, 120; Hara Kei on, 58; indispensable for Japan, 41; Inoue Kowashi on, 120; intent of drafters, 201n. 137; Itô Miyoji and, 49; local government foundation for constitutional system, 71–72; manipulation of emperor, 95–96; Miyajima Seiichirô’s Kokken Hensan Kigen, 31; Ôkuma’s “Memorandum on Constitutional Government to the Emperor,” 32; parties as part of the constitutional system, 39–40, 98; party power as threat to constitutional government, 43–44; position papers on constitutional government and national assembly, 35–37; role of emperor, 93– 94, 96, 151; Sain (Left Board) and, 31; separation of powers, 43–44, 92, 98. See also Boissonade; British model; emperor; “emperor as organ” theory; German influence; Kensei Shiryô­ shitsu; Roesler, Hermann; Western influence Constitution, postwar, 9, 100; constitutionally-mandated emperor system accepted by Communist Party, 25; democracy, pre-1945, 106, 131, 200n. 133 Diary of Anne Frank, 60–61, 64 Diet: as advisor to emperor, 99; and cabinet, 40, 98; establishment of, 71, 88; as limit to emperor’s powers, 94–96; party politics and, 175n. 21; shôchoku (imperial rescript), role and content related to dissolution of first Diet, 95; Yamagata proposal on concurrent membership, 40 documents, primary: calligraphic style, 30–31; confidentiality (code words, limited circulation, secrecy), 41–45, 96–97; dating errors, 56–57; exaggerations and factual inaccuracies, 33; excisions and alterations, 59–64; fragility of memory, 34–35, 57; gaps, 56–57; manipulation (duplication, reconstruction, rewriting), 30–32; marginalia, 57–59; mistranscriptions, 55; multiple entries, 56–57; third-party intervention, x, 59–61,

259

64, 96; Tokugawa and later, 107; typographical errors, 53–54; use in historical research, 49; writing for history, 30–33, 180n. 12, 196n. 75 dôka (assimilation) in Taiwan, 85. See also assimilation; colonialism, Taiwan Dower, John W.: correspondence with, 212n. 32; ideology and scholarship, 126–127, 133, 161–162; influence on Anglophone scholars of Japanese history, 125; on Japanese capacity for self-government, 99; and Meiji “whirlwind” of change, 199n. 115; on modernization theory, 126, 136, 140–141; on Norman, 126–127, 130, 133–134, 138, 161–162; on Reischauer, 130–131, 133–136, 139–140; 2000 Pulitzer Prize awardee, 125 education: Edo, 192n. 23; education reform and center–local relationships, 75–78; Jiyû minken undô and, 77, 201n. 137; linked to patriotism and independence, 75; literacy, 77–78; Ministry of Education, 76, 77; strong local foundation (Tokugawa), 76 Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN), photocopy of Hara Kei Nikki in Hara’s own hand, x, 51–55, 57, 187n. 93, 190n. 49. See also Hara Kei Nikki emperor: as constitutional monarch, 153–155; “emperor as organ” theory (Ichiki-Minobe theory), 93–94, 99, 155, 199n. 122; emperor’s powers vs. people’s rights, 93; as kami, 154, 221n. 169; manipulation of, 95–96; and pluralistic form of government, 97, 99; roles and status in Japan’s polity, 96–100. See also emperor Meiji; emperor Shôwa, Hirohito; “Shôchoku no Kenkyû” “emperor as organ” theory (also known as Ichiki-Minobe theory), 93–94, 99, 155, 199n. 122 emperor Meiji: Bix on, 148; as constitutional monarch, 97; Diet-emperor relationship, 94–96; Donald Keene on question of Meiji emperor’s absolute power, 219n. 150; Meiji-Taishô emperors’ powers, 144; military role, 148–151; nationwide tours, 91; Yamagata and, 150–151

260

Index

emperor Shôwa, Hirohito: Bix on, 146, 148, 151–158; called sham constitutional monarch, 153, 158; as constitutional monarch, 153–155; as crown prince and commander-inchief, 151–152; moral responsibility, 143, 146–147, 217n. 114; political and military power, 143; and postwar abdication, 217n. 114; as puppet, 127; purported disbelief ancestors were gods, 21, 153–154, 221n. 169. See also European tour of 1921 European tour of 1921: British constitutional monarchy seen as worthy of emulation, 153–154, 157; crown prince/emperor Shôwa and, 151, 153; genesis of antiwar stance, 157; George V as activist monarch, 153; visit to Italy, 155–156. See also fascism fascism: crown prince/emperor Shôwa and, 155–156, 222n. 187; decline as interpretive framework, 24, 178n. 51; term “fascism” applied to Japan, 24, 26, 100, 178n. 51 footnotes, role of in historical studies, 3, 171nn. 9–10, 220n. 155 Fukuzawa Yukichi: on imperial rule, 93; Seiyô Jijô, 37, 123 gaiatsu (foreign pressure) on policymaking, 124, 203n. 157 Genrôin (Senate), 31, 179n. 3 George V, “concealed activism,” 153, 156, 172 German influence: Albert Mosse, 119– 120; on constitutional-monarchial polity, 99, 102, 118–119, 149, 201n. 137; Hermann Roesler, 94, 99, 119, 149, 201n. 137, 209n. 233, 219n. 146; Prussian autocratic system and Pearl Harbor, 102. See also British model; Western influence Halloran, Richard, (journalist), 148 hambatsu seifu (clan government), 70, 182n. 34. See also Sat-Chô han: and bakufu, 66, 68–69, 112; centerlocal relationships (Meiji), 68–69, 74, 77; and creating modern state, 92; han kokka (domain state), 69–70; identity, 70. See also Tokugawa

Hara Kei (Hara Takashi): Akita on relationship between Hara and Yamagata, 186n. 79; both names, Hara Kei and Hara Takashi, used by contemporaries, 188n. 5; commentary on party growth and constitutional government, 58; Hara family’s concerns over publication of Eiin Hara Kei Nikki, 51, 187n. 96; Hara mentored by Inoue Kaoru, 63; Hara’s antipathy toward Yamagata, 48; on Meiji Constitution, 58; personality, 62–64; political reputation staked on his nikki, 49; Rice Riots and rise of, 47; and Seiyûkai, 47–50, 56, 58, 63, 98; writing method, 56–58; Yamagata urged by Hara not to resign, 186n. 79 Hara Kei Nikki (HKN): errors, 53–57; Fukumura and Kangensha editions compared, 54, 188n. 12; Fukumura edition (1965–1967), 47, 185n. 74, 188n. 2; Fukumura HKN and Eiin Hara Kei Nikki compared, 53–57, 188n. 2, 190n. 49; Hara’s view of Seiyûkai centrality, 47–50, 56, 58, 63, 98; Kangensha edition (1950– 1951), 45–46, 188n. 1; most valuable of Hara’s earthly belongings, 49, 64, 186n. 86; overreliance on HKN, 47– 48; post-HKN primary documents, 48–51; rangai (marginalia), 57–58; significance for late-Meiji-Taishô political studies, 45–49; works based on HKN, 46–47. See also Hara Kei Hara Keiichirô and transcription of Hara Kei Nikki, 51, 53–58, 62, 64, 185n. 74 Hara Takashi. See Hara Kei haragei (“voiceless order technique”), 144–145, 218n. 121 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 67 Hasegawa Hiroshi (AERA journalist): article on Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 159–160; positive assessment of Yamagata Aritomo, 159 Hasegawa Yoshimichi, recommendations as Governor-General of Korea, 79 Hirohito. See emperor Shôwa, Hirohito Hirose Yoshihiro: and Eiin Hara Kei Nikki (EHKN), 51, 187n. 96; and George Akita, 10, 15, 19–21, 164, 166–167, 183n. 43; Hisho Ruisan



Index

project (Itô Hirobumi Monjo, Genten Hisho Ruisan), 94, 199n. 124; local history projects, 28–29; as onshi, 19; Ôtsu Jiken, 96; Taiwan Sôtokufu Monjo Mokuroku (Index of Documents relating to the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan), 21, 29; Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project, 19, 159 Hisho Ruisan (collected writings of Itô Hirobumi), early publication history, 94 Hisho Ruisan: Gaikôhen, 94, 96 Hisho Ruisan project (Itô Hirobumi Monjo, Genten Hisho Ruisan), 94, 199n. 124 historiography: central concerns vs. particularistic, 65–66; developmental state theory, 101–103; “fallacy of ­declarative questions,” 118, 172n. 16; ideology and, 26–27, 126–127; nationalism and detachment vs. national self-criticism and moral judgment, 126–128; theory, hostility to, 67, 192n. 16; theory, role in research, 5–8, 16, 106, 172n. 18; translations denigrated, 66–67; writing for history, 30– 33, 180n. 12, 196n. 75. See also Anglophone literature HKN. See Hara Kei Nikki Hokkaido. See Ainu Ichiki-Minobe theory. See “emperor as organ” theory ideology and scholarship, 26–27, 126–127, 161–163; Bix and, 161; Dower and, 126–127, 133, 161–162; Itô and, 26, 162–163; Norman and, 101, 126–127, 134, 161–162, 223n. 211; Reischauer and, 136. See also Marxism IHKM (Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo) project, ix, 12–16. See also Itô Takashi; Banno Junji; Sakeda Masatoshi; transcription ikensho (position statements): confidentiality, 43–45; fukumeisho-ikensho (inspection report-position paper), 37–38; ikensho defined, 35–41; letterikensho, 39–41; as a primary source, 35, 41; as revealing deepest concerns of Meiji leaders, 40–41; rombun-ikensho (essay-position papers), 36–37

261

Inoue Kaoru: as mentor to Hara Kei, 63; urged by Mutsu to create progovernment party, the Jichitô, 39–40 Inoue Kowashi: advised by Boissonade, 121, 208n. 232; advised by Roesler, 119; contention over monarchial/ constitutional system, 39, 71; counters reprimand by Ozaki Saburô and Takasaki Goroku, 41; favors government after British model, 120, 183n. 43; ikensho on monarchial system, 39, 43–44, 71; ikensho supporting Mutsu, rebutting Tsuzuki, 37, 185n. 66; on Meiji Constitution, 120; on Meiji reforms, 90–91; recommended for prime minister, 184n. 59 intellectuals: agenda, 108; benkyôkai and, 123; “bicycle citizens” and “taxi elites” political metaphor, 115, 117; McCarthy and, 134; progressive intellectuals and prewar nationalism, 208n. 225; supportive of masses, 108; technology advances and, 122 Itô Hirobumi: on balance of emperor’s powers with people’s rights, 93; copies Ôkuma’s March 1881 ikensho, 32; on the Diet-emperor relationship, 94–96; embraces “emperor as organ” theory, 93–94, 199n. 122; Hisho Ruisan, 94; Itô-Yamagata mutual contempt, 89–90; on manipulation of emperor, 95–96; Ôtsu Jiken, 96, 200n. 127; relationship with Itô Miyoji, 2, 49, 89, 170n. 5, 198n. 105; on Roesler, 119; urges that establishment of the Diet take precedence over the establishment of the local government system advocated by Yamagata, 71–72 Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo (IHKM) project, ix, 12–16. See also Itô Takashi; Banno Junji; Sakeda Masatoshi; transcription Itô Hirobumi Monjo, 13, 199n. 124 Itô Miyoji: as diarist, 49–50, 199n. 123; Itô Hirobumi through Miyoji advises Yamagata, 95; and Kakumin Shimbun, 60; letter to Itô Hirobumi reveals Hirobumi’s contempt for Yamagata, 98; relationship with Itô Hirobumi, 2, 49, 89, 170n. 5, 198n. 105 Itô Takashi: activities, 54, 164, 166; back-

262

Index

ground and scholarship, ix, 10–12, 22–24, 26, 144, 188n. 12; collaboration with Banno Junji, 12–14; critique of Marxist scholarship, 11, 24; on fascism and Japan, 26; and George Akita, ix, 16–22, 163–164, 166–167, 186n. 79; ideology and scholarship, 162–163; and Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo (IHKM) project, 12–18; and Itô-ke Monjo, 12–14; legacy, 22–24, 26; as onshi, 19; and “second act wall,” 16–17; and Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project, ix, 19; and Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM) project, 166–167 Itô-ke Monjo, 12–14 Iwakura Tomomi: and “cardinal principles of governance,” 90; letter to Yamagata on need to establish retirement system, 88, 91, 198n. 98 Iwakura Mission, 37, 182n. 39 Jameson, Sam, (journalist): on Bix and Hirohito, 158 Japan: Past and Present: compared with Norman’s Japan’s Emergence, 130– 131; Dower on, 130–131, 133; influenced by dominant Marxist interpretation of the day, 130; linked by Dower to U.S. objectives, 130– 131; praised by Norman for its “wellbalanced objectivity,” 133; written for the general public, 131. See also Reischauer, Edwin O. Japan Foundation, 67 Jichitô, 40 jisei (trend of the times), toward conservatism, away from scholarship based on Marxist tradition, 25–27 Jiyû minken undo (Freedom and Popular Rights Movement) and education, 77, 201n. 137 Jiyûtô, 44 Journal of Japanese Studies, criticized as hostile to theory and trying to speak for Japan studies as a whole, 67, 192n. 16 kankei monjo, defined, 186n. 83 kan-min. See kanson mimpi kanson mimpi (“exalt officialdom, slight the people”), 104–105

karimokuroku (working index), 13, 18 Katsura Tarô: and Andô Teru (Andô Okoi), former geisha and Katsura’s mistress, whose memoirs recall political activities and personal traits of prominent figures, 113; Katsura and Hara Kei on negative consequences of the proposed wide gauge railroad bill, 58; Tokutomi Sohô’s excision from Katsura’s letter to Yamagata, 60 Keene, Donald: as popularizer, writing on Japan for the general public, 132; on question of Meiji emperor’s absolute power, 219n. 150; on Reischauer as a scholar, 131–132 Ken, a strong, determined Tokugawa village woman who left a trail of documents as she fought the establishment and won, 109 Kensei Shiryôshitsu (Repository for Documents on Constitutional Government, National Diet Library), archival documents available online, 180n. 9 Kido Takayoshi, 36, 40–41, 181n. 27 Kobayashi Kazuyuki: as onshi, 21, 164, 166; and Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM) project, 21; and Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project, 13, 21; and Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM) project, 166 kokumin (people, nation), 154, 221n. 168 kokutai (national polity), 153–154 kôminka (imperialization) in Taiwan, 85– 86, 197n. 89 Korea, Koreans: assimilation of, 79–85, 177n. 47, 196n. 83; Hasegawa Yoshimichi recommendations, 79; Korea under Japanese colonial rule, 79–85; Korean attitudes toward “independence thoughts” and the Japanese government, 1936, 84–85; Korean minority in Occupied Japan, 129; Korean specialists on modern Korean history, 177n. 47; Koreans in Japanese Army, 80–83, 195n. 56; 1919 March First Movement, 79; treatment of civilians under colonial rule, 82–84 Kume Kunitake, 37, 55–56, 75–76, 182n. 39 Kuratomi Yûzaburô, 56, 189n. 20 law: Conscription Act of 1873, 72, 88;



Index

“force of law,” officials, and farmers, 74; Gibb’s “laws” on cultural borrowing, 119–122; how laws are made in the Diet, 175n. 21; Japanese legal heritage, 120–121; Japan’s Family Registry Law and Military Service Law debated and revised for application to colonial Korea, 81; Kido Taka­ yoshi’s conviction that a constitution and laws were indispensable, 40–41; laws and regulations in colonial Korea, 80–81; rule of law in Tokugawa and post-1868 Japan, 107; Yamagata advocates laws in colonial Okinawa that are based on Okinawan traditional practices, 39; Yamagata on the founding of the 1889 local government system law, 120 localities, local government: center-local relationship (Tokugawa), 69–71; center-local “two-way traffic,” 72; creation of local government system, 88, 120; Itô Hirobumi urges that establishment of the Diet take precedence over the establishment of the local government system advocated by Yamagata, 71–72; local leaders buffer unfavorable bakumatsu actions, 72–73; local vs. local competition, 75; Meiji education reform and center-local relationships, 75–78; preservation of local autonomy provides stability, 72–73; Yamagata’s joy upon the shi-chô-son (municipalitiestowns-villages) local government system becoming law, 72; Yama­ gata’s 1919 speech on local government as foundation of constitutional system, 71 Manchurian Incident, 22, 99–100 Marxism: anti-Marxist scholarship bent to cold war, 126, 161; approach to Japanese history, 24–27, 117–118, 130, 139–140, 177n. 42, 223n. 213; hold loosened by proliferation of transcribed volumes, 27–28; jisei (trend of the times) away from Marxism toward conservatism, 24–27, 177n. 47; left mainstream concerns, 177n. 42; stagnation of research, 24–26 Matsukata Masayoshi, 36, 44–45, 48, 50,

263

184n. 48; lectured by Tsuzuki Keiroku on meaning of chôzenshugi, 36–37 McCarthyism, 1, 67, 134–135, 137, 155, 214n. 84 Meiji emperor. See emperor Meiji Meiji Restoration. See Meiji-Taishô Japan Meiji-Taishô Japan, 68, 88; colonialism and evolutionary assimilation (see assimilation; colonialism); conscription system, 77–78, 88–89; constitution (see Constitution, Meiji); creation of local government system, 88, 120; education reform, 75–78; egos and animus among leaders, 89–90; establishment of Diet, 71, 88; evolutionary vs. revolutionary pace of modernization, 76, 87–92; foreign influence on (see Bri­ tish model; German influence; Wes­ tern influence); governance, 87; knowledge and nation building, 91– 92; modern nation created to protect against West, 71; newness, complexity, challenges, 90–91; resistance to change, 92; Tokyo’s relationship with the Ainu, Korea, Okinawa, and Taiwan, 78–87 (see also assimilation; colonialism; and individual peripheral entities); Tokyo’s relationship with the rest of Japan, 71–78; Yamagata’s 1919 speech, 71, 198n. 110; women in (see women). See also pluralism; statism Meiji Tennôki, 48, 50, 149–151 “Memorandum on Constitutional Government to the Emperor.” See Ôkuma Shigenobu Memorandum on Policy towards Japan, 127–129; linked by Naoki Sakai to U.S. postwar policy in Japan, and policies in Asia, 129–130; on use of emperor as puppet and postwar citizen participation in Occupied Japan, and participation of nisei in American armed forces, 127–129. See also Reischauer, Edwin O. methodology: Bix, 57, 145–148, 160, 220n. 155; questionable methodology, 218n. 128; transcription, 14–15, 54 Minobe Tatsukichi, and “emperor as organ” theory (also known as IchikiMinobe theory), 93–94, 99, 155 Miyajima Seiichirô: Boshin Nikki and

264

Index

Kokken Hensan Kigen, 31; on Sain’s role in writing constitution, 31 modernization theory, 106, 125–126, 130; Dower on, 125–126, 130, 140–141; Reischauer and, 130, 133, 135–136, 140; “Reischauer line (agenda),” 130, 135, 139 monjo, defined, 186nn. 57, 83 Monumenta Nipponica, condemned as hostile to theory, 76, 192n. 16 Mutsu Munemitsu: letter to Inoue Kaoru urging creation of pro-government party, the Jichitô, 37, 39–40; letter to Okazaki Kunisuke regarding Diet and Jiyûtô, 44; reputation as a leaker, 185n. 69 Nara Takeji: as military aide, accompanies crown prince/emperor Shôwa on European tour, 151–157, 219n. 153; Nara’s diary (Nara Takeji Nikki) and reminiscences (Kaikoroku) important primary sources, 151; Nara’s record of Hirohito’s wish to maintain the status quo of the kokutai, 153–155 nikki (diary), 41–43, 50–51; candid record over time, 41–42; nikki of foremost political figures not extant or never located, 50 Norman, E. H.: Akita on, 146, 161–162; Dower on, 126–127, 130, 133–134, 138, 161–162; on historianship and review of Reischauer’s Japan: Past and Present, 133; idealized, 117; ideology, 101, 126–127, 134, 161–162, 223n. 211; influence on Reischauer, 130; and Reischauer compared, 117, 126–127, 130–131, 133 Occupation. See Allied Occupation of Japan office ladies (OLs), 115–117 Okinawa: assimilation, 71, 78, 85–87; Yamagata on Okinawa policy, 38–39, 71, 78–79, 85–87 Ôkuma Shigenobu: March 1881 ikensho, “Memorandum on Constitutional Government to the Emperor,” 32, 180n. 9, 181n. 29, 199n. 114; on Meiji reforms, 90; “Political Crisis of 1881,” 32

organ theory. See “emperor as organ” theory Ôtsu Jiken, 96, 200n. 127 outcaste, 66, 208n. 223 Ozaki Saburô: anti-Sat-Chô, pro-kuge, 50, 184n. 59, 187n. 89; contention with Inoue Kowashi, 39, 41, 71; on Meiji reforms, 71, 90–91; on Mori Arinori, 42; on Yamagata Aritomo, 42 parties. See political parties peripheral areas. See assimilation; colonialism pluralism: defined, 92; dilemma of emperor’s powers vs. people’s rights, 93; localities self-governing with balance of power, 97–98; and Manchurian Incident, 99–100; “new pluralists,” 106–109; pre-Pacific War, 98–100; separation of powers, 43–44 “Political Crisis of 1881,” 32. See also Ôkuma Shigenobu political parties, 39–40, 43, 45, 58, 75, 98; bureaucratic contempt for, 37, 98; and cabinet, 45, 98, 103; as part of the constitutional system, 39–40, 98; party politics and Diet, 175n. 21; party power as threat to constitutional government, 43–44; statist view of, 102–103. See also Seiyûkai; Tsuzuki Keiroku positivism, ix, 3–5, 164–165 post-Restoration state. See Meiji-Taishô Japan Prussian, Prusso-German. See German influence rangai (marginalia), 57–59, 189n. 28 Reischauer, Edwin O.: anti-Marxist, 136, 139–140, 161; charged with revisionist agenda, 138–139; on China, 134, 137; Donald Keene on Reischauer as scholar, 131–132; Dower on, 130–131, 133–136, 139–140; on emperor as puppet, 127; on Japanese postwar popular participation, 127–128; on Korean minority in Occupied Japan, 129; Memorandum on Policy towards Japan, 127–129; and modernization theorists, 130, 133, 135–136, 140; Naoki Sakai on, 129–130; 1949 State Department Conference, 134, 136–



Index

137, 214n. 79; on nisei right to serve in military, 127–128; and Norman compared, 126–127, 130–131, 133; and Norman’s review of Japan: Past and Present, 133; and stand against McCarthyism, 134–135; and United States Okinawa policy, 214n. 65; University of Arizona speech, 137– 139, 215n. 91; writing for general public, 131–133, 139 revisionism: and Anglophone historiography, 125; on colonial Korea, 81, 83–84; historians examined, 203n. 154; Reischauer and, 138–139; and Richard Smethurst’s study of prewar agricultural Japan, 73, 193n. 32 Roesler, Hermann, 94, 99, 121, 201n. 137, 209n. 233; adviser to Inoue Kowashi, 119; and drafting of the Meiji Constitution, 119, 149; on emperor’s role visà-vis the military, 149; on powers of emperor and Diet, 94, 99, 219n. 146 Sain (Left Board), 31 Saitô Takao, expulsion from Diet and re-election, 108–109 Sakatani Yoshirô, 36, 182n. 32 Sakeda Masatoshi, 175n. 26, 224n. 1; and Abei Iwane transcription and translation projects 18–19, 123, 167; collaborative work with George Akita, 18–19, 164, 167, 175n. 25, 225n. 9; Itô Hirobumi Kankei Monjo (IHKM) project, 13; as onshi, 19, 164; Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project, 19 “Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan,” Yamagata’s ikensho on establishing a third political party, 35–36, 40–41, 43, 48, 98. See also Yamagata Aritomo sankô sakusen (“burn all–kill all–steal all”), 143 Sat-Chô (Satsuma-Chôshû): antipathy toward, 184n. 59, 187n. 89; balance, 45; taraimawashi (rotating leadership, distribution of positions), 45 scholarship. See historiography; ideology and scholarship Seiyûkai: founded 1900 by Itô Hirobumi, 98; Hara Kei (Takashi) and, 47–50, 56, 58, 63, 98; Tsuzuki Keiroku joins, 200n. 131

265

Shibusawa Eiichi, on disarray at the Finance Ministry and difficulty in carrying out reforms, 90 Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo (SYKM) project, 21, 32, 164, 224n. 2. See also transcription shôchoku (imperial rescript), role and content related to dissolution of first Diet, 95 “Shôchoku no Kenkyû” (on defining imperial rescripts), 96, 97, 200n. 129 Shôwa emperor. See emperor Shôwa, Hirohito Shôyû Kurabu: activities, 9–10, 173n. 3; history, 9, 173n. 4; research and publications, 10, 28, 51–52, 164, 166, 173n. 6, 224n. 2; transcription teams, 22, 176n. 32, 190n. 49, 224n. 2. See also transcription; Ueda Yoriko Social Science Research Council of New York, 67 statism: bureaucracy and statism, 101– 106; defined, 92; eclipse of, 102–103; emperor’s powers vs. people’s rights, 93; historian as statist, 104– 106; “Japanese miracle” thesis in rebirth of statism, 101–102; kanson mimpi, 104–105; Manchurian Incident and, 99–100; post-1931 statists and post-1980 statists compared, 101; and post-Restoration state, 88; Prussian autocratic system and Pearl Harbor, 102; wartime and early postwar statists, 100–101 SYKM (Shinagawa Yajirô Kankei Monjo) project, 21, 32, 164, 224n. 2. See also transcription Tadano Makuzu, extraordinary Tokugawa essayist, 109 Taishô Political Crisis of 1912–1913, 50 Taishô seihen, 33, 48 Taiwan: colonialism, dôka (assimilation) and kôminka (imperialization) in, 21, 79, 82, 85–86, 197nn. 87, 89; Taiwan Sôtokufu Monjo Mokuroku (Index of Documents relating to the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan), 21 Takarabe Takeshi, 41–42, 50, 56, 186n. 87 Takasaki Goroku, 39, 41, 71 Taylorism (scientific management), 121–123 tennosei fascism. See fascism

266

Index

theory: developmental state theory, 101– 103; “emperor as organ” theory (also known as Ichiki-Minobe theory), 93– 94, 99, 155; hostility to theory in Japan studies, 67, 192n. 16; modernization theory, 106–107, 125, 130; role of theory in research, ix, 5–8, 16, 164, 172n. 18 Tokugawa: bakufu and han, 66, 68–70, 112; comprising more than 250 domains, 91; education foundations, literacy, and village schools, 76–77, 192n. 23; heritage in modern Japanese history, 68–70, 88; linkages ­between agricultural and non-agricultural activity, 6; rural Tokugawa plight of peasants, 161; sankin kôtai (alternate residence duty), 69; Tokugawa period Anglophone research trend toward particularistic, 65–66; village life and rule of law, 107; women in Tokugawa, 109–112. See also bakufu; bakumatsu Tokutomi Iichirô (Tokutomi Sohô). See Tokutomi Sohô Tokutomi Sohô (Tokutomi Iichirô): correspondence with Yamagata, 34, 41, 184n. 52, 185n. 67; excision from Katsura’s letter to Yamagata, 60, 190nn. 34, 37; papers, 19; Tokutomi Sohô Kankei Monjo, 27 Toyama Prefecture, relationship with Tokyo, 74–75. See also localities, local governments transcription: groups working at local level, 28–29; list of transcribed works, 27–28; methodology, 14–15, 20, 54; overall problems and pitfalls, 53–64; transcription errors, 15, 55; transcription teams, 190n. 49, 224n. 2. See also documents, primary; Shôyû Kurabu Tsuzuki Keiroku: “Chôzenshugi” (Principle of Transcendental Cabinets), 36– 37, 182n. 34; chôzenshugi defined, 36; ikensho, 36–37, 40; joins Seiyûkai, 200n. 131; lectures Yamagata and Matsukata on meaning of chôzen­shugi, 36–37; personal background, 181nn. 30, 31; pro-bureaucratic, anti-party, 40, 98, 104, 182n. 34, 203n. 155

Ueda Yoriko, 10, 51–52, 159, 164, 173n. 4, 190n. 49 “us” vs. “them,” 117–118 “voiceless order technique” (haragei), 144–145, 218n. 121 Wanted: An Asian Policy: an “illuminating introduction to politics of postwar American scholarship on Asia,” 134; influence on modernization theorists, 140; linked by Dower to U.S. policy, 134–135; Naoki Sakai finds Wanted, Japan: Past and Present and Reischauer’s Memorandum prescriptive of U.S. policy, 129; publication date linked to attempted subversion of Geneva Accords, 135; and Reischauer’s sentiments on American involvement in Indochina, 135; and Reischauer’s stand against McCarthyism, 135; unpromising debut (“it sank beneath the waves”), 24 Western influence, 118–124; adoption and adaptation, 119–121; on education, 75–77; Fukuzawa and Iwakura Missions, 37, 182n. 39; Gibb’s “laws,” 119– 120, 122; in tandem with traditional Japanese government and institutions, 120; ­Taylorism, 121–123; Western constitutional principles and practices, 123, 201n. 137. See also Boissonade; British model; European tour of 1921; German influence; Roesler, Hermann women: activities in Meiji and post-Meiji, 112–117; activities in Tokugawa, 109–112; “gender construction” defining women’s role in the family, 114; gidayû, 113–114, 198n. 103; office ladies (OLs), 115–117; writers, 113–114 YAM (Yamagata Aritomo Monjo), a small number of letters collected by Kenseishi Hensankai, the Diet, 186n. 83 YAM (Yamagata Aritomo Monjo) project, a comprehensive collection in progress, x–xi, 165–167, 184n. 52 Yamagata Aritomo, x–xi, 32–35, 38–45, 48; on accommodating local concerns,



Index 71; commander of Kiheitai, 33, 71, 180n. 12; concentration of power in political party a threat to constitutional government, 43–44; constitutional separation of powers, 43–44; on danger without and within, 71, 198n. 110; and Diet-emperor relationship, 94–96; on dilemma of emperor’s powers vs. people’s rights, 93; on drawing masses into national life, 72; faction called oligarchist, 48; on foreign and domestic influence on the law, 120; and German influence, 118, 120; Hara’s antipathy toward Yamagata, 48; ikensho, 35–36, 38–40, 43, 78–79, 86, 181n. 25; Itô Hirobumi urges that establishment of the Diet take precedence over the establishment of the local government system advocated by Yamagata, 71–72; on Itô Hirobumi-Yamagata mutual contempt, 89–90; and Iwakura’s letter on need to establish retirement system, 88, 91, 198n. 98; joy when the shichô-son (municipalities-towns-villages) local government system became law, 72; lectured by Tsuzuki Keiroku on meaning of chôzenshugi, 36–37; letters, 32–34, 39–40, 43–45; letters to Shinagawa Yajirô, 38, 45; letters to Tokutomi Sohô, 34; 1919

267

speech on local government as foundation of constitutional system, 71; on Okinawa policy, 38–39, 71, 78–79, 85–87; Ozaki on, 42; personal background, 71; on “racial competition,” 35, 183n. 45; rangai commentaries, 59; on resignation, 45, 151, 186n. 79; “Sambun Teiritsu ni Kansuru Shokan,” on establishing a third political party, 35–36, 40–41, 43, 48, 98; Tokutomi Iichirô on, 41, 184n. 52; urges emperor to fulfill his duty, 150– 151; weeps upon learning of Hara’s assassination, 63, 186n. 80. See also Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM); Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM) Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM), 32–33, 173n. 3, 224n. 2 Yamagata Aritomo Kankei Monjo (YAKM) project, 13, 16, 19, 32–33, 224n. 2; Katsura’s letters to Yamagata, 33, 60; Taishô seihen, 33, 48. See also transcription Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM), a small number of letters collected by ­Kenseishi Hensankai, the Diet, 186n. 83 Yamagata Aritomo Monjo (YAM) project, a comprehensive collection in progress, x–xi, 165–167, 184n. 52

About the Author

GEORGE AKITA was born and raised in Hawai‘i and graduated from the

University of Hawai‘i in 1951. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. In 1977 he began transcribing primary documents written in sòsho (calligraphic style) under the tutelage of Japanese scholars and has, since 1984, spent eight months each year in Japan continuing the transcription and translation of selected documents. He has coedited fifteen volumes of transcriptions to date. In addition to numerous articles in both English and Japanese, he is author of Foundations of Constitutional Government in Modern Japan and coeditor of Itò Hirobumi Kankei Monjo, Vols. 7-9, and Shinagawa Yajirò Kankei Monjo, Vols. 1-6. He taught Japanese history at the University of Hawai‘i from 1961 to 1984 and is currently professor emeritus.

Production notes for Akita / Evaluating Evidence Jacket design by Julie Chun. Text design by Paul Herr with text in New Aster and display in ATRotis Semisans Composition by inari information services Printing and binding by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Printed on 55 lb. Glatfelter Offset B18, 360 ppi