Reforming Japan: The Women's Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji Period

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Reforming Japan

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Asian Religions and Society Series Also in the series: Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions Edited by Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara Images in Asian Religions: Texts and Contexts Edited by Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara Gandhāran Buddhism: Archaeology, Art, and Texts Edited by Kurt Behrendt and Pia Brancaccio Japan’s Modern Prophet: Uchimura Kanzô, 1861-1930 John F. Howes American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73 Hamish Ion Asian Religions in British Columbia Edited by Larry DeVries, Don Baker, and Dan Overmyer

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Elizabeth Dorn Lublin

Reforming Japan: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji Period

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© UBC Press 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), www.accesscopyright.ca. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10   5 4 3 2 1 Printed in Canada on FSC-certified ancient-forest-free paper (100% post-consumer recycled) that is processed chlorine- and acid-free. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Lublin, Elizabeth Dorn, 1968 Reforming Japan : the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji period / Elizabeth Dorn Lublin. (Asian religions and society series, ISSN 1705-4761) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7748-1816-2 1. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union – History. 2. Social problems – Japan – History. 3. Women social reformers – Japan – History. 4. Patriotism – Japan. 5. Japan – Social conditions – 1868-1912. 6. Japan – Social policy. 7. Japan – Moral conditions. I. Title. II. Series: Asian religions and society series HV5247.J3L83 2010        363.4’1095209034        C2010-900151-6 UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Association for Asian Studies. Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens Set in Palatino and The Sans by Artegraphica Design Co. Ltd. Copy editor: Matthew Kudelka Proofreader: Dallas Harrison UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 www.ubcpress.ca

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Contents

List of Illustrations / vi Acknowledgments / vii Introduction / 1 Part 1: The WCTU in Meiji Japan: An Organizational History

1 The Founding of the WCTU in Japan: 1886 / 13



2 The Tumultuous Early Years of the Tokyo WCTU: 1886-92 / 33



3 The Organization and Development of the Japan WCTU: 1892-1912 / 63 Part 2: Under the Guise of National Strengthening and “Good” Citizenship: Pillars of the WCTU’s Reform Program



4 The Fight against Prostitution / 101



5 The Struggle to Create a Sober Society / 126



6 Imperial Loyalty and Patriotic Service Japan WCTU-Style / 149

Epilogue / 171 Notes / 177 Bibliography / 225 Index / 242

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Illustrations



1 Mary Clement Leavitt / 22



2 The front cover of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, no. 1 (14 April 1888) / 43



3 Yajima Kajiko / 46



4 Mary Allen West / 65



5 The front cover of Fujin kyōfū zasshi, no. 1 (2 November 1893) / 75



6 The front cover of Fujin shimpō, no. 1 (28 February 1895) / 81



7 Clara Parrish / 85



8 Ushioda Chiseko / 94



9 The exterior of temperance rest house at the National Industrial Exposition in Osaka, 1903 / 145



10 The interior of the rest house at the National Industrial Exposition in Osaka, 1903 / 146



11 A WCTU comfort bag from the Russo-Japanese War / 164

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Acknowledgments

This project originated at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. From my first day on campus in 1994, Sharon Minichi­ello made clear her belief in the value of my research and her conviction that I had the ability and endurance to carry it out. She acted on that faith in ways small and large and, in the process, taught me about the kind of adviser I wanted to be to my own students. I will forever be indebted to her for that example and for her guidance of my work on the Japan WCTU at its most formative stage. Many other individuals and institutions have given critical support over the years, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to express my thanks here. Alfred Epstein eased my way into primary research by expertly showing me all that the Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives in Evanston, Illinois, had to offer and by allowing me to mine its holdings in English and Japanese even after hours. The Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship Foundation and the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa provided the necessary funding for a much longer research stay in Tokyo, with money left over for months of writing. Ide Sachiko facilitated that work by very graciously sponsoring my two-year affiliation with Japan Women’s University. The institution’s library proved to be an excellent resource, supplemented with regular forays to the National Diet Library and the library at the Tokyo Women’s Plaza. It also served as a place to meet Takekuro Makiko, then one of Professor Ide’s students, who kindly spent hours helping me learn to decipher materials from the early days of the Tokyo WCTU. Kakuko Shoji of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and Kushida Kiyomi of the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama likewise went beyond the call of duty to help me translate printed and handwritten texts that I found particularly byzantine. Takahashi Kikue similarly helped me unravel puzzles with her answers to a long list

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viii Acknowledgments

of questions on the WCTU in Japan, and I am extremely grateful for her time and willingness to share her knowledge and resources as a long-time member of the union and a participant in the compilation of its one-hundred-year history. Among those to whom I owe more recent thanks, Paul Varley, Patricia Steinhoff, Albert Craig, Cedric Cowing, and Harry Lamley prodded me to think more critically and more broadly. Duncan Williams, Barbara Ambros, Terrence Jackson, and Stephen Covell, involved at one time or another in the self-styled Komazawa PhD Kenkyūkai (Research Group), spurred me to consider how individual pieces of the story fit into the project as a whole. So did Bill Londo and John Davis, as well as Louis Perez, Roy Hanashiro, Michael Bathgate, and those others in the Midwest Japan Seminar who travelled to Appleton, Wisconsin, for a two-hour discussion of my work one Saturday afternoon in late 2003. Generous funding from Wayne State University in the form of a Minority/Women Summer Grant and a Humanities Center Faculty Fellowship enabled me to venture even farther to gather additional research materials in Tokyo. An early sabbatical from Wayne State granted me time for yet another trip to Japan and allowed me the luxury of concentrating on manuscript revisions. Work on those advanced, with much appreciated encouragement and references from Ann Harrington, A. Hamish Ion, and Garrett Washington and critical comments received from Sally Hastings, Jan Bardsley, and two anonymous reviewers for an article I published in the U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal. Insightful suggestions from my two outside readers for UBC Press informed additional changes, and the end result is more polished because of their advice. Much gratitude goes as well to Emily Andrew, Randy Schmidt, and Megan Brand of UBC Press. Their enthusiasm for this book and the care with which they guided it and me through the stages of publishing made working with them a real pleasure. My colleagues at Wayne State have also provided tremendous support through their solicitation, example, and recommendations. Marc Kruman, Sandra VanBurkleo, Elizabeth Faue, Charles Hyde, Stanley Shapiro, Hans Hummer, Eric Ash, Janine Lanza, Catherine Ash, and Aaron Retish deserve special mention among them. More thanks go to the History Department and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wayne State and to the Association for Asian Studies for generously awarding me subventions and to Janet Olson of the Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives, Satake Junko and Yoshida Mutsuko of the Japan WCTU, and Fuji Shuppan for granting me permission to reprint the illustrations I do. I am likewise grateful for permission to include research previously published

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Acknowledgments

ix

in Transnational Women’s Activism in Historical Perspective (Republic of Letters Publishing), the U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal (Josai International University), and Japanese Religions (NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions). Though words are inadequate, I do want to end by trying to express my appreciation to the following. Noell Wilson has been an exceptional friend, mentor, critic, and inspiration, and I have been truly lucky to have her in my corner. My parents, Jake and Carole Dorn, have long made me aware of their unwavering support of my aspirations and interests, and their unconditional love, and I would not be where I am today without them. Finally, my biggest thanks go to my husband, Keith, and our sons, Oliver and Isaac. Their smiles and giggles provided levity when most needed, and the thought of more time with them helped keep me at my computer, even when all I wanted to do was join them at the playground. In appreciation of their patience, encouragement, and affection, I dedicate this book to them. Note on Japanese Names Following the practice in East Asia, Japanese surnames come before given names, with the exception of individuals of Japanese ancestry living in the United States and scholars whose English-language works have been cited. Macrons have been omitted in place names for such well-known cities as Tokyo and Osaka when they appear in the text, in translations of Japanese organizations and titles, and as places of publication.

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Reforming Japan

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Introduction

In early 1902, the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (Japan WCTU) submitted a petition to the National Diet requesting that the age-old custom of rewarding good deeds and patriotic service with gold, silver, and wooden sake cups be abolished. This action followed on the heels of a similar appeal three years earlier by the Tokyo Kinshukai (Temperance Society). This male group had itself received a cup from the governor of Tokyo in recognition of a fifty-yen donation to the Sino-Japanese War Fund. Its members were grateful for the notice but viewed the choice of object as “strange” and unsuitable and not just because they had organized specifically to promote abstinence from alcohol. As they argued in their petition, “wine, like tobacco, is a poison,” linked to poverty and crime. Moreover, “wine takes away the energy of people, and the power of nations. Wine makes man impure and ruins his life.”1 The WCTU’s appeal likewise emphasized the negative impact of drinking on individuals and the nation. It did so, though, with more force, eloquence, and elaboration than the Tokyo Temperance Society’s petition. For example, the union enclosed with its request a chart showing a direct correlation between increases in sake production and greater incidences of bankruptcy, child abandonment, suicide, and roadside starvation. The author referred to this empirical evidence as proof that drinking “[dissipates] the energy of the people and [squanders] national resources.”2 She continued that “it is human nature to be sure to use a gracious gift ... as is the intent behind the imperial granting of a present ... With a sake cup, the recipient will accept it and, in order to publicize the gift, will certainly invite friends and family, throw a grand banquet, and express thanks with the cup itself.”3 That a gift bestowed to recognize service performed for the sake of public welfare and the nation should result in drunkenness and harm to individuals, not to

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Introduction

mention broader society, struck the author as “absurd.” She exhorted members of the Diet to replace the cups with more “appropriate” awards, though she stopped short of identifying what she considered suitable. This 1902 campaign was merely one component of the Japan WCTU’s wide-ranging program to reform public and private behaviour during the Meiji period. The organization’s 1899 statement of purpose alluded to just how broad the objectives of that program were. It read: “This society aims to expand work to end drinking and smoking, reform social customs, morals, education, health, and general evils, and promote the welfare and happiness of all of society.”4 In pursuit of these multifarious goals, members urged church leaders to use only unfermented wine for Holy Communion, supported a bill to ban underage smoking, opposed the participation of geisha in state ceremonies and public festivals, and operated several homes where former prostitutes and destitute women could learn an “honourable” means of self-support. They also distributed flowers and Scripture cards to hospitals, offered mothers child care instruction, and annually submitted a petition to the Diet calling for revisions to specific clauses in the civil and criminal codes that discriminated against women and contravened the principle of monogamy. Focusing on the WCTU in Japan, this book examines the activities of the society’s middle-class members – and in particular their leaders – as agents for moral and social reform during the Meiji period. The above-mentioned appeal to the Diet typified this reform activism and serves as a good stepping stone for introducing one of the central questions that guides this examination. What motivated those in the Japan WCTU to advocate a ban on the distribution of ceremonial sake cups? Or, to rephrase this question more broadly, why did Japanese women become involved in the WCTU in the Meiji period, why did they pursue the reforms they did, and what did they hope to accomplish? The petition’s reference to drink as depleting people’s energies and wasting the nation’s resources provides a clue to the answers. Japan WCTU members felt a keen sense of duty as Japanese to further the country’s progress, as did most of their compatriots, both men and women, Christian or otherwise. Japan’s 1853 opening through Commodore Matthew Perry and the country’s subsequent subjugation through unequal treaties with the United States, Holland, Russia, Great Britain, and France had awakened Japan to the tremendous military and economic superiority of the West. The desire to achieve equality with these powers engendered national projects epitomized in the 1870s by the slogans fukoku kyōhei (rich country and strong army) and bunmei kaika (civilization and enlightenment). At the

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Introduction

3

heart of these catchphrases lay the belief that the West stood at the apex of civilization and that only by modernizing – that is, Westernizing – could Japan attain the economic prosperity and military strength that equal standing in the community of Western nations required. The transformation that ensued in Japan, especially during the first twenty years of the Meiji period, was truly staggering in scope and speed. Those two decades alone witnessed the replacement of domains (fiefs) with centrally governed prefectures, the creation of a national army with universal conscription, and the implementation of a new national land tax, which aimed to rationalize assessments and stabilize government revenues. Those same years also saw the introduction of compulsory primary education, the elimination of the traditional class system with its attendant status markers, and the adoption of a new legal system with a hierarchy of courts and a plethora of laws. Modernization also took place in the realms of transportation, communications, and industry, with the state encouraging and in some cases initiating the opening of banks and the construction of railways, telegraph lines, factories, and mines. Not all changes the government implemented met with a warm reception. For example, the commutation of samurai stipends played a causal role in the outbreak of anti-government uprisings by destitute samurai in the 1870s. Unbridled Westernization also came under fierce attack beginning in the mid-1880s, in what Mikiso Hane has referred to as a natural “swing of the pendulum.”5 Critics sharply questioned the merit and suitability for Japan of Western practices and ideas and decried the rejection of things Japanese merely because they were Japanese and deemed anachronistic to a modern power. This backlash notwithstanding, the basic desire to promote Japan’s progress and elevate its standing in the international community remained paramount in the minds of the country’s political, military, and economic leaders, not to mention many average citizens. Among those citizens were the members of the Japan WCTU. They felt committed to the modernization project and duty-bound to assist in it. If the definition of a nationalist is an individual devoted to the political, economic, and social advancement of his or her country as an independent entity and in relation to others, then Japan WCTU members were unabashedly nationalistic. Indeed, most Japanese Christians in the Meiji period were, with the notable exception of a small but vocal group of Christian Socialists. Where Japan WCTU women differed from their non-Christian and antiChristian contemporaries was in their conviction that Christian belief and the values and morals it promoted were essential to Japan’s progress. The

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American Protestant missionaries who had begun taking to the Japanese field in the late 1850s helped nurture this belief. So did the emissaries of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (World WCTU), who, beginning with Mary Clement Leavitt in 1886, provided stimulus and guidance for organized WCTU activism in Japan. Influenced by these missionaries, Japan WCTU women developed a strong sense of Christian social responsibility to serve as living epistles and devote themselves to the “betterment” of individuals and society. They also came to accept and define their duties as women in light of the Victorian ideology of womanhood as disseminated by the missionaries. This ideology posited that women were morally superior to and more pious than men and that these characteristics best qualified them to serve as guardians of children and defenders of the home (and their own role in it) against the encroachment of moral and social “evils.”6 The three identities that Japan WCTU members embraced – as Japanese, as Christians, and as women – did not compete with one another; rather, they mutually defined who these women were. Moreover, the motivations characteristic of each identity were intertwined and provided a single ideological framework for their activism. In July 1901, the World WCTU’s motto “for God, home, and every land” first appeared in English on the cover of Fujin shimpō (Woman’s herald), the Japan WCTU’s monthly periodical. The words “every land” implied universality or the act of engaging in reform for the benefit of all nations. The Japanese word that appeared in the magazine in place of “every land” was kokka, which more accurately translates as “country.”7 The connotation both then and now, however, is Japan alone. The World WCTU’s motto continued to grace the cover of Fujin shimpō through to the April 1908 issue. Nonetheless, the slogan “for God, home, and country” better identifies the triad of motivations that informed the activities of Japan WCTU members during the Meiji period.8 Returning to 1902, the union’s campaign that year against ceremonial sake cups also sheds light on the means that members employed to achieve their reform goals. WCTU women did use moral suasion and religious rhetoric in speeches and publications to urge listeners and readers to embrace temperance and support the abolition of brothel districts, among other things. They did so especially when they knew that their audiences would be receptive to the message so wrapped. The community of Christian sympathizers, however, remained small throughout the Meiji period, never exceeding 1 percent of the population. In 1900, after roughly forty years of foreign mission work in Japan, Protestants could claim fewer than 45,000 church members, and just over 10,000 students were attending mission schools.9 To reach beyond these few, Japan WCTU members needed to

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construct their message in a way that would make it more palatable and less threatening to the mainstream.10 They likewise required a discourse that would lend them legitimacy and give their words authority. They did so by emphasizing the “for country” aspect of the motto “for God, home, and country.” As the wording of the 1902 petition illustrates, they often couched their arguments in the language of national progress. They provided empirical evidence as well, whether within the text or through enclosures, to lend credibility and weight to their claims. This rhetorical strategy, which incorporated both religion and social science, reflected a realistic appraisal of the environment and members’ basic desire to accomplish reform. The extent to which Japan WCTU women focused on national service in their discourse raises yet another question that is central to this book. What was the nature of their engagement with the state? Did they passively accept and propagate government policy? Or did they assert themselves and try to establish a less subordinate relationship? Their petitioning the Diet to ban ceremonial sake cups is just one incident among many suggesting the latter. Indeed, from the early years of the WCTU in Japan, members repeatedly engaged in petition campaigns, which served both organizational and propagandistic purposes. Through these petitions, they aimed to identify problems for the government and shape official solutions. They tried as well to harness state authority to their own causes and promote reform legislation to achieve their vision of a more moral society. This willingness to employ state power stemmed from their sincere belief in the state’s authority to dictate and control conduct in society and the home. Members’ active engagement with the state clearly shows that they did not become mere pawns of the government. Nor, as this work argues, did they compromise their beliefs and reform objectives to accommodate the Meiji government’s imperialistic ambitions and program to mould a loyal and patriotic citizenry. Instead, they sought to make acceptance of their values a core component of that program and a basis for “good” citizenship. This portrait of Japan WCTU women as politically active challenges the persistent image of women in the second half of the Meiji period as politically suppressed. Lori Ginzberg has said that “the historical focus on the radical demand for the vote as women’s only significant political act ... has had the effect of both foreshortening and distorting the history of women’s participation in the political process.”11 She made this observation in reference to the historiography of feminism in the United States, but her words apply to much scholarship on Japanese women as well. A number of historians have indeed stressed women’s lack of suffrage, using it as a takeoff

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Introduction

point for discussing the ways in which the Meiji state attempted to define and constrict women’s roles.12 Yet even more responsible for the narrow picture of Japanese women and politics is an emphasis on the government’s 1890 ban on women’s membership in political organizations and attendance at and sponsorship of political meetings. The promulgation of these prohibitions has too often been presented as a watershed.13 Without question, Japanese women in the late 1870s and early 1880s were politically empowered in a way that their ancestors had never been. The creation of new public outlets and women’s access to them, especially through the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights, enabled them to read, speak, and write about pressing issues, including the need for women’s rights, education, and improved status. It is clear that the 1890 bans, stipulated in the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations (Shūkai oyobi seishahō), greatly restricted these freedoms. However, joining political organizations and attending or holding political meetings are not the only ways for women to engage in politics. Nor, for that matter, is voting. The focus on the 1890 restrictions and women’s lack of suffrage has obscured that fact, and as a consequence the many other ways in which women attempted to advance their rights, assert themselves politically, and construct roles for themselves in the Meiji period have been overlooked or given minimal treatment.14 The end result has been an abridged presentation of the history of Japanese feminism. My portrait of Japan WCTU members actively engaged with the state also contributes to a growing body of scholarship that contests the once dominant interpretation of state-citizen ties in the Meiji period. That view posited that power flowed from rulers to ruled. Sheldon Garon is among those who have shown how much more complex those ties actually were, and this book’s conceptualization of the Japan WCTU in relation to the state owes much to his study of the state in daily lives. Specifically, Garon has argued that women’s collaboration during Japan’s conflicts with China and the Western powers from 1937 until 1945 was not solely the result of government efforts at mobilization. He has shown, rather, that women’s belief in the power of the state to bring about improvement in their position and their desire to help shape official policy as it affected their own lives also provided stimulus.15 Even more influential for this study is David Ambaras’ work on middleclass reformers in the second half of the Meiji period. Ambaras has demonstrated how these reformers placed themselves at the centre of power by using their social knowledge to identify problems and shape official responses.16

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Besides contributing to the study of women and enhancing understanding of the nature of power ties, this book sheds light on the vibrant reform movement that encompassed much of Japanese public activism during the Meiji period. This movement aimed not to overthrow the establishment but rather reshape and improve it. Far from being monolithic, it involved a diverse community of participants, incorporated a variety of different concerns, and included a wide range of tactics. Indeed, avowed Buddhists, Catholics, and Protestants participated, as did Japanese who did not identify specifically with any particular religious group. Collectively, they agitated for voting rights, prison reform, regulation of factory conditions, and an end to the death penalty. They also institutionalized social work by opening orphanages and operating charitable hospitals.17 In the process, they demanded the right to help create the public sphere and define its contours in line with what they believed Japan required. A comprehensive comparative history of these reformers and their activities falls beyond the scope of this study.18 The focus here is on Protestant reformers who distinguished themselves as the most vocal and active in the realm of moral reform with their calls for the abolition of licensed prostitution, the normalization of monogamy, and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco. The plethora of primary sources available on Protestant activities and societies makes it possible to concentrate on them. Extant WCTU publications pertaining to the Meiji period alone include fifty- and hundred-year histories of the organization, the tale of its anti-smoking crusade, accounts of the union’s rescue home in Tokyo, its first temperance tract, a collection of temperance talks, and almost all issues of its periodical from 1888 on.19 In addition, public and university libraries throughout Japan have in their holdings articles, speeches, pamphlets, and autobiographies by male activists as well as select issues of reform-oriented magazines. Despite this wealth of materials, the story of Meiji-era Protestant reform efforts remains largely absent from scholarly texts. General histories of Japanese Christianity make only token mention of them.20 Regarding more specialized studies, two book-length works in English introduce the Salvation Army in Japan and highlight its 1900 campaign to free prostitutes from the Yoshiwara brothel district in Tokyo.21 These do not, however, take into account the powerful role that women played in reform. This same criticism does not extend to Ichibangase Yasuko, Takamizawa Junko, and Abe Reiko, who are among the many scholars who have written articles on the leading members of the Japan WCTU. Collectively, though, they have stressed biographical information over details about and analysis of activities, and only the rare piece

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considers aspects of the reform movement other than agitation against prostitution.22 Rumi Yasutake, in contrast, has highlighted the breadth of the Protestant reform agenda in her book on the transference of the WCTU from the United States to Japan and back. Her focus on World WCTU missionaries, however, leads her to underestimate the role that Japan WCTU women played in the organization’s development. Her theme of thwarted feminist aspirations causes her to simplify the nature of the Japan WCTU’s relationship with the state and downplay how members persisted in using political tactics to achieve their reform goals. She also does not give religious conviction and nationalist sentiment their due attention as motivations for Japan WCTU women.23 This book thus reappraises the historical significance of the Japan WCTU. It does so in two parts of three chapters each. The first part provides a chronological overview of the organization’s establishment and growth during the Meiji period; the second takes a topical approach, examining key WCTU activities – specifically, the union’s anti-prostitution campaigns, its temperance activism, and members’ reverence for the imperial institution and their wartime outreach. The book has been structured in this way for a number of reasons. One was my desire to explore how the WCTU developed as an organization during the years when Japan’s political, economic, social, and intellectual landscape was changing. As part of this focus on institutional evolution, I discuss what made Japan such fertile soil for Mary Clement Leavitt when she arrived in 1886 and how she structured her message of reform to make it as appealing as possible. I also chronicle the steps that led to the founding of Japan’s first WCTU in Tokyo and explain the factors that contributed to the union’s initial vitality, followed, in the early 1890s, by its steep decline. The discussion of the WCTU during the last two decades of the Meiji period likewise emphasizes changes in its fortunes, together with their causes and consequences. While this coverage is particular to the WCTU, it more broadly serves as a case study for the experiences of organizations and individuals intent on having a say in Japan’s modernization. Indeed, much can be learned from the WCTU’s history about the challenges and opportunities facing Meiji Japanese – be they male or female, Christian or Buddhist – who claimed a place and power in the public sphere. This is also true of the in-depth examination of select WCTU reform endeavours discussed in the second half of this book. In those chapters, I examine the union’s agitation against Japanese prostitutes overseas, opposition to licensed brothel districts at home, rescue work among prostitutes and destitute women, promotion of abstinence among youth, temperance

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work at the 1903 National Industrial Exposition in Osaka, celebration of momentous events in the lives of the imperial family, and efforts to comfort soldiers, sailors, and the bereaved during the Meiji period’s two foreign wars. The decision to treat these efforts separately from the WCTU’s organizational history stemmed from my desire to probe deeply into the nature of these activities and the arguments that members gave to justify their actions and demands but to do so without sacrificing the narrative flow of the history. I also wanted to consider aspects of the union’s anti-prostitution movement (for example) in relation to one another instead of individually. A strict chronological approach would not have permitted this. Though different in approach, the chapters in the second part complement the portrait of WCTU members painted in the first part. In other words, they too show unionists employing a variety of tactics – including some blatantly political – to change the thinking of officials and civilians and shape public policy and private behaviour. They demonstrate as well how members claimed a voice in debates about what Japan needed in order to become “modern,” what the proper roles were for women in that transformation, and what constituted good citizenship. Moreover, they offer concrete evidence of how intertwined members’ patriotism and sense of national duty were with their religious and reform fervour and how applicable the motto “for God, home, and country” was as a description of WCTU activism during the Meiji period.

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Part 1 The WCTU in Meiji Japan: An Organizational History

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1 The Founding of the WCTU in Japan: 1886

WCTU activism in Japan did not begin in isolation but rather grew out of a convergence of historical developments in Japan and the United States during the nineteenth century. These included the sharp decline in shogunal authority as proto-industrialization and the growth of domestic trade created significant imbalances among and within social groups. These same disparities generated questions about the ideological basis for Tokugawa rule and gave rise to challenges to its leadership. At the same time, the United States, among other industrialized countries, began to exert pressure on Japan to open its doors. The desire for markets and raw materials, and for access to ports for refuelling, restocking, and repairs, lay behind this push. So, for the United States in particular, did the idea of Manifest Destiny. This belief in American superiority and the conviction that the United States had a Godgiven duty to share its ideas and institutions informed such diplomatic overtures to Japan as Commodore Matthew Perry’s 1853 mission. The results of that trip – the opening of two ports to American consuls and sailors – heightened American interest in Japan and at the same time further eroded confidence in the Tokugawa government or bakufu’s ability to protect the country from outside threats. The subsequent US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce had the same effects on both sides of the Pacific. This agreement moreover paved the way for the beginning of Protestant Christianity in Japan and became one motivating factor in the overthrow of the shogunate and the post-Restoration drive to modernize. Since the introduction has already touched on this drive, this chapter will discuss other developments that paved the way for the founding of the WCTU in Japan. It will begin by examining the introduction and spread of Protestant Christianity, which created a community of native converts who were receptive to Mary Clement Leavitt’s message of reform. A look at the origins of American women’s temperance activism and initiation of overseas

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The WCTU in Meiji Japan

outreach will follow. The final sections will chronicle Leavitt’s 1886 tour and the steps leading to the organization of the Tokyo WCTU, the first Japanese union to affiliate itself with the World WCTU. As these latter two sections in particular will reveal, nationalistic appeals such as “for the sake of Japan” did much to draw Japanese to reform, besides stimulating them to organize. The Early Decades of Protestant Christianity in Japan In July 1858, Townsend Harris, America’s first Consul General to Japan, concluded the US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce, a commercial pact that became the model for treaties that Japan signed soon after with Holland, Russia, Britain, and France. Known collectively as the “treaties with five powers” though more commonly as the “unequal treaties,” these agreements provided for the scattered opening of five ports and two cities to foreigners, granted them the right of extraterritoriality, fixed tariffs on imports to Japan, and bestowed on the foreign signatories most-favourednation status. Harris, though, aimed to gain more than diplomatic and business advantages for his countrymen. He also wanted to win religious privileges. A deeply pious man, he read the American Protestant Episcopal service openly on Sundays and did not hesitate to refuse to accept Japanese visitors on those days. He considered such behaviour to be the “first blow ... struck against the cruel persecution of Christianity by the Japanese.” He intended to make a more forceful strike during treaty negotiations by demanding that Americans be given the right to build churches and freely practise their religion. As he wrote in his journal shortly before talks began, he would “be both proud and happy if [he could] be the humble means of once more opening Japan to the blessed rule of Christianity.”1 Christianity had first been introduced to Japan in 1549 by Frances Xavier. He and the Jesuits who followed him into the field quickly made gains, and by 1582 they had converted an estimated 150,000 Japanese. They owed much of their success to support from several Kyushu daimyo as well as the warlord Oda Nobunaga, all of whom believed that the missionaries’ overseas connections would provide them with avenues for foreign trade. This same hope later became a fear that the importing of guns would lead to domestic political instability. The perception that the propagation of Christianity was the first step in a campaign of conquest by foreign powers and that Christians were loyal to God above all others heightened suspicion of missionaries. This distrust led Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, to demand in 1587 that all missionaries leave Japan. He did not stringently enforce this dictate, but he did lash out ten years later when he had twenty-six foreign

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and native Christians crucified in Nagasaki. The first decade of Tokugawa rule saw official tolerance prevail. That ended in 1614 with a ban on Christianity. Public persecution intensified in the following years, with the early Tokugawa rulers issuing a series of increasingly strident anti-foreign and anti-Christian decrees. The last came on the heels of the Shimabara Rebellion. This peasant uprising broke out in 1637 in response to excessive taxes but quickly took on religious overtones when the rebels picked a Christian teenager to lead them. In the wake of their violent suppression, the shogunate made Japan a “secluded” nation, allowing trade only with the Netherlands, China, Korea, and the kingdom of Ryūkyū and proscribing Christianity under punishment of death. Just over two centuries later, Harris failed to negotiate a lifting of this ban on Christianity. He did, however, succeed in the US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce in winning for Americans the right to worship in treaty ports. This opening proved to be all the invitation that was needed, and by the end of 1859 – mere months after the treaty came into effect – six American Protestant missionaries had taken up residence in Nagasaki and Kanagawa (Yokohama). The speed with which they arrived in Japan owed much to interest among mainline American Protestant denominations in foreign mission work. The impulse to evangelize overseas had developed slowly after the American Revolution in conjunction with the national push to expand and an emerging belief in American exceptionalism. As important a factor was the growing strength of evangelical Christianity in American life and its concern with promoting Christian civilization. The urge to spread that civilization was formalized in 1810 when Congregationalists established the first foreign mission society in the United States. Baptists followed suit four years later, and the next half-century saw the founding of roughly two dozen other foreign mission agencies. While Native Americans were the initial targets of outreach, missionaries soon began proselytizing in the Hawaiian Islands, Burma, and India. Work in China was initiated in 1830 and gained ground in the mid-1840s after the first unequal treaties opened up ports to foreign residence and allowed for the building of churches. Under pressure from the French, the Qing government also agreed to lift its ban on Christianity, thereby making China an even more attractive destination for mission work. Indeed, two of the first six American Protestant missionaries to Japan were stationed in China when they received word to relocate, and two of the others had served in China previously.2 Ostensibly in Japan to minister to the foreign community of sailors, merchants, and diplomats and their families, these six quickly launched educational and medical work among Japanese, using their identity as

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English-language speakers and carriers of Western knowledge to attract students and patients. They circumvented the ban on direct evangelization of Japanese by using the Scriptures, Christian readers, and other works imparting or upholding Christian doctrine in the classroom – in other words, by infusing their language, history, and science instruction with religion. One missionary even hung the Ten Commandments and Scripture passages translated into Japanese on the walls of his dispensary. Once their language skills allowed, these first Protestant missionaries and the few who joined them during the 1860s translated the Gospels and devotional literature, prepared tracts for sale and free distribution, and worked with Japanese converts to publish periodicals.3 Both before and after that, they imported Christian texts written in Chinese and English. The educated could read the former, and missionary instruction aimed to help students understand the latter. A particular article in the US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce actually provided for the sale of these Christian works. This clause gave permission to Japanese to buy anything but firearms and opium from Americans. Harris later told John Liggins, co-founder of the American Episcopal mission to Japan, that he had insisted on this wording “expressly to cover the sale of Scriptures and other Christian books by the missionaries.”4 Despite these diverse activities, American Protestant missionaries won few converts during their first decade. Suspicions of Christianity as a religion of black magic remained pervasive, and in the spring of 1868 the new Meiji government decided to continue the Tokugawa-era policy of placing notice boards forbidding Christianity and offering rewards to informants across the country. This coincided with the imprisonment and exile of several thousand descendants of early Catholic converts from Urakami and the execution of a handful of their leaders. Such persecution of Japanese Christians elicited condemnation from consuls general in the treaty ports and their respective governments in foreign capitals. In retaliation, they issued the stipulation that the unequal treaties would not be revised until the Japanese government granted religious tolerance to its citizens. This provision initially fell on deaf ears. By the early 1870s, however, Japanese officials had come to recognize just how firm the Western position was. Indeed, those who travelled with the government-sponsored Iwakura Mission across the United States and Europe from 1871 to 1873 found their treaty revision overtures rebuffed and the precondition of tolerance repeated often. Eager above all else to achieve a position of equality with the Western powers, Meiji officials finally relented and ordered the removal of the edict boards in February 1873. Release of the Urakami exiles had begun the previous year. This turnaround did not reflect an open-ended endorsement of Christianity

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by the Japanese government, which did not extend religious freedom until the 1890 enactment of the Meiji Constitution. It did, though, imply recognition, and with that came a sense among missionaries that Japan was on the verge of becoming a Christian land.5 That impression was reinforced by other great leaps forward for the nascent Protestant Christian movement in 1873. In particular, the arrival of new Protestant missionaries more than doubled the size of the mission force. This influx owed much to the founding of mission schools and hospitals, which facilitated the appointment of laymen and single women. Entry into the Japan field by new agencies, including one British and another Canadian, contributed as well. So did romanticism about foreign missions and – quite possibly – a fascination with Japan after the fanfare of the Iwakura Mission among members of mainline American Protestant denominations, which resulted in more applicants for missionary work and increased financial contributions to foreign mission societies. The end of the Civil War and its drain on human and material resources likewise helped expand the pool of potential missionaries and increase funding available for overseas evangelization. The year 1873 also saw public preaching undertaken in Japan and a native church organized in Tokyo. Over the next decade, the Protestant mission community continued to grow exponentially, with missionaries increasingly travelling into the country’s interior to evangelize. Waves of conversions by former samurai at schools in Kumamoto, Yokohama, and Sapporo helped create a body of native Christian leaders, who undertook tours of propagation, established churches in cities big and small, founded new schools and taught at existing institutions, and actively used the printed word to spread the Gospel. These efforts combined with the popularity of things Western, the national drive to strengthen and civilize Japan, and the loosening of ties to tradition in the wake of early Meiji government reforms to increase the size of the Japanese Protestant community. Thus, while only 16 Japanese belonged to Protestant churches in 1872, rosters listed 5,634 by 1882. The following year revivals began to sweep the country and ushered in a period of even more spectacular growth. So great was the rate of conversion that missionaries and native Protestant leaders alike “began to anticipate the day when Japan would become a Christian nation.”6 American Women’s Temperance Activism and the Origins of the World WCTU Into this milieu of rapid expansion of the Protestant Christian community in Japan stepped the World WCTU’s first round-the-world missionary, Mary Clement Leavitt. The daughter of a New England Baptist minister and abolitionist, Leavitt was born in 1830 and raised in a dry household. As was

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common among women of her class and social standing, she had trained as a teacher and worked for several years before she married. Her husband was a wealthy real estate broker, but his spendthrift ways forced her to return to the classroom to support their family of five and ultimately led to their divorce in 1878. Throughout these travails, Leavitt maintained an abiding personal commitment to temperance. A fateful meeting the year prior to her divorce with Frances Willard, then the corresponding secretary for the WCTU, inspired her to move beyond her private abstinence and simple membership in a temperance society to assume a much more active role in the burgeoning women’s temperance movement.7 Organized opposition to alcohol in the United States began in the early nineteenth century when Protestant evangelicals came to view drastically increasing consumption as a serious threat to their “effort to secure a Christian civilization.”8 Regardless of denominational affiliation, Protestants saw drinking as an indication of low moral standards and as an impediment to the coming of God’s kingdom on earth. To eradicate this scourge, they organized themselves into societies, at first church-based and then later more broadly based. Their public meetings and writings stimulated interest in temperance and even spurred the formation of the Washingtonians in 1840, a group of former tipplers who set as their goal the reform of fellow alcoholics.9 Women contributed to this surge in temperance activism by joining men’s societies and in such numbers that by the 1830s they represented more than half the membership in a number of these groups. They also organized on their own. Barbara Epstein has qualified the extent of women’s influence in and through these activities by noting that the male-led societies that allowed women to join “relegated them firmly to a subsidiary role” and that women’s independent organizations were “largely devoted to encouraging [their] temperance efforts in their own homes and immediate circles.”10 One notable exception were the Martha Washingtonians. Auxiliaries of the Washingtonians, these groups provided women alcoholics with domestic jobs and donated clothing to drunkards’ families. Through the former activity, they were seeking to reform women drinkers by providing honest employment. The latter activity reflected the belief – widely held among early temperance advocates of both sexes – that alcoholic indulgence caused poverty. Activist teetotallers argued that drinking men frivolously spent money on pints and prostitutes that should have gone to food, clothing, and rent. Furthermore, imbibing made men less productive on the job, hangovers led to tardiness and absenteeism, and both provided reason for termination, which pushed families deeper into poverty. As men and women temperance reformers

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also claimed, men who drank frequently became violent and physically abused their wives and sometimes even their children. This perception that alcohol endangered families and made women vulnerable informed the work of the Martha Washingtonians and other women’s temperance societies; it also inspired periodic and spontaneous campaigns against saloons. The largest of these began in December 1873, when a group of churchwomen in a small town in southwestern Ohio marched from saloon to saloon urging the owners to sign temperance pledges and cease selling alcoholic beverages. When their verbal appeals failed, they either occupied the saloons or demonstrated outside, all the while praying, singing, and taking note of those who entered. This crusade spread like wildfire through Ohio and neighbouring states, then into New England and the Midwest. Critical to women’s participation in the attacks against saloons were the respectability of temperance as a cause and the compatibility of women’s actions with their view of themselves as defenders of the home. The successes the crusade reaped proved fleeting; even so, the impact on those who joined was tremendous. Participants gained experience in expressing themselves in mixed company and in using legislative tactics as well as suasion. Moreover, they acquired self-confidence and a recognition of the power they had when united to effect change.11 The crusade lost momentum during the summer of 1874, though not before women’s interest in organizing a national temperance society had been whetted. That November more than one hundred women representing sixteen states met in Cleveland for the first national convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). There they set total abstinence as their goal and resolved to use persuasion and prayer, not politics, to achieve it. This conservative approach reflected the position of Annie Wittenmyer, the WCTU’s first president, who opposed woman suffrage as a danger to the home and who feared that legislative methods would eventually lead women to demand the vote.12 Frances Willard, elected corresponding secretary at the inaugural meeting, shared with Wittenmyer a deep religious faith and a strict moral code but not her distaste for women in politics or her exclusive commitment to temperance. Willard quickly moved to challenge the policy of political noninvolvement by urging her fellow Illinois union members to adopt the “Home Protection ballot” in 1875. This petition called for women’s right to vote in local elections involving issues pertaining to saloon licensing and the enforcement of prohibition. As the title of the petition implies, the demand for limited suffrage was not expressed in terms of women’s inherent rights; rather, it drew from the Victorian idea of domesticity by asserting

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women’s right as women and as victims of alcohol use to defend the home. Willard’s attempts to garner national support for the ballot initially met with intense opposition from Eastern members, but continued debate and the increasing numerical strength of pro-suffrage Midwestern unions eventually swayed a majority in favour. Her defeat of Wittenmyer in the WCTU’s 1879 presidential election reflected this shift as well as members’ growing commitment to a more aggressive approach and a more varied program.13 Willard remained at the helm of the WCTU until her death in 1898. During the first decade of her presidency alone, her charismatic leadership and support for organizational and programmatic expansion helped turn the WCTU into the largest women’s organization in the United States.14 In 1879, the WCTU boasted fewer than 30,000 members, scattered among roughly 1,000 local unions in twenty-four states. Within four years, membership had surpassed 70,000; by 1892, on the eve of the organization’s twentieth anniversary, the roster of adult members included approximately 150,000 names representing every state in the union.15 This phenomenal growth owed much to Willard’s personal popularity, letter writing, and frequent and often lengthy lecture tours, as well as to the dispatch of paid national organizers to areas without unions. Also vital to this growth were her “Do Everything” policy and her decision to grant local autonomy with respect to agenda setting. At the WCTU’s national convention in 1881, Willard introduced her “Do Everything” policy with respect to methods, but it quickly evolved into a call to diversify the organization’s agenda. Under this mantle, the WCTU came to espouse a broad program of reform that, while continuing to emphasize temperance, also attacked a host of other social problems arising from industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. Indeed, during Willard’s tenure, the WCTU pushed for prison reform, campaigned for the inclusion of Scientific Temperance Instruction (STI) in public school curricula, tried to place homeless children with foster or adoptive parents, and agitated to raise the age of consent for prostitutes.16 The national society supported as well a five-and-a-half-day work week, opposed military training in schools, and worked to promote a morally upright culture through censorship and WCTU-produced publications, films, and art. As the battle over the “Home Protection ballot” highlights, members nationwide held varied opinions regarding means and goals, and the breadth of the WCTU’s program had the potential to alienate the more conservative. Local autonomy, however, ensured that state and local unions had the liberty to set their own agendas as long as members paid dues and pledged abstinence.17 This latitude, the diversity of the national program, and the framing of reform in the

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context of Victorian womanhood combined to enhance the WCTU’s appeal and make it a vital outlet for women in late-nineteenth-century America. The two decades of Willard’s leadership coincided with the golden age of the American Protestant foreign mission movement, a period when societies proliferated, financial contributions rose sharply, and the number of foreign missionaries soared more than tenfold. Temperance reformers shared with their missionary counterparts a sense of moral superiority as well as the belief that they were God’s chosen and, from the beginning of mission work in the early 1800s, had supported foreign religious and cultural outreach. Inspired by their view that drinking was an “obstacle to gospel work” and that temperance had to “triumph everywhere” in order for missions to succeed, they embarked on a crusade to export their reform organizations and ideas.18 Willard was the catalyst for the transnationalization of the WCTU. She attributed her interest in expanding the organization beyond American shores to a visit to San Francisco in 1883. Briefly in her autobiography and later in a handbook for temperance workers around the world, she wrote that her exposure to the city’s opium dens and Chinese brothels had suddenly awakened her to the need to organize women – irrespective of their national identity – in defence of the home and themselves.19 Ian Tyrrell has noted the tendency of historians of the WCTU and biographers of Willard to perpetuate this claim to a spontaneous conversion to “internationalism,” as he has termed it.20 Debunking the same, he has argued that Willard demonstrated an interest in overseas outreach as early as 1875 and helped organize a WCTU-sponsored convention of temperance women from four countries in 1876. The subsequent years witnessed sporadic efforts by individuals to spread WCTU ideas and organize unions in Canada, the British Isles, South Africa, and Australia. Willard moved to consolidate this work and establish a sound basis for further transnationalization when, at the WCTU’s national convention in 1883, she proposed the organization of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (World WCTU). Not content to wait for its formal establishment, Willard had one year earlier asked Mary Clement Leavitt to undertake a trip abroad for the WCTU.21 In many respects, Leavitt was a logical choice. She had helped establish a WCTU branch in Boston and had served as its president for one year. She had subsequently quit teaching to devote herself full time to the temperance and suffrage movements. As a member of the executive board of the Massachusetts WCTU, she had emerged in the early 1880s as a prominent national speaker. The sternness of her expression and her apparent resemblance to George Washington may have been off-putting to some listeners; even

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Figure 1   Mary Clement Leavitt. Source: Courtesy of the Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives, Evanston, IL

so, she was an effective public speaker. She did stress the harmful impact of drinking on wives, children, and the home, yet her inclusion of personal stories and Christian ideals, and her emphasis on redemption, gave her talks an upbeat and convivial tone. When Willard first asked Leavitt to take her lecturing overseas, she had refused, possibly out of reluctance to leave her elderly father. After his death, however, she acquiesced when Willard approached her again in late 1883.22 She set sail from San Francisco less than one year later on a tour that would last seven years, take her to forty-three countries, cover about 100,000 miles, and turn the WCTU into a truly transnational force for women’s activism.23 Mary Clement Leavitt and the Introduction of the WCTU to Japan Leavitt embarked on her voyage as the World WCTU’s first round-the-world missionary with only a few dollars in her purse and no guarantee of any future financial support. Though she later wrote that she had been fortified by the belief that God was with her and that he would provide, the fact

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remains that she was in a precarious position.24 The cause of this was the World WCTU’s own lack of funds. Not until 1891 did the organization institute a policy of having affiliates pay annual dues, and even then its coffers remained low. The amount stipulated per individual member was minimal, and many national unions lacked the wherewithal to pay even that. When the society did finally begin to offer its missionaries a regular salary in the mid-1890s, the remuneration rarely covered travel and basic living expenses. Straitened circumstances necessitated that World WCTU missionaries rely on special donations from members and supporters worldwide, contributions from locals where they travelled, and assistance from denominational missionaries in the field.25 The help of American Protestants stood out as the most important and not just financially. Their language abilities, cultural understanding, personal contacts, institutional ties, and years of experience in-country made them indispensable to the early World WCTU missionaries, who were rarely able to acquire the same assets because of the brevity of their stays in any particular country. After stops in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia, Leavitt landed in Yokohama on the morning of June 1, 1886, with not a soul in sight to greet her. Members of the American Protestant mission community in the port city had received advance notice of her tour but thought she would travel to China first, so they did not expect her for months. Leavitt fully recognized the importance of mission support to the success of her undertaking, so, soon after disembarking, she made the rounds of missionary residences and the rooms of the Bible Society (an interdenominational gathering place) to introduce herself. Among the foreigners she met that day were Dr. James and Clara Hepburn, founding members of the Presbyterian mission to Japan.26 Since arriving in 1859, James had spearheaded the translation of the Old and New Testaments, prepared the first Japanese-English dictionary, taught English, math, theology, and medicine, and operated a successful dispensary, where he proselytized while providing care. For her part, Clara had opened a Sunday school at the clinic and had begun teaching English, first to adults and then to boys and girls. As long-time residents of Japan, the Hepburns had the knowledge and connections so essential for Leavitt to make any headway. Clara did not disappoint, quickly extending the helping hand Leavitt needed. Within days of their meeting, she had gathered together a group of non-missionary foreign women in Yokohama for Leavitt’s first public address.27 In a letter reporting on her initial weeks in Japan, Leavitt remarked that one of the greatest hindrances to her work to arouse interest in temperance and organize unions was the behaviour of non-Christian foreigners.28 This

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observation mirrored the experience of American Protestant missionaries, who had long struggled against the debauchery of foreign sailors, merchants, and government representatives. Though seemingly innocuous, Leavitt’s comment revealed – to borrow a phrase from William Hutchison – a “tension between Christ and culture.”29 Leavitt and her denominational counterparts believed in American culture as the most civilized; yet at the same time, they pointed out its flaws, which included intemperance. In their view, the exportation of these imperfections was impeding their own efforts to transfer a “pure” culture, meaning a Christian one.30 Indeed, Japan’s first temperance society grew out of concern about dissolute behaviour among foreigners. This organization, established by foreign residents in Yokohama in 1873, aimed specifically to reform foreign seamen.31 Nothing is known about the first group of women Leavitt addressed except that they were not missionaries. It is quite possible that Clara Hepburn invited them simply because she thought they would be able to attend on short notice. It would be a mistake, however, to disregard as a motivating factor the need, widely perceived by American Protestant missionaries and Leavitt, for a foreign community steeped in nineteenth-century New England evangelical values. Despite Hepburn’s help, Leavitt felt that she was making little progress during her early days in Japan. Her letters and reports indicate that she did meet with individual missionaries, attend church, and speak at Sakurai Jogakkō (Girls’ School), a school in Tokyo for kindergarten, elementary, secondary, and nursing students then under the management of the Presbyterian mission. Her writings, though, make no mention of another formal lecture until June 13, nearly two weeks after her arrival. The day before, Orramel Gulick of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had introduced her to Kozaki Hiromichi.32 Kozaki was of samurai descent and had studied under L.L. Janes at the School of Western Studies in Kumamoto. After some early resistance to Christianity, he had converted in 1876, inspired by Janes’s own witness and by the steadfastness of his classmates’ religious convictions in the face of intense persecution.33 He had completed his studies at the pioneering Congregational school Dōshisha in Kyoto and begun a pastoral career in Tokyo thereafter. While working fulltime as a minister, he had helped both establish the first Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Japan and launch Rikugo zasshi (Cosmos magazine), the most influential Christian periodical of the Meiji period. He had also become an adherent to the principle of temperance. Supportive of Leavitt’s mission, he invited her to speak at his church the next day. The

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assistance he rendered extended beyond this invitation: he not only interpreted for her on June 13 but also escorted her the following day on a visit to Minister of Education Mori Arinori.34 An Enlightenment thinker who in the 1870s had called for reform of feudal marriage customs to elevate women’s status, Mori was but one member of the Japanese elite with whom Leavitt had contact during her tour.35 The social standing of her acquaintances was not lost on Leavitt – or, for that matter, on the WCTU, as Frances Willard’s Presidential Address at the WCTU’s 1886 convention revealed. With pride and some exaggeration, Willard told her audience that Leavitt had enjoyed more opportunities to interact with upper-class Japanese than any foreigner before her.36 Leavitt’s sense of treading water evaporated after her meeting with Kozaki, as she launched herself into a rigorous round of private meetings and public lectures. Notable among the latter, she spoke about the fall of the Western race to a YMCA gathering and about temperance to a meeting sponsored by the Kyōfūkai (Moral Reform Society), an organization that Japanese ministers had established in order to “correct” behaviour. She also addressed a club of naval surgeons and their wives regarding the place and power of women and gave a talk titled “The Testimony of the Scriptures on the Temperance Question” to one thousand members of the Scripture Reading Society. Additional lectures at churches and mission schools both for Japanese and foreigners filled her schedule before a cholera epidemic and a government ban on public meetings induced her to leave the TokyoYokohama area at the end of July.37 Leavitt next travelled west to Kobe, Kyoto, Osaka, Wakayama, Okayama, and Nagasaki. Except for a month-long retreat on Mount Hiei, just northeast of Kyoto, she organized and agitated both hectically and with great zeal until her departure for China in mid-October. She spoke more than a dozen times during her week in Kobe, averaged two addresses per day in Okayama, and gave three talks in less than twenty-four hours in Wakayama. One Japanese periodical reported that she was being so well received that she could “take to the lectern five times in [a] single day.”38 Indeed, her talks attracted such crowds that not even standing room was available. The novelty of a Western woman speaking in public contributed to her appeal. So did her words equating the reforms she espoused with Japan’s advancement. According to Rumi Yasutake, Leavitt resorted to “‘scientific’ and empirical rather than religious discourse” to make the temperance cause “more appealing to the Japanese” after one crowd vociferously rejected her lectureending appeal that they convert.39 Yasutake offers as proof a talk by Leavitt

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titled “Shudoku no iden” (The hereditary influence of alcoholism). In this speech, Leavitt delineated the physical and mental handicaps that children inherited from drinking parents. That portion was uniformly secular. However, Leavitt introduced her topic by quoting a verse from the Book of Judges that discussed how God visited “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations.”40 Leavitt did become attuned to her environment, and she did realize that the Japanese welcomed “with especial favor everything that [would] improve the nation, and raise it to a higher rank among the nations of the earth.”41 She tailored her message accordingly. Her published lectures are laced with references to the medical and economic consequences of drinking, and that is true not just for her temperance talks. In a speech on chastity and concubinage, she spoke more about their effects on race deterioration than about morality because this was “more effective in Japan.”42 The secular tone of much of her rhetoric reflected this awareness, as well as the mentality widespread in American Protestantism that one did not have to use specifically religious language in order to carry out God’s work. Linked to this idea was the influence of post-millennialism on the thinking of many Christians, especially those engaged in reform and overseas outreach. The proponents of post-millennialism argued that the purification of society was a necessary step in preparing for the creation of God’s kingdom on earth. This interpretation “encouraged social action toward reform” and shaped an approach that gave priority to the end result over the arguments employed to achieve it.43 Leavitt herself was a post-millennialist, and her more secular discourse must be considered against this backdrop. It is also important to remember that the tailoring of her message worked both ways. When she thought that her audience would be receptive to Biblical quotations and references to God, she did not shy away from including either, as the title of her talk to the Scripture Reading Society clearly reveals. Whether wrapped in religious or scientific lingo, Leavitt’s main theme – that the acceptance of temperance and monogamy would further the civilization of Japan – won her listeners among men and women, Japanese and foreigners, Christians and non-believers.44 Her advocacy of women’s rights as wives and mothers and her appeal to women to rouse themselves to action also resonated strongly, especially among missionary women, graduates of and teachers at mission schools for girls, and native Christian men. They heeded her call to organize and established societies from Tokyo to Nagasaki both during and after her tour. For inspiring their interest in temperance, purity, and the elevation of women, Leavitt earned the sobriquet the “second Commodore Perry to the women of Japan.”45

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Iwamoto Yoshiharu and the Organization of the Tokyo WCTU Among those whom Leavitt truly inspired was Iwamoto Yoshiharu, the second son of a low-level samurai born in 1863. At the age of fourteen, Iwamoto had enrolled at Dōninsha in Tokyo, where he came under the tutelage of the school’s founder, Nakamura Masanao (Keiu). An early student of and traveller to the West, Nakamura had become convinced that Japan’s only route to equality with the West lay in adopting Western knowledge, practices, and moral values. He had devoted himself to “civilizing” and “enlightening” his compatriots, both men and women, most notably by opening Dōninsha and by translating Western texts on popular rights into Japanese. He had also served as a co-founder of the Meirokusha (Meiji Six Society) along with other such well-known authorities on the West as Mori Arinori, Fukuzawa Yukichi, and Nishi Amane. Organized in 1873, the society aimed to inform the public about current issues and debates and disseminate members’ views on those. Of particular concern to Nakamura was the servile position of Japanese women in society and the home, which he blamed for Japan’s backwardness. He charged that women’s lack of education, especially in morals and religion, had ill-equipped them to fulfill their principal duties to raise and educate future generations. In his view, “we must invariably have fine mothers if we want effectively to advance the people to the area of enlightenment and to alter their customs and conditions for the good” of Japan.46 His acceptance of Victorian ideas of womanhood, together with his advocacy of women’s education, had a profound impact on the impressionable Iwamoto, who remained at Dōninsha until he was eighteen.47 Nakamura’s influence on Iwamoto extended into the realm of the spiritual. A devout Christian, he invited Protestant missionaries to give Sunday sermons at Dōninsha and later employed several as boarding instructors. Personal witness, daily prayer meetings and Bible readings, weekly worship, and the use of religious texts in the classroom exposed Iwamoto to Christian beliefs and practices and laid the groundwork for his conversion. The seeds of his faith were further nurtured in the early 1880s by Tsuda Sen and Kimura Kumaji. After leaving Dōninsha, Iwamoto briefly studied agriculture under Tsuda, a Meirokusha member and Christian who, like Nakamura, invited missionaries into his school to evangelize. While there, Iwamoto had a chance meeting with Kimura, an American-trained ordained minister who had just returned to Japan after more than a decade abroad. Kimura’s example and guidance, as well as the revivals then sweeping Japan, intensified Iwamoto’s religious feelings and led to his baptism by Kimura in the spring of 1883.48

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Like Nakamura, Kimura did much to shape Iwamoto’s thinking about women and his decision to devote his life to their education and advancement. Kimura had been impressed by the comparatively high status and many educational opportunities enjoyed by women in the United States. He lamented the limited avenues for schooling open to Japanese women; at the same time, he criticized Protestant missionaries – then at the forefront of women’s primary and secondary instruction in Japan – for Americanizing the Christian education they provided.49 As a counter, in 1885, he and his wife Tōko opened Meiji Jogakkō. Of like mind, Iwamoto participated with other Japanese Christians in the school’s establishment and was actively involved for the next two decades as a teacher, administrative aide, headmaster, and owner.50 Two months before the founding of Meiji Jogakkō, Iwamoto and another former Tsuda pupil launched Jogaku zasshi (Woman’s education magazine), Japan’s first mass-circulated periodical for and about women. In this publication, they aimed to enlighten and educate women as to the “ideal” of womanhood, a model based on the Victorian notion that women had dominion over the home and a special mission as wives and mothers. As Rebecca Copeland has pointed out, this “favoring of domestic roles for women did not mean that they should be relieved of social responsibilities.”51 Iwamoto believed that women had a duty to improve their own position and status, as well as work to better the country, and that they could and should do so by exercising their moral authority both at home and in society. Far from being an unconditional advocate of women’s social outreach, he supported select outlets for women’s expression and, in the pages of Jogaku zasshi, tried to direct women’s social activism along channels and toward goals he thought appropriate. One of his earliest attempts to encourage yet shape women’s action was an editorial in the late-April 1886 issue titled “Yūryoku naru fujinkai” (An influential women’s society). By way of introduction, he called the present a golden opportunity for the expansion of women’s rights, arguing that “pioneer” women needed to seize the chance to “rescue” their sisters from centuries of submission and “accomplish a revolution of female society.” He identified licensed prostitution and concubinage as the greatest social evils that women had to address; he then offered a supplemental list of ills that included wives’ lack of rights, inadequate training for daughters as future wives and mothers, and discriminatory marriage and divorce practices. He expressed his hope that, in eradicating these offences, women would not mirror the actions of men, which he likened to a torrent, but instead “would

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be noble and mild, like a stream passing under a tree.” More explicitly, he wrote that women should establish an organization with branches throughout the country, publish a magazine and books to educate women and promote morality, and appeal to the government and society for change.52 Less than two months after writing this article, Iwamoto attended the lecture that Leavitt gave at Kozaki’s church. He reported that her spirit and eloquent words touched him immensely and that her prayer for the conversion of the Japanese people moved him to tears. Her Biblical arguments for temperance and public speaking by women resonated strongly, as did her mission to enlist women as reformers and organize them into temperance societies.53 Eager to further her work and realize his own hopes, Iwamoto published a translation of her talk on the hereditary influence of alcoholism in Jogaku zasshi, along with a short history of the WCTU. He also printed details of her speaking engagements in Tokyo and news about the efforts of foreign women to establish a temperance union in Yokohama. In addition, he invited her to speak at the first in a series of lectures sponsored by the magazine’s publishing company. That meeting took place on July 17, and, though Iwamoto had advertised it as for women only, men joined in the audience of more than six hundred, including a teenage Yamamuro Gumpei, who a decade later would become the first Japanese officer in the Salvation Army. Leavitt had insisted on a female interpreter, probably in order to show her listeners what a Japanese woman could do in public. With Graham Seminary graduate Watase Kameko next to her at the lectern, she briefly spoke of the need for mothers to abstain from drinking and smoking for the sake of their children. She then turned her attention to a number of Japanese customs that she viewed as harmful. One of these was concubinage, which she labelled as “impure.” She also criticized public undressing and bathing as “improper,” and she recommended reforms to Japanese clothing, in part because the practice of tightly tying together the openings of the kimono constricted the waist and was unhealthy.54 Yajima Kajiko, then principal of Sakurai Jogakkō, heard this talk and later claimed that she had understood little because of Watase’s poor interpreting. The transcript of the Japanese lacks the passion and development characteristic of Leavitt’s other speeches and has a shrewish tone. Despite these shortcomings, Leavitt did succeed in arousing interest, and about thirty women responded to her appeal to remain after the talk to discuss establishing a temperance society. Before the group adjourned, names were taken for a WCTU, and plans were made for a subsequent meeting to accomplish the actual organization.55

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Kimura Tōko was among those who pledged that day to organize. Born into a samurai family in 1848, she had married at seventeen and, during the years Kumaji studied in the United States, had struggled to support their son and her birth family. The high hopes she had for future financial security were dashed when he returned and began a ministerial career. His evangelizing, however, soon wore down her own opposition to Christianity, and after converting she became an active member of his church, first teaching Sunday school and then establishing a women’s circle, whose members made handicrafts and donated the proceeds to charity. Her commitment to advancing women achieved even greater expression through her work as secretary for the Sokuhatsukai (Women’s Association for Western Coiffures) and her management of Meiji Jogakkō.56 On July 24, exactly one week after Leavitt’s talk, Tōko carried through on her promise and, with thirteen other women, Iwamoto, and Tsuda Sen present, convened a meeting at the school to discuss further the establishment of a WCTU. A follow-up was held on August 8, again at Meiji Jogakkō, at which Tōko and the others deliberated on rules and procedures for membership. Her death from cholera ten days later, however, brought to a sudden halt the organizational process.57 Iwamoto tried to revive interest in a women’s temperance society in Tokyo by publishing information about Leavitt’s tours of western cities and notifying readers that a Japanese union had been established in Kobe. Beginning with the late-September issue of Jogaku zasshi, he also finally printed in serialized form an article that Leavitt had contributed, at his request, in early July. In “Nihon no shimai ni tsugu” (To inform my Japanese sisters), Leavitt attributed to Christianity the great advances that Western women had made and urged her female readers to believe in God and strive to fulfill their God-given duties as wives and mothers. She added that arguments against women speaking in public had no Biblical basis.58 In an attempt to silence male critics and encourage Japanese women to speak out, she wrote that, “even though it is difficult for women to go beyond their [proper] place as women, they raise the timbre of their voices in order to show the glory of God, protect their families, and refine mankind.”59 Iwamoto also worked behind the scenes with Ōgimi Motoichirō, a pastor and president of the Kyōfūkai, the same organization that had sponsored a Leavitt lecture in early July. At the urging of both, Ōgimi’s wife Yoneko and Miura Riuko, also married to a minister, decided to arrange yet another preparatory meeting. A preliminary announcement appeared in Jogaku zasshi, along with an abridged version of the World WCTU’s rules, which Iwamoto printed as a “reference” for those who would decide on bylaws for the new organization.60

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Miura and Ōgimi Yoneko held their meeting on November 9 at Toranomon Church in Tokyo with forty-one other women, Iwamoto, and Ōgimi Motoichirō in attendance. By consensus, Iwamoto served as secretary and Motoichirō as chairman for an open discussion about the breadth of the agenda the new society should pursue, its name, and the membership pledge. Twenty-two women were then chosen as founders; from this group, a committee of seven was entrusted to prepare a constitution and a set of bylaws. At the heart of the deliberations that day lay the question of whether the organization should work for temperance alone or pursue a broader reform agenda. The prevailing opinion was that intemperance was but one of many social evils that the society needed to address. To reflect this diversity of purpose, the attendees decided not to include kinshu (temperance) in the society’s name; instead, they would borrow from the Kyōfūkai and use the more inclusive word kyōfū (moral reform). They also opted against including the word “Christian.” Records of the meeting make no mention that the issue of a religious marker was even raised with respect to name.61 This exclusion was by no means an attempt to make the organization secular, nor did it reveal a lesser religious commitment on the part of the forty-three women who met on November 9. The pledge they agreed on points to the centrality of God in their thoughts and to their intent to create a society of like-minded Christians. It read: “I pledge, with God’s help, to use every appropriate method to prohibit and abolish all Japanese and Western liquors, tobacco, and other things harmful to manners and customs.”62 Shortly thereafter, Iwamoto again used his pen to lend encouragement, guidance, and a legitimizing voice to women’s efforts to organize. In a Jogaku zasshi editorial published in mid-November, he stressed that Japanese women lacked experience and influence and needed to unite in order to accomplish change. More specifically, he wrote that they should work together to promote women’s education and expand women’s rights through the abolition of prostitution and the revision of marriage, divorce, and inheritance laws that subordinated women. He also defended the decision of November 9 to name the soon to be organized women’s society in Tokyo the Fujin Kyōfūkai (Woman’s Moral Reform Society), pointing out that, while the word “temperance” appeared in the World WCTU’s name, that organization aimed to reform morality overall. The new society in Tokyo would do likewise, he added, but with a more fitting title. In short, the Japanese union would “respond to the needs of contemporary Japan at the same time that it would make clear the spirit of the World WCTU.”63 Iwamoto’s justification for the name – specifically, the distinction he drew between this new society and the World WCTU – suggests that the most

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fitting English translation for Fujin Kyōfūkai is Woman’s Moral Reform Society. I would argue, however, that WCTU is not a misnomer. Iwamoto clearly saw the organization as working in the tradition of the World WCTU, and Japanese commentary in English referred to it likewise. Moreover, members made the identification quite visibly themselves on the cover of their periodical when they launched it in 1888. The acronym “WCTU” appeared in the upper left-hand corner. Thus, I will refer to the first and all subsequent unions in Japan as WCTUs.64 The Tokyo WCTU was formally established on December 6, 1886. That afternoon, about one hundred gathered at Nihombashi Church. After an opening hymn, prayer, and a statement as to the society’s purpose, the Reverends Ebina Danjō and Tamura Naoomi spoke about the responsibilities of Christian women and women in the United States respectively.65 An appeal for members followed; then, after a short recess, officers were elected. The initial membership roster included fifty-one women, along with Iwamoto and another Japanese gentleman who were joining as special members. Their purpose was to “reform the evil ways of society, cultivate morals, prohibit drinking and smoking, and promote women’s dignity.”66 The catalyst for this birth of the Tokyo WCTU had been Mary Clement Leavitt’s visit. That said, her efforts to arouse interest in temperance and women’s advancement would have fallen on deaf ears had she toured Japan even a decade earlier. The previous work of American Protestant missionaries, the social and ideological upheaval generated by early Meiji reforms, and widespread concerns about national progress had helped create an audience receptive to her message and eager to heed her calls to organize and agitate for reform. In responding to Leavitt, the fifty-three members of the Tokyo WCTU were not merely establishing a society. They were carving out for themselves a place in the public sphere. Moreover, through their statement of purpose, they were asserting a vision of a better Japan and claiming the right and responsibility to help realize it. In the months and years ahead, they would launch a variety of activities to achieve that vision, and through those activities they would provide not only a model of action and citizenship for others but also advance the feminist movement.

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2 The Tumultuous Early Years of the Tokyo WCTU: 1886-92

The founding of the Tokyo WCTU did not occur in a vacuum of women’s public activism. Anne Walthall has shown that peasant women in the last century of the Edo period increasingly signed petitions to protest onerous taxes, complain about corrupt or overbearing local officials, and appeal for clemency for male relatives. They also joined their fellow villagers in mass marches intended to intimidate administrators into accepting their appeals, and they participated in and even instigated rice riots. Yet despite the public nature of these activities, Walthall has argued, Edo women did not view themselves as public entities.1 Those active in the Meiji period felt differently. They sought to change the larger public sphere, and in so doing they assembled in greater numbers, applied a wider variety of tactics and arguments, and brought much more attention to themselves. The early Meiji debate about the roles and status of women and the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights facilitated this evolution. So did the creation of new public spaces – a closely related development. Among those spaces, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines, lecture halls, and mission schools for girls were among the most important, as they collectively provided women with a means to learn about current events in Japan and elsewhere, issue their own calls for reform, and develop networks and “sisterhoods” for organized activism. Mara Patessio has pointed out that women who united in the first years of the Meiji period did so primarily to raise funds and provide other support services for men. The early 1880s saw a shift, however, as women began to form organizations to advance their own causes.2 One of the key catalysts was Kishida Toshiko. In 1882, she began a career as a public speaker, lecturing at first at the invitation of the Constitutional Party to mixed audiences and then by invitation to groups of women. Her spoken and written words calling for more education, greater rights, and improved status for daughters and wives spurred women to

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organize, and they did so in Kagoshima and Sendai and in many points in between over the next few years.3 Newspaper coverage of these early activists and their associations proved instructional for the founding members of the Tokyo WCTU, as many of the articles provided details on how to organize and set an agenda and offered ideas about what kinds of activities were possible. The same was true of articles in Jogaku zasshi about the work of women’s organizations overseas. But the Tokyo WCTU did not depend solely on these sources. Its leaders could also turn for guidance to Iwamoto Yoshiharu, Ōgimi Motoichirō, other Japanese male supporters, and the American Protestant women missionaries they knew. Just as crucial to the Tokyo WCTU’s transition from an idea to a functioning organization was its members’ strong sense of purpose and potential. An atmosphere of both had permeated the society’s founding meeting on December 6, 1886, and had propelled members to act quickly. The union enjoyed spectacular growth in its first two years as a result of the membership’s efforts to make the WCTU and its goals known. Internally, however, ideological differences and personal conflicts existed among leading members. These tensions would become exacerbated over time, leaving the organization and the larger reform movement in which it participated divided by 1892. This chapter focuses on the tumult of those early years. It begins with a short collective biography of the union’s first leaders to underscore what motivated and initially united them. It then discusses measures they implemented to spread their message and strengthen and expand the WCTU’s base. Finally, it explores the causes and ramifications of the discord. As this coverage will make clear, public spaces played as significant a role in the union’s early history as they did in its founding. Indeed, members used public lectures and mass-circulation periodicals – including their own – to advance their agenda. They also made the submission of petitions to state officials a regular tactic and, through these, claimed a political right and a say in the formulation of government policy. Women Reformers The Tokyo WCTU’s founders and first executives by no means typified the average Meiji woman. In 1886 she was a married rural resident with children who toiled from early morning until late at night to meet her family’s basic subsistence needs and increasingly oppressive tax obligations. Depending on the season, her daily labours might have included weeding rice fields, fertilizing vegetable gardens, foraging in nearby forests and on mountainsides for firewood and mushrooms, mixing ingredients for soy sauce and

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miso, weaving straw into hats and sandals, and spinning thread from the cocoons of silkworms she raised herself. Fitted around these activities would have been cooking, cleaning, and caring for the young, the ill, and the elderly. In short, the typical Meiji woman lacked the leisure time needed to regularly attend meetings and participate in other organized union activities. She also did not have the money that membership required. The WCTU’s inaugural rules stipulated that regular members had to pay at least three sen per month to be in good standing.4 In 1887, that figure equalled the cost of a bowl of noodles – a sum that, though by no means exorbitant, was still prohibitive for a great many. In addition, the average woman had received little more than a rudimentary education in reading and writing, if even that, and her knowledge of the world outside her village or hamlet was limited at best. As a consequence, she remained intellectually as well as physically entrenched in a community that assumed men’s superiority over women and that was largely untouched by Western-inspired discussions about women’s roles, rights, and responsibilities. It is also likely that her family, friends, and neighbours harboured animosity toward Christianity and suspicion of believers, both foreign and Japanese. To assume that they would have exerted pressure of all sorts to prevent her association with Christians would not be misguided. The same is true of speculation that the people around her would have scoffed had she argued for monogamy or refused to make sake. This is not to assert that the early leaders of the Tokyo WCTU had nothing in common with their contemporaries. Of the twenty-eight women chosen in November and early December 1886 as founders and as constitutional and bylaw committee members, executives, and officers, I have been able to confirm the identities of ten with varying degrees of biographical detail.5 All faced significant financial and time constraints that might just as easily have precluded their service. The recently widowed Ushioda Chiseko worked as a kindergarten teacher and evangelist to support herself and her five children. Yajima Kajiko, a divorcee, served as principal of Sakurai Jogakkō. Asai Saku likewise earned her own living by running a private school for boarders and commuters with the help of her only son. The other seven were married to prominent Christians whose work earned modest salaries, required them to rely heavily on their spouses to maintain the home front, and at times even involved their wives in complementary roles.6 Moreover, of these seven, at least three had very young children who needed almost constant care and attention. That two, Yuasa Hatsuko and Sasaki Toyoju, respectively operated a nursery school at home and directed a women’s sewing circle while tending to their own highlights how unaccustomed either was to an idle life.7 Their example also illustrates the fact that

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early leading members of the WCTU did not reject the social conventions of marriage and motherhood. To the contrary, the majority accepted traditional expectations and both married and had children. The fact that family and work obligations did not deter these women from active service in the Tokyo WCTU gives pause. Their involvement had to do with what distinguished them most strongly as a collective – namely, their faith and their firm belief in the importance of reforming behaviour and improving the position of women. Ushioda’s background illustrates this particularly well. While in her thirties, she came under the influence of Methodist missionaries when she enrolled at a mission girls’ school in Yokohama. These evangelists stressed individual conversion and acceptance of Christ’s teachings as the “good news of human liberation.” They argued as well that a life of faith entailed living free of sin and, even more important, giving daily witness to Christ’s example. According to Kudō Eiichi, their words and association of a “pure” life with chastity and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco resonated with Ushioda and formed an integral part of her own belief system. Equally crucial in shaping her future activism were the struggles she endured as a widow. Her limited education and lack of practical skills at the time of her husband’s death made it difficult for her to find gainful employment. Only after years of sacrifice did she acquire proper training to earn a respectable living. Her experiences during this period made her keenly aware of the disadvantages that women faced; together with her faith, that awareness caused her to lend a receptive ear to Mary Clement Leavitt’s message of reform.8 Ushioda’s cohorts followed different paths as they moved toward activism. They also came to accept Christianity through disparate processes. That said, they shared with one another and with most early Japanese Protestants three traits that facilitated the decision to convert. First, at least six of the ten moved away from home to acquire an education or find work. Physical distance weakened their ties to family and childhood communities and made them less susceptible emotionally and psychologically to pressure regarding their behaviour and beliefs. I do not want to imply that any took lightly the decision to be baptized, but such separation did likely make it easier. Second was the presence of relatives who had already become Christians and who thus could offer moral support, if only by example.9 Yuasa Hatsuko and Ebina Miya had such models in the form of their brothers, Tokutomi Sohō and Yokoi Tokio respectively, both of whom had converted while students at L.L. Janes’s school in Kumamoto. For that matter, Hatsuko and Miya as cousins had each other, and Yajima, as an aunt, had all four.10

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Finally, close ties with foreign missionaries and Christian laymen were also crucial to conversion. American Protestants played a similarly important role in leading WCTU members to lives of activism. This was especially true of single female missionaries, who had the most sustained and intimate contact with Japanese women through their schools. Whether their students and fellow teachers lived in dormitories or commuted, daily contact gave them ample opportunity to try to instill nineteenth-century New England evangelical values and a strong sense of social responsibility as Christians and women. And they did try, formally within the curricula and informally over tea and during extracurricular activities. Just as critical as their espousals of belief in Christ and their acceptance of temperance was the example they offered as socially concerned and publicly active women. To elaborate, using the words of Noriko Kawamura Ishii, that example inspired Japanese women to find “new ways of positioning themselves” in society in order to be “‘useful’ for wider social purposes.” Informing that resolve and also stemming from missionary influence were women’s higher expectations regarding marriage, their stronger determination to select their own life paths, and their fading willingness to accept “male decision-making both at home and in the public sphere.”11 Ishii made these observations about the Congregational missionaries and students at Kobe College. Though early WCTU leaders had ties with other mission schools, the many commonalities in experience make her words applicable to them as well. For example, Presbyterian Maria True provided a similar model for Yajima at Sakurai Jogakkō. Mary Kidder, a Dutch Reformed missionary, did the same for Sasaki at Ferris Jogakkō. Louise Pierson of the Woman’s Union Missionary Society of America did her part for Ibuka Seki at Kyōritsu Jogakkō.12 True, Kidder, and Pierson had spearheaded educational outreach among Japanese women at their respective institutions, and the emphasis they placed on elevating their sex through learning, living a righteous life, believing in the Bible and the power of prayer, and contributing to the betterment of society left indelible marks on the psyches of Yajima, Sasaki, and Ibuka.13 As for Yuasa Hatsuko and Ebina Miya, one of their greatest guiding forces was not a single female missionary but rather a married male Christian layman. L.L. Janes, a fervently religious former officer in the US Army, was hired in 1871 to teach at the School of Western Studies in Kumamoto. As young girls, Yuasa and Ebina had clamoured to join their brothers at Janes’s institute. His wife initially taught them, but her resignation after a brief period left them without an instructor. Undeterred, the girls insisted on

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pursuing their studies, even though that meant sitting in the hallway outside the boys’ classroom without desks or a heater. Little time passed before their “classmates” objected to their presence. Janes responded by pointing out that the boys’ mothers were also female. This reply, simple yet firmly grounded in his belief that women had the same abilities as men to learn and the same duty to help build a new Japan, planted in the malleable minds of Yuasa and Ebina a sense of self-worth and obligation.14 That lesson also shaped the thinking of Janes’s male students, including Ebina’s future husband, and doubtless contributed to the support he later gave to his wife’s public activities.15 Equally influential in moulding Yuasa and Ebina’s characters were Janes’s assertion that a Christian life entailed strict adherence to nineteenth-century New England evangelical values and his depiction of Christianity as a faith best expressed through service to one’s community and country. His patriotic rhetoric echoed that of American Protestant missionaries, male and female, as well as the Meiji state. Given their respective influence in shaping early members of the Tokyo WCTU, it is no wonder that the union worked for the sake of “country,” as well as for “God” and “home.” Society members also acted for “self” – a word far less charitable than the other three but still important to understanding their motivations. Membership in the WCTU provided a forum for social exchange and intellectual stimulation and offered a release from the drudgery of household chores and work obligations. It also gave women opportunities to challenge themselves and fulfill their own potential. This combination certainly informed the decisions of many to join. The opportunity for meaningful service did too, as illustrated by the range of activities leaders initiated in the weeks and months after December 6, 1886. The Initial Flourish of Activity A mere three weeks after the founding of the Tokyo WCTU, nearly a dozen members gathered to develop plans to convene regular meetings for executives and the rank and file. Such gatherings would serve as valuable forums for members to discuss potential activities, plan or delegate responsibility, keep informed about relevant issues, and rejuvenate themselves. The WCTU’s rules included provisions for periodic meetings, along with special prayer sessions and conferences. Talk of a meeting program for the following year dominated the conversation in late December. The resulting schedule was nothing if not rigorous. Executives met roughly once a month to discuss the status of dues as well as their plans to publish and distribute free temperance tracts, among other business matters. Regular members

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gathered almost as frequently for meetings at churches all around Tokyo. These sessions typically began and ended with prayer and hymns and included as the main attraction a speech by a distinguished Japanese male Christian. The society celebrated its first anniversary with an afternoon of reports by the secretary and treasurer, officer re-elections, and inspirational speeches. The event continued into the evening with a banquet to which honorary members and other select supporters were invited. From her table, Kushida Shigeko delivered an impassioned plea about the union’s need for a formal office to coordinate activities and maintain records. Her appeal netted nearly ¥200 – far short of the total needed yet enough to display the zeal of those who gave and to reflect the promise they saw in the society’s future.16 Along with these executive, regular, and anniversary gatherings, public lectures served as a critical means of outreach for the WCTU in 1887. Indeed, they would be a core activity throughout the Meiji period. Activists in the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights had made extensive use of public lectures in the 1870s and early 1880s to rally support for a national assembly. The success of speakers in stimulating open criticism of the government in urban and rural areas led the state to impose harsh restrictions on public meetings. Permit requirements and a prohibition on advertising for political assemblies, among other constraints, ultimately contributed to the collapse of the movement in the mid-1880s. These same repressive measures, however, failed to squelch enthusiasm for public lectures. The podium had proven to be an effective tool for influencing citizens and the state, which by 1881 had given in to the public clamour and declared that it would draft a constitution and establish a national assembly by 1890. Developments like these were not lost on moral and social reformers. In the second half of the Meiji period, temperance and anti-prostitution groups in particular would rely heavily on the lectern when propagating reform principles and trying to generate support for specific campaigns. In so doing, they would be following the example of earlier public activists, including Iwamoto and the leaders of the Tokyo WCTU. The latter sponsored four public assemblies in 1887 and at least three in 1888, with one in the second year spanning several evenings. The rosters of speakers represented a veritable who’s who of the Japanese Christian community and included the Reverends Ibuka Kajinosuke, Matsuyama Takayoshi, Hoshino Mitsuta, and Yokoi Tokio.17 The final meeting of 1887 also found Dutch Reformed missionary Guido Verbeck and members Sasaki, Yuasa, and Kushida at the lectern. Notable among those who spoke in 1888 were Pandita Ramabai of India’s WCTU and the World WCTU’s Emma

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Ryder, who visited Japan briefly while en route from the WCTU’s convention in Philadelphia to India, where the organization planned to build a home for young high-caste widows.18 Such participation by foreigners and eminent native men lent the Tokyo WCTU’s public lectures and the union itself an air of respectability and authority that was vital to the nascent group. Equally important, their presentations attracted more diverse audiences than would have been the case had the programs included only Japanese women.19 To maximize that potential, the society’s leaders advertised in advance in Jogaku zasshi and a range of other periodicals and held all but two of the meetings in 1887 and 1888 at Kōseikan, a public hall in central Tokyo. This facility provided a more neutral setting than a church and could easily accommodate one thousand people, an audience far larger than any Protestant chapel in the capital could seat. Regardless, the hall still proved too small for the union’s first lecture, as simple curiosity and sincere interest produced a standing-room-only crowd and forced members to turn dozens away at the door. Many of those who did find space were very likely surprised that the meeting had a decidedly religious flavour, given the secular setting. For example, the gathering began with a prayer and an instrumental rendition of a hymn. In addition, Ibuka used the platform to argue that the only way for the Japanese to reform society and improve women’s status was to “borrow the power of Christianity.”20 Such religious content reflected members’ hopes of winning more to the Christian faith, as well as their agreement with Ibuka’s claim. Subsequent public lectures continued to include hymns and prayers, and statistics reveal that attendance suffered little as a consequence. Indeed, meetings in November 1887 and December 1888 attracted one thousand each. Not averse to using gimmicks to draw even more, the WCTU borrowed a slide projector for a series of lectures in March 1888. The contraption struck most Japanese as curious at the time, and, even though the organizers used it to illustrate the physiological harms of drinking, the novelty of seeing how it worked pulled in more than two thousand listeners over the event’s three days.21 In late December 1887, Tokyo WCTU executives decided to employ yet another familiar technique for spreading their reform message and stimulating organizational growth when they voted to launch a monthly periodical. Their determination to publish placed them squarely within the tradition of Japan’s burgeoning modern press. As James Huffman has observed, Japan’s increased contact with the West after the 1850s resulted in a growing awareness among the country’s elites of the importance of news and the power of the press to mould public opinion. In the spring of 1868, a flood of newspaper articles critical of the new Meiji government induced officials

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to enact the first in a series of laws to control the press. Yet many in government continued to see regularly published periodicals with information and editorial opinions as a vital tool for civilizing commoners and making them agents of Japan’s modernization. Officials thus sponsored the development of a daily press in the first years of the Meiji period. They withdrew their patronage, however, in the mid-1870s in the face of fiscal constraints, political crises, and, most noticeably, the strengthening voice of government critics in print. In particular, advocates of freedom and popular rights were beginning to debate state policy issues in established and newly created papers. In doing so, they came to envision themselves not simply as transmitters of what the government deemed as enlightened but also as citizens who had their own views about how Japan should modernize and who felt a duty to shape public and private thinking in line with those views.22 This new understanding of journalistic responsibility – this infusing of professional with civic obligation – spread among male and female writers. What is more, it transcended newspapers and characterized many of the magazines published during the mid- to late Meiji period, including Jogaku zasshi and the Tokyo WCTU’s monthly, Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi (Tokyo woman’s moral reform magazine).23 The inaugural issue of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi appeared in April 1888, a year that saw the publication of no fewer than eight periodicals directed primarily toward female readers. This figure represents but a small fraction of the approximately 160 women’s magazines published between 1877 and 1912. Increasing rates of literacy contributed to this boom; so did the strong desire of publishers and editors to encourage women either to become the Confucian-influenced ryōsai kembo (good wives and wise mothers) of state policy or to embody the ideals of Christian womanhood.24 As of 1888, regulations allowed women to publish magazines on topics related to learning and the arts but prohibited all but native men twenty years of age and older from producing regularly printed media that dealt with social and political issues. Tokyo WCTU executives had no intention of so restricting the content of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi. They wanted to use the pages of the magazine to agitate for social change, but they also wanted to retain editorial control. So they created an organizational structure for the magazine that abided by the letter of the law though not its spirit. On the back page of the first issue, they credited two men, Iwamoto and special member Fukuhara Yūshirō, as editor, and publisher and printer, respectively. Regular members Sasaki and Asai were listed only as part of the editorial committee, but the reins of power clearly lay in their hands. Indeed, the two of them produced the maiden copy of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi from the former’s home, and beginning with

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the second issue, they included a special note in English that identified first Sasaki and then later Asai as the editor. They continued in Japanese to credit men for the editing, publishing, and printing, but the reality was not lost on the public. In short order, Tōkyō keizai zasshi (Tokyo economic journal) praised the periodical as the nation’s only magazine for women actually by women.25 Twenty-two pages thick and priced at six sen per copy (plus one sen for postage if sent outside Tokyo), the first issue opened with editorials by Asai and Sasaki. Asai appealed to readers to aid the WCTU in its mission to reform Japanese customs, while Sasaki provided ideological support for the periodical and for the public role that members had assumed. In particular, Sasaki argued that women’s nature and thoughts differed from men’s and that these dissimilarities prevented men from knowing what women truly believed. Therefore, women had to end their reliance on men and begin to express themselves with their own voices.26 After these opinion pieces came a biographical sketch of the World WCTU’s president, a letter from Frances Willard expressing her delight with and hopes for the Tokyo WCTU, a talk by Randolph Churchill in favour of prohibition in England, and an article on the repatriation of Japanese prostitutes from Hong Kong. The inaugural issue also carried reports of other reform societies, details of WCTU meetings, a list of new members, an advertisement for Jogaku zasshi, and three songs that Sasaki had composed for use at union meetings and for family and individual prayer. Collectively, this content reflected Asai and Sasaki’s advocacy of temperance, the abolition of prostitution, and greater rights and a voice for women. The articles and reports also encouraged membership in the WCTU and celebrated and promoted its activities. Such materials were intended to strengthen and expand the organization’s base. Sasaki’s prayer songs similarly had a function – namely, to evangelize. No single component of the periodical made its religious orientation clearer than the cover. As Figure 2 reveals, the front showed an angel in the shape of a Japanese woman floating before a globe, with the islands of Japan visible. From her right hand cascaded cards bearing the title of the magazine and the Tokyo WCTU’s name, while in the upper left corner a cross shot rays of light in all directions. The symbolism of members widely espousing reform principles as God’s light shone down on them is clear. So is the depiction of the WCTU as the agent of reform that would enable Japan to become an equal to the nations dwarfing the island country. During the early days of the Tokyo WCTU, members did indeed resemble this image as they reached beyond Tokyo to espouse their values. News of

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Figure 2   The

front cover of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, no. 1 (14 April 1888).

Source: Reproduced from Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, vol. 1 (April 1888-June 1889) (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1985). Courtesy of Fuji Shuppan (reprints)

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the society’s formation generated requests for lecturers from nearby prefectures, and officers and regular members responded by embarking on many organizational trips. In the first five months of 1888 alone, they travelled to Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa to stimulate discussion about reform, counsel individuals interested in establishing unions, advertise for Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, and win members for the WCTU itself. That same spring, honorary member Tsuda Sen assisted in this outreach by speaking and organizing on behalf of the society while on a six-week tour of Saitama, Gunma, Nagano, and Yamanashi.27 In August 1887, the Tokyo WCTU also printed a thousand copies of a prospectus and began to distribute these at meetings and in letters to Japanese throughout the homeland and abroad.28 An abridged English version appeared two months later in Union Signal, courtesy of Nemoto Shō. Then studying at the University of Vermont under the auspices of railway tycoon and temperance advocate Frederick Billings, Nemoto had earlier notified the World WCTU of the Tokyo union’s establishment and had since translated a newspaper article about one of the society’s public lectures for reprinting in Union Signal.29 These specific steps, taken primarily to publicize the WCTU’s existence and purpose and garner support, reaped great rewards. Of the 4,530 copies of the magazine distributed in 1888, nearly one-third went to readers residing outside the capital.30 Moreover, the union’s membership roster increased dramatically after the prefectural tours.31 The novelty of the WCTU and the continued popularity of Westernization spurred this expansion. Ongoing growth in the Christian community played a role that was more direct and, hence, more significant. Otis Cary used the word “rapid” to describe just how quickly Protestant Christianity advanced in the 1880s, providing ample statistics as proof in his study of late-Meiji Christianity. Specifically, he noted that between 1882 and 1888 the number of married and single missionaries operating in Japan jumped from 145 to 301; the number of organized churches from 93 to 249; the number of church members (approximate) from 4,987 to 28,065; the number of schools (excluding Sunday schools) from 70 to 119; the number of ordained Japanese ministers from 49 to 142; and the number of Bible women from 37 to 70. All of the individuals included in these figures contributed to the WCTU’s development by evangelizing, while the institutions facilitated the formation of networks, the spread of information, and the staging of events for organizational and propagandistic purposes.32 Of these, single women Protestant missionaries, Protestant schools for girls, and Bible women were especially influential, and the fact that their numbers increased almost twofold or more from 1882 to 1888 deserves note.33 So, certainly, does the work of WCTU members themselves

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on behalf of the society. That the union’s membership roughly quadrupled in 1887 and more than doubled in 1888 speaks to the enthusiasm and conviction of executives and the rank and file as well as to the range and number of activities they undertook during these first two years.34 The Fight for Ideological Control between Yajima Kajiko and Sasaki Toyoju The Tokyo WCTU’s initial spurt of public activity and the phenomenal growth the society enjoyed belied, however, the existence of ideological differences, personal animosities, and ongoing power struggles among leading members. This turmoil did not render the union completely ineffective, but it contributed to a marked decline in membership after 1888 and gave rise to intense criticism not only from within the organization but from the larger Christian community as well. Yajima and Sasaki, the WCTU’s first president and secretary, initially stood at the centre of the storm. Separated by twenty years in age and dissimilar childhoods, they differed in their views of reform priorities and advocated divergent approaches to social action. The more conservative yet persistent and pragmatic of the two, Yajima was born in 1833 into a well-to-do Kumamoto peasant family. Her parents so despaired that she was a girl (their sixth) rather than a boy that they left her nameless until one of her sisters took pity and provided the infant with an appellation. Her upbringing reflected the ideology of danson johi (respect men and despise women) that had informed this reception. Like her sisters, she received no formal education and learned instead to read and write by transcribing copies of the Chinese classics and Onna daigaku (The greater learning for women). The latter defined “proper” conduct for wives and stressed above all else women’s obedience to men. Yajima’s mother further instilled this message through personal example and practical instruction in household management, including lessons on how to handle servants and brew sake. At the relatively advanced age of twenty-five, Yajima finally assumed the role of wife herself when her brother arranged her marriage to Hayashi Shichirō. Hayashi had been wed twice before and had three young children, yet his samurai status and financial security made him appear to be a good match. He loved sake, however, and became physically abusive when drunk. Yajima endured his violent outbursts and bore him three more children, on one occasion even fending off a sword attack while cradling one in her arms. After a decade of this kind of married life, she had had enough and fled to her parents’ home. There she declared her intention never to return to her husband by cutting her hair short, something Japanese women had done for centuries to signal their withdrawal from active life. This act and her unwillingness to accept any entreaties from Hayashi elicited

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Figure 3   Yajima

Kajiko.

Source: Reproduced from Arubamu Iinkai, ed., Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988). Courtesy of the Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai

great condemnation from family and neighbours because of the shame associated with divorce and, for relatives, the physical burden she now imposed. After five troubled years of relying on her sisters’ hospitality and moving peripatetically, Yajima relocated to Tokyo to care for her ailing brother, a civil servant then working in the capital.

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In Tokyo, Yajima enrolled in a one-year teacher training course, having a desire to learn and seeing an opportunity for economic independence in the state’s decision to make primary education compulsory. Soon afterwards, she found employment in a public elementary school, where her skills were rewarded with an initial salary and later raises more typical of male than female teachers. A spark of interest in Christianity and the news that the Presbyterian missionary Maria True wanted to hire a Japanese woman to help her run the mission’s Shin’ei Jogakkō led Yajima to apply for the job five years later, in 1878.35 True found Yajima’s enthusiasm and seriousness appealing and, overlooking her habit of smoking and her limited knowledge of Christianity, hired her. True’s daily witness to her own faith and her decision to have her new assistant teach Bible and ethics classes nurtured in Yajima a belief in God and support for nineteenth-century New England evangelical values. Yajima soon replaced her pipe with a hymnal and the Scriptures and, in late 1879, publicly professed her faith and was baptized by True’s compatriot, David Thompson. The following year, when the Presbyterian mission assumed financial responsibility for Sakurai Jogakkō, Yajima was promoted to principal of that school in recognition of her facility at administration and teaching. In that capacity, she oversaw the merger of Shin’ei and Sakurai in 1889. Subsequently, she served as head of the new institution, named Joshi Gakuin (Women’s Academy), until her retirement in 1921 at the age of eighty-two.36 Shortly after arriving in Tokyo and years before she met True, Yajima had an affair with a married man and became pregnant. She attempted to mitigate the scandal by entrusting her newborn daughter to the care of a farming family and then, once the child reached school age, adopting her back. In keeping with this subterfuge, Yajima never spoke publicly about the affair, and her secret only became widely known after her death when her nephew, Tokutomi Roka, divulged it in a censorious article.37 Katano Masako has postulated that the burden of hiding this secret manifested itself in Yajima’s tenacity and profound sense of responsibility for the success of the WCTU.38 Yajima’s silence makes any assessment about the psychological impact of having and hiding an illegitimate child little more than speculation. Her reticence did not, however, extend to the experiences that led her to become a fierce proponent of temperance. While she rarely identified her husband’s abuse as a cause, she did repeatedly refer to her early years as a teacher and the link she saw between parental drinking and a child’s poor performance in the classroom. For example, in a 1902 speech, she related how she had initially thought it odd that some of her students made no headway with their lessons despite great effort. One day she accompanied one of her

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slowest home only to find the child’s father inebriated. Additional home visits and questions to her class revealed that all of her students who struggled had drinking parents – a fact that made her realize that, as a consequence of heredity, “sake not only destroyed families and weakened individuals” but also “enfeebled precious citizens from all over Japan.”39 A recent transplant to Tokyo from a distant rural area, Yajima likely lacked at the time a sound understanding of the principles of heredity. Whether she already had the clearly defined nationalistic consciousness this story displays is also questionable. What is certain is that her experiences as a teacher heightened her concerns about the harm done by drinking. So she embraced Leavitt’s call to women to agitate against alcohol. At the November 1886 organizational meeting of the Tokyo WCTU, she argued that kinshu (temperance) should be included in the union’s name because intemperance was such a serious threat. Sasaki countered with an impassioned statement about how the society needed to address a broader range of social evils and how kyōfū (moral reform) should be used instead, as this term better reflected such an agenda. Sasaki prevailed, though this did not settle disagreements over reform priorities. Quite the opposite – differences of opinion persisted, and the election of Yajima as president and Sasaki as secretary the following month impended trouble. As Utsu Yasuko has written, their appointments imbued the Tokyo WCTU from the very beginning with an “air of two great women who did not see eye to eye.”40 Differences in upbringing and especially in education contributed to this ideological gap. Yajima had been raised to accept women’s subservience to men and had received only the training necessary to become a “good” wife; by contrast, Sasaki had enjoyed freedoms and educational opportunities customarily given only to boys. Indeed, her samurai father had treated her after her birth in 1853 in Miyagi prefecture just as he would have his only son, whom he had lost. For example, he permitted her to pursue her studies as far as she wanted and encouraged her to develop her talents to their utmost. He also placed responsibility for the family’s financial well-being on her shoulders after his dismissal from official service in 1869. Sasaki took full advantage of this liberal and liberating upbringing and, in the process, developed a profound sense of her own potential, which bordered on arrogance. She became especially self-assured about her ability to influence others, as the following anecdote from her teen years reveals: dressed in a man’s clothes, she would race her horse through the streets of Sendai and castigate juvenile delinquents and scoundrels for their behaviour. Sasaki never wrote about these crusades herself, so the specific conduct she found

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objectionable remains murky. Her rides, however, presaged her future work as a WCTU reformer and her tendency to be outspoken and confrontational in pursuit of her goals. Sasaki’s commitment to the WCTU’s nineteenth-century New England evangelical values and Christian faith began to take root in the early 1870s after she moved to Yokohama to further her education. There she enrolled in the girls’ school run by Dutch Reformed missionary Mary Kidder.41 Kidder focused her instruction on English and Christianity, paying special attention to the latter with Sunday worship services, daily group readings from the Book of Mark, and regular use of the Scriptures in the classroom. Utsu, Sasaki’s foremost biographer, has posited that the decidedly evangelical nature of Kidder’s instruction and her reliance on the Bible helped instill in Sasaki a belief in the “sanctity of the individual” and the “equality of all” before God.42 Kidder’s advocacy of monogamy likely reinforced both, while sharpening Sasaki’s awareness of the inferior and precarious position of women in Japanese society.43 Sasaki’s subsequent studies at Nakamura Masanao’s Dōninsha built on the religious foundations that Kidder had laid and further refined Sasaki’s thinking about women’s roles and rights. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Nakamura firmly believed that women’s education and the elevation of their status were vital to Japan’s development as a civilized nation. In keeping with that conviction, he opened Dōninsha to women in 1874 and formally established a women’s department five years later. As did their male schoolmates, female students read the Bible and attended prayer meetings and worship services. They also studied the Chinese classics and Western political and social theory. While supervising a group of students on a shogunatesponsored trip to England in the 1860s, Nakamura had become deeply impressed by the writings of British political philosopher and social reformer John Stuart Mill.44 In 1871, he expressed his admiration by translating Mill’s classic treatise on liberal democracy, On Liberty, and later introduced Mill’s works into the curricula at Dōninsha. One of the most important texts assigned to female students was The Subjection of Women, in which Mill argued for equality of political, economic, and social opportunity for men and women and decried the “legal subordination of one sex to the other” as “one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.”45 Nakamura became well acquainted with this feminist polemic soon after its publication in 1869. Though a complete Japanese translation did not appear until 1879, he incorporated its ideas and arguments into women’s education at Dōninsha from the start. By so doing, he hoped to cultivate a generation of young women

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who not only intellectually recognized their subordination but also had the desire and ability to lead their sisters in the fight for greater rights. In November 1876, less than three years after enrolling at Dōninsha, Sasaki made it clear that Nakamura’s efforts were bearing fruit. That month she joined him in addressing several hundred women at a teachers’ training school in Tokyo. The gathering attracted press attention as one of the country’s first lecture meetings for women with female as well as male speakers. Tokyo’s second-largest daily at the time, Tōkyō nichi nichi shimbun (The Tokyo daily paper), included Sasaki’s name and the fact that she spoke about how to manage family finances effectively.46 Sasaki’s own experience as the caretaker of her family’s resources must have alerted her to the crucial importance of careful spending and saving and to women’s insecurity as non-wage earners. The contents of her talk remain unknown, but future statements she made regarding women’s economic dependence on men give clues. For example, in an 1888 editorial in Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, she articulated her views about a woman’s economic rights in the family. Specifically, she argued that the functions of a wife differed from those of a husband but were no less essential to the family’s prosperity. Thus, even if a wife did not earn a wage outside the home, she had a right to half the household’s property. To further justify equal division, Sasaki asserted that this would bring harmony to the family and keep a husband from selfishly and frivolously wasting the household’s money, as he was wont to do.47 As these words suggest, Sasaki probably offered a feminist critique worthy of Mill in her 1876 talk. Despite the promise Sasaki displayed with that address, her path to becoming a full-fledged reformer and advocate for women was not smooth. Indeed, within months of her lecture she became embroiled in a public scandal over her affair with Sasaki Motoe. Motoe, also a native of Sendai, was an adopted son and married father of three who had studied medicine with James Hepburn in Yokohama and there converted to Christianity. He moved to Tokyo in 1873 to work as an army doctor and reportedly became an English teacher at Dōninsha after it opened. Sasaki began her liaison with him knowing full well that he had a family and that her involvement transgressed the moral code espoused by Kidder and Nakamura. She could do so, Utsu has contended, because she accepted the idea, put forth by both those teachers, that a true Christian union required love between husband and wife. She and Motoe shared such affection, whereas Motoe and his non-Christian wife by an arranged marriage did not. So rationalizing the affair, Sasaki began living with Motoe in 1877. Motoe annulled his marriage three years later, and in late 1886 he formally entered Sasaki’s name into his

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own family register as his spouse. By then, Sasaki had borne him four children, buried one, and accepted the rite of baptism from David Thompson. She had also created her women’s sewing circle to teach Western techniques, provide women with an outlet for developing friendships, and, most important, educate and enlighten them. Sasaki’s formation of this society in September 1886 signalled her readiness to return to public work. The organization of the Tokyo WCTU later that fall offered her a natural forum to expand her efforts for the sake of women, and she moved quickly to assert ideological leadership over the nascent group.48 Sasaki intended to use the WCTU’s inaugural meeting as an opportunity to reaffirm the decision the union’s organizers had made in November regarding the society’s name and agenda. She refrained from doing so because of the tightness of the scheduled program of speeches and administrative business, the late hour, and bad weather. She remained adamant, however, about advancing her views of reform priorities over those of Yajima. So, shortly after the meeting, she committed her planned remarks to paper and submitted them for publication in Jogaku zasshi. Her article appeared in three instalments beginning with the magazine’s issue of January 22, 1887. In that piece, Sasaki took exception to a range of age-old customs among women, including keeping quiet in the presence of men, committing suicide to protect one’s chastity, engaging in prostitution to help impoverished parents, and shaving eyebrows and blackening teeth after marriage. She disputed the entrenched assumption that these were virtues, arguing instead that they were “obscene” and “savage” customs that invited foreigners’ ridicule and that were preventing Japan from becoming truly civilized. Because women perpetuated these ways, she continued, women had a duty to help eradicate them. In her mind, the WCTU should set an example, and she urged her fellow members to take the first step and abandon these customs themselves.49 Heeding her own exhortation, Sasaki published a second article in Jogaku zasshi in March 1887 that directly addressed the problem of women’s reticence to express their opinions. In this piece, she emphasized that cooperation with male reformers was crucial to the WCTU’s success. She cautioned against making men the sole public voice of the union, however, because their sex precluded them from truly knowing women’s thoughts. Only women, she said, could express those.50 As oppressive and barbaric as Sasaki found the convention of women’s silence, she considered Japan’s system of licensed prostitution even worse. Thus, in the weeks after her first article appeared in Jogaku zasshi, she continued to push the WCTU to work toward its elimination. Her prodding revived the debate about the union’s reform priorities at an April 24, 1887,

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meeting of the union’s executive committee. Once again Sasaki convinced a majority of members to vote with her, and the committee passed a formal resolution identifying the “abolition of geisha and prostitutes” as the WCTU’s primary objective.51 This triumph emboldened Sasaki to become even more outspoken in expressing her view of the WCTU’s purpose. On May 2, just eight days later, she took the podium at a Jogaku zasshi-sponsored public lecture meeting to argue that unions in the United States and England could focus on temperance because neither country had licensed prostitution. That Japan did revealed that “true civilization had yet to be imported.” Eliminating prostitutes, geisha, and concubines thus represented an urgent task, and, she averred, the Tokyo WCTU was working to fulfill it “with the help of God.”52 Sasaki also penned a formal prospectus for the society, which appeared – under her title of secretary alone – in a column for special announcements in a late-May issue of Jogaku zasshi. She opened with the general statement that, “on this occasion, when the opportunity to expand the rights of women is ripe,” the members of the Tokyo WCTU “will do their duty” to publicize the harm that old and newly imported “evil ways” cause, abolish the same, and thereby create an environment conducive to the spread of “good customs.” A list of specific goals the society would pursue followed. These included ending practices and abrogating laws that perpetuated the ideology of danson johi, advocating monogamy, eliminating all prostitutes and concubines, correcting relations between men and women in the home, and eradicating drinking, smoking, prodigality, and laziness. Sasaki ended with an appeal for supporters, but not before declaring that the WCTU would undertake first the abolition of prostitution and concubinage.53 In early August, after months of apparent silence, Yajima responded to these challenges to her leadership by publishing in Jogaku zasshi a second prospectus under her own name and title of Tokyo WCTU president. Her version mirrored Sasaki’s in identifying a broad range of reform goals, but it differed in three important respects. First, she placed equal emphasis on each aim instead of privileging one over the others. Second, she painted a more conservative portrait of the roles that Tokyo WCTU women would play in bringing about change. Whereas Sasaki had depicted members as independent agents for reform, Yajima described them as helpmates who would “assist their husbands in the home [and] help gentlemen in society.” Finally, Yajima likened reform work to an expression of loyalty to Japan’s imperial couple. Specifically, she declared that the freedoms and rights citizens had been granted since the Meiji Restoration were due to the “virtue of the emperor and empress.” She found this especially true of the gains

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women had made against inequality, arguing that women had a duty to respond to the “emperor’s mercy” by eliminating “evil ways that degraded women and opposed the [imperial] intent.”54 To establish the authority of her prospectus over Sasaki’s, Yajima had the WCTU print one thousand copies of her version and begin widespread distribution days before it appeared in Jogaku zasshi. These mimeographs took the form of an eight-page pamphlet titled “Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai no susume” (Advice from the Tokyo WCTU) and, quite remarkably, credited authorship to both Yajima and Sasaki.55 Records reveal nothing about any communication between the two regarding the dual listing. Even if they had corresponded or talked about this beforehand, the idea that Sasaki acquiesced rings hollow, given how forcefully she had expressed her own views and tried to establish her leadership during the preceding months. Unilateral inclusion by Yajima thus stands out as the most probable explanation. Just as open to conjecture is why Sasaki did not publicly refute the attachment of her name. She did include her own prospectus, identified as that of the Tokyo WCTU, in a temperance tract she published with union backing in December 1887.56 Otherwise, she maintained an unusual silence regarding Yajima’s version. She may have done so sensing that Yajima’s more conservative depiction of women’s roles in reform work had the support of a sizable number of members and that any direct rebuttal could weaken her power base. She may also have recognized that, by invoking the imperial institution, Yajima had given the society much needed legitimacy. The fact that the WCTU accepted Yajima’s text without rancorous debate suggests that, at the very least, the first is true.57 Escalating Tensions and Rising Criticism The absence of open acrimony between Yajima and Sasaki proved shortlived. In the summer of 1887, their relationship was friendly enough for Sasaki to propose marriage between her niece and Yajima’s son. Yajima initially agreed, but her ideological differences and ongoing power struggle with Sasaki soon infected her personal feelings, and just days before the wedding in October she broke the engagement.58 Tension was less palpable at the Tokyo WCTU’s first annual meeting in early December, at which Yajima and Sasaki were re-elected to their respective positions as president and secretary. Three months later, in early February 1888, the two even collaborated when they jointly sent letters to Andō Tarō, then acting Consul General to Hawaii, and Ueki Emori, a well-known activist in the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights and a member of the prefectural assembly in Kōchi. As had been widely reported in the press, Andō had taken a stand

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for temperance in the Hawaiian Islands when he publicly disposed of two large casks of sake that he had received by pouring the contents down a sewage drain. Yajima and Sasaki commended him for setting such a “fine example” for his fellow Japanese in Hawaii and at home, claiming that his “one act should impress public sentiment even more deeply than one hundred lectures.”59 Ueki had also received media attention, in his case for having submitted in early 1888 a petition to abolish licensed prostitution in Kōchi. In a joint letter to him, Yajima and Sasaki applauded him for shaming men for letting their women publicly prostitute themselves and expressed hope that his appeal would succeed for the sake of “Japan’s future civilization.”60 The impression of harmonious co-operation these letters created had little basis in reality, though, and conflict openly erupted at an executive committee meeting convened on February 4, just two days before the letter to Andō was dated. As mentioned earlier, committee members had decided in late December to publish Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, but they did not appoint an editorial staff straight away. Yajima recognized that whomever was chosen would become the union’s most prominent public voice. For that power to fall into Sasaki’s hands was anathema to her. So at the February meeting, she tried to forestall Sasaki’s likely selection by herself naming two other members, Ogino Ginko61 and Shimada Kashi.62 Both Ogino and Shimada endorsed Sasaki’s broad view of reform priorities as well as her call for women to be openly assertive in bringing about change. This fact could not have escaped Yajima, who may have picked these two to appease the society’s more radical faction. In any case, Ogino and Shimada thwarted her plan by refusing to serve. Immediately afterwards, Yajima found her authority challenged by yet another member, who proposed that the society be split into two separate unions, one of which would focus only on temperance and the other of which would address a broad range of social issues. The committee vetoed this idea before dispersing, but the spectre of organizational division continued to loom. The election of Sasaki and Asai Saku as the magazine’s co-editors at a regular meeting one week later did nothing to reduce tensions.63 Asai shared Sasaki’s commitment to improving women’s rights and likewise believed that women had to engage directly in reform work themselves. She also possessed a sharp mind and did not hesitate to criticize harshly that which she found objectionable. She differed from Sasaki, however, in her view of the value of women’s work in the home. She thought that wives and mothers played an essential role in shaping the moral consciences of

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their husbands and children and that only when women instilled in their families a sense of shame for “improper” behaviour would Japanese society truly rid itself of drinking, concubinage, and prostitution.64 Sasaki, in contrast, described cooking, cleaning, and other domestic tasks as toil that did not require specialized knowledge and thus did not advance civilization. Such devaluation of traditional women’s work, along with her aggressive style and calls for radical reform, attracted acerbic criticism of Sasaki and the WCTU itself from conservatives and liberals both within and outside the Christian community.65 One outspoken critic was Uchimura Kanzō. Uchimura had received the rite of baptism while a student at the Sapporo Agricultural College and shortly thereafter had helped organize a church and a YMCA branch in the city. In 1884, he had married a fellow Christian and former student of Dōshisha Jogakkō and Kyōritsu Jogakkō despite the opposition of his parents. While his wife wanted to put her education to good use and pursue Christian work outside the home, he expected her to advance his career by maintaining the hearth, so to speak. In other words, to quote Helen Ballhatchet, he wanted her to “[follow] a life of Christian self-sacrifice as a dutiful daughter-in-law within the Uchimura household.” Facing her refusal to do so and allegations of her adultery, Uchimura departed for the United States to study. There he came to think even more highly of a woman’s place in the home, so it is not surprising that just a few months after his return to Japan he spoke out in defence of that role and in criticism of women who devalued it.66 Specifically, in an early August 1888 talk he gave at a Tokyo church, he chastened women reformers in Japan for believing that standing before a stove was less distinguished than public lecturing. He added that such women were frivolous and negligent in performing their God-given duties. Around the same time, an anonymous man expressed identical sentiments in a letter, in which he derogatorily referred to the WCTU as the “crazy wind” society by substituting the first character in the union’s name with the same-sounding character for “looney.”67 Criticism did not come only from outside the organization. WCTU members also joined the chorus and criticized Sasaki, with Asai assuming the lead. Taking advantage of her partial control of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, Asai used the magazine’s pages to attack and undermine Sasaki. In an editorial in the third issue, she bemoaned the fact that prostitution, drinking, and smoking were daily increasing in popularity. As if this were not enough to make reform work more difficult, she continued, the WCTU lacked unity and the strength of numbers because members were too embroiled in their

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own trivial plans to co-operate together to effect change.68 Sasaki’s name did not appear in this piece, but Asai’s comment about individual endeavours was a far from oblique reference to Sasaki’s writing, lecturing, and work to raise money for Dōshisha and establish a vocational school.69 The following month Asai again criticized Sasaki without specifically naming her when she wrote that reformers needed to be mindful of current social conditions and not press for too much change. Their radical public statements and writings, she said, might otherwise throw society into turmoil.70 In short, women reformers should be realistic and pragmatic instead of antagonistic. Surprisingly, Sasaki issued no defence against these attacks. Instead, she simply resigned as WCTU secretary in August 1888. She relinquished all editorial control of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi at the same time, though the magazine continued to list her as co-editor with Asai through issue number eleven, published in January 1889.71 Her reasons for stepping down remain sketchy. She did fall ill over the summer, and poor health might have been the cause. Diminished fervour for reform was not. Indeed, she maintained her membership in the WCTU and months later founded another society, which threatened the organizational integrity of the Tokyo WCTU. The Tokyo WCTU: Divided and Weakened The sequence of events that led Sasaki to establish a second reform organization began with the promulgation of the Constitution in February 1889. WCTU members saw in the country’s euphoria over this document an excellent opportunity to publicly promote their moral values and Christian faith. More significantly, they did not hesitate to exploit it, thereby linking their agenda with this milestone in Japan’s political modernization. They did so by condemning the practice of supplying celebrants with sake, by distributing hundreds of temperance tracts to those in the streets, and by praising the clause granting Japanese freedom of religion. They also held a public lecture at Kōseikan on February 12. Advertised as a “celebration of the Constitution,” this gathering resembled the WCTU’s earlier meetings in that it began with prayer and a Bible reading. The several hundred who attended also heard the Reverend Hiraiwa Yoshiyasu speak in favour of local selfgovernment as a system that would enable temperance supporters to elect officials who would represent their reform ideas.72 Yajima was especially active in the weeks leading up to the promulgation and was en route to see her nephew about another lecture meeting when her rickshaw overturned. Her injuries proved serious enough that she was forced to resign as WCTU

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president.73 As next in command, Ogino initially assumed Yajima’s duties, but she herself quit shortly thereafter. The society’s rules included no provisions for choosing a president outside of the annual meeting, so members decided instead to hold a special election for a new vice-president who would lead until Yajima regained her health. The run-up to that election revealed how strife-torn the union continued to be. With victory by Sasaki a distinct possibility, Asai once again used the pages of the union’s periodical to attack her nemesis and campaign for herself. In particular, in an April editorial, she cautioned her fellow members that they should not vote for a new leader solely on the basis of whether she was educated, decisive, and full of vitality. Nor should they require their choice to be talented at socializing and lecturing. Asai advised, instead, that they choose a humble, trustworthy, and pious individual.74 The same day this editorial appeared, in an address to a general meeting of the union, Iwamoto challenged Asai’s conception of the type of leader the WCTU needed. Like Asai, he did not explicitly name Sasaki. Still, the words he used to describe his vision fit her perfectly and could have left little doubt about whom he was speaking. In his opinion, the enthusiastic, fiery moral reformer was exactly the type of person the nation and the WCTU needed most. He argued that this woman had to be prepared to guide others and incite them to agitate for reform; she had to cause trouble and stand firm before critics and opponents of change; and she had to accept personal unpopularity as a result.75 Despite this fervent “campaign” speech, Asai garnered the most votes when WCTU members cast their ballots on June 15. That Sasaki only came in third speaks strongly of her increasingly marginal position within the union.76 Exactly one week later Jogaku zasshi announced the formation of the Fujin Hakuhyō Kurabu (Woman’s White Ribbon Club; WWRC), a society whose stated purpose was to provide women with knowledge of the world outside the home and encourage their “social influence.” This notice named as the founders two teachers at mission schools for girls in Tokyo, but Sasaki was the real driving force. She had long wanted the Tokyo WCTU to become more aggressive and more political but had been stymied time and again. Hours after her defeat in the election for vice-president, she invited a handful of supporters to her house to discuss what to do next. The group included Iwamoto and Ueki. Iwamoto was an unsurprising choice, given his outspoken endorsement of Sasaki and his willingness to give her ample space in Jogaku zasshi to advance her causes. As for Ueki, he and Sasaki had become very close in the months since her resignation as secretary through their collaboration on Tōyō no fujo (The women of the East), his polemic against

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women’s subjugation. Sasaki had provided a preface and publication money and, in return, had found a friend and advocate.77 The solution that Sasaki, Iwamoto, Ueki, and the others came up with at her house one week after her WCTU electoral defeat was the WWRC. As Sasaki later described it, this society had neither binding rules regarding “appropriate” activities nor a president who could dictate to others. Instead, she argued, the organization would respond to social and political issues when and how members saw fit.78 This characterization of the WWRC was a not very veiled criticism of the Tokyo WCTU. That said, Sasaki did not reject the WCTU organization across the board. Quite the contrary, she envisioned the WWRC as adhering more closely in its agenda to the example of the WCTU in the United States. Indeed, the decision to use “white ribbon” – the symbol of the WCTU since 1877 – in its name was a clear attempt to establish an affiliation.79 In the end, only a small number joined the WWRC, including the WCTU’s Ushioda and Iwamoto Kashi (née Shimada). In tune with Sasaki’s more aggressive orientation, though, members did engage in a variety of blatantly political reform activities. In September 1889, for example, Sasaki and Ushioda wrote on behalf of the WWRC to the National Progressive Party. In this missive, the two condemned the custom that men discuss political matters while being entertained and served drink by geisha, and they exhorted the party to conduct its upcoming annual meeting in a more upstanding manner. They also sent, in the fall of 1889, a letter to Queen Victoria in which they urged her to revise England’s unequal treaty with Japan post-haste.80 In addition, in 1890, WWRC members campaigned – albeit unsuccessfully – against prejudiced regulations in the new Law on Assemblies and Political Associations. This piece of legislation reflected the government’s determination to further contain popular rights agitation and, for the first time, restrict women’s political participation. As mentioned in the introduction, it specifically prohibited women from attending or sponsoring political meetings and banned their membership in political organizations. The WWRC took particular offence at these restrictions. Member Shimizu Shikin, in a scathing attack, labelled the bans discriminatory and contrary to the Constitution’s guaranteed protection of individual rights.81 The WWRC did not stand alone against the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations. Members of the WCTU saw the clauses pertaining to women as an impediment to their own ability to influence official and private morality, and they, separate from the WWRC, submitted petitions to the prime minister and the justice minister to have the law revised.82 Neither appeal resulted in a lifting of the bans, and women’s legal exclusion from political meetings would remain in effect until 1922.83

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It should be stressed that both the WCTU and the WWRC submitted their petitions against the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations with impunity. Had they tried to hold a public meeting to denounce the law and call for its revision, they would have been liable for a fine ranging from ¥2 to ¥20. Women who spoke or who simply attended would have faced a similar punishment. Submitting a petition to officials with a demand for a change in government policy, however, did not break the law, as not one of its thirty-eight clauses denied that right to women or to anyone else.84 The absence of such a prohibition created a loophole through which women could continue to engage in overtly political acts, and the members of the WCTU and WWRC took advantage of it. Just three months after the law took effect, nearly two dozen signed their names to appeals submitted to the leading political parties seeking reversal of a House of Representatives’ rule that banned women from its gallery.85 This collaborative effort followed on the heels of another joint petition, one seeking revision of the civil and criminal codes to favour monogamy. The civil code in 1889 perpetuated the age-old practice of concubinage by identifying the rights of a concubine and her offspring in relation to a wife and her children. The criminal code also provided legal support for polygamy by not identifying husbands who visited brothels or who had concubines as adulterers and by excusing them from punishment. Sasaki, Yajima, and other members of the WWRC and the WCTU had come to accept monogamy as a moral imperative and believed that its establishment as the norm in Japan was essential for the elevation of women’s status. Though the exact text of their petition is lost, Yuasa Hatsuko set forth what were very likely its basic ideas in an article in Jogaku zasshi. Specifically, she wrote that concubinage skewed the ratio of marriageable women to men and thereby violated the laws of nature. Also, the presence of concubines irreparably damaged the bond between husband and wife by undermining their love, the end result being a disharmonious family. The actions of concubines to guarantee an inheritance for their offspring only made the discord worse. Legitimate children suffered and, in the absence of moral role models, were bound to produce similar families. Given that the family was the building block of society, this did not bode well for Japan’s future. To eliminate this fundamental problem and threat, Yuasa called for the civil code to be rewritten to define male adultery as any sexual contact by a husband with a woman other than his wife and for the criminal code to stipulate punishment for such unfaithful men.86 The formal petition garnered eight hundred signatures and spurred women in Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and a number of other cities to submit similar written appeals.87 The united effort failed to

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achieve revision, but the campaign did not die. Members of the WCTU continued to appeal on an annual basis until revision of the civil code in the immediate postwar years established monogamy as the legal standard. Co-operation between the WWRC and the WCTU lent numerical support to the petitions for gallery seats and revision of the civil and criminal codes, but it did not relieve the tension between Asai and Sasaki. Nor did it forestall criticism of the WWRC for the circumstances in which Sasaki had founded the club. The crux of the criticism was that Sasaki had taken advantage of Yajima’s withdrawal from active involvement in the WCTU and the resulting weakness of the union’s power structure to establish a competing group. Unlike previous attacks, Sasaki responded to this one, defending her actions in an article in Jogaku zasshi. She wrote that she and the WWRC’s few other founders had not established the society “in order to vainly carry out [their] own ideas. Nor did [they] do so in order to split off from the WCTU.” Instead, she claimed rather ambiguously, the WWRC resulted from “unavoidable trends of the time.”88 Her words did not appease Asai, whose position was most threatened by the club’s existence and by the fact that Sasaki, Ushioda, and other prominent women in the WWRC maintained their memberships in the WCTU. In the spring of 1890, Asai publicly addressed the problem of dual affiliation by saying that, “just as oil and water did not mix,” individuals with different opinions did not belong in the same organization. She did not state explicitly that WWRC activists should leave the WCTU, but such directness was unnecessary. Her purport came through loud and clear.89 Sasaki reacted to Asai’s continuing attacks on herself and the WWRC by attempting to strengthen the society’s ties with male reformers. In early February 1890, she and Ushioda met with Iwamoto, Tsuda Sen, and several others to discuss ways to unite Japan’s many local anti-prostitution and temperance groups.90 Their plans gained momentum just weeks later when Jessie Ackerman, the World WCTU’s second round-the-world missionary, arrived in Japan for a ten-week tour. An enthusiastic, sincere woman then in her mid-thirties, Ackerman had already visited Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and southern China, and she expected to add many more miles with stops in Yokohama, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and a number of other cities in Japan. While in Tokyo, she did establish ties with the WWRC and the WCTU, whose members welcomed her with great fanfare.91 She worked much more closely, though, with men – with Andō Tarō in particular. She first met Andō in Hawaii, where he had organized a temperance society among Japanese residents after receiving the letter of praise from Yajima and Sasaki. He had returned to Japan in late 1889, and his active participation in the temperance movement naturally drew Ackerman to

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him. She relied heavily on him as a translator, and his eloquence in conveying her thoughts in Japanese helped her inspire hundreds to join temperance unions. Her words also provided the spark that reformers needed to organize the Tokyo Kinshukai (Temperance Society) on March 29, 1890.92 This society was predominantly male, but it did have a small women’s department, which Sasaki and Ushioda helped create. Their respective positions as the division’s first treasurer and corresponding secretary enabled them to strengthen their own and the WWRC’s ties with male reformers, just as Sasaki had hoped. Those connections grew thicker in mid-April when Sasaki invited Ushioda, Ueki, and others to her house to plan a gathering of reform groups from all over the country. The process continued in late May when the WWRC became a member organization of the newly founded Zenkoku Haishō Dōmeikai (National Federation to Abolish Licensed Prostitution).93 Under Asai, the WCTU did participate in the founding of the Dōmeikai and sponsored its activities. In May 1890, however, the union was far weaker than it had been when Yajima resigned. The conflict between Asai and Sasaki, the public criticism of female reformers, and the controversy over the WWRC had combined with a growing backlash against all-out Westernization to create disenchantment with the WCTU. The decision to increase the cost of regular membership by 40 percent in January 1888 did nothing to help the society recruit new members or keep existing ones, and membership plummeted from a high of 546 late in 1888 to 140 during Asai’s tenure.94 Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi was struggling as well. WCTU executives had revised the organization’s rules in early 1889 to stipulate that every member would receive a free subscription; also, by issue 23 (March 1890), they had slashed the price of the magazine to 3 sen, with postage for addresses outside Tokyo cut in half as well. Despite these changes, only 3,476 copies were distributed for all of 1890.95 That amounted to a 23 percent fall in circulation figures from 1888, when only nine issues were produced – an indication of just how much ground the periodical had lost. The precipitous decline in membership contributed to this reduced interest; so did changes made to the magazine in the second half of 1889.96 Most noticeably, it had shrunk to sixteen pages by early 1890, and its cover was now stark: simply the title, date, issue number, and contents list appeared, instead of the more alluring image of a female reformer spreading her message far and wide.97 Even before these modifications, some were questioning the wisdom of publishing a full-fledged magazine, given the costs involved. Asai responded by admonishing her fellow members that the work of setting a moral standard required faith and prudence. If the WCTU halted publication, she said, no benefit would be

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gained.98 Though Asai’s opinion prevailed, uncertainty about the periodical’s economic viability persisted, and her presidency remained rife with problems. Elections in December 1890 showed how tenuous her popularity had become: she won by a single vote.99 Four months later the women’s division of the Tokyo Kinshukai reorganized itself as an independent society, the Tokyo Fujin Kinshukai (Women’s Temperance Society; TWTS). With Ushioda as its president and her continuing WCTU ties, this organization threatened to undermine the WCTU in relation to men’s reform groups and the World WCTU. This challenge was not lost on critics of Asai. The final straw in terms of her continued leadership came in September in the form of an article in Fukuin shimpō (Gospel news), a prominent Christian paper. The author of this piece criticized the WCTU for failing to establish strong ties with both the World WCTU and men’s organizations. Also damaging was the charge that the WCTU had made great strides for temperance while Yajima had been president but had done precious little since her accident. Asai resigned five days after this piece appeared in Fukuin shimpō. Once again, the WCTU’s rules prevented a prompt election for her replacement. Not until February 1892 was there a vote, which returned Yajima to the WCTU’s helm.100 That the WCTU was without a designated leader for these six months did nothing to revive its fortunes. It remained beleaguered. As this chapter has shown, the precipitousness of the decline in just a few years owed much to ideological differences and personal animosities among leading members. Those gave rise to published attacks on rivals and women activists in general and fuelled the creation of alternative reform groups, which competed with the WCTU for members, financial resources, and the support of male reformers. Flaws in the union’s organizational framework – most notably the absence of means to ensure smooth and timely leadership transitions – and changes made to membership dues and the content of the society’s magazine simply compounded the problems. By no means did these troubles develop in isolation. External factors such as rising opposition to Westernization and government efforts to restrict political agitation generated an inhospitable environment. Yet at the same time, the bans on women’s political participation provided an opportunity for unionists to rally together and petition. That they did so should be remembered, because it illustrates how, even in difficult times, members continued to claim a place in the public sphere and persisted in trying to influence government policy, and public and private behaviour, through political and other means.

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3 The Organization and Development of the Japan WCTU: 1892-1912

In her study of ideological developments in modern Japan, Carol Gluck wrote that, compared to the first half of the Meiji period, the second was “less a time of upheaval than one of settlement, less of structural drama than functional adjustment, a time when change was absorbed and some sort of stability was wrested from the aftermath of crisis.”1 Clearly, the promulgation of the Constitution in 1889 and the Imperial Rescript on Education in 1890 contributed to this shift. Both ushered in a new phase of state control over the populace. That said, the last two decades of the Meiji period were by no means without conflict or acrimony. Workers in factories, mines, shipyards, and arsenals protested harsh working conditions, low pay, and abusive shop-floor bosses, resorting to petitions and strikes. Socialists held rallies to condemn capitalism and the oppression of the working class. Tokyoites rioted against the terms of the peace treaty that ended the RussoJapanese War and against increases in streetcar fares and taxes.2 These examples hardly scratch the surface of the history of public activism in the second half of the Meiji period. Yet they do attest to the fact that the time was one of great opportunity for those who were inclined to seek influence and change, and more Japanese did so than ever before. For the WCTU, these same decades were ones of fluctuating fortunes. The year 1892 opened with the Tokyo union divided and weakened by prolonged infighting, but it ended with women’s temperance activists in the capital once again united and contemplating the founding of a national organization. The spring of 1893 saw that goal come to fruition and the WCTU infused once again with a spirit of potential. Within months, however, the union began to struggle in the face of a new conservative climate, rising nationalism, and internal shortcomings. This chapter describes these ups and downs, paying particular attention to the unifying efforts of World WCTU roundthe-world missionary Mary Allen West. It then details measures the world

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union took to strengthen the WCTU in Japan in the mid-1890s, discusses the Japan WCTU’s subsequent organizational resurgence just before the turn of the century, and examines the society’s development during the last years of the Meiji period. As the latter sections in particular will highlight, members expanded their range of activities, in part as a response to social and economic problems caused by industrialization. In so doing, they became more relevant to non-Christians. They also claimed new spaces in the public sphere, which they used to advance their own views of proper citizenship, good behaviour, and correct government action. Mary Allen West and the Founding of the Japan WCTU In the spring of 1892, the World WCTU appointed Mary Allen West superintendent of its Department of Methods and commissioned her to travel to Japan to train temperance workers in how best to organize and promote reform. The notice of her naming in Union Signal indicates that World WCTU officers had been considering such a charge for quite some time.3 Letters that the world union had received over the previous few years from male Japanese temperance workers, World WCTU and denominational missionaries, and foreign visitors to Japan had raised concerns about the condition of native women’s organizations and activities. One traveller had written at the end of 1888 that the members of a union established in Kobe two years earlier during Mary Clement Leavitt’s tour were “very distrustful of their ability to carry on the work, and to keep up the interest of meetings.”4 Another had reported in 1890 that women in the Tokyo WCTU viewed their own work as “quite unsatisfactory.”5 In addition, just before Yajima Kajiko regained the presidency in February 1892, Nemoto Shō had told the World WCTU that internal problems had distracted the Tokyo union and that as a result it had been “slow” to undertake activities. He had added that Yajima’s probable return to leadership boded well but that men, not women, were at the forefront of the temperance movement in Japan.6 World WCTU officers inferred from these and other reports that Japanese women lacked a firm understanding of how to establish organizationally strong societies and promote reform effectively. By no means were these problems unique to Japan. Many of the first round-the-world missionaries had been selected primarily because they were already organizing on the American Pacific Coast and were closer to points of departure. In time, however, concerns over travel costs weakened, and more emphasis was placed on choosing individuals with more extensive experience in and formal knowledge of organizing. News of struggles in Japan undoubtedly influenced this shift in recruitment practices and informed West’s appointment.7

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Figure 4   Mary

Allen West.

Source: Courtesy of the Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives, Evanston, IL.

West was without question an enthusiastic and experienced WCTU worker. Born in 1837, she had grown up in a dry “Christian colony” that her parents had helped found in Illinois. Integral to that community were daily expressions of faith, open advocacy of reform and justice, and an emphasis on charitable living. All of this left an indelible mark on West, whose dedication to service and religious convictions manifested themselves early. So did her scholastic ability. After graduating from the colony’s college in 1855, she became first a teacher and then county superintendent of schools. Nine years in that elected post taught her much about effective organization and administration – training that prepared her well to assume the presidency of the Illinois WCTU on her resignation as superintendent. In 1874, West had helped establish that state’s branch, one of the first in the country, and even before taking its helm she had devoted much of her spare time to its development. As president, she laboured tirelessly to unionize women and drill them in techniques of organization and outreach. She even wrote a book on the subject. She also penned numerous leaflets and gospel

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tracts as well as a tome on child care for the WCTU. This print work led to her appointment as editor-in-chief of Union Signal. Despite the demands of that job, she remained intent on the importance of “correct” organization and continued to travel widely to hold classes in WCTU methods.8 She later mentioned in a letter sent from Japan that she had initially been reluctant to venture as far afield as Asia. Soon, however, she came to feel that God had inspired her trip.9 West set sail shortly after receiving her commission and reached Yokohama on September 13, 1892. Christian reformers in Japan had responded to the news of her impending arrival with great anticipation, and members of the Tokyo WCTU, the TWTS, and the WWRC had begun in mid-August to arrange her welcome with male activists. Braving inclement weather caused by a typhoon, Yajima and Nemoto Shō joined the president of the Yokohama Temperance Society to greet her on board her ship just after it anchored. A banquet was held the next evening, after which some five hundred gathered at Kaigan Church for prayer, a Japanese rendition of “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” and speeches, including West’s first. She spent the next few days in Yokohama lecturing at various mission schools for girls and visiting with missionaries and Japanese converts. On September 18, she ventured by herself to Tokyo for a reception. She noted in a letter to Union Signal that she had worried no one would meet her at the train station because of stormy weather. Much to her surprise and delight, she was greeted by three hundred adults wearing white ribbons and a group of children encircling a giant silk banner with the words “Tremble, King Alcohol, we shall grow up.” This showing, American food at the reception, and a warm speech of welcome from Yajima fortified West; they also served as a farewell, for the missionary departed the very next day on a three-week tour of northern Japan.10 Before West even set foot on Japanese soil, male temperance reformers had pressed her to visit Hokkaido. In late 1887, a shoemaker, a government official, and an evangelist had founded the Hokkai Kinshukai in Sapporo. Their evangelistic and organizational forays across the island since had led to such expansion that by 1892 the society boasted 14 branches and 1,500 members. Temperance leaders were eager for West to see this organization first-hand and infuse it with even more fervour. According to West, her “utter ignorance and fearlessness” of the rigours of the three-day trip had caused her to agree on the spot.11 The voyage proved uneventful, but she no sooner arrived than she found herself in great demand. In Sapporo alone, she lectured at Tsuda Sen’s agricultural school and in a military hall, addressed two gatherings of women, spoke to a group of Sunday school

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students, and held a meeting for the explicit purpose of teaching temperance workers’ methods. She also toured a number of mission and government schools for girls and used a talk with Hokkaido’s Commissioner of Education to push for the inclusion of Scientific Temperance Instruction in the curriculum. At her next stop, in Otaru on the island’s west coast, she talked to a group of fishermen and sailors. She focused her remarks on the physiological harm of alcohol and tobacco, using a medical chart that showed the ravages of intemperance on organs to lend authority to her words. This same chart would see repeated use during subsequent stops in large cities in Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma, and Saitama prefectures, as West regularly turned to scientific language to win commitments to sobriety from non-Christians. Like Leavitt, she also repeatedly situated reform in the context of national progress – an argument that resonated as strongly as when her predecessor had used it.12 Over the course of West’s three-week trip north, she took special pleasure when her secular appeals led non-believers to abstinence and – especially – to Christ. Their conversions reinforced her belief that doing God’s work did not require one to use only religious language and that temperance could be an effective evangelistic tool. She thus found very disturbing the pervasive indifference she encountered while travelling to special temperance work among Japanese Christians. As she later wrote in a report to Union Signal, many of the ministers and lay people she met viewed churches as temperance societies in and of themselves and saw no need to do anything more than maintain their affiliations to promote abstinence. She worked hard to dissuade them of this notion and impress upon their consciences the fact that temperance is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and work for temperance an important part of Christian work; that if it is confined to the church, those who need it most will not be reached ... and that unless Christians are leaders in all moral reforms they give occasion to all non-Christians to scoff at the religion of Christ and so bring reproach to our blessed Savior.13

Just as disconcerting to West were certain changes that the Tokyo WCTU had made to its rules under Asai Saku’s leadership. She did not mince words in categorically blaming these revisions on the inability of the society’s officers to communicate in English. This linguistic deficiency, she wrote in a letter to Union Signal, had “shut them off so completely from knowledge of [World WCTU] work that ... they had gone off in many directions, modifying their constitution and the pledge itself till they no longer required total

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abstinence and so could not be considered a W.C.T.U.”14 After her return to Tokyo from the north in mid-October of 1892, West promptly set out to reverse these changes and redirect the union toward what she deemed the “true” way. The WCTU under Yajima needed little convincing. On October 31, executives convened a special general meeting to amend the rules in conjunction with a farewell party for West, who planned to leave shortly for Shizuoka and other parts west.15 At this meeting, the members agreed to twelve changes, four of which were significant. First, they added a new clause as Rule #2, which stated that the WCTU would be in communication with the World WCTU. Second, they revised the statement of purpose to read as follows: “This union seeks to advance the morality of members and non-members, correct education, customs, hygiene, and other general bad habits, expand work against drinking and smoking, and promote the happiness of all of society.” Third, they rewrote the membership pledge to require abstinence from alcohol and tobacco. Fourth and finally, the stipulation that ten members were needed to establish specific departments of work was eliminated, leaving only the rule that all had to join one of six designated departments. These departments, like those in unions worldwide, were equivalent to committees of work and had chairs (known as superintendents) and members. The six referred to here were Education, Health, Customs, Charity, Publishing, and Organizational Outreach.16 With these four changes, Tokyo WCTU executives firmly aligned themselves with the World WCTU by pledging regular contact, incorporating its pronounced interest in temperance, and emphasizing the importance of departments to the overall organization and the carrying out of activities. Winning these amendments fulfilled West’s goal of making the Tokyo union more like those in the United States. But there remained the more challenging task that she had set for herself – to unify the fractious women’s reform movement and launch a national WCTU. To do that, she would have to bring Sasaki Toyoju, Ushioda Chiseko, and the others who had joined the TWTS back into the WCTU fold and settle the differences that had caused the schism in the first place. A string of speaking engagements at churches, schools, and public halls prevented her from allocating substantial time to this task during her two weeks in Tokyo, and she departed for western Japan before organizational reconciliation could be brought about. Still, there was a general sense that, when she returned to Tokyo in mid-December, her renewed efforts might well succeed.17 West died in Kanazawa, though, while visiting Lila Winn, a friend and former student who had been engaged with her husband Thomas in evangelical outreach in Japan for over a decade.

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West had arrived in the country with no known health problems, but her schedule during the fall had taken its toll. Before reaching Kanazawa, she had travelled 3,580 miles and lectured 97 times to just over 40,000 people, preparing different remarks to fit each audience and often taking the podium more than twice a day. Fatigue and the arduous journey by train and rickshaw to the Winns had exacerbated a cold, and after a bedridden week at their home she passed away on December 1, not three months after her arrival in Japan.18 The following days and weeks saw an outpouring of collective and individual mourning, testimony to the impact of West’s character and message. Memorial services were held in Kanazawa, Tokyo, and Yokohama, and the 2,500 who attended in total included Japanese reformers and converts as well as missionaries.19 Of special note at the Tokyo commemoration was the tolling of a bell that Tsuda Sen had made in West’s honour and later donated to the American WCTU. The metal came from the pipes of hundreds and hundreds whom the two had convinced to forswear smoking during their travels. As Tsuda‘s inscription celebrated, these same individuals “had once been slaves of tobacco ... but were now free.”20 Dozens of people also sent letters to Frances Willard and Union Signal praising West’s commitment to reform work and hoping that her death would not be in vain. In fact it had not been. Her efforts during her short time in Japan had “strengthened the temperance cause,” and her death now helped “solidify and perpetuate it.”21 More specifically, her passing contributed directly to the unification of women’s temperance forces in Tokyo and the founding of a national WCTU. Members of the Tokyo WCTU and the TWTS recognized how earnestly West had wanted to bring them together. So out of respect for her wishes, they gathered on December 3, just two days after her passing, to bring about a merger under the mantle of the WCTU. The setting, Joshi Gakuin (Yajima’s school), and the occasion, the regularly scheduled annual meeting of the WCTU, gave the union a marked advantage in determining who would assume leadership. At first, attendees from the WCTU selected twenty-one candidates to run for office from among their own. This attempt to exclude the TWTS from even the possibility of power did not go unanswered, with Ushioda being the most vocal and vehement opponent. Yajima responded to her criticism of procedure by calling on TWTS women to field their own candidates. They did pick eight hopefuls, but to little avail – the results of the election established the WCTU’s authority as almost absolute. Yajima won the most votes and retained the presidency. WCTU members also claimed the offices of recording secretary and treasurer, along with eight of ten vice-president positions. That half these women had ties to Joshi Gakuin

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and had there come under the direct influence of Yajima further strengthened the consensus in favour of her more conservative yet more pragmatic approach to reform. For their part, Ushioda and Sasaki garnered only enough support to take the remaining two vice-president posts, and the sole other spot a TWTS woman assumed was that of corresponding secretary. As if to emphasize their minority position and downplay the importance of unification, Yajima turned to the WCTU’s annual reports with enough haste after the election that the merger came across as but one item on a busy agenda.22 Whether or not Yajima acted highhandedly, the uniting of the WCTU and the TWTS had a strong impact on the fate and fortunes of organized reform. More than eighty TWTS members joined the union in December 1892, which not only fortified it but also gave it much needed momentum for its drive to establish the Nihon Fujin Kyōfūkai (Japan Woman’s Moral Reform Society; Japan WCTU).23 Indeed, just three months later, a group gathered at the home of Tsuda Hatsuko, Sen’s wife and a recently elected vice-president of the Tokyo WCTU, to discuss how to organize a national union and thereby fulfill West’s second wish.24 The initial step, they determined, should be to create a headquarters, so they appointed a committee of five to consider how best to accomplish that. Besides the hostess, the committee included Yajima, Sasaki, Ushioda, and Takekoshi Takeyo, who would establish herself as one of the youngest yet most active and public of WCTU members in the 1890s.25 Born in 1870 into a former samurai family, Takekoshi had received a very strict upbringing in traditional womanly virtues. She had even been given a sword by her mother so that, if she were ever sexually assaulted, she could protect her chastity by committing suicide first. Her father’s death when she was ten turned her life upside down. Her mother took a job at a Christian school to earn a living and, after converting, became an evangelist and temperance supporter. At her mother’s urging, Takekoshi became a Christian herself and attended Baika Jogakkō, one of Japan’s earliest Christian academies for women established by Japanese. Marriage to a fellow convert followed her graduation. After she and her husband moved from Osaka to Tokyo in 1890, she began a career as a journalist. Friendships with WCTU members led her to join the union the following year, and she was put in charge of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi two months later.26 By early 1893, she had been at the helm of the magazine for over a year, and she understood quite well the importance of using the periodical to mobilize female reformers nationwide in favour of organization. To that end, in the first issue published after the February meeting, she included a short announcement about the

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WCTU’s desire to establish a national union. In it, she pointed out that, unlike the United States and England, Japan lacked such an organization and that women should rectify this situation. She appealed to groups across the country to support the WCTU in this endeavour and share their thoughts on a draft set of regulations for the new union, which were to be announced shortly.27 Takekoshi never printed those proposed rules in Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi because of a suspension order that forced the WCTU to stop publication after this issue. The police had previously halted publication once or twice during Takekoshi’s tenure as editor because the WCTU had failed to provide the guarantee money required for periodicals that dealt with social and political issues.28 The absence of any noticeably objectionable article in the February 1893 issue suggests that the same reason applied here. The loss of the magazine’s pages as a vehicle for reaching women did not, however, seriously impede the work to establish a national union. The WCTU’s planning committee still drafted a set of rules. Its members also wrote letters to thirty-five women’s groups throughout the country asking them to send delegates to Tokyo for several days of organizational discussions at the beginning of April.29 These talks culminated in the formal establishment of the Japan WCTU on April 3, 1893, at Reinanzaka Church. WCTU members and visiting representatives had already adopted a set of sixteen rules and had also agreed to create six departments of work. Regarding the latter, the ones for Education, Health, Customs, Publishing, and Organizational Outreach duplicated those of the Tokyo WCTU, while the replacement of Charity with Law reflected the already regular practice of seeking legislative or bureaucratic solutions by submitting petitions to assemblies, (and both elected and appointed officials). On the afternoon of April 3, members and supporters gathered for a varied program that began with hymns, prayer, and a reading of Psalm 146, better known within temperance circles as the “Crusade Psalm,” which had served as a rallying cry for WCTU activism since 1874.30 Following several addresses and officer elections, the reading of congratulatory telegrams brought the proceedings to an affirming conclusion. Yajima assumed the presidency; her two rivals, Sasaki and Ushioda, were appointed only as co-superintendents of two different departments. Her leadership affirmed once again, Yajima wrote to the World WCTU to announce the founding of the Japan WCTU with local affiliates in Tokyo, Kanazawa, and Yokkaichi (southwest of Nagoya) as well as in Takahashi and Kasaoka (both in Okayama). She also asked for “prayers that [the new national union] may be able to work for God, home and humanity.”31

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The Rise and Then Ebb of the Japan WCTU in the Mid-1890s In the immediate afterglow of the founding of the national union, WCTU members in Tokyo displayed a revived commitment to expansion. In May 1893, Yajima and Ushioda travelled to Nagoya as joint heads of the Department for Outreach and successfully rallied women there to establish a local society. Yajima also took time from a private trip to Hokkaido that summer to visit areas only recently made accessible by road, where she lectured on behalf of the WCTU. Just before Yajima departed on this second journey, officers met and decided to make a concerted effort to attract more special members, both to increase regular revenues and widen the circle of individuals on whom the union could call for help. To this end, they had printed several hundred copies of the Japan WCTU’s rules in Japanese and English for distribution at public lectures and in correspondence. In addition, they voted to launch a fundraising campaign for activities and renew the collection drive for an office.32 That drive had first begun at the Tokyo WCTU’s 1887 anniversary fete, when Kushida Shigeko had appealed for donations. Just one week later the union’s officers had assigned her and Ushioda to canvass for contributions. The two did, and before long they had gathered an additional ¥437 from over 250 supporters.33 The WCTU’s internal struggles, however, had distracted attention from the project, and the lack of an office had forced Yajima, Asai, the society’s secretaries and treasurers, and the editors of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi to conduct business from their homes and workplaces. Consequently, some activities had been postponed, and crucial clerical tasks had been left undone. In particular, the union had failed to compile a master list of members and periodical subscribers. This severely hampered communications and undermined efforts to collect the dues and fees that the WCTU needed so badly in order to sustain itself financially.34 Union members in Tokyo recognized just how important having an office was going to be to the viability of the national organization, so they recommitted themselves to soliciting building funds within Japan as well as from abroad. Sakurai Chika, founder of Sakurai Jogakkō and a Hakodate WCTU member, had already made plans to visit the United States in the fall of 1893 to learn more about the work of American women’s organizations.35 Officers in Tokyo decided to take advantage of her trip to spread news of reform work in Japan, raise dollars, and solidify the Japan WCTU’s affiliation with the world body. To those ends, they commissioned Sakurai to solicit funds and represent the union at the World WCTU’s second biennial convention, to be held that October in Chicago. She did not disappoint. While in the Windy City, she published an appeal in Union Signal with wording that undoubtedly

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tugged at the heartstrings of readers. Specifically, she wrote that the Japan WCTU’s planned office building would serve as a memorial hall to West and would be built with bricks or stone to ensure its durability.36 At the convention, she again summoned West’s memory, briefly speaking about the missionary’s time in Hakodate before entreating the other delegates to give money as “sisters” who “worship the same God ... [and] are laboring for the same Master.”37 Together with these steps taken specifically to fortify the national union organizationally, affiliated members launched a range of reform-oriented activities in the Japan WCTU’s early days. Those in Nagasaki, Kobe, and Tokyo worked with male temperance activists and foreign evangelists to welcome and arrange meetings for Katharine Bushnell and Elizabeth Andrew, World WCTU round-the-world missionaries, who briefly toured Japan in May and June of 1894. Tokyo members held a number of additional public lecture meetings and began to distribute a collection of West’s talks, which Takekoshi had edited and the Tokyo union had published.38 They also collaborated with mission women to open a rescue home for former prostitutes and women at risk and, during the Sino-Japanese War, provided material comfort and temperance leaflets to soldiers and spiritual consolation to bereaved families.39 In addition, in November 1893 they launched a new magazine. At a meeting six months earlier, officers in Tokyo had determined to discontinue publication of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi and replace it with a new periodical that would serve as the organ of the Japan WCTU.40 Soon after, they agreed to call it Fujin kyōfū zasshi (Woman’s moral reform magazine) in order to reflect the union’s national scope. Much more significant than this simple cosmetic change was the decision to end the pretense of male control and publish in accordance with the regulations for printed media dealing with learning and the arts. These rules permitted women to function in both fact and name as publishers, printers, and editors. Moreover, they included no stipulation about guarantee money. The first issue of Fujin kyōfū zasshi offered no formal explanation for the shift; nor did Takekoshi or Yajima – listed on the back cover as editor and publisher respectively – comment on the matter. In light of the financial problems that had plagued Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, however, release from the burden of paying a bond was, in all probability, the principal motivating factor.41 The temper of Fujin kyōfū zasshi differed significantly from that of its predecessor as a result of this switch. Articles and transcribed lectures de­ crying alcohol and tobacco as harmful to individuals, their families, and society did continue to occupy a lot of space, and news items and other

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pieces critical of prostitution in Japan and overseas did still appear, though with less frequency. Takekoshi did also use the magazine’s pages to garner support for the rescue home project and promote wartime outreach. Overall, however, specific details about WCTU activities became scarce, as work reports were largely replaced with dry lists of the names of individuals who had either joined, withdrawn their membership, or sent in money for dues or a subscription to Fujin kyōfū zasshi. Information about the work of men’s reform groups and other women’s organizations likewise became exceedingly rare, as did editorials in favour of greater rights for women. In place of these mainstays of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, the new magazine offered an increasing amount of advice on nursing, cooking, child care, and home management. Fujin kyōfū zasshi also carried numerous articles that praised women who assiduously fulfilled their duties in the home and identified as female virtues showing filial piety to in-laws, serving husbands, and neglecting personal wants for the sake of family. Many of these introduced actual women who had been recognized by local officials as epitomizing the state’s idea of “good wives and wise mothers.”42 Such content reflected the conservative mood that had come to pervade Japanese society in the early 1890s and, more directly, the influence of state policy in terms of defining “proper” roles for women. This climate resulted in part from a backlash against the unbridled craze for anything and everything Western that had characterized the previous two decades and in part from the government’s failure to win early revision of the unequal treaties. Even more significant in turning the tide were the Constitution and the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education. The former, premised on the idea of imperial sovereignty, stipulated that the emperor wielded supreme political authority, alone possessed the power to declare war and make peace, commanded all military forces, and reigned over the state’s legislative and administrative organs. The latter, based on traditional Confucian moral values, put forth patriotism and loyalty to the emperor as the highest virtues for which citizens could strive and likened the nation to one family headed by the emperor. These documents embodied the desire of Japan’s leaders to establish political stability and mould a populace that would be obedient and willing to sacrifice for the national good. These same goals also informed the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations. As mentioned earlier, this article stood as a cornerstone of official policy on women and epitomized the state’s stance that the involvement of women in political meetings and political organizations was inappropriate. As important a part of the state’s definition of “proper” roles for women was the idea that women could best contribute

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Figure 5   The

front cover of Fujin kyōfū zasshi, no. 1 (2 November 1893).

Source: Reproduced from Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Fujin kyōfū zasshi, vol. 4 (November 1893-January 1895) (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1985). Courtesy of Fuji Shuppan (reprints)

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to the nation by honouring their in-laws and husbands, frugally managing their households, raising their children to be loyal citizens, and denying their own interests for the sake of others.43 That Fujin kyōfū zasshi extolled women who exemplified these traits highlights just how sharply the WCTU’s new magazine departed from its predecessor. A reader, though, did not even have to open the periodical to be alerted to the shift: the front cover spoke volumes in and of itself. As Figure 5 shows, its artistic rendering of the moon shining down on a babbling brook with Fujin kyōfū zasshi in block print above could hardly have been more innocuous. Such evidence of a conservative swing did not go unnoticed; indeed, it brought a sharp response from Sasaki. After the first issue appeared, she contributed a letter in which she lamented the new mood of the country and the change she saw in the WCTU’s timbre. Taking first aim at the former, she wrote that after the establishment of the Tokyo union wives had slowly begun to lift up their heads a little and see the light thanks to women’s education. However, after two or three years, Japan entered a period of conservatism. Suddenly, just as women were raising their heads, which had been buried in the earth for hundreds of years, they were trampled on. Regrettably, they have once again gone underground and have regressed further than they were before.44

Sasaki branded as “deplorable” magazines that contributed to this suppression of women by only telling them how to raise children and make pickles. While she did not directly name Fujin kyōfū zasshi, her criticism of its contents rang clear when she admonished WCTU members for not doing their “duty” and told them that they “must immediately rouse” themselves to action.45 Three months later Sasaki wrote again to warn that those trying to hinder women’s progress included Christians and that, unless the WCTU prevented these “enemies” from misleading the public with their conservative ideas, women would “fall into a darkness even deeper” than that which they had inhabited before 1886.46 Both these letters were sent from Hokkaido, where Sasaki had moved less than four weeks after the founding of the Japan WCTU. Over the years, various explanations have been given for her departure from the capital and the centre of WCTU activism. These include the need for hands-on management at a farm she and her husband had purchased, her desire to open a girls’ school to enlighten women of the island, and her wish for a change of scenery in order to recover from a lingering illness.47 According to Utsu Yasuko, Sasaki’s losses to Yajima in the WCTU elections in December 1892

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and April 1893 must also be considered. So should the conservative climate of the nation, which Utsu has blamed for nipping the “bud of Sasaki’s movement” and propelling Japan into an era when only those “reform movements that functioned within the limits of [the state’s] idea of ‘good wives, wise mothers’ were allowed.”48 Underlying these words is the interpretation that the Tokyo WCTU began as a truly progressive organization but then saw its “true” feminist nature stifled in the early and mid-1890s. Sharon Sievers and Rumi Yasutake have offered this same reading of the WCTU’s early history.49 That said, it poses a number of problems. First, this view takes as representative of the whole the opinions and words of an outspoken minority. Sasaki did not speak for all or even most of her fellow members – a fact made eminently clear by the Tokyo union’s decision to adopt Yajima’s prospectus as well as by Sasaki’s repeated electoral defeats. Quite to the contrary, the WCTU in Japan was characterized from the very start by a conservative streak. While the change in the magazine’s content clearly indicated a strengthening of that humour, the extent of the ideological shift has been exaggerated, and the pervasive influence of pragmatism has been overlooked. The mainstream of the Tokyo WCTU had justified their participation in reform work in terms of the Victorian ideology of womanhood and would continue to do so throughout the Meiji period. Yet another problem with this reading stems from its premise that the desire for political rights alone indicates a feminist consciousness. True, the WCTU did not continue to actively agitate against the ban on women’s membership in political associations and attendance at and sponsorship of political meetings. It is also a fact that the society did not join the suffrage movement until 1917.50 Nonetheless, members did not submissively accept the state’s assertion that political activity was incompatible with women’s responsibilities to their families and the nation. Rather, they persisted in asserting themselves politically in order to influence public and private morals. Indeed, the national WCTU continued in the tradition of the Tokyo union and every year submitted petitions calling for the regulation of overseas prostitutes and for the revision of the criminal and civil codes. These written appeals represent but two of the many petitions the society’s members gave to politicians and bureaucrats after 1893 to achieve their reform goals. In short, “conservative” should not be misconstrued to mean apolitical. The WCTU’s continuing “progressivism” and commitment to reform aside, the union did suffer organizationally as a consequence of the state’s efforts to dictate gender roles, the new strength of conservative thought, and

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rising nationalism. For that matter, the entire Christian community found itself besieged. While the early and mid-1880s had been years of tremendous growth, especially in the countryside and among Protestants, the rate of expansion slowed toward the end of the decade. Economic hardship in rural areas played a noticeable role by leaving many churches on the edge financially and low in congregational morale – a situation exacerbated by pressure from denominational boards and leaders in urban areas for them to support themselves. The introduction of scientific rationalism and liberal theology beginning in the mid-1880s did not help matters. The denial of such traditional doctrines as the Trinity and criticism of the Bible led many, especially the educated, to question the missionaries’ presentation of Christianity, and relations between the two groups became strained. This situation went from bad to worse in the 1890s.51 In 1891, Uchimura Kanzō, then an English teacher at the First Higher School in Tokyo, refused to bow to a copy of the Imperial Rescript on Education during a school assembly. He did so because he believed that such an obeisant act was equivalent to acknowledging the emperor as divine. His conduct spurred Inoue Tetsujirō, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University of Tokyo, to write first an article and then a book in which he charged Uchimura with the crime of lèse-majesté and pointed to him as an example of the fact that one could not be both a loyal Japanese citizen and a Christian.52 Doubts about Christianity’s compatibility with the basic character of the Japanese state were certainly not new, but they had become more widespread in the late 1880s in conjunction with the upsurge in conservatism and nationalism and in the face of Japan’s continued inability to revise the unequal treaties. Uchimura’s action, by heightening those doubts, compounded the problems facing the Christian community. Indeed, it significantly hastened the steep decline in Christian fortunes in the early and mid-1890s. Indicative of the troubled times, figures for new converts dropped precipitously; at the same time, the number of once professing Christians who now renounced their faith increased sharply. Meanwhile, attendance at educational institutions run by foreign missionaries and graduates of mission schools plummeted.53 The Japan WCTU did not escape the repercussions of Christianity’s declining popularity. True, the initial steps that members had taken to expand the national organization’s base had resulted in the founding of the Nagoya branch and the affiliation of societies established years before in Hakodate, Morioka, and Chiba. These additions had helped double the number of locals, even after the dissolution of the Kanazawa union. Even so, the report of the Japan WCTU’s second anniversary convention in 1895 reveals that

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headquarters had neglected to strengthen the national union in terms of membership numbers; nor had it established firm ties of allegiance with all ten branches. Case in point, the affiliates in Takahashi and Kasaoka did not contribute any information about members, activities, or finances for the meeting. Distance clearly was not the only or even the main cause, as the Yokohama union did not send in an update either. Bushnell and Andrew had helped establish this society with eighty-some women the year before during their brief tour of Japan. Because of personality conflicts, a desire for complete autonomy, or some other reason, it at first corresponded directly with the World WCTU and resisted becoming a branch of the Japan WCTU. Only under great pressure did its members agree to affiliate with the national organization, but that association remained tenuous, as highlighted by their failure to provide a report in 1895.54 Of the remaining seven branches, the one in Morioka had paid no dues to Tokyo during the previous twelve months and had, in fact, suspended all activities due to its president’s ill health. The locals in Chiba and Tsu, both southwest of Nagoya, claimed fewer than fifteen members each, and those in Nagoya and Yokkaichi even fewer. In total, the Japan WCTU could account definitively for only 199 members, 131 of whom belonged to the Tokyo union. Reports from the national superintendents of the departments of work proved almost as dispiriting. The legal section disclosed that its members had been able to garner far less support for the union’s monogamy petition than the previous year, while the department devoted to organizational outreach had done no more than ponder activities. Even more lamentable was the lack of any noticeable action by the health section to promote temperance and an end to smoking.55 To blame the decline in the WCTU’s fortunes solely on external social factors would be short-sighted, for many of the problems that had earlier inhibited organizational consolidation and expansion persisted. The Japan WCTU continued to function without a formal office, despite the attention given to the fundraising drive, and the energies of leading members in Tokyo remained divided among family, work, and union responsibilities, with many holding positions in both the national organization and the Tokyo branch. As important was the change in content in Fujin kyōfū zasshi. With its dearth of detail about union activities and policies, it failed to create a common sense of purpose among those members who subscribed, evoke within branches a sense of affiliation with the Japan WCTU, provide ideas for activities, and offer encouragement. These shortcomings also encumbered Fujin shimpō (Woman’s herald), which in February 1895 replaced Fujin kyōfū zasshi as the organ of the national

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union. The previous month Takekoshi had printed an editorial in Fujin kyōfū zasshi in which she likened the Sino-Japanese War to a storm and scolded those many readers who had allowed themselves to become caught up in the frenzy of the moment and who, as a result, had turned their eyes from the need for reform.56 The authorities viewed her reference to the conflict as a violation of content rules and temporarily suspended the magazine. Instead of using the stoppage as an opportunity to revamp the periodical as a means to energize the WCTU, Takekoshi and Yajima simply changed its name and thereafter included even less information on union activities at the local and national levels. The cover was similarly benign with its painting of a bird perched on a blossoming cherry tree (see Figure 6).57 Even more indicative than this illustration of how ineffectual headquarters had become as a beacon for women’s reform is the report of the Japan WCTU’s convention in April 1896. Printed in Fujin shimpō that same month, it included no updates on department work and noted that the Morioka branch was still on hiatus. As for membership, numbers for the Takahashi, Kasaoka, and Yokkaichi locals were listed as unknown, and even though 30 women from Yokohama were counted the national total did not exceed 223. Moreover, only sixteen attended the convention, and they represented but two branches, those in Tokyo and Chiba.58 Efforts to Strengthen the Japan WCTU with the Help of Resident Missionary Women Even before this dismal showing, World WCTU executives had determined that the future of union work in Japan depended on sustained guidance and stimulation from foreign residents. Leavitt, West, and their fellow roundthe-world missionaries had generated great enthusiasm for temperance and organization among Japanese, but their peripatetic travels had prevented them from nurturing the individuals and unions they had inspired. It had not escaped Leavitt that the superficiality of her contacts with natives represented a fundamental flaw in the World WCTU’s plan of expansion. Throughout her travels, she had relied heavily on in-country denominational missionaries, and she recognized how valuable a role they could play in sustaining local interest and societies. Thus, shortly after she returned to the United States in 1891, she urged Frances Willard and the other world officers to approach American Protestant missionaries to work specifically for the World WCTU. Four years later executives responded at the World WCTU’s biennial convention in London with a proposal for a new, two-pronged strategy for establishing a less transitory missionary presence overseas. The

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Figure 6   The

front cover of Fujin shimpō, no. 1 (28 February 1895).

Source: Reproduced from Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Fujin shimpō, vol. 5 (February 1895-December 1895) (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1985). Courtesy of Fuji Shuppan (reprints)

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first part of this plan called for the appointment of paid WCTU organizers, each of whom would live in a particular country for an extended time. The second involved asking foreign mission boards to assign one or more of their representatives in fields overseas to the task of recruiting members for the WCTU from among their own compatriots.59 Though initially slow to adopt such a policy, the World WCTU acted promptly to implement it, especially with regard to Japan. Mere weeks after the 1895 convention, executives approached Mary Denton, a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, then living in Kyoto, to become a resident WCTU missionary. Denton had grown up in a teetotalling, religiously devout family yet had become involved in temperance outreach herself more by happenstance than by plan. As a young country schoolteacher in California, she had boarded with a family that operated a ranch whose workers spent their Saturday evenings drinking in town. The owner and his wife regularly went to fetch these men on Sundays to ensure that they would show up for work the next day. Denton lent a hand by driving the least inebriated back. This experience deepened her commitment to total abstinence, while a chance meeting with Frances Willard in the early 1880s strengthened her zeal for temperance work. She became active in the WCTU in southern California, and after she relocated to Japan in 1888 to teach at Dōshisha, which the American Board funded, she combined temperance outreach with her mission duties. Of note, she provided logistical support for World WCTU missionaries who visited Kyoto and, in 1890 in particular, appealed to union supporters in the United States for temperance literature to use in the classroom.60 Denton at first declined the World WCTU’s request to become a resident missionary out of concern that the added work would cause her to neglect her primary responsibilities to the American Board. Her dedication to temperance, however, soon overrode this worry, and she proved an eager and energetic organizer among her fellow missionaries. In her first months on the World WCTU’s payroll, she sent leaflets to clergy throughout the country to instruct them in the arguments and methods of temperance reform. She also secured a regular column for the world union in Japan Evangelist, an English-language magazine that the Methodist Publishing House in Tokyo had first issued in 1893 for the foreign mission community.61 Heading each entry with the World WCTU’s motto, pledge, and objective, Denton used her allotted pages to encourage missionaries to make reform an integral part of their daily work. For example, she repeatedly urged her readers to collect signatures for the union’s Polyglot Petition while on evangelizing tours, and she pressed them to include lessons on abstinence in their Sunday school

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curricula. To facilitate the latter, she provided detailed information about the various tracts, textbooks, and other publications available for use among Japanese.62 Besides such print work, she provided the spark that missionary women needed to unite and establish their own WCTU in order to help strengthen and advance native union activism. Like Denton, denominational missionaries had promoted the development of the WCTU in Japan following Leavitt’s tour. Some had joined local unions and had addressed member meetings; others had contributed funds for activities and had subscribed to Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, Fujin kyōfū zasshi, and Fujin shimpō. Participants in the Ladies’ Christian Conference, a periodic, interdenominational gathering of American and Canadian Protestant missionary women in the Tokyo-Yokohama area, had also collaborated with the Japan WCTU in 1894 to launch the rescue home project. This latter endeavour aside, missionaries had co-operated with native unionists on an individual basis. Even before accepting the World WCTU’s appointment, Denton had concluded that her mission sisters needed to act collectively if they were to exert a positive and lasting influence on the native WCTU and its affiliates. The Ladies’ Christian Conference struck her as the most logical forum at which to propose the organization of a union among foreigners, not least because of its existing ties with the Japanese society. Her work in Kyoto excluded her from membership, but she did not let this technicality dissuade her. In September 1895, she approached Maria True to act in her stead and broach the issue at the Conference’s next gathering.63 True had for years been a prominent figure in the Conference, and her close personal and professional relationship with Yajima meant that she could speak knowledgeably about the condition of the WCTU in Japan. Just as Denton had hoped, her intercession convinced Conference members to act. A preliminary meeting in October resulted in the appointment of a committee to consider how best to organize in relation to the Japan WCTU. Those select few gathered several weeks later and agreed that establishing a separate society solely of foreigners offered distinct advantages over uniting with Japanese activists. Most important, they believed that “more could be done, and in much less time,” if they worked independently. In line with that reasoning, they decided to name their union the Auxiliary WCTU of Japan and to maintain direct ties with the World WCTU instead of using the Japan WCTU as an intermediary. They also voted to adopt their own constitution, create their own departments, and elect their own officers. These latter organizational tasks were accomplished at a general meeting of the Conference’s participants on November 23, at which time Denton was chosen the first superintendent of the Auxiliary’s publishing division.64

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Denton single-handedly made her department one of the foreign union’s two most active. She did so through her continuing contributions to Japan Evangelist and her successful efforts to secure the Methodist Publishing House’s agreement to print and distribute a temperance textbook for adults, a collection of temperance lessons for Sunday school teachers, and several leaflets for children. A host of problems, though, plagued the Auxiliary. The time and geographical constraints imposed by members’ mission assignments precluded frequent meetings. As a consequence, officers, superintendents, and the handful of women appointed to assist the latter not only had to plan activities but also had to garner support and coordinate implementation through time-intensive correspondence. The burden proved overwhelming for several. Within six months of the Auxiliary’s founding, its corresponding secretary resigned, as did three women who had been helping recruit new members. True’s death in April 1896 then deprived the Auxiliary of its superintendent of purity work. Just as problematic as this rapid turnover in leadership was the union’s separation from the Japan WCTU. The Auxiliary had been established to “assist and encourage” the Japanese society, yet the absence of direct organizational ties inhibited collaboration. Far from offering constant guidance and support for native WCTU activism, this union of foreign denominational missionaries needed sustenance itself.65 Clara Parrish and the Rejuvenation of the WCTU in Japan Almost like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the fortunes of the Auxiliary and the WCTU turned suddenly for the better in 1896, after Clara Parrish was appointed the first full-time resident World WCTU missionary to Japan.66 Born in 1865 and raised in rural Illinois, Parrish had begun teaching at fifteen but had quickly become disenchanted with the narrow confines of her one-room country schoolhouse. Her eagerness to expand her own horizons, as well as those of other women, led her to attend a WCTU lecture. The words she heard set her heart “on fire” and propelled her almost immediately to join her local union and, soon afterwards, to form a Y, the WCTU’s term for societies among young women. When offered the post of WCTU organizer for her district in 1889, she accepted without hesitation, despite the reduction in income her new job would bring. Her aptitude for lecturing, organizing unions, and arranging conventions won her notice and in 1892 earned her a promotion to national organizer for young women. Over the next few years, she travelled to twenty-four states and represented Ys at each WCTU annual convention, in addition to the World WCTU’s gatherings in Chicago and London in 1893 and 1895 respectively. Japan

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Figure 7   Clara

Parrish.

Source: Courtesy of the Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives, Evanston, IL

represented one more field in which she could “give her entire time to the cause of God and humanity,” and when she arrived in October 1896 she was full of enthusiasm for the work that lay ahead.67 Within days of settling herself in Tokyo, Parrish sent letters to the officers of all the local unions affiliated with the Japan WCTU to gather information about their conditions and ascertain how best to proceed with her work. She learned that the branches had been left to sustain themselves without any discernible guidance and stimulus from Tokyo and that “nearly all [were] greatly discouraged” as a result.68 Further inquiries made her aware of the fact that the national union had but a few departments of work, most of which were inactive. This latter piece of information in particular led her to conclude that the Japan WCTU had “really never been organized along the lines of [World WCTU] work” as set forth explicitly by Frances Willard in Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners.69 As the subtitle indicates, Willard intended this text to be a practical guide for women around

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the world who wanted to form unions and agitate for reform under the aegis of the World WCTU. To that end, she gave instructions on how to organize, generate support, devise rules, elect officers, and advertise for and conduct meetings. She also stressed the importance of all local and national unions pursuing varied agendas; and to encourage adoption of her “Do Everything” policy, she detailed the goals of all the World WCTU’s departments of work and described methods appropriate for each.70 Parrish interpreted the weak presence of departments within the Japan WCTU as evidence of a limited commitment to this same policy. So she decided to focus her energies first on convincing members to broaden their reform program. Her words of inducement struck a chord with the union’s beleaguered officers, and at the national organization’s annual convention in April 1897, they appointed a five-person committee to consult with Parrish regarding which World WCTU departments of work best suited Japan’s needs and members’ interests and abilities. The five took their charge seriously and met with Parrish several times in the weeks immediately after the convention. On the basis of their recommendation, the Japan WCTU’s officers resolved to restructure the union’s existing six departments to mirror sections in the World WCTU; they would also create an additional nine departments. The fifteen in total reflected the world union’s persistent concern with temperance and its growing emphasis on active evangelism and work with youth. They included: Evangelistic; Loyal Temperance Legions (LTLs; societies of boys and girls); Mothers’ Meetings; Scientific Temperance Instruction (STI) in Public Schools; Narcotics; Social Purity; Sabbath Observance; Sunday School Work; Work among Young Women in Schools and Colleges (leading to the creation of Ys, Societies of Young Women); Press Work; Literature; Heredity; Unfermented Wine at the Sacrament; Work among Soldiers and Sailors; and Legislation and Petitions.71 Parrish knew that she was following in West’s footsteps in pushing native unionists to see the need for department work, just as she knew that past support for the adoption of sections had not translated into long-term activity. To prevent a recurrence of this problem, she strove to teach superintendents how exactly to do their work. She enlisted the help of World WCTU directors in this effort and, in a May 1897 letter to Union Signal, appealed to them to send instructional materials to aid their counterparts in Japan.72 In addition, she used her own money to fund a Japanese translation of Do Everything. The first three chapters were printed in a newspaper in 1897, and the full text, with the Japan WCTU’s rules and a short history of the society appended, was published by Kyōbunkan the following year.73 To provide personal instruction as well, Parrish held a five-day school of methods for

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Japanese workers in July 1898. While these activities focused solely on the native union, Parrish knew that she also needed to solidify commitment to department work within the Auxiliary. Many of its members shared with Denton a history of WCTU involvement, but relatively few had any experience in superintending departments. For their sake, Parrish convened a second methods convention just two weeks after the first with help from Eliza Spencer Large, a Methodist missionary from Canada and the Auxiliary’s corresponding secretary.74 Parrish recognized that the future of the WCTU in Japan depended not only on a stronger organizational structure but also on renewed interest in the union and in reform activities generally. Inspirational tours had proven highly effective before, and she did not hesitate to travel extensively herself. In her first four months alone, she covered almost one thousand miles to speak at branch meetings and mission schools for girls and to address church groups and any other gatherings that foreign missionaries and native temperance activists arranged.75 Her work in the United States had made her an ardent proponent of outreach among youth, and her experiences with various Japanese audiences reinforced that position. Indeed, she concluded early in her stay that young people in Japan and young women especially would be the “‘corner stones’ on which the ‘palace’ of the W.C.T.U. of Japan” would and should be constructed.76 As was the case with their American counterparts, Japanese youth were impressionable and open to new ideas, which made them more likely than adults to convert to temperance. Moreover, young women through motherhood had the power to raise a dry next generation. Parrish thus paid special attention to the young while touring, and at each mission school she visited she encouraged students to create Young Women’s Christian Temperance Unions or Ys. Japan’s first Y was founded in 1896 at Hakodate’s Iai Jogakkō, run by missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. Parrish organized the second at the Congregational Kobe Jogakkō in early 1897. Interest in Y work quickly intensified within both the WCTU and the Auxiliary, and Parrish was able to report that, by the fall of 1897, nine young women’s unions were meeting with a total membership of roughly five hundred.77 Parrish’s travels similarly sparked enthusiasm in adults. New branches were established in 1897 in Hirosaki and Muroran, the former in Aomori prefecture and the latter on Hokkaido. These additions and new memberships in existing locals bumped the national organization’s numbers to approximately five hundred adults by the time of the World WCTU’s fourth biennial convention in Toronto that October. That figure represented nearly a twofold increase over 1896, leaving Parrish to take special delight in how

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well the seeds of her work had sprouted.78 In fact, the Japan WCTU’s total growth proved so spectacular that it surpassed in percentage terms membership increases in every other of the World WCTU’s forty-nine national affiliates. In recognition of this accomplishment, the world body awarded the union a prize banner made of silk at its 1897 convention. The banner’s front emphasized the World WCTU’s global reach with a picture of a young woman holding up the world in her hands and the union’s motto “For God and Home and Every Land” embroidered to her right.79 Yajima realized the potential use of the banner as a tool to create a sense of unity among the Japan WCTU’s dispersed members and stimulate interest in the society in Japan as a whole. So before the union returned the banner to the World WCTU for its 1900 convention, she dedicated much of her free time to travelling the country with the banner in hand. Six feet by four feet in size and suspended from a large brass stand, it made quite a sight next to the diminutive Yajima.80 It also served as a notable centrepiece at the national WCTU’s own convention in April 1898. Soon after her arrival, Parrish determined to make the WCTU’s annual meetings public showcases for the union’s work as well as forums for education and opportunities to rejuvenate widespread interest in reform activities. She helped negotiate the rental of the YMCA auditorium in Tokyo for the 1897 convention, her first in Japan and the first to be held outside the gates of Joshi Gakuin. She hoped that the more convenient venue, advance advertising, and a rich program of business sessions, lectures, and entertainment would attract crowds and make the two-day event the “largest temperance meeting ever held in Japan.”81 The convention did draw delegates from more branches than had sent representatives the previous year, and the union did receive a score of congratulatory telegrams from around the country. Parrish lamented, though, that the largest attendance at any one time did not exceed eight hundred because of inclement weather.82 Parrish expressed no such regrets the following year. Indeed, she praised the WCTU’s 1898 convention as a “wonderful monument to the worth and work of the women” of Japan. The meetings lasted for three days, with morning, afternoon, and evening sessions, and consistently drew large audiences, which included a record 162 members representing branches from Kobe to Morioka. A stenographer was on hand to record all the proceedings, and committees on credentials and courtesies ensured that the convention was conducted in accordance with Robert’s Rules of Order, the guide for procedure that the World WCTU followed. To get the Japan WCTU to apply these rules conscientiously was one of Parrish’s goals for the annual

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meeting. Another was to settle the question of local representation at the convention. The union’s constitution included no provision guaranteeing branches a vote in decisions made at the convention, and this structural shortcoming had weakened local interest in the meeting and had contributed to poor participation among members outside the immediate Tokyo area. On Parrish’s recommendation, the WCTU solved this problem and decided that every twenty-five members would be entitled to send one official delegate.83 These two changes were not the only modifications to convention procedures that Parrish oversaw in order to make the WCTU’s annual meetings more attractive and relevant. Even more important was the decision to hold the 1898 sessions in Yokohama instead of Tokyo. Who actually suggested Yokohama is unclear; so is why the port city was chosen. Its proximity to the capital and the relative ease of travel there likely factored into its selection. Strategy must also have played a role. At the time of the convention, the Yokohama branch ranked second only to the Tokyo union in terms of size, thanks to a staggering fivefold-plus increase in membership the previous year.84 Holding the meetings in Yokohama would reward that vitality and would also draw Yokohama members into the national fold, which was especially important, given their early separatism. The desire to use the annual meetings to strengthen allegiance to the Japan WCTU remained strong even after 1898; so did the awareness that conventions, if well planned, advertised, and conducted, were excellent vehicles for spreading the message of reform. Consequently, the honour and responsibility of hosting a convention rotated. While Tokyo was chosen nine more times during the Meiji period, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Yokohama also had their turns. Parrish’s contributions to the organizational strengthening of the WCTU and its expansion extended beyond her efforts in connection with the union’s conventions. She also succeeded in uniting Japanese and foreign unionists. In 1897, she indirectly broached the subject of a merger at the Auxiliary’s own annual meeting in November, when she urged its members to “identify themselves” with branches of the Japan WCTU and both assist and, where necessary, guide native activities.85 Continued prodding finally induced Auxiliary women to agree to become a branch of the Japan WCTU instead of a national affiliate of the world union. That happened during their next annual meeting in September 1898, just two months before Parrish left Japan. This alliance made them responsible for paying dues to the Japan WCTU; in return, they would be entitled to send delegates to the organization’s conventions, and they would be eligible for office in that union.86

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Compared to evidence of Parrish’s impact on the structure of the WCTU, the link between her work and change in the content of the union’s periodical is far less obvious. Her reports in Union Signal and Japan Evangelist offer no indication that she took any specific steps to encourage Yamaji Taneko, the magazine’s editor in 1896 and 1897, to more forthrightly use the organ’s pages to promote reform.87 Her enthusiasm and the strength of her own resolve to advance the WCTU’s cause in Japan, however, impacted Yamaji, and quickly at that. Indeed, the lead editorial in the January 1897 issue of Fujin shimpō manifested a renewed commitment to pursuing in print the WCTU’s reform agenda. In this piece, Yamaji argued that efforts to improve family morals would fail to achieve real success as long as immorality remained rampant in public. Reflecting on the fact that previous issues of Fujin shimpō had dealt primarily with the home, she offered the reminder that the Japan WCTU had originally been established to reform public and private morality and that the union’s work continued to be very public in nature. She then closed with the prayer that her readers would renew their devotion to the society and give their all for reform.88 A host of other articles in the first months of 1897 provide further evidence of a shift in the tone and objectives of Fujin shimpō. One example is an editorial on the WCTU’s monogamy petition, which Yamaji included in the March 1897 issue. Even though a committee in the House of Representatives had voted not to present the petition to the full assembly, she expressed pleasure that attention had finally been drawn to the virtue and value of monogamy. She vowed that the union would continue to fight and – because only one vote in the Diet could determine the fate of a petition – fight more desperately. This closing assertion projected a forcefulness reminiscent of many editorials in Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi.89 One month after this article appeared, Yamaji received an order to stop publication. The reason she was given was that the periodical had addressed contemporary issues, and the WCTU had not paid the guarantee money required for such topics. The article most likely responsible for the ban was this editorial on the monogamy petition.90 Shortly after notification of the ban arrived, Yajima, still serving as the magazine’s publisher, received a postcard from a young bureaucrat at the Communications Ministry. This note advised her to deal with the ban by first tendering the form for discontinuing publication and then submitting a new request to begin publishing again under the same name. What prompted the official’s unsolicited assistance remains a mystery, as does whether he was similarly solicitous toward other periodicals. To conclude

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from his action that he had a personal affinity for the WCTU’s message or even that the government wanted to encourage the union to continue publishing out of support for its attempt to mould a temperate populace would be reading too much into what sources are available. His suggestion does, though, show that ways to circumvent Meiji press and publication regulations did exist, and Yajima and Yamaji wasted no time in taking his advice. With no significant disruption in the printing schedule, the two women published the first issue of a new Fujin shimpō in May 1897. On the first page, they wrote that the purpose of the magazine was to publicize the Japan WCTU’s principles and hopes. They also offered a lengthy explanation for the decision to switch back to press regulations. Specifically, they stated that the legal restriction prohibiting women from publishing and editing newspapers and magazines such as Fujin shimpō was a problem linked to women’s rights. Because it was essential for the WCTU to be able to discuss this problem and advocate for monogamy and the abolition of licensed prostitution, they had no choice but to conform to press rules. This new freedom required greater responsibility, they claimed, yet it also provided the liberty to address all problems concerning women.91 The cover reflected the forthrightness of the content. The four characters for Fujin shimpō appeared big and bold, with the issue number, date of publication, and name of the publishing company written in smaller fonts and any other artistic adornment noticeably absent. Over the ensuing years, Yajima and Yamaji and their successors received periodic summons from the Metropolitan Police Department, which typically preceded pointed suggestions that certain articles be toned down. They remained steadfast, however, in pursuing the agenda of Fujin shimpō as Yajima and Yamaji had defined it.92 For example, from October 1897 to March 1898, the periodical included a five-part piece on the expansion of women’s rights, which sought to debunk persisting arguments against woman suffrage.93 Articles on women labourers, introductions of new jobs for women, a special section with information relevant for nurses, and a report on a Japanese woman’s ascent of Mount Fuji also appeared and served to enhance readers’ awareness of the wealth of possibilities open to them. As calls for the abolition of licensed prostitution and the movement for self-emancipation by prostitutes intensified, more and more space was devoted to critiques of this system. Detailed reports of branch activities and national and executive meetings also became regular features and reveal that creating a common sense of purpose and informing members of the

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policy of the national headquarters had become key objectives of Fujin shimpō.94 As such, the magazine contributed greatly to the strengthening and growth of the WCTU in the late 1890s. That organizational development complemented the enhanced attractiveness of the magazine, and circulation figures improved dramatically in response. While 6,567 copies were distributed in 1897, the numbers for 1898 and 1899 were, respectively, 12,494 and 14,328.95 The Japan WCTU in the Last Years of the Meiji Period After Parrish’s departure from Japan in November 1898, the momentum she had helped generate continued unabated and resulted in significant organizational gains for the WCTU over the next several years. The following twelve months alone saw the establishment of at least two Ys as well as branches in Sapporo, Wakamatsu, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima, additions that enabled the union to claim 51 branches and 2,130 adult and youth members by the time of its annual convention in April 1900. More impressive still was the membership tally at the national meeting two years later. Though the WCTU reported a total gain of only one local, its membership roster included approximately 3,200 names, representing an increase of nearly 50 percent.96 Factors external to the WCTU do deserve some credit for this expansion. Among the most important was growth in the Christian community. While male and female Protestant missionaries and Japanese converts had found themselves beleaguered in the early and mid-1890s because of the strength and prevalence of conservative and nationalistic sentiment, they continued to give witness to their religious beliefs and moral values, both formally and informally. Their vocal support of and active service during the SinoJapanese War served as a counter to the charge that they were disloyal to the emperor and the state and dampened some animosity. More thawing occurred in the wake of the government’s successful renegotiation of the unequal treaties. Just weeks before the outbreak of the war, Britain had agreed to relinquish the right of extraterritoriality in 1899, with control of tariffs by treaty to end in 1911. Though the timetable nettled many, the fact that the other Western powers shortly followed suit did improve opinions of foreigners and their native associates. An even greater boon to the Christian movement came from a clause in the revised treaties stipulating that, as of 1899, foreigners would be able to travel freely throughout Japan and live where they wanted. For decades, the government had required all foreigners wishing to venture outside the designated treaty ports to

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obtain official permission in advance and had allowed residence only to those employed by Japanese. Though these rules had not completely shackled missionaries, they had impeded the spread of Christianity. Greeting their removal at the turn of the century were just over five hundred married and single Protestant missionaries, and these Christian envoys wasted little time taking advantage of the doors newly opened. Most notably, in 1901, in collaboration with native ministers, laymen, Bible women, and church members, they launched a nationwide campaign to advance the faith. Public meetings with extensive advertising and followup visits to the homes of those showing interest resulted in a windfall of conversions. As Otis Cary has implied, the “indirect benefits” may have been even more significant. The campaign “gave new courage to the Christians, it led them to more activity ... and it increased the spirit of Christian unity by leading those of different denominations to work together to an extent hitherto unknown.”97 Whether it was due more to the campaign or to the lingering impact of Parrish’s two years in Japan, the activities pursued by WCTU members in the early years of the twentieth century reflected these advances. The organization’s response to the country’s first major case of environmental pollution attests to that. The source of the pollution was the Ashio copper mine, located in a mountainous region just hours north of Tokyo. The mine sat near the headwaters of the Watarase River, which supplied fresh water and food to communities spanning four prefectures. Its modernization in the 1880s and 1890s had resulted in significant increases in output, but massive deforestation had accompanied its development. The removal of mountain trees in turn had intensified spring flooding, the impact of which was made still worse by persistent dumping of arsenic and other toxic wastes into the river. An active opposition movement developed in the late 1890s. Joining its ranks were a long list of prominent Christians, including – among others with ties to the WCTU – Iwamoto Yoshiharu, Tsuda Sen, Tokutomi Sohō, and Honda Yōitsu.98 The WCTU joined that movement in November 1901, after Yajima, Ushioda, and fellow members Kuchida Yoshiko, Shimada Nobuko, and Matsumoto Eiko travelled to the polluted area to see the havoc first-hand.99 The sights she encountered so overwhelmed Ushioda that she felt compelled to publish a descriptive report in Fujo shimbun (Woman’s newspaper) soon after returning to Tokyo in order to alert the larger public.100 Later that month she collaborated with others within and outside the WCTU to hold a charity lecture meeting to benefit victims. Then in December, she spearheaded an

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Figure 8   Ushioda

Chiseko.

Source: Reproduced from Arubamu Iinkai, ed., Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988). Courtesy of the Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai

organization of women specifically for the purpose of providing aid. As president of that group, the Kōdokuchi Fujin Kyūsaikai (Women’s Pollution Relief Association), she co-sponsored public lectures, toured the country to raise awareness, and helped present members of both houses of the Diet with an appeal for relief. Written by Matsumoto, this solicitation did not mince words in criticizing the government and society as a whole for ignoring the victims; indeed, it went so far as to describe the lack of interest as depraved.101 Reflective of her own concern, Ushioda also personally distributed donations of clothing, food, and other relief goods, much as unionists had done over the years to meet emergency needs stemming from natural disasters. In addition, she set up a vocational training centre for women from the polluted areas, where she and other volunteers offered instruction on how to weave a kind of cloth used for making Western-style hats – a basic

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skill that would enable the women to provide financially for themselves and their families. Collectively, these activities heralded new levels of co-operation and reflected more interest in social welfare work, a developing desire to eliminate fundamental impediments to women’s advancement, and a greater openness to new opportunities for outreach.102 That the national organization had twenty departments of work by the end of the Meiji period is one indication of that openness, not to mention a greater commitment at least in theory to Frances Willard’s “Do Everything” policy.103 How active any particular section was continued to depend largely on the initiative of its national and local superintendents and the timeliness of its concerns among rank-and-file members and the general population. Consequently, some, such as the departments charged with promoting Sabbath observance and the use of unfermented wine in the Sacrament, did not distinguish themselves. Others, most notably the section for outreach among soldiers and sailors, dominated the pages of Fujin shimpō with their activities for short periods and then virtually disappeared. Still others developed over time into significant and regular fixtures of the WCTU’s program and contributed in ways big and small to the spread of knowledge about the union and its agenda. This was especially true regarding the departments devoted to work among children and young women, including the one specifically in charge of organizing medal contests for temperance speeches and essays.104 Interest in youth evolved largely from the emphasis placed on that segment of society by the three World WCTU missionaries who resided in Japan during the last decade of the Meiji period – Kara Smart (1902-6), Flora Strout (1908-10), and Ruth Davis (1909-13) – and was spurred by their hiring of Japanese unionists as full-time Y and LTL workers.105 Yet other new endeavours were initiated solely by native members. To point to but one example, in 1902, in response to reports of the torture of workers at a textile mill in Ōmiya, Ushioda and Yajima collaborated with Shirai Shūichi, editor of Maishū nippō (The weekly news), in establishing the Tokyo Airinsha (Neighbourly Love Association). Its stated purpose was to educate and “rescue” factory girls and the poor with lectures, classes in academic subjects and allied arts, and “refined” entertainment. Reports about the Airinsha in Fujin shimpō generated growing interest among WCTU members and led the union to create a department for work among factory girls in 1906 and then, four years later, to take over management of the association.106 The ups and downs of individual departments aside, the fact that the WCTU undertook increasingly varied activities and responded to emerging social problems and national needs points to the organization’s maturation as well as to the confidence of its members.

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By no means were the last years of the Meiji period devoid of crises. The most serious loomed in 1903. At the WCTU’s annual convention in April of that year, Ushioda unseated Yajima as president. Though the voting took place under revised rules, the changes – including the provision that the secretary and treasurer were to be appointed by the president instead of elected – appear unrelated to the outcome. A more likely factor behind Ushioda’s more than three-to-one margin of victory was the acclaim she had won within the union as a result of her pollution relief activities. Yet those same activities, especially her creation of a new organization, reminded some old-time members of the formation of the WWRC and the TWTS and raised the question of whether she had worked behind the scenes to undermine Yajima. Concern about Yajima’s reaction and the desire to ensure her continued involvement with the WCTU led executives to offer her the title of honorary president days after the convention. She refused on the grounds that the title carried considerable responsibility but no real authority. Tensions remained high for many weeks and only dissolved after Ushioda died of stomach cancer in early July and Yajima was subsequently re-elected president.107 Over the following decade, the national organization continued to function without a genuine headquarters, and financial worries remained ever present. Years of experience, however, had taught Yajima and many of her fellow unionists how to circumvent problems arising from both. Thus, even when the government revised regulations for periodicals in 1909 and doubled the guarantee money for such publications as Fujin shimpō, they found a way to come up with the total, namely through reallocation of funds in the account for an office building and a grant from Yajima.108 The magazine was simply too important a tool in the WCTU’s crusade to modify public and private behaviour in line with nineteenth-century New England evangelical beliefs and values. The publication was also too vital a unifier and stimulus for the organization’s members, who by 1911 numbered 3,600 in 46 adult branches and 19 Ys.109 These figures barely allude to the significance of what the WCTU had attempted and accomplished over the previous quarter century. Indeed, they inadequately reflect the fact that, regardless of fluctuations in the organization’s fortunes, members had continuously claimed a role in debates about modernization, citizenship, and the place of women. They had done so by holding public lectures, publishing a periodical, submitting petitions, offering factory girls educational opportunities, and providing aid in times of environmental disaster. Through these and the many other activities

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unionists pursued, they presented their vision of what modern Japan should be and what role civilians should play in its construction. Some of their efforts succeeded, and some failed, as the different outcomes of their appeals for access to gallery seats in the House of Representatives and for revision of the civil and criminal codes reveal. Yet they persisted in trying to shape public and private behaviour, not to mention government policy. That they did so “for God, home, and country” the next three chapters will make clear.

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Part 2 Under the Guise of National Strengthening and “Good” Citizenship: Pillars of the WCTU’s Reform Program

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4 The Fight against Prostitution

From the inception of the Tokyo WCTU, Sasaki Toyoju argued that Japan’s system of state-regulated, public prostitution represented the biggest impediment to the improvement of women’s character and the “enlightenment” of the country. For this reason, she asserted, the union should devote its greatest energy to the problem of licensed prostitution, not to that of alcohol consumption. Her opinion influenced first the decision to omit direct mention of temperance in the organization’s name and then the union’s April 1887 resolution to give priority to the eradication of prostitutes. Historians have pointed to the centrality of this cause as one way in which the WCTU in Japan differed from its contemporaries elsewhere. Such a claim, however, disregards the prominence of concerns about purity in the World WCTU’s first constitution as well as the work of national social-purity departments in other countries, most notably the United States and Britain.1 It has also contributed to the impression that the union in Japan pursued little else. By no means did the determination to emphasize the battle to “purify” Japan preclude the pursuit of a range of reform objectives, as the other chapters in this book reveal. Nevertheless, the crusade against prostitution does stand out as one of the most consuming the WCTU waged during the Meiji period. More important, it highlights how members tried to influence public policy, often employing blatantly political means, as well as shape private behaviour in line with their ideas about morality. It also reveals how they used the rhetoric of national progress and civic duty to achieve their aims and, in the process, put forth their own definition of “good” citizenship. To bring to light these aspects, this chapter examines three components of the fight against prostitution: agitation against Japanese prostitutes overseas, opposition to particular brothel districts, and rescue efforts. A brief history of the licence system in Japan will set the stage.

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An Overview of Licensed Prostitution in Japan and “Modernization” in Early Meiji In 1612, Shōji Jinnai, a brothel owner in Edo, petitioned shogunal officials to establish one distinct brothel district within the capital and relocate there the dozens of houses of prostitution dotting the city. He backed up his appeal with the argument that consolidation would make a crackdown on the illegal kidnapping of children for sex work easier. The creation of a designated quarter, he added, would also facilitate the surveillance of rōnin (masterless samurai) and other “suspicious characters” and better enable officials to restrict the length of patrons’ stays and thereby prevent them from lingering, to the neglect of their duties. These latter benefits would likely have been much more compelling than the first, given the new Tokugawa government’s eagerness to establish its hegemony. Their relative appeal aside, the regulation of prostitution took a back seat to concerns more directly linked to the consolidation of Tokugawa rule. Case in point, the same year that Shōji submitted his appeal, the shogun required those daimyo who had yet to do so to pledge oaths of fealty and thus subjugate themselves to his authority. Two years later the regime moved against religious threats by extending the ban on Christianity to the entire country and by suppressing a string of Buddhist uprisings. The year 1614 also saw the launch of a military attack against the Toyotomi family, whose deceased patriarch had been Tokugawa Ieyasu’s most powerful opponent in the 1590s and for whom considerable support still existed. So preoccupied, the bakufu did not respond to Shōji’s request until 1617. That year it heeded his recommendation and publicly authorized the building of what would become known as the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter.2 This decree did not constitute the first time that Japanese officialdom had tried to manage prostitution. As early as the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the Kamakura shogunate (1185-1333) had appointed a special administrator specifically to regulate prostitutes; its successor, the Ashikaga bakufu (13381573), had extended formal recognition to prostitution as a profession for women and begun imposing taxes on the trade. More recently, Ieyasu’s aforementioned rival, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had sanctioned the construction of a brothel district in Kyoto in 1589, and officials in Osaka had approved the establishment of a similar quarter within their own city limits in 1610. What made the Tokugawa authorization of the building of Yoshiwara precedent setting, however, was that it heralded the development of a comprehensive system of officially sanctioned, regulated, and taxed public prostitution.

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The cornerstone of this system was the licensed quarter, outside of which the Tokugawa prohibited prostitutes from living and working. In administrative terms, brothel quarters appealed to the bakufu on three counts: they simplified the collection of brothel fees, made it easier to dictate public morality, and allowed a tighter grasp of security in urban areas. In short, licensed quarters brought in revenue and facilitated social control, just as Shōji had maintained. Given these benefits, it should not come as a surprise that the Tokugawa opened or approved the creation of brothel districts so quickly that, by the end of the seventeenth century, thirty-five were in operation in castle towns around the country. Yoshiwara became one of the largest; by the mid-1800s, it housed roughly three thousand prostitutes by some estimates and as many as ten thousand by others.3 The Meiji government inherited this system and, during its first decade in power, made a number of key changes in line with European regulatory practices in an attempt at “modernization.” The earliest reform involved compulsory testing of all brothel prostitutes for venereal disease. Mandatory inspection and treatment for the infected had originated in Paris and Berlin in the late 1790s in response to greater knowledge about venereal disease and a sharp increase in the number of infections among soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars. Over the ensuing decades, authorities in Madrid, Rome, Vienna, Prague, and a host of other continental cities began to require medical examinations on a local basis, while British officials imposed testing in port cities and military towns nationwide beginning in the 1860s.4 The first tests in Japan were conducted in Nagasaki at the behest of the Russian Navy. Soon after the port’s opening under the unequal treaties in 1859, a brothel district had been established there to cater to resident and transient foreigners. Concern about the debilitating impact of venereal disease on sailors led Russian naval officials to demand inspections, to which local Japanese authorities promptly agreed. Even more pressure came from the British Navy during the last years of Tokugawa rule as more and more servicemen who were stationed in Japan or were passing through were diagnosed with syphilis. So urgent was the sense of need to protect their health that the British admiral volunteered the services of his naval surgeon if the bakufu would both require that all prostitutes be regularly tested and construct a hospital specifically for their treatment in confinement. Modelled on the “lock hospitals” established in England under the Contagious Diseases Act of 1866, the first such institution in Japan was opened in 1868. Continued prodding by Sir Harry Parkes, the British minister to Japan, resulted in the founding of several more hospitals in the foreign concessions in the 1870s,

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which operated under British supervision until the Meiji government took them over in 1881. By that point, the Japanese state had already begun requiring periodic examinations of all brothel prostitutes, not just those who serviced foreigners.5 International pressure also prompted changes in licensing laws. During the summer of 1872, the Maria Luz, a Peruvian ship carrying 230 Chinese coolies, anchored in Yokohama to escape bad weather. One of the labourers jumped overboard and, after gaining refuge on a nearby British warship, told a story of how the Peruvians had provided him and his fellow “passengers” with neither food nor water and planned to sell them to South American mines as slaves. Wanting to appear “civilized” in the eyes of the West, Japanese officials heeded British calls for intercession by detaining the Peruvian ship and ordering the release and return home of all the Chinese on board. The government of Peru protested strongly, as did consular corps from the Netherlands, France, and Portugal. In an attempt to gain restitution, the ship’s captain filed suit against two of the coolies in a Japanese court, asserting that they had on their own accord signed employment contracts that were legal under Peruvian law and so should either return to the ship or pay reparations. The court ruled in favour of the defendants but not before a Peruvian representative exposed the hypocrisy of Japanese assertions that traffic in humans was illegal in Japan by producing a copy of a promissory note binding a prostitute to a brothel owner for a set number of years.6 The international humiliation that Japan endured as a result of this incident prompted the country’s highest executive body, the Council of State, to issue the Ordinance Liberating Slaves (Dorei kaihō rei) in early October 1872. This decree banned the buying and selling of people, called for the release of prostitutes, geisha, and other indentured servants, and barred recourse from their respective employers.7 This sudden edict shocked most brothel owners, who had never heard of the Maria Luz and who had no inkling that the existence of prostitutes in Japan had caused such a public relations nightmare for the government. Fearful of the law’s impact on their livelihoods, many owners united in outright defiance, immediately tightening control of the prostitutes in their employ in order to keep news of the ruling from reaching the women’s ears.8 Their concerns proved unfounded as the state had no intention of outlawing prostitution. Nor were officials about to leave the business unregulated. Two days after the Council of State promulgated the ordinance, the governor of Tokyo issued a new set of rules for the oversight of prostitutes and brothels within the city. These regulations stipulated that a woman who

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wanted to prostitute of her own free will could obtain a licence and would be allowed to “rent a room” from a brothel owner, who had himself secured permission to provide accommodations within a designated quarter. The inclusion of the principle of self-determination was one among several measures adopted to make state-sanctioned prostitution seem more enlightened and humane. In reality, this particular change resembled the others that Tokyo’s governor set forth; that is, they were cosmetic rather than substantive.9 The arbitrary selling of girls and young women by their families continued unabated, albeit now under the guise of prostitutes exercising their own individual will. These same rules became the standard for regulating and “reviving” licensed prostitution nationwide in the wake of the Maria Luz incident. So reconstituted, the system flourished after the mid-1870s. Indeed, by 1897, less than three decades after the Council of State “liberated” prostitutes, official registries listed 546 pleasure quarters, 10,172 brothels, and 49,208 prostitutes in all of Japan.10 That growth owed much to the active encouragement of the central government and local administrations. Even more so than in the Tokugawa period, the regulation of prostitution during Meiji was a money-making venture, and authorities did not hesitate to exploit the business to bring in revenue. The rules for prostitutes and brothels issued by Tokyo’s governor in 1872 stipulated that the former had to pay ¥2 and the latter ¥5 each month for their respective licences – figures that became the national norm in short order. Using the above statistics for 1897, these fees would have netted ¥1,791,312. Whether used to build roads, reclaim land for urban development, cover police expenses, or (in some cases) line the pockets of local officials, this amount was certainly not insignificant with respect to total government revenue.11 The economic benefits of housing a brothel quarter went far beyond the collection of licensing fees. According to official reports, nearly 10 million people visited districts in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo in 1910, collectively spending well over ¥6 million. Both figures are most certainly low, but even if the licensed brothels in these three cities had twice as many customers and, theoretically, made twice as much money their contribution to the local economies was sizable. This was even more true when cities were able to attract army or navy bases. Not only did a base bring in government money for construction work and infrastructural improvements, but the arrival of servicemen as new residents also guaranteed increased consumption. Local administrators recognized the rewards to be reaped and actively lobbied for military bases. More and more saw their efforts bear fruit over the course of the Meiji period, as both the army and navy added divisions

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and established bases to accommodate them. The building of new licensed brothel districts, the revival of defunct ones, and the enlargement of some already existing went hand in hand with military expansion. This was because of the widely accepted belief that prostitutes were necessary to fulfill the sexual needs of soldiers and sailors and prevent them from ravaging wives and daughters in nearby homes. An additional incentive to make licensed prostitutes readily available was the common notion that the regular checkups these women were required to have for venereal disease protected the health and well-being of those in uniform. This idea proved to be exceptionally naive, not to mention the fact that it led prostitutes to be stigmatized as the sole carriers of sexually transmitted diseases. The unfairness of that branding aside, a licensed brothel quarter was seen as a natural corollary to a military base, and the number of those in operation grew as bases were developed and as the money to be made from them multiplied.12 The great increase in the number of women working as licensed prostitutes likewise stemmed from ideological and economic factors. With respect to the former, the Meiji government identified prostitution as shameful, yet it also defended the trade as a means by which daughters could and even should help their impoverished families. The money that prostitutes made for their families did not come from fees charged to customers. Brothel owners confiscated virtually all of that income, and if what remained was not enough to pay for food, lodging, medical checkups, and personal items – as was often the case – the women had to borrow to meet daily expenses. Rather, families received cash advances when a contract for service was concluded, with the national average amounting to ¥75 in 1887 and to ¥270 in 1912. Even after a sizable chunk went to pay the fees of employment agents and the cost of travel to licensed quarters, what remained could be a godsend to families mired in debt.13 The number so poverty-stricken increased as the Meiji period progressed, thanks in large part to oppressive taxes. From the early 1870s, the government relied on land taxes as its chief form of income, and farmers bore the brunt of the burden. Efforts to forestall skyrocketing inflation and government bankruptcy in the early 1880s struck the rural poor with particular force. Their position became even more precarious during times of war, when taxes were again raised to cover military expenses. Recession following the Russo-Japanese War affected the urban poor as well, with factory closings leaving thousands unemployed. The ranks of licensed prostitutes grew in tandem with such economic hardship. That their numbers almost doubled between 1884 and 1916 underscores that licensed prostitution developed side by side with Meijiperiod modernization.14

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Calls for the Regulation of Japanese Prostitutes Overseas In 1890, shortly after her election as president of the Tokyo WCTU, Asai Saku submitted a petition to the first session of the Diet in which she called for the abolition of the licensing system. In her appeal, she bemoaned the fact that the spirit of the Ordinance Liberating Slaves had not been realized and challenged the arguments used to justify state regulation. Specifically, she wrote that licences had failed to control the spread of syphilis and lewd conduct and indeed had fostered both. Moreover, the system infringed on human rights and created an environment that was ruinous to the morale of youth, harmful to the economy, and destructive to tens of thousands of families. Government approval, she added, had effectively eliminated shame, and shame alone had the power to deter immorality in public and private. As a result, Japan was in disgrace as “no greater insult existed for a civilized country” than such a system.15 Many within and outside the Tokyo WCTU agreed and added their signatures to this petition, but their collective appeal brought about no change in government policy. Thereafter, the WCTU continued to lobby for the system to be abolished, though it shifted its emphasis from attempts to gain a comprehensive solution to campaigns aimed at solving specific problems related to prostitution. This approach – achieving small victories in order to win the war – would characterize the WCTU’s anti-prostitution movement until the end of the Meiji period, with Japanese prostitutes overseas representing one problem the union sought to eliminate. Despite a shogunal edict outlawing travel abroad, overseas trafficking in women did occur, albeit on a minor scale, during the Tokugawa period. As Karen Colligan-Taylor has pointed out, Chinese merchants typically hired Japanese maids for their Nagasaki settlement homes, and more than one induced his servant to return with him to China only to sell her into prostitution. This trickle of women going overseas to serve as prostitutes increased in the late 1850s and 1860s as first the opening of Nagasaki as a treaty port and then the bakufu’s decision to rescind its travel ban resulted in more movement of goods and individuals. During the Meiji period, it became a steady stream, with impetuses for this growing “exportation” including the emigration of male labourers and the stationing of troops and government officials throughout the burgeoning Japanese empire. These factors gave rise to a strong numerical imbalance between men and women in Japanese communities in Southeast Asia, China, the Russian Far East, and the Pacific Northwest and heightened the demand for prostitutes, whom many regarded as crucial to the success of formal and informal colonies. The colonization of much of Southeast Asia by Western powers created even more

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of a market owing to similar gender disparities in the expatriate populations and the desire of colonial officials to keep their compatriots productive and happy. Japanese brothel owners responded by developing extensive networks for procuring and transporting women and profited greatly as a result.16 Some Japanese women were sold by poor parents and headed overseas knowing at least in general terms what kind of life awaited them. More often, though, agents and brokers resorted to deception and kidnapping. The experience of Yamada Waka was typical. The second daughter of a poor peasant family, she was beguiled by a jewellery-bedecked woman and her stories of the riches to be had in the United States. She set sail for Seattle with high hopes of helping her family and fulfilling her filial duties, only to be seized by the woman’s cohorts on landing and sold to a brothel.17 The total number of Japanese women who – whether forcibly like Yamada or due to a more subtle but no less insidious form of coercion – engaged in prostitution overseas during the Meiji period remains unknown. Without question, however, that figure far exceeds the nearly 20,000 Japanese living overseas in 1910 who had registered with the Japanese government and who had identified prostitution as their principal occupation.18 As the number of Japanese prostitutes around the Pacific grew, voices rose condemning their presence. All spoke to the pervasive concern about national honour, arguing that Japanese who engaged in prostitution beyond the Mikado’s shores were shaming the country. One of the earliest objections offered by a government official came from Japan’s consul in Shanghai, who labelled the roughly eight hundred Japanese prostitutes working in the city in 1882 “a national disgrace.”19 Nakagawa Tetsurō, Japan’s first consul in Singapore, voiced a similar opinion shortly after he took up his post in 1889. Brothels in Singapore then housed more than one hundred Japanese prostitutes who, with traffickers and pimps, comprised the vast majority of the Japanese community there. Nakagawa took issue with their collective presence in one of his first reports, charging them with having led Chinese, Indian, and Malay locals to “believe that all Japanese [were] involved in the prostitution racket” and to “despise and ridicule the Japanese in the extreme.”20 Diplomats on the West Coast likewise complained to Tokyo about the proliferation of Japanese prostitutes and the adverse effects of their presence on immigrant communities in Washington, Oregon, and California. Paramount among their concerns was the fear that prostitutes would generate so much anti-Japanese sentiment that the American government would prohibit Japanese immigration altogether. This trepidation was far from idle, given that Congress had in 1882 responded to rising animosity toward

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Chinese labourers, including prostitutes, by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act. Many outside Japanese official circles shared this fear that doors would be closed and during the last decade of the century began to call for state regulation. For example, an editorialist for Hōchi shimbun (Information news), one of Japan’s top three dailies, published an opinion piece in 1890 exhorting the government to order its consuls to repatriate prostitutes in order to maintain citizens’ access to the United States.21 The following year, for much the same reason, a group of emigrants in San Francisco petitioned the Foreign Ministry for a total ban on overseas travel by Japanese prostitutes.22 Even before this official and civilian outcry began, members of the Tokyo WCTU were well aware of the increasingly problematic presence of Japanese prostitutes overseas. In fact, they had already held lecture meetings to inform the public. In addition, from the first issue of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, the magazine’s editors had regularly included short descriptive articles about the treatment of prostitutes on foreign soil and the circumstances of their passage abroad. Early writings reflected a complete lack of sympathy among the society’s middle-class members for overseas prostitutes, who overwhelmingly came from poor farming families. Given that, Asai’s treatment of these women in her editorial in the inaugural issue of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi stands out. She there had criticized her fellow members and society at large for treating prostitutes as less than human. In an especially cutting passage, she had argued that “prostitutes [were] also people” and that for the morally upright to “sacrifice” prostitutes for the sake of their own virtue was like “ripping open another’s heart in order to cure one’s own illness.”23 Pieces in later issues of the magazine did indicate a heightened sensitivity to the social and economic factors that made women susceptible to being sold. However, Asai’s opinion remained very much her own, and the dominant view the WCTU‘s magazine put forward over the course of the Meiji period was that those who engaged in prostitution abroad sullied the nation’s honour and brought shame to all Japanese women.24 Besides these efforts to arouse public opinion, in 1890 the Tokyo WCTU began agitating for a legislative solution. That July union headquarters received a letter from Kawaguchi Masue, a member then residing in Sausalito, California. In this missive, Kawaguchi described her own efforts to prevent newly arriving Japanese women from falling into lives of disrepute and urged her compatriots to petition for regulations.25 Asai did just that when later in the year she petitioned the Foreign Ministry for the passage of a law protecting Japanese women overseas. In direct response to Asai’s appeal – and perhaps as well to the clamour of voices calling for action – the government submitted to the Diet’s House of Peers in 1891 a bill that set prison

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terms and fines for women who went abroad of their own accord to engage in prostitution and for individuals who lured women into emigrating (or helped them do so) for employment in brothels. The hopes Asai had for this bill quickly faded when the government withdrew it without explanation after just nine days. Disappointed but not defeated, members of the Tokyo WCTU decided in 1892 to submit a second petition to the full Diet urging the passage of comprehensive regulatory legislation.26 Over the ensuing years, the government instructed prefectural officials to take steps to prevent young women from being taken abroad for prostitution. Then in 1896, it promulgated a law that restricted the kinds of overseas employment for which women desiring to emigrate could receive official approval. However, implementation of both measures proved difficult and half-hearted. One great impediment was the previously mentioned opinion – again deeply rooted among officials and Japanese society in general – that prostitution was an acceptable way for daughters of impoverished families to provide for their parents’ needs and thereby fulfill their filial obligations. This view fuelled government inertia. So did the tremendous amount of foreign currency remitted to Japan each year by overseas prostitutes, brothel owners, and the myriad Japanese expatriates who made a living from the sex trade. Calculating a total for the Meiji period is impossible. Records do reveal, though, that around the turn of the century, prostitutes in Southeast Asia sent home over ¥200,000 a year through the Nagasaki post office alone. Even more telling of the relative importance of prostitution-related remittances, in 1900, ¥630,000 of the ¥1 million that Japanese residents in Vladivostok sent home came from income earned in connection with the industry.27 Just as licensing fees brought in much needed revenue for the national and local governments in Japan, this money stimulated consumption, provided foreign currency for imports vital to industrialization, and propelled economic development generally. Needless to say, the Meiji state was not eager to eliminate its source. In the absence of effective government action, the Japan WCTU continued in the footsteps of the Tokyo WCTU and, beginning in 1893, annually petitioned the Diet for laws to regulate Japanese prostitutes going overseas. An 1899 version made particular mention of the need to revise existing laws regarding travel documents, which were wholly inadequate for preventing the secreting away of women. It also reiterated the charge that prostitutes dishonoured the nation – a claim now wrapped tightly in the jargon of Japanese imperialism. Indeed, this same issue accused prostitutes of sullying the national flag just as Japan was “attempting to spread justice across the whole world.”28 This concern about Japan’s standing in the international

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community served as one motivating factor for the petition. WCTU members also saw prostitutes abroad as defaming all Japanese women and as preventing the elevation of women’s status in society and the home by perpetuating the notion that women were commodities to be bought and sold. Far from being a “fire on a distant shore” – to use a phrase from a 1905 article in Fujin shimpō – prostitutes overseas were regarded as a major problem linked to the fate of every family in Japan.29 Unionists, firm in their belief that comprehensive and enforceable regulations were needed to eradicate this blight on the country and Japanese women, as well as to protect the stability of the home, persisted in petitioning the government until 1927. Six years earlier Japan had signed the League of Nations’ International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children. The government had done so with two conditions: that colonies be excluded, and that the legal age of consent for prostitutes in Japan be eighteen instead of twentyone. An intensive petition campaign against these exemptions developed, and in 1927 the government responded by agreeing to the older age. WCTU members saw this policy change as one battle won in the war against impurity and celebrated by concluding its nearly four-decade petition campaign against overseas prostitutes.30 Opposition to the Licensed Quarters Crusades directed at the relocation or closing of particular brothel districts were another basic component of the WCTU’s anti-prostitution movement. The struggles of the petition campaign against overseas prostitutes reinforced in members’ minds the truth that Japanese society would not achieve moral purification overnight. They thus pursued this second ameliorative step in the hope that it would change attitudes and ultimately pave the way for a full-scale victory. This form of opposition both dominated anti-prostitution work during the last decade of the Meiji period and reflected the growing activism of local branches. The Osaka WCTU launched one of the first recorded campaigns in 1902, shortly after the branch’s members resolved to devote their greatest energies to the fight against prostitution. That year they formally petitioned the prefectural assembly to remove all brothel districts within the city to remote locations. To sway elected officials and citizens, they gave each assemblyman a prospectus detailing the union’s position, appealed to newspaper editors and journalists to discuss the need for relocation in their respective periodicals, and in 1903 held a series of public lectures. The crux of their argument was that urban development and the continued building of brothels were increasing the visibility of prostitution within the city and bringing “typical”

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homes into greater proximity to licensed quarters. As a result, Osaka’s youth lived and learned in an “atmosphere of impurity” and were facing constant exposure to the corrupting power of prostitution. Lamenting this negative influence, the members of the Osaka WCTU called for relocation for the sake of the next generation and the city’s future.31 This laudable crusade did not arouse enough support to succeed. The fact that Osaka was in the midst of final preparations to host the Fifth National Industrial Exposition may well have diverted attention. Just as likely, the political clout of brothel owners and the economic importance of the licensed quarters carried more weight than the declared need to protect the city and its residents from impurity. This setback, though, in no way diminished the local WCTU’s commitment to ridding Osaka of its brothel districts. Members believed that they were “[working] under Christ’s orders,” and that faith, together with their commitment to social and moral improvement, led them to launch two more campaigns over the next decade, including one of the Meiji period’s most successful in 1909.32 In the early morning hours of July 31 of that year, a lamp illuminating a narrow passageway in a small shop in the Higashi Tenma district of Osaka exploded against a pillar. The fire became a raging inferno within seconds thanks to splattered kerosene, a nearby pile of wooden and paper umbrellas, and the highly combustible materials used for the store’s construction. Flames quickly engulfed virtually everything in the vicinity, and strong winds fanned them in all directions. The army and police attempted to establish firewalls, but these failed to stop the blaze’s advance. In the end, it raged for twenty-six hours and covered almost five miles of ground, destroying more than 15,000 homes along with dozens of schools, banks, temples, police stations, courthouses, and other municipal buildings and leaving the city’s financial, transportation, and communications systems in utter chaos.33 Among the areas hardest hit was Sonezaki, one of Osaka’s five pleasure quarters. In 1909, a rough total of 75,000 licensed prostitutes plied their trade in these districts. Sonezaki housed only 10 percent of them, but it was the most centrally located, within close walking distance of the city’s most trafficked train station and the city’s banking and wholesale districts, not to mention at least two dozen schools.34 Osaka WCTU president Hayashi Utako and the union’s other executives saw in the ashes a golden opportunity to rid Osaka of at least one blight, and they wasted no time in taking action.35 While the embers still smouldered, they called on the prefectural governor, the chief of police, and a host of assemblymen to recommend that the licensed area be moved to an isolated location on the city’s outskirts. Faced with

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negative responses and as the brothel owners became more vociferous in requesting permission to rebuild, the Osaka WCTU took steps to turn its solitary drive into a concerted movement. Appealing to the Christian elite for co-operation was the most important strategy, and the branch’s leaders did just that at a meeting of YMCA directors and Protestant ministers one week after the fire. Largely at the behest of the YMCA, native and foreign Christians had already joined hands to provide victims with food, clothing, and other basic relief items. Osaka WCTU members had themselves participated by helping at the YMCA hall to sort and distribute goods. The head of the branch’s Flower Mission had also visited doctors across the city to appeal for medical treatment for the ill and pregnant among those left homeless. Those who attended the WCTU’s meeting responded to the union’s plea with alacrity and within days had drafted petitions in Japanese and English. The Japanese version was submitted to Prime Minister Katsura Tarō and the Education and Home Ministers in the names of Hayashi, the secretary of the Osaka YMCA, and two others representing the city’s clergy and laymen. Copies of the English version went to the Home Minister and the governor bearing the signatures of twenty-four resident missionaries.36 In addition to this petition work, YMCA and church leaders collaborated with the WCTU in sponsoring public lectures, the first of which took place on August 14 at the YMCA hall. This meeting attracted a capacity crowd of roughly one thousand with a list of prominent speakers, including Yajima Kajiko and Methodist missionary Merriman (M.C.) Harris, both of whom had travelled from Tokyo, the latter to share his personal thoughts on the need for removal as a “citizen of goodwill.” The tone of the lectures so roused the audience that, before dispersing, those in attendance voted to create forthwith an organization for continuing the fight. Most of them reconvened just two days later and completed the task by formally establishing the Yūkaku Iden Seinen Kisei Dōmeikai (Alliance of Youth to Move the Licensed Quarter). According to a resolution adopted then, the members of the Dōmeikai promised to urge the governor to give “serious reflection” to the matter of removal and not “ignore sound public opinion.”37 This first statement barely alluded to the great flurry of activity that followed. Over the next weeks, the organization’s rank and file went door to door through all of Osaka’s neighbourhoods recruiting supporters, gathering signatures for another petition, and distributing printed materials. Dōmeikai leaders revisited officials and politicians, with Hayashi and several others travelling to Tokyo to see the Home Minister and seek assistance from Ōkuma

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Shigenobu, former prime minister and then president of Waseda University. Appeals for coverage also went out to Osaka’s major newspapers, and on Sunday, August 22, ministers citywide took to their pulpits as one and delivered sermons in support of relocation.38 Up until this point, the campaign’s participants had come almost solely from the ranks of Osaka’s Christian community. In and of itself, that was a sizable group. Missionary outreach had begun in the city in 1869 under the auspices of the American Protestant Episcopal Church, and the forty years since had seen the establishment of no fewer than eight Christian schools and thirteen Protestant churches, along with branches of the YMCA, the Salvation Army, and the WCTU.39 However strong in numbers and well connected the community was, the need to expand beyond this base did not escape Osaka WCTU executives and other Christian leaders, and on August 25 they held as their second lecture meeting a “citizens’ rally.” The public hall chosen for the occasion offered a more neutral setting than the YMCA’s building and a greater number of seats, but even the extra benches were not enough. A crowd of four to five thousand thronged to the meeting, and because of a lack of even standing room inside many listened through windows to the full three hours of speeches. The roster of lecturers reflected the organizers’ aim of reaching out to the general public. The list included city and prefectural assemblymen, lawyers, journalists, a committee member from a trade guild, and a Buddhist priest, along with two ministers.40 Dietman Shimada Saburō spoke last and offered a forceful exposition on why relocation was crucial for the future prosperity of local and national commerce and industry and the international reputation of Japanese business. Specifically, he argued that honesty, trust, and diligence were essential characteristics for a successful business. The physical closeness of brothels to average homes and dealings between upstanding merchants and purveyors of “profligacy” and “self-indulgence” were destroying these traits and making it impossible to raise “warriors of peace who would cultivate Japan’s national resources and be fit for international competition.” Moreover, Shimada charged, this mingling did not escape the eyes of foreigners and led them to consider Japanese commerce and industry as imbued with frivolity and, as a result, to scorn the same.41 As did the first lecture meeting, this rally on August 25 ignited those who attended. A call to arms sent out just before Shimada’s address met with thunderous applause as the crowd pledged to take suitable action to achieve removal and prevent the governor from “pursuing a mistaken long-range plan” that would damage the “city’s honour” and adversely affect morality.42

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Three days later the movement for relocation received a tremendous boost when citizens formed their own distinct organization, the Yūkaku Iden Kiseikai (Union for the Removal of the Pleasure Quarter) and began a vigorous program of visiting officials and canvassing for public support. Though completely independent of Christian leadership, the Kiseikai did co-operate with the Dōmeikai, and their collective efforts netted nearly 20,000 signatures for a second petition to the Home Minister. The governor finally responded to this growing agitation on September 10 by issuing a prefectural ordinance stipulating that all licences granted for brothels in Sonezaki would expire on April 1, 1910.43 Though an indirect way to abolish the district, this ordinance did in effect do that. As such, it delighted the crusaders, who had been calling merely for the quarter’s removal to the city’s outskirts. Especially pleased with this outcome, the Osaka WCTU held a prayer meeting the next day to report on the course of the campaign and offer thanks to God.44 This triumph invigorated WCTU members throughout the country and imbued them with tremendous confidence in their power to eliminate the scourge of brothel districts by influencing public and official opinion. That self-assurance only grew over the following months as branches in Gunma and Wakayama succeeded in thwarting new construction of quarters in their respective communities through tactics similar to those that Osaka members had used. As for the Gunma campaign, it had begun in earnest in the fall of 1898 after the governor overturned an 1890 assembly resolution abolishing prostitution within the prefecture’s borders and authorized the building of six new districts. He had promptly been dismissed, but his decree caused so much concern among Christian women that they organized the Jōmō branch of the Japan WCTU to fight the strong current of opinion in favour of prostitution. Over the next decade, local unions in Takasaki and Maebashi joined the fray in opposing repeated motions to introduce licensed quarters in their cities. Their collective efforts were finally rewarded in late 1910, when a new governor announced that he would not grant approval for licensed prostitution while he was in office.45 Also during the last months of 1910, the Wakayama city council narrowly voted to allow the building of brothels. The Japan WCTU immediately organized a local union to agitate against this decision. With the help of Osaka- and Tokyo-based members, it convinced the governor to veto the motion for the sake of “morality, the city’s development, and the country’s prosperity.”46 As a result of these various successes, unionists had extremely high expectations that the “moral” side would prevail when Yoshiwara, Japan’s most famous licensed district, became the battlefield in the spring of 1911.

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Mid-morning on April 9 of that year, a fire broke out on the third floor of a brothel in the heart of Yoshiwara and quickly spread through the densely packed quarter of wooden structures. Strong winds fanned the flames and severely hampered firefighting efforts before a depleted water supply rendered Tokyo’s fire brigades completely useless. By the time the conflagration burned out eight hours later, it had destroyed more than 6,000 homes, not to mention schools, offices, factories, temples, and shrines, and had left 40,000 without shelter. Nothing of Yoshiwara itself remained but ashes.47 Interpreting the fire as an act of “God’s will,” executive members of the WCTU firmly believed that the organization had a mission to fulfill the “holy intent” behind the destruction of the quarter. They did recognize the necessity of basic relief work and applauded official, corporate, and individual gifts of money, clothing, and medical attention. Nevertheless, they viewed having the district abolished as more urgent and in line with God’s purpose, and they quickly launched a campaign to accomplish that objective.48 On April 11, two days after the fire, Yajima called on the Home Minister to discuss measures to resolve the problem of Yoshiwara. Refused an audience, she returned within the week to submit a formal petition requesting the modest goal of relocation. This appeal repeated one of the dominant arguments of all previous WCTU petitions pertaining to prostitution – namely, that prostitutes brought dishonour – but it departed from all but Asai’s 1890 petition in one significant respect: Yajima forthrightly implicated the state for its complicity. She did so when she wrote that government authorization of licensed prostitution had “fanned immorality and demoralized good citizens.” She also specifically criticized the state’s granting of “special rights” to prostitutes, claiming that this had encouraged the women and their customers to see the brothel business as a legitimate one and to feel no shame.49 This variation aside, the crusade against the rebuilding of Yoshiwara proceeded much as had the one against Sonezaki. Yajima followed her calls on the Home Minister with visits to Tokyo’s mayor and chief of police, two of the many other prominent officials whom WCTU members attempted to sway in person. The first two weeks after the fire also saw the society ask for co-operation from the YMCA, the Salvation Army, churches in the city, and branches nationwide.50 In addition, the union printed copies of Yajima’s petition and widely distributed them – including to newspapers and associations, regardless of religious orientation – with the request that the text be reprinted so that a broader audience could be reached. To accomplish that same goal, the WCTU co-sponsored a series of public lectures in locations ranging from churches and the YMCA hall to a teahouse. Most of the

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speakers represented the elite of Christian society, yet their public prominence repeatedly drew standing-room-only audiences. These same meetings became occasions for distributing copies of a citizens’ petition, canvassing for which soon resulted in the gathering of 20,000 signatures. At the behest of the WCTU’s Japanese executives, members of the Foreign Auxiliary circulated a written appeal among Tokyo’s foreigners.51 Submitted to the Home Minister with 280 names, this third petition offered as inducement a veiled promise that other nations would recognize the Japanese government for taking a step forward “for purity and righteousness the world over” if only it rid Tokyo of “its darkest and most inhumane spot.”52 Neither this lure nor the mass outpouring of opposition to Yoshiwara swayed the government, and officials granted approval for first a temporary and then a permanent resumption of brothel operations. This defeat disheartened reformers, yet their disappointment came with a lesson. Namely, they finally accepted the fact that their ad hoc campaigns against particular quarters would never bring about a fundamental solution to the problem of licensed prostitution. A permanent organization devoted to abolishing the system altogether was needed. Far from the determination of a few, this decision had the support of a long list of Christian men and women who had been publicly active for years – a fact highlighted by the dozen or so appointed to begin the process of organization. Besides Shimada Saburō, they included Yamamuro Gumpei, Yabuki Kōtarō, and Yamada Yajūrō of the Salvation Army, Ebara Soroku, Yamamoto Kuninosuke, and Masutomi Masasuke, all connected to the YMCA, and Suzuki Bunji, then editor of Rikugo zasshi.53 Representing the WCTU and the lone woman on the committee was Yokokura Hideko, the national organization’s corresponding secretary and editor of Fujin shimpō. This group of luminaries met on May 24 to discuss rules and draft a prospectus. The rules identified Kakuseikai (Purity Society) as the new society’s name and stated that it sought to “abolish the system of licensed prostitution and promote pure relations between men and women.” To that end, members would publish a monthly magazine called Kakusei (Purity), hold public lectures, petition the Diet, and appeal to concerned authorities – in other words, they would adopt the same tactics previously used but now on a regular basis.54 These rules finalized, the preparation committee joined approximately one thousand others on July 8 to celebrate the formal establishment of the Kakuseikai. Yajima served as master of ceremonies and was elected one of two vice-presidents.55 Names of many other officers read like the WCTU’s membership list, with Kozaki Chiyoko being chosen as one of five directors and Honda Teiko, Ibuka Hanako, Tokutomi Hisako, and at least five others as trustees.56

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The WCTU’s promotion of and participation in the Kakuseikai extended far beyond such leadership by members. Several issues of Fujin shimpō carried a copy of the new society’s rules and an application form so that the union’s rank and file could become active as well. This outreach contributed to the establishment of local branches across the country and a membership total of 20,000 by early December. The WCTU also provided financial support for Kakuseikai activities and encouraged its own members to subscribe to Kakusei, which for its part carried numerous articles by union leaders and short information pieces about union activities.57 Given the WCTU’s own limited funds and time pressures on members, some may have questioned this commitment. Intentionally or not, an editorial in the February 1912 issue of Fujin shimpō offered a clear defence. The author wrote that “the success of the Kakuseikai is the success of the Japan WCTU. The two must be combined and, if we cooperate with each other, I have no doubt that, in the near future, we will raise individual morality, make homes harmonious, and bring fortune to the nation.”58 Any fears the author had about a future fracturing of the alliance between the WCTU and the Kakuseikai proved ill-founded, as the two remained closely linked. Indeed, in 1926 they united to form a federation that undertook to pressure prefectural assemblies to proscribe prostitution in their own jurisdictions while continuing to petition the Diet for total abolition. The WCTU and the Kakuseikai did make gains locally and succeeded in convincing fifteen assemblies to issue bans by the early 1940s. The Diet, however, did not outlaw the licensed system nationwide until 1957.59 In hindsight, the above editorialist was overly optimistic; even so, her confidence that victory would be had was crucial to sustaining the fight, much as the same assurance had fuelled earlier crusades against individual brothel districts. Rescuing the Poor and the Fallen Meiji-period arguments against prostitution were characterized by an absence of serious discussion about the economic and social factors that perpetuated the buying and selling of women, whether they specifically called for the regulation of Japanese prostitutes going overseas, the relocation or closing of particular brothel districts, or the total abolition of Japan’s licensed system.60 As a consequence, these arguments generally failed to raise the need for concrete measures to eliminate poverty and provide women with an alternative means for supporting themselves and their families. The same was true of petitions that WCTU members and other reformers submitted in the hope of achieving a legislative solution to this “social evil.”

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One notable exception was a petition that Tanabe Jitsumei submitted to the governor of Tokyo in early 1875. Then in charge of administering the rules that governed prostitutes and brothels in Tokyo, Tanabe recognized the relationship between indigence and prostitution and believed that the government had an obligation to help prevent young women from falling into the trade because of poverty. In his petition, he suggested as a specific countermeasure that officials use the licence fees generated from brothels to open a vocational office and school where the poor could learn an “honest trade” and a “conscience” could be cultivated in the “lazy.”61 Tanabe’s appeal fell on deaf ears, but the knowledge that legal gains against prostitution would be worthless without welfare measures to save the poor and rehabilitate former prostitutes did not escape anti-prostitution crusaders. This awareness grew with time and led native Christian reformers and Protestant missionaries to step in where Tanabe thought the government should. The history of social welfare work by the WCTU began in 1888 as an initiative by individual members instead of as a formal project undertaken by the organization as a body. In May of that year, Sasaki Toyoju, Ushioda Chiseko, and Motora Yone opened a vocational school in Tokyo with assistance from a group of American Protestant missionary women.62 Their purpose was twofold: to teach women a “suitable occupation” by which to achieve selfsufficiency through means other than prostitution and to provide moral training in order to reform customs. To those ends, they offered tuition-free classes in Western sewing, cooking, the organ, and English, taught temperance principles, and tried to instill in their students an understanding of the “shamefulness of prostitution.”63 Despite the sincerity of their intentions and the seeming attractiveness of their offerings, various obstacles impeded this work and forced the school’s closing after only six months. Sasaki alluded to problems in a letter written not long afterwards. She did not elaborate, but the obstacles likely mirrored those that subsequent relief projects faced, such as a lack of money, too few students, the inability of those involved to commit themselves to the work full time, and a class consciousness that prevented many middle- and upper-class women from comprehending and empathizing with the struggles of their poorer sisters. Sasaki’s unpopularity among many in the Tokyo WCTU must also be considered a reason why so few in the society extended support.64 Undeterred by this failure, Sasaki soon began soliciting contributions for a new institution from influential businessmen and politicians, including Ōkuma Shigenobu and his replacement in late 1889 as Foreign Affairs Minister, Aoki Shūzō. With their help, she and Ushioda founded an employment

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agency in central Tokyo in September 1890, thereby reviving the project of providing job and moral training to impoverished girls and young women. Ushioda later recalled that she and Sasaki had thought that students would flock to the office because the instruction in Japanese and Western sewing and embroidery, knitting, and painting was being provided free. Moreover, advertisements for the agency proclaimed that students would receive half the proceeds from the sale of the goods they made.65 Ushioda and Sasaki’s expectations proved naive, however, for they had failed to recognize that, even if offered gratis and with the promise of future gainful employment, education was a luxury for which few could afford the time. That said, enrolment did increase gradually; by March 1891, it had reached about thirty.66 The decision to take in former prostitutes as well as the poor – in other words, to expand the agency’s purpose from the singular goal of prevention to include rehabilitation – contributed to this growth. According to Ushioda, acting manager of the agency, she initially felt hesitant about accepting prostitutes because she worried about the influence “those people” would have on the others. Her reluctance stemmed partly from her own sense of moral superiority as a Christian woman and from the disdain she harboured for the prostitutes themselves, whom she believed were undermining women’s status in society and the home and bringing shame to Japan.67 She also worried that, with their demeanour, former prostitutes would undermine the moral values and customs she was trying to instill through personal example, daily prayer and Bible lectures, and weekly churchgoing. She found her concern warranted when one of the agency’s first prostitutes arrived with a pipe and a thirteen-stringed koto, accoutrements of life in a brothel and instruments of “bad” habits. The agency’s rules forbade such possessions, and Ushioda immediately ordered the young woman to dispose of both. Her negative opinion gradually softened, however, as she came to recognize and appreciate through actual contact the woman’s gentle disposition, eagerness to learn, and industrial skills. This same woman’s conversion to Christianity after two years at the agency wrought an even more significant shift in Ushioda’s thinking. As she wrote herself, the woman’s faith made her truly accept for the first time that God had given the poor the “same soul” as the rich. She concluded from this that not all women entered into prostitution with “evil thoughts” and that some in fact could be saved spiritually. This revelation did not rid Ushioda of her condescending feelings toward prostitutes, nor did it impact others in the WCTU. It did, however, strengthen her desire to help the poor and the fallen, and it made her more than ready to assume a prominent role when the WCTU finally took up rescue work as an organization.68

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The catalyst for the society to become involved in social welfare proved to be a call for help from American Presbyterian missionary Kate Youngman. One of the first single women assigned to a foreign mission field, Youngman had arrived in Japan in 1873 to assist and further Presbyterian educational work among girls and women.69 Shortly after she landed, a Japanese newspaper editor had approached her about superintending a rescue home, which he and friends were thinking of opening. The facility never materialized, but the job offer did spark Youngman’s interest. While on home leave in 1881, she struck up a friendship with a wealthy New Yorker “whose special delight was to save young women from a life of shame.”70 This acquaintance was a woman of deed as well as word, and she promised to send Youngman $50 (¥100) a year specifically to fund rescue work in Japan. With this money in hand, Youngman began aiding prostitutes and impoverished women as they came to her attention, providing at least one with a mission school education. In 1892, she rescued nine young girls whose relatives were about to sell them into prostitution in the wake of a devastating earthquake in Gifu. Their sheer number and the difficulty of arranging accommodation and training for all simultaneously impressed on Youngman the need for collaboration as well as for a permanent home, and she soon turned to the WCTU and her missionary sisters for help.71 Youngman recognized that interdenominational co-operation would be essential for a time- and money-intensive project such as a rescue home to succeed. She looked first to two of the oldest missions in Japan and solicited support from a pair of their most experienced members – Mrs. Mary Miller (née Kidder) and Matilda Spencer, of the Dutch Reformed and Methodist Episcopal churches respectively.72 After securing help from these two women, Youngman broached the subject with the WCTU at a special meeting in December 1893. The executives present responded to her argument that rescue work was a responsibility of the society by appointing a committee of five (who included Ushioda) to study specific rescue measures.73 Three months later Youngman issued another appeal, this time to the Ladies’ Christian Conference. Many of the Conference’s participants had heard the story of how their former colleague, Flora Harris, had in 1891 saved and converted three Japanese girls who had been sent to San Francisco for prostitution.74 These missionary women also knew that the youngsters had since been forced to return to Japan and were in danger of being sold again by their parents “against their own wishes and awakened consciences.”75 Already aware of the need for a home, the Conference’s attendees agreed to Youngman’s request that they assist the WCTU. Before dispersing, they delegated the task of determining how best to do that to

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their own committee of eight. In May 1894, the Conference reconvened and, on the recommendation of this task force, moved to advise WCTU executives to find a “good plot of ground in a favorable locality at a reasonable price, and raise as much money as they can, for the purchase of the same, assuring them of our entire sympathy and of our intention to help in this good work.”76 WCTU members in Tokyo had begun to solicit money for a rescue home almost immediately after executives met with Youngman in December 1893, but their efforts had been tentative and had reaped little.77 The Conference’s commitment to help and its own fundraising activities added much-needed momentum to the project and reinvigorated the society. Within weeks, unionists had identified a suitable property of almost 1,600 tsubo (5,290 square metres), on which sat a four-room home, and had entered into negotiations to purchase it. Takekoshi Takeyo, then editor of Fujin kyōfū zasshi, wrote lengthy editorials for the June and July issues of the magazine outlining the purpose of the institution and appealing for donors so that the society could buy the land, which was located in Ōkubo, a neighbourhood on the northwestern edge of Tokyo. She also joined other members in going door to door to solicit contributions. Half a century later Takekoshi recalled that she had phrased her pleas for donations by asking for the change people spent on cigarettes. Whether others repeated her subtle plug for abstinence from tobacco is unclear, but such reform opportunism was certainly not unique. In this case, the approach proved effective, as it typically won Takekoshi several yen.78 That change, in the end, helped the WCTU and the Conference gather over ¥1,000. Because that money was only trickling in, and they wanted to launch the home sooner rather than later, union leaders decided to go ahead and purchase the property in early July by using money that members had collected to build an office and by assuming a sizable debt. In the fall, Yajima and Ushioda provided interest-free loans to meet payments when they came due.79 Thereafter, money problems plagued the home, or Jiaikan (Home of Mercy and Love), as Ushioda named it. In 1895, members of the Conference established the Auxiliary WCTU and, under its auspices, collected dues to fund rescue work. Some of this money initially went to buy out the contracts of prostitutes – a mistake that Jiaikan supporters did not repeat after they heard that one brothel owner had purchased five more girls with the cash he had received. Even with the Auxiliary’s financial support, the debt on the property remained staggering. The need to continue making payments and cover maintenance costs forced the home’s Japanese and foreign executives to rent it out and, in 1899, relocate the few girls then in residence to the home of Eliza Spencer Large, whom the World WCTU had just appointed a resident

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missionary. The choice of tenants turned out to be ill-fated, as they wrecked the house and destroyed the yard. The rent received did not cover the damage, and when Large’s return to the United States in 1900 necessitated relocation, additional funds were required to make the property usable and establish once and for all a permanent home for rescue work. For the sake of Jiaikan, the WCTU asked for contributions in Fujin shimpō and held public benefits. In addition, individual members who collected fees for the periodical also solicited donations from subscribers while making their rounds. The Auxiliary did its part by urging foreigners in Japan and friends back home to make annual pledges and sponsor any number of residents for a period of years. Most gifts totalled only a few yen or dollars, yet Jiaikan did attract a handful of truly generous benefactors. Ōkuma Shigenobu and his wife made at least one grant of ¥50 and, on several occasions, allowed the WCTU to use the garden at their private residence as a venue for fundraising parties. One such event in 1910 garnered over ¥500, which was split between Jiaikan and the national headquarters. Just three weeks before this, the Home Ministry had recognized the work of the home and awarded it ¥200.80 An even more significant benefactor was Charles Crittenton, an American to whom Large had first appealed in 1899. He contributed thousands of dollars over the following decade, and his generosity helped erase the debt and paid for new construction on the property. It also enabled executives to meet basic operating expenses.81 The financial difficulties that persisted before Crittenton became a benefactor sorely tested WCTU members’ interest in Jiaikan. The lack of a permanent matron during the first years in Ōkubo, disagreements between Japanese and foreign executives, and the absence of established and clearcut means for bringing in girls further impeded progress. The resulting low number of residents compounded frustrations, and critics were quick to point out that the facility housed no more than several dozen during the 1890s. That particular attack was not groundless, given the home’s operating expenses and the comparative success of the Salvation Army’s rescue home for former prostitutes. Established in the summer of 1900, the Army’s Women’s Home (Fujin Hōmu) reached full occupancy almost immediately and accommodated almost ninety women during its first three years alone.82 Despite these various obstacles, individual members of the WCTU remained committed to the basic aim of Jiaikan, and that goal provided sufficient enough inducement for the union to stay connected through the troubled early years. That purpose was to “rescue women likely to be lured into prostitution, as well as those who [had] already fallen, teach them a trade, return them

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to a correct path,” and prepare them for the day they would establish their own homes.83 In line with this agenda, residents studied reading, writing, and arithmetic and learned to sew, knit, cook, and clean. After a probationary period, some also attended a nearby nurses’ training school or served as maids in the homes of Jiaikan supporters. In addition, all participated in morning worship, memorized the Lord’s Prayer and Biblical passages, and attended church and Sunday school to reinforce the example of Christian womanhood being supplied by their teachers.84 The motives behind this curriculum, and behind rescue work in general, were multitudinous. As spelled out in an appeal for donations in the July 1894 issue of Fujin kyōfū zasshi, members believed that prostitutes shamed the nation, weakened the hearts and minds of citizens (the young in particular), and diverted capital toward hedonistic pleasures that ought to be used to fuel economic development. Thus, they promoted Jiaikan as one way to reduce the number of prostitutes and – as a direct consequence – remove these human impediments to progress.85 Furthermore, their religious faith and participation in the anti-prostitution movement had instilled in them the following two convictions: that economic independence was a necessary precondition for a woman’s independence; and that spiritual independence required a sound financial base. By providing residents at Jiaikan with skills to support themselves, as well as with religious instruction, WCTU members aimed to eliminate a structural cause of prostitution and convince former prostitutes and destitute women to enter into a life of faith and service to God. Linked to this evangelizing focus and the domestic training offered was a commitment to cultivating residents to become the “good wives and wise mothers” that Nakamura Masanao envisioned in his 1875 article in the Meirokusha’s journal. As discussed in Chapter 1, he identified women as responsible for the education and moral upbringing of their children, and he believed that the home represented the most suitable sphere for the exercise of women’s talents and influence. Members of the WCTU clearly contravened this idea with their own public activities. However, they did so with the fierce conviction that only by removing the social “evils” that inhibited women from performing this role could they elevate the status of women and purify the home as well as society at large. In short, they still upheld the idea of women as the guardians of children and the purveyors of a moral standard. Thus, moulding the fallen and the destitute into “good wives and wise mothers” was crucial to the WCTU’s rescue home work. The few articles in the society’s periodical that introduced current and former residents by name highlight just how important both this moulding and the

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objective of winning converts to God were. For example, a 1902 report carried the news that Yamada Taki, Fujii Haruko, and Morita Yone had been baptized; moreover, Morita had married a fellow convert. Seven years later a eulogy appearing for Tsuda Kimiko, a young woman who had fled Yoshiwara and taken refuge at Jiaikan, praised the fact that she had “come to know God’s great love” while at the facility. Even more noteworthy than the five-page length of this tribute was the inclusion of Tsuda’s picture.86 Over the years, the editors of the WCTU’s periodical had bestowed that honour on only Frances Willard, Mary Allen West, and a select few others. Like these examples, virtually all articles on Jiaikan residents celebrated their conversions and weddings.87 In the end, this rescue work reached only a fraction of the women engaged in prostitution during the second half of the Meiji period, and even fewer left Jiaikan with a belief in God and a dedication to moral living. One could easily criticize these deficiencies, the fact that the three principal components of the WCTU’s anti-prostitution movement did not aim at a fundamental solution to the problem of licensed prostitution, and the reality that union members remained disdainful of prostitutes. Yet this criticism diminishes the importance of what the WCTU actually did. First, its members remained steadfast in their opposition to prostitution and toiled energetically to win small victories that would ultimately, they hoped, win the war for the sake of Japan, the home, and their saviour. Second, and even more significant, they did not waver in their belief that they had a right and a duty to influence public and private opinion and bring about a change in both government policy and personal behaviour. That conviction informed their repeated use of political tactics, their reliance on the written and spoken word, and their efforts to stimulate grassroots activism. With these same means, they thrust themselves into public debates about morality, the proper roles of men, women, and the state, civic responsibility, and national needs. Moreover, in so doing, they paved the way for future reformers, feminist and otherwise.

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5 The Struggle to Create a Sober Society

In contrast to the WCTU’s anti-prostitution campaign, which has received extensive attention from scholars, the story of the organization’s temperance work remains virtually untold. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the founding members’ decision to exclude direct reference to temperance in the society’s name has contributed to this neglect, as has their focus on eliminating the scourge of prostitutes and concubines. The emphasis on these resolutions has obscured the fact that the particular goal of creating a sober Japan stood as one pillar from the union’s inception and came to occupy an even more prominent place on its agenda beginning in the 1890s. The rewriting of the WCTU’s statement of purpose and pledge in the fall of 1892 to include specific mention of temperance is one indication of that latter development; another is the 1897 creation of new departments of work devoted to the promotion of abstinence, such as the one advocating the use of unfermented wine at the Sacrament. That said, even departments whose names do not immediately suggest active involvement in temperance found ways to promote the cause, and over the second half of the Meiji period WCTU members engaged in a great variety of activities to win adherents to sobriety. This chapter opens with brief histories of alcohol use and the early temperance movement in Japan to establish the setting for those efforts. It then introduces the main arguments given in favour of abstinence before examining two characteristic components of the WCTU’s crusade – namely, juvenile work and outreach at the 1903 National Industrial Exposition in Osaka. While those arguments reflect, once again, the nationalistic bent of reformers, these specific WCTU activities showcase the creativity of members as they tried to shape public and private behaviour and asserted the right to have a voice in definitions of “proper” citizenship and “good” modernization.

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A Brief History of Alcohol Production and Consumption in Japan The History of the Kingdom of Wei, a chronicle of a northern Chinese realm compiled around 297 CE, has long attracted the attention of scholars of ancient Japan because it offers among the first written accounts of the country. From this text, historians have learned about Japan’s tributary ties with the Han court, its unification by a female shaman in the early third century, and the leadership turmoil that followed her death. They have also garnered information about social customs and religious practices during the Yayoi period (900 BCE-250 CE), including the following detail about funerals: “The head mourners wail and lament, while friends sing, dance, and drink liquor.”1 Further evidence of early sake use in Japan appears repeatedly in the oldest extant works written in Japanese – namely, the Kojiki (Record of ancient matters) from 712 and the Nihongi (Chronicle of Japan) from 720, which recorded mythologies transmitted orally about the country’s founding. For example, one passage in the Kojiki relates the story of how a male deity named Susa-nö-wo slew an eight-tailed dragon that had been devouring young women. He accomplished this feat by having barrels of a specially brewed “thick wine” put out for the beast to drink and then “[hacking] the dragon to pieces” after it became intoxicated and fell asleep.2 The prominence of sake in this tale should be stressed, for it illustrates that alcohol had become both common enough and revered enough by the early eighth century to merit mention in national myths. Not coincidentally, the Kojiki was written during an era of increasing consumption. Prior to the Nara period (710-84), a variety of foodstuffs, including rice, barley, mountain potatoes, and fruits, was used to make sake. Crude methods yielded only an unrefined product, yet Japanese either consumed it at funerals, purification rites, and other religious festivals or offered it to the gods in the belief that wine would pacify them and bring humans good fortune.3 During Nara, the introduction of improved fermentation techniques from Korea brought an end to the singularity of sake types and expanded its use. Kinds of sake came to be differentiated by their clarity, and drinking became more of a habitual part of life instead of a periodic release. Members of the aristocracy in particular took to imbibing a sweet sake chilled with ice daily during the hot summer months and passing cups the year round at banquets of all sizes, in the process formalizing the practice. In his history of Japanese eating habits, Watanabe Minoru has pointed out that the Nara period also witnessed the beginning of the systematic use of sake as a seasoning for food, along with mustard, ginger, and powders made

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from mandarin orange peel and elm bark.4 Though initially used only as a sweetener, sake gained wider currency as a flavouring during and after the subsequent Heian period (784-1185). It became a key ingredient for various kinds of vinegar and miso – a paste also containing soybeans – and by the turn of the sixteenth century many recipes called for food, especially fish, to be boiled in sake or grilled and then drizzled with a liquid containing sake. This trend toward increased consumption of sake through prepared foods became even more pronounced during the Edo period (1600-1868), after a sweet, syrupy sake called mirin was added to the list of standard seasonings.5 The growth of sake consumption beginning in the Nara period manifested itself in Japanese ceremonial and religious life as well. This proved especially true of customs for celebrating major life events, such as births, engagements, and weddings. Indeed, by the Edo period in certain localities, families were expected to announce the birth of an offspring by giving the local government office money to sponsor a feast with sake. Symbolic of its intended purpose, the “gift” was referred to as kozake or “child wine.” Elsewhere, ritual called for households to mark the naming of a newborn with a banquet of food and wine or to offer sake to the gods during the infant’s first shrine visit. Likewise, betrothal ceremonies became occasions for imbibing with customary toasting or for giving a wine cup or a barrel of sake as a symbol of the marriage contract.6 The same was true of weddings. In a rite formalized at least by the Muromachi period (1333-1573), the groom and bride exchanged three shallow cups, drinking from each three times before sharing with close relatives.7 Alcohol consumption rose even more steeply during the Meiji period. Once again, better brewing techniques contributed by making sake production easier and less prone to ruined batches. Cheap rice, first from China and French Indochina and then from Korea and Taiwan, also boosted production by lowering costs. Largely as a result of these two factors, sake production increased by roughly 40 percent from the beginning to the end of Meiji.8 Government officials quickly recognized the potential revenue to be gained from taxing this growing industry and, in 1871, amended a Tokugawa-era law to require brewers of six, instead of three, kinds of sake to purchase licences. The state subsequently assessed a manufacturers’ tax on the value of sake made and added an occupation tax for brewers and dealers, fining any who failed to pay.9 These taxes and penalties sharply raised the market price for sake, with the cost of one koku (44.8 gallons) jumping from ¥14.03 in 1893 to ¥28.73 in only five years.10 Instead of suffering, however, sales grew apace and among all economic classes, though more

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noticeably in urban than in rural areas. Drinking parties became more popular; restaurants and stalls selling sake proliferated; and the act of giving sake or a cup as a gift to a meritorious citizen, a dedicated employee, or a visitor became commonplace. Indeed, to fail to offer a guest a drink was deemed a serious breach of etiquette and a sign of disrespect, as was refusing to accept. Sake certainly did much to shape the drinking culture of the Meiji period, yet it does not on its own account for the tremendous increase in liquor use that occurred after the Restoration. Equally important, if not more so, in making alcohol consumption more widespread and public was the Japanese taste for Western drinks. As early as the late 1500s, Japanese negotiators and interpreters assigned to Western merchants had had occasion to try wine and other imported spirits, but their use had remained extremely limited. That changed dramatically in the years following Japan’s opening. Foreign businessmen taking up residence in the newly created treaty ports soon began to import beer, port, brandy, gin, whisky, sherry, and a long list of other inebriating drinks either to sell or consume themselves. Among their biggest customers were proprietors of Western-style restaurants, who catered to foreigners and the Japanese elite and who believed that drinking British pale ale or French champagne made them “modern.” This equating of one’s consumption of Western liquor with one’s level of civilization was a link that non-missionary foreigners drew and that Japanese enlightenment thinkers and officials and students who travelled abroad perpetuated. Among the notable foreigners who made this connection was Charles Wirgman, publisher of Japan Punch, who in an 1866 issue of this satirical monthly printed a cartoon of a Japanese drinking and smoking at the Yokohama United Club. The speech balloon proclaimed: “I like only civilization.”11 Fukuzawa Yukichi, one of the most important advocates of Western studies in the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods, also made the connection in his 1867 book, Seiyō ishokujū (Western necessities of life), in which he offered a detailed account of the kinds and amounts of alcohol that Westerners consumed on a daily basis.12 Kume Kunitake did so even more explicitly in his report of a British beer brewery tour that he and fellow members of the Iwakura Mission took in 1872. He wrote that “it is only natural for alcohol consumption to increase as a country becomes more enlightened.”13 Given the variety of measures the Meiji state took to “civilize” Japan, it should come as no surprise that the government worked to promote the development of domestic industries making Western spirits as well as consumption of the same. An 1873 Finance Ministry plan to send a student abroad to research the making of beer never came to fruition, but concerns

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about increasing imports and the corresponding outflow of much-needed capital led the government to invest serious money three years later. Specifically, it imported and distributed 56,000 grape sprouts to stimulate local production of wine, and it built a beer brewery in Sapporo under the auspices of the Hokkaido Colonization Agency. The venture into wine making proved far from successful; the brewery, however – sold into private hands in 1886 – became one of Japan’s largest and joined the many other facilities opened by foreigners and Japanese beginning in the early years of the Meiji period that led to a boom in domestic production.14 Consumption burgeoned in concert with this flourishing of the industry and not just among the social elites. Relative decreases in the price of bottled beer, the introduction of sales by the cup, the opening of urban beer halls, and the selling of beer on trains, in station waiting rooms, and at post offices all helped popularize beer drinking. So did the increasingly common practice among officials and businessmen of providing free kegs as an enticement for the masses to celebrate the promulgation of significant government decrees and the opening of new bridges and other public facilities.15 Demand fuelled production, and after surpassing imports in 1886, the quantity of domestically brewed beer grew tenfold over the remaining years of the Meiji period. By 1911 the total had reached 178,660 koku (just over eight million gallons).16 This figure represents only a fraction of the amount of sake made that year, but if the two totals are added and considered in light of Japan’s population at the time, annual per capita consumption of sake and beer alone equalled approximately three-and-one-half gallons.17 Though far from being a nation of drunkards, Japan had become over the centuries a country where alcohol use was entrenched and even expected. The Origins of the Temperance Movement The process by which liquor use became embedded in public and private behaviour in Japan did not occur in as linear a fashion as the above account suggests. Periodic bans on sake production and drinking do pepper the ancient, medieval, and early modern histories of the country. One of the earliest proscriptions, issued during the reign of Emperor Kōtoku (645-54), asserted that drinking impeded farmwork and sought to prevent this by prohibiting sake consumption during the months of rice planting, cultivation, and harvesting. Almost a century later, after numerous outbreaks of fighting disrupted public order, the court forbade commoners from imbibing in groups of more than two or three. The most common cause for a ban proved to be poor harvests and the need to conserve rice in order to avert

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famine. In 806, again in 1252, and repeatedly throughout the Tokugawa period, interdicts were promulgated that outlawed sake production or – more typical of shogunal orders – restricted the amount of sake that could be made.18 Ultimately, none of these bans succeeded in enforcing lifelong abstinence or instilling the idea that drinking was inherently bad. But then that was not their purpose. Authorities simply used them as stopgap measures to deal with immediate concerns. Undoubtedly, some in ancient, medieval, and early modern Japan chose to abstain from drink for economic or health reasons – in other words, regardless of these proscriptions. Others did so in accordance with Buddhist law and ethics, some in observance of a 701 edict that stipulated punishment for monks and nuns who consumed alcohol, and others in line with the Five Precepts, which denounced alcohol as an impediment to personal enlightenment.19 While some sects of Buddhism continued to encourage abstinence over the years, temperance outreach only began in earnest after the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries. As John Howes has noted, James Hepburn, James Ballagh, and their compatriots, when they took to the Japan field after the country’s opening in the 1850s, carried with them an abiding sense of the importance of personal conversion, an unquestioning faith in the Bible, and a rigorous set of moral principles. That ethical code dictated that they not only abstain from sexual relations outside of a monogamous marriage and faithfully observe Sunday as the Sabbath but also refrain from drinking and smoking.20 Convinced that the Christianization and (by their definition) modernization of Japan required the acceptance of these same principles, they sought to instill their moral code through personal example and active propagation, even making abstinence a requirement for church membership. Such temperance evangelism did win converts and prepared the way for the inauguration of temperance work by Japanese themselves.21 At the vanguard of the Japanese temperance movement stood Okuno Masatsuna, third son of a shogunal vassal, who was born in Edo and had spent his youth studying Buddhism, literature, and the martial arts. After fighting on the losing side in the Restoration, he found work as Hepburn’s language teacher in 1871, and it was under the joint tutelage of his employer and Ballagh that he converted to Christianity and quit the bottle after years of heavy drinking. Ballagh’s later role in helping establish a temperance union devoted to the rescue of foreign seamen inspired Okuno to attempt organization himself. In 1875, he joined fellow members of Kaigan Church in founding the Yokohama Kinshukai (temperance society), the first such

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group created by Japanese. Despite auspicious beginnings and Okuno’s leadership, the society soon collapsed after other key members broke their pledges to abstain from alcohol.22 The same fate seems not to have befallen the Ueda Kinshukai, a society whose members sought “to cast off false gods and worship the true God, ban sake, keep the Lord’s Day, encourage others to acts of benevolence and charity, and thoroughly wash away the evil ways of society.” Inagaki Akira, a domain retainer turned Ballagh student and Bible salesman, founded this union in his home prefecture of Nagano shortly after the organization of the Yokohama Kinshukai. His brand of reform evangelism contributed to the conversion of several dozen over the next months; however, his appointment to a church in Kanagawa in 1877 deprived the union of its guiding force. Whether or not those left behind had his same commitment to temperance remains in question.23 The year 1875 was certainly an auspicious one in the history of the Japanese temperance movement. That said, the organizational fervour that resulted in the establishment of the Yokohama and Ueda societies failed to spread significantly. Likely reasons include the quick disbanding of the former and the relative geographical isolation of the latter. The spirit of temperance, though, did not die, nor did it lay dormant. American Protestant missionaries continued to expound on the principle as a cornerstone of a civilized and Christian life, and as the body of native converts grew so did the number of Japanese who practised moderation, if not total abstinence. In 1884, even inaugural members of the by then defunct Meirokusha indicated their support for temperance when they publicly endorsed the newly established Nihon Sesshukai (Japan Temperance Society), one of only a handful of moral and social reform bodies formed during the late 1870s and early 1880s.24 The spark that finally ignited temperance sentiment and propelled the movement forward in Japan came from Mary Clement Leavitt. As discussed in Chapter 1, her repeated exhortations to men and women, Japanese and foreigners, Christians and non-converts, to join forces against intemperance and other social evils set off a wave of organizational activity. In the summer and fall of 1886, a new men’s society in Yokohama began meeting, and unions of Japanese women were formed in Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe with help from missionary women and native male converts.25 Chiba and Sapporo played host to organization the next year, followed by Sendai, Hakodate, Akita, Shizuoka, Fukuoka, and the island of Okushiri in the Japan Sea, to name just a few of the dozens of locales where the nascent Japanese temperance movement took root.26 Not all sites proved receptive to temperance

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agitation, and many a society withered as a result of local opposition, indifference, and financial and time constraints on members. Nonetheless, the movement was born, and participation by WCTU members would help make it one of the most vibrant reform crusades of the Meiji period. Representative Arguments in Favour of Temperance One of the Tokyo WCTU’s first major contributions to the temperance cause entailed holding a public lecture meeting in early November 1887 and inviting Tsuda Sen to address the approximately one thousand who attended. Born in 1837 into a pro-Tokugawa samurai family, Tsuda had studied Dutch and English in Edo’s foreign concession and later parlayed his language skills into jobs as a government interpreter and English instructor. Following the Restoration, he joined the Meirokusha and opened the agricultural school where Iwamoto Yoshiharu briefly studied. An 1873 visit to the world exposition in Vienna provided his first opportunity to see the Bible, which so impressed him that he sought out Julius Soper of the American Methodist Episcopal mission on his return to Japan to learn more about the Christian faith. Soper baptized him several months later and was quite possibly responsible for Tsuda’s subsequent reform activism. That work included helping found a temperance society in the late 1880s and speaking for the Tokyo WCTU on behalf of temperance.27 Tsuda titled his November 1887 lecture “Sake no gai” (The dangers of alcohol). Befitting such an appellation, he gave a systematic recital of the harm that drinking caused individuals and society. With respect to health, he identified liquor as the main cause of a slew of serious ailments, including pulmonary tuberculosis, rheumatism, palsy, heart disease, and epilepsy. To further emphasize the link between drinking and health, he presented the results of a survey conducted by a British life insurance company showing that the life expectancy of those who did not imbibe was on average twentyseven years longer than that of tipplers. He also contended that feeblemindedness in children was the fault of mothers who drank while pregnant and nursing. In discussing the impact of alcohol consumption on society and the nation, he charged that drinking almost invariably led to a life of crime and dissipation and that the tremendous amount of money spent on liquor would better be used to enrich Japan.28 Shortly after delivering this speech, Tsuda elaborated on his arguments in a forty-page tract of the same title, in which he showed even more pronounced concern about Japan’s precarious position in the international community. The solution he again offered was abstinence, which alone would provide the necessary capital to

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pay off the national debt and build up the military. Tsuda sent this text to the Tokyo WCTU on finishing it, and the society had copies ready for distribution and sale before the end of the year.29 Tsuda’s tract broke new ground in Meiji temperance literature not only because it was one of the first authored by a Japanese, but also because it set forth two of the movement’s central arguments. The first of these was that drinking weakened individuals physically and mentally and prevented them from using their labour to strengthen Japan economically. The second was that the state had to divert revenue best used for national enrichment purposes to build jails and operate courts in order to deal with the crime and dissipation caused by drinking. Absent from Tsuda’s litany of reasons in favour of temperance was discussion of the link between drinking and the physical abuse of women and children. He also did not dwell on the idea that alcohol impeded an individual’s relationship with God by making him or her less responsive to divine solicitations. With his silence on both topics, Tsuda mirrored the arguments of World WCTU and denominational missionaries. Much like them, he also presented temperance as a principle with nationalistic implications, which made it more palatable to those multitudes of Japanese who were eager to serve their country. The members of the Japan WCTU likewise promoted abstinence primarily for the sake of the nation, and their outreach among youth and at the 1903 National Industrial Exposition in Osaka reveals just how resourceful they were in finding ways to try to make Japan sober.30 Outreach to Youth During her 1886 tour, Mary Clement Leavitt had the opportunity to meet with the Education Minister, Mori Arinori. She did so with full knowledge of the vigorous campaign that Mary Hunt of the American WCTU was then waging to win legislation mandating the inclusion of Scientific Temperance Instruction (STI) in primary school curricula.31 It is quite probable, then, that she asked Mori whether such laws existed in Japan and, as they did not, recommended their passage or at least a Ministry of Education directive. Over the next fifteen years, World WCTU missionaries periodically brought up the issue with Japanese unionists, male temperance activists, the foreign mission community, and other government officials. Despite the overall influence they had on the temperance movement, their promptings on this particular issue went largely unheeded, and the drive to have STI included in schools throughout Japan made little headway. For that matter, interest in children as a target of temperance outreach remained weak. As noted in

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Chapter 3, Clara Parrish did prioritize efforts to organize young women during her tour, and at her urging the WCTU did adopt departments for work with children and with students at mission schools for girls. While the latter section did generate a spurt of activity initially, neither department became overly active, and the most the union did over the next few years was campaign on behalf of a bill that Nemoto Shō repeatedly put before the Diet to prohibit smoking by minors.32 The stimulus for the WCTU to do more than give token notice to these departments and initiate full-scale juvenile work came from Kara Smart.33 At her welcome party in the fall of 1902, she made clear her intent to push children when she declared: As an organization, we firmly believe that the hope of the Temperance Reform is in the pre-emption of childhood and youth by the slow, but sure processes of education to total abstinence for the individual, and prohibition for the state. For this reason, we shall endeavor to have physiology and hygiene so taught in your schools as to leave in the minds of your children and youth an adequate and proper knowledge of the effects of alcoholic drinks and narcotics on the human system.34

Essential to providing such an education was the preparation of STI textbooks. Shortly after her arrival, Smart secured permission for the translation and publication of Health for Little Folks and New Century Scientific Temperance Physiologies. The former had been written by Hunt and recently translated by Andō Tarō. Complete with illustrations, it discussed in clear and easyto-understand language how the body functioned and how drinking and smoking impeded the proper workings of the heart, brain, muscles, nerves, and five senses.35 Initial sales were gratifyingly strong, with five thousand copies sold in just one month.36 Getting public and private schools to require use of the text proved much more difficult. Members of the Japan WCTU and World WCTU missionaries repeatedly visited government and school officials and teachers to urge adoption but had little success outside of mission schools. In marked contrast, the introduction of medal contest work reaped great rewards, and quickly at that. The WCTU in the United States had introduced recitation contests nearly two decades earlier and had found the medium an excellent tool both for instructing young people and for “[overcoming] indifference and opposition to [its] principles [among adults] faster and surer than any other known force.”37 As reformers learned, the chance to

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see children and youth perform lured even heavy drinkers and vocal detractors of the temperance movement to contests. Moreover, words from the mouths of babes had the power to affect behaviour in ways that their tracts, appeals, and meetings could not.38 Given the continuing pervasiveness of adult resistance to abstinence in Japan, medal contests offered great promise for the advancement of the temperance cause, and Smart began recommending their incorporation into the WCTU’s plan of work shortly after her arrival in 1902. Her prodding bore fruit in the summer of 1904 when the union and its Foreign Auxiliary adopted medal contest departments at their respective conventions.39 A flourish of preparatory activity followed those conventions, and by April the following year “helps” necessary for holding contests were ready for widespread distribution. These included a booklet of sixteen temperance recitations for contestants to choose from, a leaflet of instructions for judges, and a pamphlet of rules for the contests themselves. As stipulated in the latter, every contest was to consist of between six and eight participants, with winners of bronze medals next vying for silver and recipients of silver then competing for gold. The speakers could be as young as twelve and as old as twenty-five and could contend for any one medal as often as desired. All, however, regardless of age and prior contest experience, had to adhere firmly to the principle of total abstinence and had to have refrained from imbibing liquor in any form for at least the previous six months.40 Six youngsters meeting these eligibility requirements competed in the first medal contest on April 24, 1905.41 Sponsored by the Loyal Temperance Legion (LTL) at Azabu Christian Church in downtown Tokyo, the two-and-onehalf-hour program began with a hymn and a Bible reading, proceeded with a temperance song, an anthem about the ongoing Russo-Japanese War, and the six recitations, and ended with an award ceremony, another war song and hymn, and a concluding prayer.42 The unabashedly religious tone of this meeting fit the setting but also reflected the belief held by Smart and other WCTU members that temperance went hand in hand with spreading the Gospel. As Smart wrote just before the competition, the “real contest is for truth – for saving homes and hearts and souls,” and that was just what the WCTU sought to do.43 The more immediate goal, however, was to select a winner, and that task fell to a panel of three long-standing union supporters and well-known public figures: newspaper editor Shirai Shūichi, Japan Temperance League president Andō Tarō, and Diet member Nemoto Shō.44 As instructed, these three considered each reciter’s memorization skills, pronunciation, voice, and overall attitude when judging the performances.

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The result of their evaluation was the awarding of the bronze medal, bearing in Japanese the inscription “Japanese WCTU Prohibition Oration Medal,” to Sano Gen’ichirō, whose talk, “Sakadaruchū no kimono” (In the kegs), “was told in an unaffected simple way that held the hearts of his audience in sympathetic interest to the end.”45 In the wake of the success of this inaugural contest, the WCTU and its foreign members sponsored no fewer than four additional competitions over the next three months. One was even scheduled as a feature event at the society’s annual convention in mid-July, where it “formed an object lesson to those who had but dimly understood the aims and methods” of the Medal Contest Department.46 Shortly thereafter, the Y at Kobe Jogakuin (formerly Kobe Jogakkō, now known in English as Kobe College) proved that this line of work was also a natural fit for affiliated young women’s associations when it held a contest for students. Awareness of this prompted Smart and Y national superintendent Tsuneko Gauntlett to recommend that all Ys devote their November 1905 meeting to the study and initiation of medal contest work.47 How many of the dozen-plus Ys then operating read the prepared contest helps in November is unclear, but Smart and Gauntlett’s urging did not go completely unheard. The Y at the Methodist missionbacked Yamanashi Eiwa Jogakkō in Kōfu, for one, responded and had already held one competition and begun planning a second by March 1906.48 Over the following years, Ys at mission schools in Tokyo and elsewhere also zealously took up contest work, as did LTLs and foreign and Japanese Sunday school teachers.49 So tremendous was enthusiasm that Japan WCTU local branches and affiliates sponsored approximately fifty recitation contests before the end of the Meiji period, with a record of twenty-five bronze and three silver held between July 1909 and July 1910 alone.50 The number of contests being held soon created great need for additional reciters, and Japanese and foreign unionists worked together to prepare two more, one with twenty-eight entries for young children and the other with more than a dozen for older students. Among the titles from which youth could choose by the end of the Meiji period were “A Glass of Wine ‘Per Se,’” “A Seven Hundred Million Dollar Conflagration,” “Rationale of Scientific Temperance Instruction,” and “The Octopus.”51 In 1910, an amendment to the rules allowed for participants in designated contests to write their own speeches. Two such competitions were held in Mito that same year, to great interest and effect. According to one account, the texts “showed originality in thought and composition,” with one of the winners, a telegraph operator, inspiring his audience by telling how he had made a big mistake at work

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after drinking a cup of sake at a wedding feast.52 Additional changes to the rules included the removal of the age restriction, which resulted in this young man’s appearance, and the abolition of the six-month abstinence requirement.53 This latter revision should not be interpreted as in any way a compromise of the WCTU’s principles but rather as a calculated move on the part of the union. Medal contests had proved successful as a vehicle for spreading the word of temperance, and the organization hoped to influence the behaviour of even more.54 That same goal infused the introduction of temperance essay contests at the end of the Meiji period. The thinking was that, unlike memorizing and delivering a speech, writing an essay would require an individual to reason logically about the harm alcohol caused and develop clear and concise arguments in favour of abstinence. The mental exercise involved could then result in the conversion of the author himself to temperance. Moreover, as with recitation contests, the holding of a competition could awaken interest even in inveterate drinkers.55 To achieve these twin objectives, the WCTU began holding temperance essay contests in 1911 in co-operation with Chūgaku sekai (Middle school world), a monthly periodical for middle school boys. A full-page advertisement for the first of these appeared in the April edition of the magazine and gave a length limit for submissions, the period during which essays would be accepted, and the theme for the contest – namely, “The Value of Total Abstinence.” To be eligible, one simply needed to be a middle school student at a private, public, or government institution.56 The results, determined by a panel of judges that included Shimada Saburō and Andō Tarō, were announced in July, and the first, second, and three thirdplace submissions were printed in two issues of the magazine. The top honour and ¥25 in prize money went to Suzuki Yoshio, a student in Sendai who was training to become a Buddhist priest.57 The response to this first competition and the number of submissions by students attending non-Christian schools exceeded the hopes of its organizers, and the WCTU quickly arranged for a second contest for the fall. The three topics chosen were “World Peace,” “The Spirit of Love for Animals,” and “The Need for Temperance among Youth,” all subjects of great concern to the organization. The winning essays were once again published in Chūgaku sekai.58 This link with a secular magazine enabled the WCTU to reach thousands who would not have heard its message otherwise. More important, the periodical’s readers represented the next generation. By trying to win them over to its principles, the society was seeking to create a sober Japan not just in the present but for the future as well.

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Temperance Work at the Fifth National Industrial Exposition As did recitation and essay contests, industrial expositions provided the WCTU in Japan with opportunities to spread its gospel of reform. Meiji state officials recognized early on the economic and public relations value of large, open fairs, especially to the program of national strengthening and the campaign for treaty revision. Such showcases also could (and did) spur technological developments in agriculture and industry, encourage domestic and international trade and tourism, and impress visitors, both foreign and Japanese, with the strides Japan was making. Among Japanese especially, travel to and attendance at expositions could open eyes to the world beyond individual hamlets or villages and stimulate the development of a sense of identity as Japanese. In other words, going to a fair could reinforce government efforts to make citizens see themselves as members of one nation, and a modernizing one at that. Quite eager to make use of this type of venue, the central government sent officials to exhibitions overseas to study processes, such as the canning of marine products. It also facilitated the display of Japanese goods at almost two dozen international expositions during the first twenty years of the Meiji period. Back at home, strong recommendations went out to local officials and private entrepreneurs to organize fairs. They responded by holding dozens of intra- and inter-prefectural exhibitions over the course of the Meiji period. Even more important was state sponsorship of five national exhibitions between 1877 and 1903.59 The first national exposition was held in Tokyo’s Ueno Park and ran from late August to late November. Over 450,000 people from across the country visited to see the nearly 85,000 items, which were separated into the following categories: mining, metallurgy, manufacturing, fine arts, machinery, and agriculture/horticulture. The fair coincided with the Satsuma Rebellion and opened before all arrangements had been finalized; even so, the turnout, in terms of both attendees and exhibitors, exceeded expectations. Ueno Park again played host in 1881 and 1890. Organizers decided for the second fair to shift the timing to spring and early summer and lengthen the duration by twenty days. Those changes paid off as attendance increased by 45 percent and the number of exhibitors almost doubled. Improvements for 1890 included the addition of new classifications of displays and the expansion of building and exterior ground space. Over one million took advantage of what the fair had to offer. In 1895, the fourth exposition moved to Kyoto as part of a concerted effort to promote industrial development not just in the Tokyo area but nationwide. Relocation in no way hurt the fair’s popularity. In fact, the location and timing

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contributed to an increase from 1890 of over 100,000 visitors and 2,000 dis­ plays. That the exhibition overlapped with ceremonies to commemorate the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto as the capital was a major factor. So was the victorious conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War, which fed the desire to celebrate Japan’s development.60 The success of these first four expositions fuelled much competition among Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya to host the fifth. Osaka prevailed, and its 1903 fair resulted in unprecedented figures across the board. Of note, the exhibition grounds were more than double in size those used for the 1895 event. There were 10 categories (59 subcategories) of displays, with just over 275,000 items on show. Compared to exhibits at earlier fairs, a far greater percentage of these were manufactured and/or Western-style goods as opposed to handicrafts. This change in composition reflected Japan’s building of modern factories and expansion from traditional into light and subsequently heavy industries. Visual markers of that development included porcelain ware, silk fabrics, safes, matches, paper-making machines, guns, glass bottles, and – appearing for the first time in 1903 – a refrigerator. On display for the fair’s four-month run, this fridge dazzled many of the more than five million visitors. Approximately 25,000 foreigners were part of that total. So was the emperor, who gave an address at the opening ceremony after receiving in audience key Japanese officials and foreign dignitaries.61 Proponents of Christianity and reform saw industrial exhibitions, be they local, national, or international, as ideal forums for espousing their beliefs and principles. Beginning in the 1880s, they exploited the opportunities the fairs presented to reach a broader spectrum of society than they could with their organizational forays, lecture meetings, and publications. The World WCTU provided one example with the coffee house it operated at the 1889 exposition in Paris, the first world’s fair held since its establishment. Volunteers at this “oasis in the middle of a desert” sold non-alcoholic beverages and passed out temperance tracts and words of solicitation to some one thousand people a day.62 Plans for more expansive outreach at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago began soon afterwards. In 1891, Anna Gordon, the World WCTU’s acting superintendent for LTLs, sent out dozens of letters to national affiliates and other known temperance groups around the globe asking for items to display and sell, with a special emphasis on things for and by youth. Japanese activists responded swiftly. In short order, the Tokyo Kinshukai collected stacks of temperance pledge tags from young people. These sported the Rising Sun in the middle along with each individual’s name and, handwritten, such golden rules as “drinking is the start of all

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things bad” and “the mouth that drinks drinks the wallet.” Among the various other items the society received for the fair were photos of temperance union members, pieces of stitched cloth, and, from a group in Izu, a collection of candy made from melted snow off Mount Fuji. The implication of these sweets was twofold: first, candy could be as refreshing as alcohol, and second, brewers could just as easily and profitably use their natural water supplies to make a harmless treat as opposed to sake.63 Whether or not that message was understood in translation, the candy was part of an exceptionally strong showing by Japanese temperance advocates at the World WCTU’s exhibit in Chicago. Many Japanese name stamps were among the three million signatures on the World WCTU’s Polyglot Petition, an appeal to governments worldwide to outlaw drinking and the opium trade for the sake of protecting families.64 In addition, the Tokyo WCTU provided a banner, a copy of the prospectus that Yajima Kajiko had written, and several issues of its periodical. Pride of place for Japan, though, went to the bell that Tsuda Sen had made from the pipes of one thousand former smokers.65 If Japanese Christians and reformers were merely responsive in their contributions to the world’s fairs in Paris and Chicago, they were truly proactive with expositions in Japan. One of the first reform societies to conduct outreach at an exhibition was the Hokkai Kinshukai, which took advantage of a month-long celebration of Hokkaido products in 1892. From a booth on the Sapporo fairgrounds, the society’s members distributed temperance tracts and copies of the organization’s constitution, gave out ice water, and held a number of public lectures.66 The YMCA and the WCTU followed this example three years later, when their members handed out temperance leaflets and other printed materials at the fourth national exposition in Kyoto.67 Fairs in Saga in 1906, Tsu and Tokyo in 1907, and Maebashi in 1910 served as additional sites for evangelistic and reform campaigns. Japanese clergy and laymen worked with Protestant missionaries of various denominations and nationalities at all four, giving daily sermons and passing out Bibles and hymns. The Salvation Army and the WCTU conducted similar activities in Maebashi.68 Of all the Meiji-period expositions, however, it was the national fair in Osaka in 1903 that attracted the most attention from Christians and reformers. Planning far in advance of the exhibition’s opening, the Christian Work Committee – an alliance of Japanese church people and Protestant missionaries – managed to secure a prime location right across from the main entrance. There the group built a gospel hall, which sported on the roof a large red-and-white sign urging all to “come and see.” Those who did were treated

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to regular thirty-minute services. Visitors to the hall averaged 1,900 a day, according to an early report.69 The Salvation Army also set up shop. Signs in English and Japanese decorated the front of its building and advertised the sale of books and refreshments, including tea, cocoa, cakes, and sandwiches.70 Temperance forces made a showing as well. Indeed, it was in Osaka that the WCTU joined forces with the union’s Foreign Auxiliary and the Japan Temperance League to launch its biggest campaign among exposition goers. Planning for that work began in earnest in early February 1903. On the second day of the month, seventeen WCTU members, missionaries in the Foreign Auxiliary, and delegates from the Japan Temperance League gathered at Smart’s home to devise a course of action.71 Smart’s knowledge of the types of activities the World WCTU had carried out at the 1900 world’s fair in Paris undoubtedly shaped the conversation, as the group decided to mirror them in Osaka. Specifically, those on the planning committee determined to open an alcohol-free rest house and there hold daily lectures on temperance and other reform principles. They also agreed to sell and distribute for free printed materials explaining the importance of abstinence and behavioural change and to display related goods. With these generalities settled on, the committee next considered the need for a powerful voice and presence to attract exposition goers to the lectures. One of their own, Miyama Kan’ichi, was an obvious choice. In the 1880s, he had evangelized and promoted temperance among Japanese and Chinese immigrants in northern California and Hawaii under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He had become an ardent supporter of the WCTU soon after returning to Japan in 1890, and he had spent much time in the years since touring the country both with World WCTU missionaries and on his own to spread the union’s program of reform and encourage the establishment of local branches.72 Miyama readily agreed to serve as a full-time speaker, with noted figures in support of temperance to give supplemental talks should they be in Osaka at any point during the exposition. The issue of where to hold those lectures was then addressed. Responsibility for deciding where to set up the rest house was delegated to Smart and Miyama. Finally, before dispersing, those in attendance appointed three subcommittees and assigned them the respective tasks of selecting which publications to have available, generating support, and raising money.73 The subcommittees wasted little time in responding to their tasks, as the fair’s March 1 opening was less than one month away. On February 5, Andō Tarō, Shimizu Fukiko, and the four others on the publications subcommittee

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met. Besides choosing sixteen tracts and pamphlets they considered essential, they resolved to distribute hundreds of copies of various temperance and reform magazines during each month of the exposition. By this point, word of the reform campaign had spread, and one supporter had offered to provide for free five thousand copies of a booklet he had written to promote abstinence from both alcohol and tobacco. Finances had always been a matter of great concern for the WCTU, the Foreign Auxiliary, and the Japan Temperance League, and while the decision to distribute materials free of charge had not been made lightly, it imposed a serious burden nevertheless. Andō, Shimizu, and the others thus gladly accepted the booklet offer and made known their eagerness to field others like it. The next day, on February 6, the members of the remaining two subcommittees also gathered. Those entrusted with soliciting the attention and goodwill of the Christian community decided to make a specific and direct appeal to churches and Christian organizations around Japan. That appeal, in the form of a letter, went out to approximately eight hundred different addresses and asked that special prayers and sermons be given on the first day of the fair. As for the six members put in charge of funding, they realized that cash contributions would be essential for the campaign to succeed. Certainly, gifts of items to display, sell, and hand out for free were godsends, but what was really needed was money to build and operate the rest house, hold lectures, and stock enough printed material so that each visitor could leave with something. So members of the funding subcommittee agreed to delegate responsibility for collecting donations, with the WCTU and the Japan Temperance League to raise money from their respective branches and the two missionaries on the subcommittee to approach their compatriots in the foreign mission community.74 The WCTU promptly placed a special advertisement in Fujin shimpō to notify local unions and individual readers; thanks in part to this, it had gathered well over ¥100 by the initial deadline of March 15.75 Even more pressing than the work of these subcommittees was the task of finding a site for the rest house. Smart and Miyama travelled to Osaka to that end. An introduction from the American Minister to Japan enabled them to negotiate with the exhibition commission about renting land inside the fairgrounds. As the two walked through the site, they were struck by just how prevalent beer, sake, and tobacco were. Granted, both were especially sensitive to any evidence of vice. That predilection aside, intoxicating drinks and cigarettes were hard to miss whether one entered the exhibition buildings or just strolled the walkways. With respect to the former, the building for manufactured goods had a whole section on brewery products. The ten

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different categories in that section included eight for things alcohol related, such as sake, beer, wine, and distilled spirits. Elsewhere in the same building one could see paraphernalia for smoking. Tobacco was among the main items in the agricultural building, which also had on display tools for preparing it. Similarly, machines for brewing and distilling were part of the machinery building’s exhibit. The “official” presence of alcohol and tobacco did not end there. During the fair’s closing ceremony, the brewers of Sapporo and Asahi beer and of the Kiku Masamune and Sakura Masamune brands of sake were among those recognized for excellence with medals.76 These prizes had not yet been given, however, nor had the displays in the buildings been completed, when Smart and Miyama visited the fairgrounds. What struck them instead was the sheer number – and in some cases grandiosity – of places set to sell alcohol and tobacco. Indeed, little sake stalls and cigarette stands dotted the walkways. Dwarfing these were the beer halls that Japan’s major breweries had constructed. Like Christians and reformers, beer companies saw exhibitions as a golden opportunity to reach new markets. After success with beer halls at the previous national fair in Kyoto, they were doing their utmost to attract attention in Osaka. The Osaka Beer Brewing Company had topped its hall with two huge Asahi beer bottles and hung lace curtains in the windows “to give a foreign air to the place.” Not to be outdone, Ebisu had fashioned its hall in the shape of a gigantic beer keg with a skylight in the ceiling and the inside decorated with lanterns, strips of colourful cloth, and pictures of beer factories. Even more of a spectacle was the Murai Tobacco Company tower. The top featured a blue globe with an advertisement for cigarettes in white and an observatory just below from which visitors could enjoy a panoramic view of the fairgrounds and beyond.77 It should come as no surprise that Smart lamented the sight of these monuments to alcohol and tobacco. She went so far as to assert that a visitor to the fair would not see anything that could “raise dignity and cultivate character.”78 Her desire to situate the rest house within the exposition grounds to rectify this situation likely played a major role in her persistence in trying to negotiate rental with the exhibition commission. After three rounds of talks, however, she and Miyama were forced to look elsewhere. The lateness with which they began this second search left them with few options nearby. After two weeks, they finally settled on an empty plot of land. Roughly fifteen feet wide and forty-eight deep, this site was on a major street between two entrances to the exhibition and very near the Christian Work Committee’s gospel hall. Smart advanced money herself so that construction could

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begin immediately, but even an expedited schedule did not allow for the opening of business until March 16.79 Once completed, the rest house was quaint but attractive. Adorning its front roof was a large billboard with a globe wrapped in a white ribbon in the middle, the words “Temperance Booth” in English underneath, and the names of the WCTU and the Japan Temperance League in Japanese on each side. Just below hung a sign advertising the sale of Bibles. Smart and Miyama had earlier fielded a request from the Bible Society for a small portion of land on which to set up a sales booth. They agreed, and not only because they supported that form of evangelism: the rent the Bible Society paid for the ground space amounted to two-fifths of what they had to pay for the entire lot for the duration of the fair. As for the inside of the rest house proper, pictures of WCTU leaders, anatomical charts depicting the health hazards

Figure 9   The

exterior of the temperance rest house at the National Industrial Exposition in Osaka, 1903.

Source: Reproduced from Arubamu Iinkai, ed., Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988). Courtesy of the Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai

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Figure 10   The

interior of the rest house at the National Industrial Exposition in Osaka, 1903, with Tsuneko Gauntlett, Kara Smart, and Miyama Kan’ichi.

Source: Reproduced from Arubamu Iinkai, ed., Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988). Courtesy of the Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai

of drinking, and Japanese flags decorated the walls. The refreshment tables lent a refined air with their white linens, white china, and vases filled with fresh flowers. Four or five times a day, members of the WCTU, the Foreign Auxiliary, and the Japan Temperance League, along with other volunteers, moved those tables aside and arranged benches into rows for lectures. The talks regularly drew audiences numbering between 50 and 150 and proved so inspiring to some that they made return visits. Evangelism and the promotion of temperance also occurred more informally and from the moment the first visitor arrived each morning until the last departed in the late afternoon. A hired cook and servant freed Smart, Miyama, and all who volunteered from most of the heavy work and allowed them to devote their time and energy to proselytization. And they did just that, trying to engage all who stopped to peruse the available literature or rest with a sweet and a cup of

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tea or coffee or a glass of lemonade. The lectures and these individual solicitations proved so successful that by the beginning of April, just weeks after the rest house opened, sixty visitors had vowed to give up alcohol.80 The oppressive heat of the Osaka summer and a precipitous decline in overall fair attendance convinced Smart and her cohorts to close the doors of the rest house on June 30, one month shy of the exhibition’s official conclusion. By that point, 266 people had signed temperance pledges. They included, notably, the owner of a sake shop, several heavy drinkers, and four rickshaw drivers who promised to begin studying the Bible with a minister in the Osaka area. Even more encouraging than the reform of these individuals was the fact that pledge signers came from more than half of Japan’s prefectures, with many from areas where temperance societies did not yet exist. One motivating factor behind the exhibition campaign had been the desire to expand the temperance movement, and these new converts represented a means to that end. The reams of printed material sold and distributed for free likewise had the potential to win new adherents across the country in the weeks and months ahead. According to a final tally, volunteers had sold 235 copies of Andō’s translation of Health for Little Folks and 140 copies of Poor Boys Who Became Famous Men, along with hundreds of copies of tracts and smaller books. They had also passed out close to 17,000 leaflets and 1,100 copies of temperance magazines. However impressive these figures, the prevalence among Japanese to share reading material meant that the number of people who might eventually see even one tract was considerably higher, and that alone instilled temperance workers with much optimism.81 With respect to immediate and future results, the temperance campaign at the Osaka fair was a success in terms of the standards and objectives of the WCTU, the Foreign Auxiliary, and the Japan Temperance League. Smart attributed that outcome largely to the collaborative nature of the work. Her assessment certainly applies with respect to finances. Expenses for the fourmonth endeavour totalled nearly ¥1,100, while rent from the Bible Society and receipts from the sale of refreshments, literature, and the rest house structure and its furnishings did not exceed ¥340. None of the three organizations involved would have had the funds to cover the difference or the earning potential to pay off a loan of that size in anything resembling a timely fashion.82 Nor did any one of these groups have the manpower required for such time-intensive outreach. In short, none on its own could have funded or manned such an operation. Equally deserving of credit for the temperance campaign’s outcome, however, is Smart. Not only did she offer suggestions about specific activities, help negotiate the rental of land,

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and provide an advance to start construction of the rest house, but she also supervised daily operations. Her contribution did not end there. The original plan had stipulated that the campaign would run through the end of May, at which point the planning committee would discuss the advisability of continuing. The option of stopping was seriously considered, for Miyama’s upcoming departure for travel abroad would leave the lectern vacant of a regular speaker and place full responsibility for on-the-spot supervision on Smart. Visiting supporters could be enlisted to lecture, thus addressing the first issue. The strain on Smart, however, was a different matter and one made more serious by memories of Mary Allen West’s death a decade earlier. Smart, however, argued that the exhibition’s next few weeks offered too much opportunity to be missed. The strength of that conviction and her resolve to carry on, even if alone, swayed the committee and resulted in one more fulfilling month of operations.83 The Fifth National Industrial Exposition had promised to bring to Osaka Japanese from Kyushu to Hokkaido, and, as was the case with the holding of recitation and essay contests, the choice of the fair as a forum reflected the desire of all involved in the campaign to touch those who had yet to hear Scripture or temperance principles. The significance of the event does not stem merely from the fact that thousands from all over were reached. The exhibition showcased Japan’s industrial development, and by espousing the need for temperance and the Christian faith in that context the WCTU, together with the Foreign Auxiliary and the Japan Temperance League, was able to assert its conviction that true progress could not be made without reform or Christianity. Unionists, by the simple act of volunteering, also offered up an example of acceptable public service for women and showcased their belief that working to better the nation was part and parcel of exercising “proper” civic duty.

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6 Imperial Loyalty and Patriotic Service Japan WCTU-Style

The assumption that Christians succumbed to the needs and policies of the Meiji state has influenced scores of studies on the Christian experience in modern Japan and has led many scholars to claim that native converts compromised their religious beliefs and moral principles to prove their loyalty to the emperor and the nation.1 This chapter challenges the applicability of that claim to the WCTU. It does so by first discussing members’ understanding of the emperor in relation to God and the nature of their demonstrations of reverence for the imperial family. It then examines the organization’s position on peace and war before exploring in detail the specific activities that members undertook during Japan’s two major military conflicts of the Meiji period, the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). As these sections will make clear, unionists remained steadfast in their religious and reform convictions. Far from becoming pawns of government policy, they actively appropriated the imperial institution and wartime need to advance their own agenda. Reform and Reverence for the Imperial Family Combined Instilling in the masses a sense of national identity was one of the most pressing tasks Japan’s leaders faced in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. The Tokugawa administrative structure and restrictions on geographic mobility had perpetuated and strengthened existing local loyalties, while the relative absence of commoner contact with the outside world had prevented the vast majority of Japanese from seeing themselves as part of a distinct nation. The resulting parochialism threatened to undermine the state’s modernization program and impede the drive for equality with the West. Government leaders realized just how serious a threat this was when they moved to abolish the domains, form a conscript army, revise the tax

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system, and establish compulsory education. They intended with these measures to build a centralized administrative structure, develop an army to defend the nation, ensure a predictable level of revenue to pay for government initiatives, and create an educated populace to fuel industrial development. All four were vital to national strength, and though the first proceeded with little resistance the remaining three met with swift and, in some places, violent opposition from a public that found itself burdened with greater obligations. This reaction made it even more imperative for the state to inculcate feelings of shared identity and obligation, and Meiji rulers found in the emperor the means to do just that. Opponents of the shogunate had enlisted the emperor as sovereign and tried to justify the overthrow of the Tokugawa by declaring an imperial restoration. Those who formed the new government decided against reviving the monarchy’s political power, however, and instead set about to fashion the emperor into a public figure whom the masses would revere and emulate and to whom they would show undying loyalty. The traditional reclusiveness of Japan’s emperors had left commoners virtually ignorant of who he was at any particular time and had contributed to the belief that he was simply one of many deities. Meiji leaders sought to stamp out this notion by establishing as fact the emperor’s divine supremacy. To that end, they issued public notices that identified him as a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, the most important deity in the Shinto pantheon. They also made the emperor’s birthday a national holiday, held elaborate public celebrations for significant events in the lives of members of the imperial family, and commissioned Buddhist priests to deliver public lectures about patriotism and promote imperial veneration. What is more, they put the emperor on parade. Usually attired in a splendid Western military uniform, toting such traditional imperial regalia as the Sacred Sword and Curved Jewel, and riding in a horse-drawn carriage covered in black lacquer and decorated with a gilded chrysanthemum (newly adopted as the symbol of the imperial family), he led grand processions to all reaches of Japan’s four main islands. The longest of these spanned seventy-four days, and more than seven hundred accompanied the largest. On these trips, the emperor visited shrines, schools, factories, and military camps and recognized commoners’ achievements with gifts and, on occasion, personal audiences. Such pageantry helped instill in the masses loyalty and reverence for the emperor, along with a sense of him as ruler and of themselves as subjects. That consciousness became entwined with feelings of patriotic duty and “national communion,” just as the Meiji oligarchy had intended.2

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Most Japanese during the Meiji period participated with the state in the construction of the cult of imperial reverence whether wittingly or unintentionally and regardless of age, gender, and religious affiliation. Elementary school children who listened to their principals read the Imperial Rescript on Education certainly did. So did housewives who hung the national flag in front of their homes and shopkeepers who treated their clerks to sushi and other special foods to celebrate the fall and spring equinoxes, which the Meiji government had appropriated and transformed from family into national holidays linked to the imperial institution. While the above examples may come across as characterized more by passive than active involvement in building the imperial cult, the reverse was true of many others. Iwamoto Yoshiharu played a conscious and prominent role thanks to the amount of space he allocated in Jogaku zasshi to articles on the imperial family. From 1885 until 1905, he included just shy of one thousand pieces, with close to 70 percent appearing from 1889 to 1893 alone, the five-year period when the government focused on institutionalizing loyalty to and reverence for the emperor. Most of these articles detailed the activities of the empress and empress dowager, stressing their benevolence as well as their function as mothers of the nation.3 The Sonnō Hōbutsu Daidōdan (Federation for Reverence of the Emperor and Service to Buddha) contributed even more conspicuously to the building of the imperial cult than did Iwamoto. Founded by members of the Sōdō sect of Buddhism in 1888, the organization had as its primary objective “to protect the glory of the imperial household, broaden the influence of Buddhism, and thereby make full the vigor of the Japanese empire.” The activities the group pledged to undertake to achieve these aims should not surprise; they included the common holding of public lectures and the publication of a magazine, booklets, and reports.4 The WCTU did not go so far as to mention the imperial family in its statement of purpose, but members still helped propagate the imperial cult. Yajima Kajiko’s 1887 prospectus foretold such co-operation with its praise for the emperor and empress’ contributions to women’s advancement. Mitsuki Hiroko and Chino Yōichi are among a number of historians who have seen a contradiction between this avowal of loyalty and both Yajima’s Christian faith and the WCTU’s goal of liberating women. For her part, Mitsuki has contended that union members’ devotion to the imperial institution “set restraints on how the Japan WCTU carried out activities and even led the society to cooperate in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars.”5 Chino has likened Yajima’s reverence to “uncritical affirmation of the absolutism of the Meiji state” and has blamed it for imposing limits on

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the movement to free women.6 Informing this argument is the view that unionists compromised their beliefs and principles while trying to prove their allegiance and patriotism. This analysis is problematic for four reasons. First, this interpretation disregards the fact that all Japanese were under pressure to demonstrate their loyalty and, as such, presents WCTU members as exceptional. Linked to that shortcoming, it also does not take into account the conventionalized nature of Yajima’s language. Far from being unique, her words praising the emperor and empress mirrored those found in documents ranging from petitions for more participatory government to newspaper articles describing imperial outings. That she was adhering to stylistic norms should be noted. Third, this reading misinterprets the relationship between members’ faith and their reverence for the emperor. The handful who published autobiographies and who contributed personal articles to the WCTU’s periodical tended not to discuss theology, which makes generalizing about the specific tenets of their Christianity difficult. Yajima did, though, provide a clear explanation of her own position in a 1915 editorial in Fujin shimpō, and her words offer at least a basis for critique. She wrote that she had initially been awestruck by the imperial family but that her knowledge of God had transformed her detached wonder into personal affection. Moreover, she had come to believe that the emperor reigned over Japan at God’s behest and that he provided moral support to his subjects on God’s behalf.7 Her reverence thus reflected this understanding of the emperor’s place, not uncritical acceptance of the state’s assertions about his divine origins. Finally, this argument overlooks the ways in which the WCTU showed imperial veneration. Yajima predicated the nature of these displays in her prospectus when she stated that involvement in reform work was, in fact, a show of loyalty to the emperor and empress. This conceptualization of the tie between activism and allegiance permeated the union and led members very consciously to invoke the imperial family in the name of reform. The organization’s activities in connection with the 1900 marriage of the crown prince reveal just how members appropriated imperial celebrations for their own ends. Japanese nationwide greeted news of first the prince’s betrothal and then his wedding with great fanfare. The state orchestrated some of this response with public announcements, the issuance of the country’s first commemorative stamps, and plans for a stately procession of the prince and his new bride from the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo to his residence nearby. Unbridled enthusiasm also moved the public to fete the

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couple, as demonstrated by the tens of thousands of young and old who gathered to watch the procession.8 Extending felicitations on behalf of the WCTU, Tanaka Yone, then editor of Fujin shimpō, printed a special note of congratulations in the magazine. The society also sent as a wedding gift a mirror in the shape of the moon, the back of which had engraved an outline of the Eastern Hemisphere with Japan highlighted and white ribbons scattered here and there to resemble waves. Over just a few months, members had donated almost ¥56 to pay for this present, an amount both staggering in light of the organization’s persistent financial problems and illustrative of the depth of members’ desire to commemorate the occasion.9 While offering congratulations and giving a gift did not distinguish the WCTU and its members from the many others who acknowledged the marriage, the inclusion of the white ribbons did. The badge of the WCTU worldwide, the ribbons clearly represented the union and its goals and made those known. Moreover, they symbolized purity and, as such, embodied members’ hopes for the marriage. Those hopes had been fuelled by the official announcement of the engagement – specifically by its wording. The lead article in the February 1900 issue of Fujin shimpō praised the appearance of the word “promise” in that notice, as in “the crown prince had promised marriage.” The author, more than likely Tanaka, interpreted its usage as an indication that the prince respected his betrothed and had pledged to enter into a monogamous union with her. Tanaka’s enthusiasm was not unwarranted, for the government suggested as much in order to make the monarchy appear civilized in the eyes of the West.10 Tanaka went on to rejoice that the prince’s marriage would set a “precedent that would help eliminate the evil of danson johi (respect for men and disdain for women).”11 In an article three months later, she expressed a similar sentiment when she wrote that the day of the wedding would most certainly be one to celebrate from the “standpoint of society’s morals,” as the ceremony would begin the process of reforming the country’s “air, which [was] defiled by impurity.”12 These claims were overly optimistic. Still, the WCTU had spent almost a decade and a half trying to accomplish that goal and establish marital fidelity as the norm, and though it had made little headway the prince’s wedding did offer to legitimize those efforts and draw attention to the principle of monogamy. Tanaka recognized that fact and transformed a demonstration of reverence into an espousal of reform. The same could be said of the appeals that WCTU officers sent to authorities regarding the wedding procession and Fujin shimpō’s commentary on the presents the Imperial Household had prepared as return gifts. The former asked that the public be admonished

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to respect the event’s solemnity by abstaining from alcohol-induced revelries. Because the wedding would attract international attention, such decorum was absolutely essential to protect the “nation’s honour.” As for the latter, Tanaka praised the decision to substitute the traditional sake cups with candy dishes and replace the image of a sake cup on the front of commemorative stamps with the crests of the Imperial Household and the crown princess’ family. She added that news of these changes brought the WCTU a joy like no others.13 As with monogamy, members had advocated temperance since the union’s founding, and while the new gifts and stamps did not indicate an open endorsement of abstinence by the imperial family, Tanaka implied such. What is more, in so doing, she was appropriating imperial power, prestige, and popularity to advance the WCTU’s agenda. This sort of mingling of displays of loyalty with calls for reform characterized much of the WCTU’s approach to the imperial family, not just in 1900 but throughout the Meiji period. Indeed, the history of the union’s responses to major events in the lives of the emperor, empress, and crown prince reads like a virtual litany of reform activities.14 For example, beginning in 1887, members annually celebrated the empress’ birthday in conjunction with the spring meeting of the Tokyo-Yokohama Women’s Prayer Society. Missionaries Kate Youngman and Maria True had inaugurated this fellowship four years earlier to bring foreign and native women together twice a year, and many WCTU members were active in it. Under the auspices of this group, these same unionists repeatedly called for the empress’ birthday to be awarded equal status with the emperor’s by being designated a national holiday, recognition that they deemed would improve women’s position in society. Cries for such appeared periodically in articles in the WCTU’s magazine, with that in the May 1908 issue among the most laudatory. Referring to the empress as the “country’s mother” and a “gift from God,” it praised her virtues, making special note of the fact that she “weigh[ed] national interests, pray[ed] for the happiness of citizens, and show[ed] compassion for the lower classes.”15 Besides these sorts of public acknowledgments of the empress’ birthday, women in the prayer society sought to give her gifts. Yajima herself spearheaded an 1887 effort to celebrate the birthday by arranging for the presentation of a copy of the Old and New Testaments, which had recently been retranslated and published in Japanese. The choice of gift reflected her belief, as well as that of others active in the prayer group, that the Bible would provide comfort to the empress. That said, the publicity behind and timing of its offering also strategically served to advertise the Bible’s availability, insinuate imperial support of Christianity, and link the faith to women’s advancement.16

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Looking beyond birthdays and again at actions specific to the WCTU, in 1894 the organization observed the silver anniversary of the emperor and empress by sending a brocaded box that contained poems and embroidered handkerchiefs and was tied with a white ribbon.17 The ribbon, once again, served as a subtle yet unmistakable nod to the union’s existence and principles. The occasion of the emperor’s death provided still other opportunities to advertise. Then national vice-president Honda Teiko visited the Imperial Household Ministry on behalf of the Japan WCTU to offer condolences. Those members who lined the streets for the funeral procession sported white ribbons with black bands on them, and many others attended a special prayer meeting. In addition, two separate issues of Fujin shimpō carried memorials, with special praise given to the emperor for having bestowed on the people the “gift” of religious freedom.18 Though not all of these expressions of mourning were directly linked to reform, each display of reverence did represent yet another attempt to harness the legitimacy, power, and prestige of the imperial family to the beliefs and goals of WCTU members. Quite clearly, unionists remained steadfast in their faith and reform objectives in relation to the imperial institution. Were they as unswerving during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars? The rest of this chapter addresses that question, with a discussion of the WCTU’s position on peace and war providing a starting point. The Promotion of Peace and Just War Many times during the Meiji period, the word “peace” appeared in print with reference to the WCTU. To give two examples, in May 1898, Union Signal reported that the decorations festooning Yokohama’s Kaigan Church, where the union’s annual convention had just been held, included a banner inscribed with “peace to all nations.”19 Four years later Kozaki Chiyoko opened her first issue as editor of Fujin shimpō with the statement that all WCTU activities aimed to achieve world peace.20 Beyond such references, members of the society co-operated periodically in organized efforts to promote harmony among nations. Collaborative action first took place in 1899, when the union joined forces with other Japanese women’s groups to establish a federation specifically to support The Hague’s inaugural peace conference. Also, in 1910, executives voted to affiliate with the Japan Peace Society and, at the WCTU’s annual meeting that July, created a department of work for peace to coordinate activities.21 Yajima, appointed the section’s first superintendent, was well established as one of the union’s leading exponents of peace. She had assumed that role soon after the Russo-Japanese War with two very public acts. First, she had

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led a contingent of WCTU members to welcome back to Tokyo Komura Jutarō, Japan’s chief negotiator in Portsmouth. Though Komura was then widely reviled for not winning more concessions from Russia – most specifically an indemnity – Yajima had greeted him at Tokyo Station with the WCTU’s flag in hand and had politely thanked him for his work to restore peace. The following year she had travelled to Washington, DC, after attending the World WCTU’s seventh convention in Boston and, in a wellpublicized meeting, had personally thanked President Theodore Roosevelt for his intercession to end the war.22 As the WCTU’s new director of peace work from 1910, she built on these individual initiatives and prodded her fellow members to become more involved in agitation for world peace. The Taisho period saw them actively take up the gauntlet, at the same time that opinions favouring international alliances and arms reduction gained widespread currency in Japan and abroad.23 In promoting peaceful relations among nations, the WCTU contributed to the emergence and shaping of a peace movement in Japan. Concerns about civil unrest had led intellectuals in the Tokugawa period to emphasize the need for stability and order. Yet Japan’s very limited interaction with the rest of the world meant that their rhetoric focused almost exclusively on internal matters, and the desire for harmonious coexistence with other countries remained a concept. Peace only became the guiding light for a distinct and concrete movement after Japan’s opening and development into a modern power with interests overseas that needed to be protected.24 American Protestant missionaries and Christian lay people played a large role in shaping the ideological contours of the movement at its earliest stage. Edward Cornes of the Presbyterian Church and L.L. Janes, again employed at the School of Western Studies in Kumamoto, were among the many who had served in the American Civil War, and they took with them to Japan stories about the human destruction that modern military technology and tactics could wreak. While all essentially painted the same picture of horror, they diverged sharply in the positions they took regarding war. The majority espoused the doctrine of just wars. They argued that peace represented the ideal and should be pursued to the extent possible but that armed conflict was moral if the causes were virtuous. The minority in contrast propagated pacifism and uncompromisingly opposed war.25 Given the tremendous influence that individual missionaries had on their particular Japanese contacts, it should not surprise that this same intellectual split was reproduced in Japan. As Robert Kisala has observed, the dominant presence of pacifists in peace agitation in postwar Japan has led scholars of the earlier period to overlook

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this dichotomy of opinion.26 Their unbalanced treatment has fuelled the interpretation that Christians who showed support for the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars compromised their belief in peace by doing so. True, native converts did need to demonstrate their loyalty to the nation, especially after Uchimura Kanzō’s refusal to bow before the Imperial Rescript on Education rekindled charges that their faith was incompatible with the basic character of the Japanese state. With the exception of a handful of pacifists most did prove themselves loyal with their patriotic service. Even so, they acted not because they felt compelled to establish their allegiance but because they believed that both wars were just. This was certainly true of the members of the WCTU, as revealed by their arguments in favour of armed conflict with first China and then Russia. The union’s major apologia for the Sino-Japanese War appeared in the miscellaneous column of the August 1894 issue of Fujin kyōfū zasshi. Takekoshi Takeyo, the magazine’s editor, most likely penned this piece just before the outbreak of hostilities. Thanks to extensive media coverage and word of mouth, her readers undoubtedly knew that Japan had sent troops to Korea to help a Chinese military expedition suppress a native uprising. Moreover, few if any would have remained unaware of reports that their government had tried to negotiate a mutual withdrawal only to be rebuffed by China. Takekoshi therefore saw no need to provide background information. She did, however, offer a concise explanation of why war was “unavoidable.” Specifically, she wrote that Japan was doing its utmost to help Korea maintain independence, and because China was obstructing those efforts the Meiji government had no other recourse than war.27 Roughly ten years later this same rationale of inevitability – of being backed into a corner – appeared in statements that Kozaki published in support of war with Russia. To cite one example, the lead editorial in the February 1904 issue of Fujin shimpō lamented the opening of hostilities but then went on to issue the following claim: “Obstinate Russia is vainly disregarding peace, trampling on the independence of another country, and endangering the existence of Japan. It has reached the point that Japan has no other choice but to take up swords for the sake of peace in the East and Japan’s own self-defense.”28 Kozaki’s vindication of war as essential to achieving peace and ensuring self-preservation clearly placed her among the “just war” majority of Meiji Christians.29 That she did not stand alone in the WCTU in taking this position is apparent from a speech on the need for moral reform that Yajima gave during the organization’s convention in mid-July of 1905. In that talk, Yajima said that, because WCTUs the world over “bore great responsibility for bringing about profound peace for the sake of God, countries, and homes,”

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the members of the union in Japan should fulfill their duty as affiliates by meeting the nation’s wartime needs.30 The motives underlying members’ efforts to meet those needs, though, extended well beyond their desire for peace. For example, they also believed that armed conflict between nations offered women an excellent opportunity to improve their status in society. Kozaki provided one of the clearest statements available of this idea in a Fujin shimpō editorial published just after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. She contended that women, the original “defenders of ethics and public morals,” had exerted little influence on society to that point because of their lowly position. War had led the public to ignore problems of behaviour, however, and women could make themselves “indispensable and, at the same time, cause their social standing to improve significantly” if only they worked to solve those problems.31 This conviction was fundamental to the WCTU’s pro-war stance; so was the philosophy that guided all union activities. This approach gave precedence to action and led members not to question whether war itself was right or wrong but rather to ask how best they could meet the nation’s needs.32 Their answer dovetailed with their reform goals – a fact that the organization’s activities during the SinoJapanese and Russo-Japanese Wars clearly reveal. The Sino-Japanese War and Japan WCTU Outreach As hostilities with China intensified and war loomed ever closer, Iwamoto Yoshiharu and other contributors to Jogaku zasshi took up their brushes to lament women’s lack of awareness of, and interest in, social and international problems. After fighting actually began, that criticism morphed into an open call for women to expand their activities in order to support the war effort. Iwamoto did urge women to contribute indirectly by economizing on household expenses, yet he stressed as more important direct and public activities. Specifically, over several issues in August and September of 1894, he exhorted women to comfort bereaved families, collect money and metal to offset military expenses, and become nurses willing to travel to the battlefield to care for the sick and injured. Women responded individually and through organizations, a good number of which were founded because of the war. Indeed in Fukuoka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Niigata, and a long list of other prefectures, they did just what Iwamoto recommended they do.33 Members of the WCTU contributed to this collective outpouring of patriotic sentiment but put a distinctive stamp on their activities by infusing them with their reformist agenda. Takekoshi took the lead in doing so in the pages of Fujin kyōfū zasshi. As noted earlier, she used that platform to defend the government’s decision

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to declare war. In short informational pieces and longer editorials, she also offered advice on how Japanese could and should contribute to the war effort. These admonitions unequivocally equated reform work with patriotic service. Takekoshi penned her first article in this vein just before hostilities broke out in July 1894 and published it in the August issue of the magazine. She began by saying that Japan would need to spend massively in the early days of war in order to mobilize its forces. That money could quite easily come from the country’s drinkers, for they consumed almost ¥100 million per year in alcohol. “If they truly loved Japan,” she declared, “they would support the principles of reform and apply their drinking funds to military expenses.”34 Takekoshi assumed a more persuasive tone in her editorial the following month, yet she still linked abstinence from vice to military funds. Specifically, she reported that the government planned to float ¥50 million in public debt to pay for the war with the expectation that citizens would assume the burden of repayment. She went on to postulate that a far better way to acquire the necessary capital would be to divert what Japanese spent on alcohol and tobacco each year, for that amount would more than match the proposed debt. To enforce the validity of this assertion, she wrote: “If, on an occasion such as this, we cannot abstain from the desires of the stomach and the mouth and if we cannot implement reform principles, we should not boast about the patriotism of Japanese citizens to the world.”35 In these two articles, Takekoshi focused her attention on drinkers and smokers and, therefore, on men as much as women. The readership of Fujin kyōfū zasshi, however, was almost exclusively female and already supportive of the WCTU’s reform principles. So Takekoshi also published several pieces that addressed the wartime duties of her sisters and that set forth specific tasks they should perform. One effort she identified as especially important was for women to reduce unnecessary expenses, including money wasted on sake, tobacco, and ornamental hairpieces, and use those savings to subsidize military purchases. The magazine’s readers were also urged to spread reform principles in order to prevent returning soldiers and labourers from disrupting social morals.36 WCTU members responded to these recommendations through two specific activities: they sent temperance leaflets to men in arms, and they provided Red Cross hospitals with financial support and material goods.37 The society sought as well to provide comfort to families with sons, husbands, brothers, and uncles risking their lives on the battlefield. The main vehicle the union employed to this end was a twenty-four-page pamphlet that Takekoshi wrote and that the WCTU published and began distributing

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in December 1894. In her opening paragraph, Takekoshi tried to establish common ground with her intended readers with the avowal that all Japanese felt worried that they would never see their loved ones again. She proceeded to warn that, if individuals let themselves become consumed by anxiety, they would be guilty of disservice to the emperor and their fellow citizens. To prevent such dereliction of patriotic duty, she admonished that all left behind, especially women, should develop strong hearts and labour to protect the home front. She did not provide concrete suggestions as to how women could best maintain the sanctity of their homes, but she did recommend a way they could fortify their spirits: they could (and should) rely on the God of Christians. As she explained, [This] God is omnipresent and omniscient. Work that people cannot do and things of which they cannot conceive on their own become simple when God’s power is used. Those with unendurable sadness can easily gain comfort if they depend on God’s might, for He takes those who go to Him with heavy burdens and makes their troubles light. If you are overwhelmed with worry and if you go to God and pray to Him, you will be able to receive help at once.38

Takekoshi tried to offer comfort herself by also urging the readers of this pamphlet to remember two important facts. Death in the Sino-Japanese War would reduce their loved ones to dust and bones in a purely physical sense. They should not forget, however, that there was no greater honour than dying in battle for the sake of the nation. Moreover, they should be mindful that the souls of the war dead did survive in the afterworld and, “sitting next to God, would receive His blessings” for eternity.39 Over the course of the war, WCTU members distributed approximately 1,500 copies of this pamphlet together with issues of the union’s magazine.40 Dozens of recipients subsequently sent letters of thanks, two of which Takekoshi reprinted in Fujin shimpō. Both writers expressed appreciation for the solace they had gained from her reminder that death was honourable when met for the sake of the nation. Neither, however, mentioned God or indicated that her comment about the afterlife of the war dead had provided any peace of mind.41 Far from disheartening members of the WCTU, the secular nature of these thanks strengthened their conviction that providing spiritual comfort was a legitimate expression of patriotic service, and that belief shaped the activities the union would pursue nearly ten years later during the Meiji period’s second major conflict, the Russo-Japanese War.

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Providing Comfort and Promoting Reform during the Russo-Japanese War The WCTU’s outreach during the conflict with Russia proved to be better coordinated, more varied, and more national in scope than its activities in support of the Sino-Japanese War. For that matter, this statement applies to the patriotic service of Japanese in general. Multiple factors gave rise to this development, not the least of which were a more ingrained sense of national identity, the widely accepted notion that active support of the war was a civic duty, and intense popular animosity toward Russia. All three contributed to the expanded outreach of the Red Cross, to point to one long-standing organization. By 1903, this society had roughly 900,000 members, a more than fivefold increase since 1895, and they collectively paid close to ¥3 million a year in dues. That human and financial capital enabled the society to send 12 medical teams to field hospitals in China, charter 2 and provision 18 medical transport ships, and care for some 70,000 Russian prisoners of war, not to mention the thousands of wounded Japanese accommodated at Red Cross and reservists’ hospitals in Japan.42 The Aikoku Fujinkai (Patriotic Women’s Association) enjoyed a similar organizational surge thanks to the war. Created in 1901 to offer relief to the families of men killed and severely injured in action, the group saw its membership roster increase more than sixfold from 1903 to 1904 and then almost double the following year, to a total of 465,000 at the end of 1905. Those same numbers enabled the association to participate in 179,571 send-offs and welcome-backs for servicemen, ship 555 different kinds of material goods to those deployed, pay 624,917 comfort calls on military families and another 44,784 on the injured, and attend 56,227 funerals.43 Though the WCTU did not compare with these two organizations in terms of size and capital, the expansion of its wartime outreach likewise owed much to its development into a more experienced body with more effective central leadership and a more extensive network of local branches. This growth included the addition of new departments of work, including, in 1897, a gunjinka or section devoted specifically to outreach among those in arms. Satō Kieko was appointed its first superintendent, quite possibly because of the initiative she had shown in devising a plan to open an alcoholfree rest house for soldiers during the Sino-Japanese War. That that idea never reached fruition may have been a harbinger of the gunjinka’s early days under her direction. The department languished in its first years owing in part to her failure to present a concrete plan of action.44 The lack of reports in Fujin shimpō suggests that the section’s condition changed little after Shimizu Fukiko took over. True, the Sōshū WCTU did welcome the 1901

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opening of a nearby rest and recreation centre for sailors by sending physiology texts that warned of the harms of drinking and smoking. In addition, the branch’s members did visit hospitals to comfort wounded servicemen.45 Nonetheless, these activities appear as an isolated example, and the scarcity of information in Fujin shimpō about the gunjinka leaves unclear when Shimizu even replaced Satō. After her arrival in 1902, Kara Smart did strive to generate interest in the department by offering instruction in methods. Her urging did give rise to a little spark of enthusiasm, but not until war with Russia became imminent did the WCTU truly adopt the department and launch full-scale outreach. As war loomed, Shimizu determined to learn as much as possible about the work that WCTUs worldwide had initiated during times of war. She thus wrote to her counterparts abroad, asking them to send what information they could. She then selected from among their collective activities those that she considered both feasible for the Japan WCTU and most responsive to the country’s needs. She had those published as a list of six recommendations in the February 1904 issue of Fujin shimpō. Notably, she advised her fellow members to visit hospitals, barracks, and ships and encourage and console the servicemen they met with flowers and literature. She also urged them to send supportive missives to those already at the front and provide material aid to bereaved families. These suggestions highlight the WCTU’s commitment to providing basic comfort during wartime – a trait common to all women’s service organizations. However, as with the union’s activities during the Sino-Japanese War, evangelism and the desire to further the society’s reform goals greatly informed the program put forth for the RussoJapanese War.46 Shimizu’s other recommendations offer proof of just how important these latter two goals remained. Namely, she exhorted branches to send lecturers to barracks and other places with large congregations of servicemen with the explicit purpose of teaching about the Gospel and expounding on the need for temperance. She further advocated the creation of designated places where soldiers and sailors could rest, read, purchase healthy snacks at low prices, learn about Christianity, and experience the pleasure of social interaction based on the principle of temperance.47 In the months after the outbreak of hostilities, other WCTU members similarly used the pages of Fujin shimpō to press their fellow unionists to act. They did not reiterate Shimizu’s suggestions word for word, but they did reinforce the importance of reform and evangelism as core components of the WCTU’s wartime program. For example, Kozaki included an editorial in the June 1904 issue in which she asserted that the only way to ease the loneliness and pain of those who had lost family in the fighting was to lead

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them to Christ. She stressed that members of the WCTU had a duty as Christians and as women to so comfort the bereaved, adding that engagement in evangelistic work was unquestionably service for the sake of the nation at war.48 This editorial and Shimizu’s recommendations show that, at least at the national level, officers saw war as an opportunity to further their agenda, and they promoted outreach to that end. Did members at the local level share that same steadfastness to reform and evangelism? A look at the activities these women undertook during the Russo-Japanese War illustrates that many did, in fact, accept and propagate all three stipulated goals of the gunjinka. For example, Baba Matsue and Kashiuchi Setsuko of the Osaka WCTU attended a stereopticon meeting, where they helped explain Christ’s life to dozens in uniform. They also comforted prisoners of war and, with Bibles and biscuits in hand, consoled the injured at military hospitals in Hiroshima, Matsuyama, and Sasebo. Kimura Semuko and her fellow members of the Asahikawa WCTU attended funerals for the war dead, gave bereaved families charcoal and rice to ease their straitened circumstances, and welcomed returnees home with temperance tracts and flags. Nishizaki Ayano and her cohorts in the Yokohama WCTU, besides paying for children from poor families with fathers off fighting to attend elementary school, donated Bibles and other religious works to a Red Cross library for injured soldiers and sailors. Still others met trains carrying soldiers to and from the front and offered words of encouragement, sewed on buttons, fixed tears in clothes, and distributed leaflets decrying the evils of drink.49 This last activity assumed particular importance, given that troops were regularly handed glasses of beer to toast their departures and returns.50 Not all branches equally espoused and worked to achieve the WCTU’s triad of wartime objectives. In keeping with the national union’s support of local autonomy, branches set their own priorities and established departments of work as fit local needs and their individual members’ interests. Some did emphasize comfort over reform and evangelism, as the reports they submitted for publication in Fujin shimpō reveal. That said, many reports mentioned only the holding of organizational meetings, with details on the program and the number in attendance. Still, that twenty-eight out of fiftysix local unions were enthusiastically engaged in some kind of war work in 1905 illustrates the extent to which the WCTU as a national organization embraced the war as an opportunity for action.51 More so than any other endeavour, the sending of comfort bags epitomized the national scope of the society’s wartime service.52 Even branches without a sufficient number of members to form and maintain their own

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Figure 11   A

WCTU comfort bag from the RussoJapanese War.

Source: Reproduced from Arubamu Iinkai, ed., Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988). Courtesy of the Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai

departments of work solely directed at soldiers and sailors joined other locals in contributing to the project. The idea for sending bags to those in uniform to alleviate some of the hardships of battle was conceived in the United States and gained currency during its Civil War as a suitable activity for women wanting to contribute.53 Not long after its founding, the World WCTU adopted this practice as one way to spread its reform message. When Shimizu wrote to superintendents worldwide to inquire about WCTU wartime activities elsewhere, she received in reply from her American counterpart instructions on how to manufacture bags and suggestions about what kinds of goods to include. She reprinted this information and a picture of a bag in Fujin shimpō, along with a specific request that any bags made be sent directly to the national department of work for soldiers and sailors.54 The response to Shimizu’s appeal was swift. Within days, the WCTU received a collection of bags from both branches and individuals, plus a pledge of ¥50 from an organization of elderly women in Tokyo for the printing of postcards to insert. These initial contributions convinced the union’s leaders to make six hundred bags on a trial basis. Their enthusiasm was temporarily dampened when officials in the War Department refused to accept the bags, most likely because of the WCTU’s Christian connections

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and the fear that any whiff of this foreign faith would undermine the loyalty of troops. The more liberal Navy proved amenable, however, and in midMarch the national gunjinka sent them to this branch of the military with the understanding that they would be distributed at Sasebo Naval Hospital and throughout the combined squadron. Shortly thereafter, lieutenants, captains, and even the paymaster of the warship the Usugumo wrote letters of thanks. Kozaki commented on this positive reception in the April 1904 issue of Fujin shimpō and included copies of a number of missives in order to inform readers of the positive impact the bags had had and prod them to make more. Her efforts were rewarded, and the WCTU wasted little time in expanding its comfort bag campaign.55 Initially, headquarters asked those interested in assisting with comfort bag work to donate bags already filled with socks, gloves, needles, thread, buttons, writing paper, pencils, dried plums, temperance leaflets, and Christian tracts. Lack of time, money, and access to all the items on this list precluded the assistance of many, so the WCTU began to loan out bags for others to fill, sell machine-made bags for five sen each, and accept sewn bags and items for inclusion separately. Members in Tokyo inspected all bags prior to shipment to ensure that their contents were appropriate. Periodically, they came across a bag with rotten food, cigarettes, and lewd pictures, which they removed. With greater regularity, they inserted Bibles, temperance tracts, abstinence pledges, hymn slips, copies of the WCTU’s statement of purpose, and letters urging servicemen to join the union’s department for work with soldiers and sailors. Cognizant of the need for a central command post, given that the national organization still did not have its own office, Yajima arranged for rental of a room at Joshi Gakuin. From there, she oversaw the collection and inspection of bags, having been personally charged with that responsibility by the government.56 The WCTU rank and file joined officers in and around Tokyo in flocking to Joshi Gakuin to assist in the inspection and packaging of bags. Most of the bags they handled initially came from a very narrow segment of society – from local members, students at Protestant girls’ schools, churchwomen, and foreign missionaries. The efforts of Ōzeki Chikako helped generate interest beyond the union’s core constituency and stimulated the development of comfort bag work into a truly national movement irrespective of religious affiliation and sex. A nurse and long-time member of the Tokyo WCTU, Ōzeki had assumed an active leadership role in the Japan WCTU through service on the executive committees of both the national organization and Jiaikan and as superintendent of the union’s department for health.57 Her personal campaign with respect to comfort bags began in the wake of

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wild celebrations after Japanese forces declared victory in a short but intense battle at Liaoyang late in the summer of 1904. She was aware that this triumph had come with tremendous loss of life, including close to one-fifth of those Japanese troops involved, and she felt evermore the need for citizens to contribute to soldiers’ relief. That September, sample comfort bag and letter of solicitation in hand, she set out in the Kanda district of Tokyo and went door to door appealing for contributions. The response her canvassing aroused surprised even Ōzeki herself. Merchants became spokesmen for the cause and encouraged customers to give, and employees at the Kanda ward office urged local residents to help when they appeared on business. Even a second-grade elementary school student joined in, offering up a bag with two rolls of paper, ten envelopes, and two writing brushes. Like wildfire, the idea of sending comfort bags spread through Tokyo. In mid-October, Ōzeki had to return full time to paying employment, but by then her efforts had netted 17,150 bags for the WCTU.58 The effects of Ōzeki’s brief campaign did not end with this windfall. Other Christian and, more important, non-Christian women’s groups soon adopted comfort bags as an acceptable form of wartime service. Members of the imperial family became involved as well. According to a special notice in the February 1905 issue of Fujin shimpō, Princesses Tsunenomiya and Kanenomiya had decided to make bags after hearing that they offered soldiers on the front the “best consolation.” They had then devoted most of two days to the task, declining all requests for audiences during that period.59 An even greater boon came later in the fall of 1904 when the War Department unexpectedly reversed its earlier attitude toward bags and began to request them from and only from the WCTU.60 Official recognition of the union’s outreach did not end there. The War Department went so far as to offer to ship the bags gratis with the provision that the union provide them in batches of at least ten thousand. With financial resources already stretched thin, the organization had been hard pressed to pay freight, and growth in comfort bag work had been constrained as a result. The promise of free shipping was a godsend and greatly affected both the number of bags the WCTU sent and the number of recipients the organization touched.61 The Controversy over Sending Bibles to Those in Uniform As the comfort bag campaign gained momentum around the country, controversy arose over the insertion of Bibles. A missionary in Nagano alerted the union’s leaders to the emergence of active opposition when he informed them that the city’s mayor had refused to accept and distribute a shipment

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of bags. The mayor had so acted, the missionary explained, because he believed that the Scriptures did not qualify as an appropriate relief good for those in arms. The WCTU soon thereafter received reports that the mayors of Osaka and Kōfu shared this conviction and had likewise rejected consignments of bags. This news met not with wavering on the part of the society but rather with an immediate response in Fujin shimpō. In the April 1905 issue of the periodical, Kozaki printed as the lead article a sharply worded defence of the inclusion of Bibles. She argued that the WCTU was working, “in accord with Christ’s spirit, to reform the evil ways of society ... and make Japan a pure and truly civilized nation.” She averred that this same spirit informed the organization’s comfort bag work and that, because true consolation meant providing both spiritual and physical comfort, it was only natural for the union to include Bibles along with soap and socks. The mayors’ charge that Christians lacked patriotism, she wrote, revealed their ignorance of the tenets of Christianity and the backwardness of their thinking. Adding another barb to this criticism, she maintained that even children were more enlightened, for they would laugh at assertions that Christianity was inimical to service to the state.62 In the pages following this editorial, Kozaki included an article about additional letters of appreciation that the society had received for comfort bags. She mentioned by way of introduction that the union’s leaders had been concerned that the thousands and thousands of bags shipped since the beginning of the year not only to Nagano, Osaka, and Kōfu, but to a host of other military installations as well, had failed to reach their destinations. Hundreds of messages of thanks had flooded into the WCTU’s headquarters just before the magazine went to print, though, and Kozaki indicated that these had alleviated worries. She then provided a three-page list of the names and regiments of those who had recently written.63 She allocated significantly more space the next month to publicizing the positive reception the bags had received when she included an even lengthier list of letter writers and two illustrations of soldiers appearing jubilant as they opened bags. On top of that, she reprinted over a dozen of the received epistles, which were replete with requests for magazines and books, references to specific items of daily use that soldiers had especially appreciated, and even pleas for union members to look after elderly mothers.64 During the remaining months of the war, Kozaki allocated many more pages in the organization’s periodical to letters of gratitude. She did so in order to impress on the periodical’s readers that their efforts to make and send bags did have a very tangible impact and thereby encourage them to continue the work. Even more compelling

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a motive at this juncture was the perceived need to justify the insertion of religious and reform materials, especially in light of mayoral opposition. That Kozaki sought to vindicate evangelical and reform outreach is readily apparent in the August 1905 issue of Fujin shimpō. That month she identified twelve soldiers who had signed abstinence pledges after reading the temperance tracts they had received in their comfort bags.65 What is more, she gave at least twice as much space as was typical for a thank-you letter to an excerpt from a note from an infantryman named Kaneko Yoshitarō. Kaneko wrote that, in the days and weeks after receiving a bag, he had refrained from sending a letter because he considered expressions of support and comfort from civilians his due as a soldier. He had changed his mind, however, because of the Bible enclosed. To explain why the Scriptures had so impacted him, he explained that he had lost both his parents while young and, having attended school for only a few months before being drafted, had very few classmates as friends. Consequently, there had been no one to see him off at the train station when he shipped out to join his regiment. The sight of his fellow conscripts being attended to by relatives had impressed on him his own aloneness, and he had cried on the platform. This same feeling of loneliness had returned to him in the field and had led him to wonder whether he would forever be solitary. With a dislike for sake and tobacco and nothing else to comfort his body, he had begun to read the Bible. He had found true solace in it and in the teaching that God would never abandon him. Indeed, the Bible was the “only thing from which [he could] now gain consolation,” and he had felt compelled to thank the WCTU.66 As Kozaki stressed in her introduction to this missive, Kaneko’s words proved that comfort bags did indeed “serve to spread [the union’s] assertions among soldiers and give them spiritual solace.”67 Assured of this truth, the organization continued for the duration of the war to send men in arms Bibles, temperance tracts, and other printed materials that promoted Christianity and the reform goal of abstinence. The rewards the WCTU reaped as a result of its comfort work extended well beyond the impact the bags had on individual recipients. Yajima and her fellow officers realized very early on that the campaign to assemble and send bags would also “indirectly” introduce the union and its assertions to civilians. Indeed, every individual who contributed something for a bag or who simply heard about the project represented yet another person who at least knew about the WCTU and its principles.68 The total number the union reached is impossible to determine, as 60,000, the figure for bags sent, was just a drop in the bucket. Nonetheless, the identities of those who responded

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to Ōzeki’s canvassing highlight the fact that people from all walks of society supported the organization’s comfort work. They did so because they considered the bags a logical expression of patriotism, a way to demonstrate good citizenship, and a service that met the needs of the nation at war. This opinion extended into official circles and beyond the War and Navy Departments. In formal recognition of the WCTU’s comfort bag work, the emperor bestowed three sets of silver bowls bearing the imperial seal on the national union, as well as a silver cup on the Osaka branch. He also conferred a set of embossed bowls on Yajima herself.69 The WCTU was not alone in being so rewarded. Dozens of individual branches of the Aikoku Fujinkai received gold or silver sake cups, while the national organization was given over ¥14,000 by members of the imperial family. The emperor and empress also donated ¥10,000 to the YMCA for its wartime service.70 Though the list of recipients goes on and on, such public confirmation was of particular importance for Christian organizations. It brought them legitimacy and respect. Moreover, it paved the way for the expansion of activities by contributing to the thawing of suspicions about the loyalty of Christians; indeed, it offered them up as individuals to emulate. Noting this ripple effect, officers in the WCTU were assured enough to start publicly and unabashedly using “Christian” as part of the organization’s title. Eight years earlier, in 1897, attendees at the national union’s annual meeting had decided to rename the society the Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai (Japan Christian Woman’s Moral Reform Society). They had done so after Niwa Seijirō, secretary of the Tokyo YMCA, during a speech had urged – perhaps even chastised – them to make obvious their religious orientation. That conviction proved fleeting as “Christian” did not actually appear in Fujin shimpō until the January 1900 issue and even then only in a copy of the union’s rules, not in the text of editorials or reports.71 Five years later, Kozaki fittingly opened her defence of Bibles in comfort bags by identifying the society with Kirisutokyō (Christian). Her use of this word reflected the union’s confidence in its place in Japanese society and heralded an intensified reliance on the magazine as an evangelizing tool – a change made most evident by the subsequent inclusion of articles about Christmas as a regular feature of December issues. That this confidence resulted from the WCTU’s work during a national crisis deserves note. So does the form that the union’s wartime activism took. During the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, WCTU members maintained their convictions and beliefs and located within service to the state an opportunity to further their aims. Additionally, in the years before and

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after each conflict, they demonstrated their loyalty to and esteem for the emperor, empress, crown prince, and crown princess in ways that promoted Christianity and their reform principles. Both of these facts are important, for they highlight the inaccuracy of assertions that native converts were co-opted by the government and became mere pawns in its program of nation building. Moreover, the union’s activities in connection with the imperial family, and during wartime, shed further light on how members defined “good” citizenship and women’s roles and sought to shape the public debate about both.

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Epilogue

In 1986, almost three-quarters of a century after the death of the Meiji emperor, the WCTU celebrated the centennial of organized WCTU activism in Japan. Both continuity and change had characterized the intervening decades. The Taisho and early Showa periods had seen the society persist with its petition campaigns for monogamy and regulation of overseas prostitutes, agitate against the building of new brothel districts, and provide comfort and material relief to victims of natural disasters. Members had also continued outreach among youth, most notably by supporting a proposal to ban underage drinking, by holding additional medal contests, and by sending thousands of temperance posters and STI textbooks to elementary and middle schools throughout the country. Moreover, as mentioned in Chapter 6, they had added their voices to the chorus calling for world peace and arms limitation. In a departure, however, they had taken up suffrage as a specific cause and had joined forces with women’s rights advocates to demand the vote during the heyday of party government. As a result of these activities and efforts at organizational expansion, the WCTU enjoyed spectacular growth in the interwar years. Indeed, by 1939 the society boasted just over 9,100 adult and youth members in 186 branches.1 Impending war with the United States and the government’s drives to mobilize the masses in support of that conflict brought about a sharp reversal in the union’s fortunes. The WCTU was forced to cancel its annual meeting in the spring of 1941 and surrender its organizational autonomy the following year, when the state mandated that all Christian groups unite under one umbrella federation. Members also had to halt all communication with the World WCTU, as their ties with this predominantly Anglo-American body drew their loyalty to Japan into question. In the spring of 1944, paper shortages required the society to suspend publication of Fujin shimpō, and the army’s requisition of office space deprived the union of its headquarters,

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forcing the relocation of administrative functions to the hall the organization had completed in 1938 in memory of Yajima Kajiko. These latter setbacks severely hampered the WCTU’s ability to maintain regular contact with members and coordinate activities and, together with lingering suspicions about the union as a foreign organization, contributed to a pronounced decline in numerical and financial strength. In 1945, the same year that an American bombing raid destroyed the memorial hall along with the WCTU’s rescue home, the society’s membership roster included only 326 names.2 But just as swiftly as the WCTU declined organizationally during the Pacific War, it rebuilt itself after peace was restored. Its leaders almost immediately began to petition Occupation officials to abolish licensed prostitution. They also constructed a new office building, resumed publication of Fujin shimpō, and appealed for a ban on the production of sake because of rice shortages. In addition, they restored ties with the World WCTU and, in 1968, hosted the world union’s convention in Tokyo. That gathering represented a real turning point for the Japan WCTU. The society had first proposed Japan as a site for the World WCTU’s convention during the last decade of the Meiji period and had made the offer repeatedly in the succeeding years. The organization in Japan, however, had long been perceived as on the world body’s periphery. The decision to allow the Japanese union to host the 1968 meeting thus signalled the society’s maturation in the eyes of World WCTU leaders and the union’s full acceptance into the world temperance movement.3 As significant a milestone was the Japan WCTU’s centennial anniversary in 1986. The organization, then with just over three thousand members, commemorated the occasion on December 6 with a meeting and congratulatory party at Tokyo’s Reinanzaka Church. Executives also published a memorial issue of Fujin shimpō and a thousand-page history of the society, which included a chronological list of its major events. They compiled a pictorial history as well soon thereafter.4 In addition, on April 1, they opened an emergency centre within the union’s rebuilt headquarters known as HELP (House in Emergency of Love and Peace) Asian Women’s Shelter. Notably, this facility continues to operate today. From its inception, this shelter has aimed to provide temporary housing to women in crisis. During its first eleven years of operation, it accommodated just shy of eight hundred Japanese women who were seeking refuge from abusive and unfaithful husbands, from divorce, rape, and homelessness, and from insecure futures as senior citizens. HELP has focused more, however, on women who have been lured to Japan from poorer countries

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with promises of comparatively well-paying employment as secretaries, waitresses, maids, cooks, babysitters, and entertainers, only to be forced into prostitution after landing. Between 1986 and 1997, HELP sheltered over two thousand such women, the vast majority of whom were from Thailand and the Philippines. Typically, Asian women arrive at the centre on the run and with neither money nor the travel documents required to return home. Their predicament has induced HELP’s directors, caseworkers, and volunteers to expand the centre’s outreach beyond the provision of food and shelter to include financial aid, legal assistance, and intercession with immigration officials. Their stories have also led the WCTU’s executives to seek a more comprehensive solution to the sexual exploitation of female migrant workers in Japan.5 As one of their first efforts, they petitioned the Diet and the Tokyo Assembly in 1987 for revision of social welfare laws to strengthen protective mechanisms for women. They have also urged lawyers’ associations in Japan and the UN Commission on Human Rights to study Japan’s immigration laws and recommend to the government amendments that will guarantee migrant workers’ basic human rights.6 By no means do these activities represent all of the WCTU’s efforts to eliminate the sexual exploitation of Asian women. To highlight others, the union has played a very active role in campaigns to end sex tours by Japanese men to Southeast Asia. Individually and in co-operation with other member organizations of the Japan Anti-Prostitution Association, the WCTU has also actively petitioned the Japanese government to apologize and pay compensation to the tens of thousands of women who were forcibly conscripted as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during the 1930s and early 1940s.7 The union’s decision to take up these two issues reflects its long-standing commitment to the eradication of prostitution. It also highlights how members have accommodated their activities to address new concerns associated with prostitution as they have arisen. This dedication to a particular reform goal and persistence in devising activities to deal with contemporary manifestations of the “evil” characterize the union’s recent temperance, anti-smoking, and peace work as well. For example, the proliferation in the 1980s of vending machines selling liquor and tobacco prompted the WCTU to repeatedly petition the Management and Coordination Agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, among other bureaucratic authorities, for their removal. The great number of beer and cigarette commercials on television has also led the union to submit numerous appeals to official agencies calling for their prohibition. Plus, in 1993, the WCTU wrote to the president of Disney Japan asking him to ban

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the sale of alcohol on the grounds of the theme park. With respect to the promotion of peace, the union has abandoned its just war position and joined the pacifist majority in Japan’s postwar peace movement. In that vein, members agitated for an end to the 1991 Gulf War. They have also supported Japan’s non-nuclear principles and opposed government attempts to expand the participation of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in UN peacekeeping operations.8 This introduction to particular WCTU activities since the end of the Meiji period is by necessity brief, for a detailed examination of the union’s organizational development post-1912 falls outside this book’s purview. I have provided it to offer some sense of what has happened to the society over the past century. Unlike the vast majority of women’s groups formed in the Meiji period, the Japan WCTU has survived. In fact, it is Japan’s oldest such group. That organizational longevity owes much, in my opinion, to members’ continuing commitment to Frances Willard’s “Do Everything” policy. Adherence to that has facilitated the pursuit of a broad and flexible agenda and has enabled the WCTU to remain contemporary and relevant. Support of this policy is but one legacy of the Meiji-period union. Others are members’ reliance on petitions to try to modify government policies and their tenacity in pursuing reform despite fluctuations in the organization’s fortunes. Their basic desire to improve Japanese society and their sense of right and responsibility to do so as they see fit hark back to Meiji unionists as well. Indeed, one of the strongest links among WCTU members through the years has been their shared belief regarding the role they should play in modern Japan. For the middle-class women who joined the WCTU during the Meiji period, their perception of that role was shaped by the post-Restoration drive to make Japan an equal of the Western powers and by their connections with American Protestant missionaries. With respect to the former, the desire to revise the unequal treaties of the late 1850s fuelled national projects aimed at modernizing the country. Such projects ranged from the abolition of domains and the creation of a conscript army to the building of mines and laying of railway tracks. Guiding these efforts was the belief that the countries of the West were the most civilized and advanced and that Japan could only match their economic prosperity and military strength by adopting their institutions and technologies. American Protestant and World WCTU missionaries who worked in Japan following its opening helped promote this notion of Western superiority. Even more so they stressed how essential it was to adopt Western beliefs and ways. Specifically, they postulated that widespread acceptance of the Christian faith and their own values

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and morals was required for Japan to advance. They also asserted that Christians had a responsibility to give regular witness to their faith and work to “improve” individuals and society. In addition, they extolled women’s moral superiority and piety and asserted that these two traits made women best suited to protect children and the home from corrupting forces. These arguments provided a model and rationale for women’s activism and, together with the national drive to modernize, propelled Japanese women into action when Mary Clement Leavitt urged them to organize a WCTU in 1886. Over the next twenty-five years, unionists in Japan pursued a wide range of activities “for God, home, and country.” They sponsored scores of lectures in churches, schools, and public halls with speakers – including a long list of prominent Japanese male Christians – taking to the lectern to decry the physiological and economic harms of alcohol and condemn the subordination of women. To further advance the cause of sobriety, they published a lengthy temperance tract; operated a “dry” rest house at the 1903 National Industrial Exposition, where they distributed temperance magazines and pledge cards; and held recitation and essay contests for youth, with the need for Scientific Temperance Instruction among the prescribed topics. To establish and protect women’s rights, they petitioned against bans on women’s membership in political associations and sponsorship of and attendance at political meetings, against an attempt to exclude women from the gallery of the House of Representatives, and for changes in the civil and criminal codes to establish monogamy as the legal norm. They similarly appealed to the government to abolish licensed prostitution, prevent the rebuilding of brothel districts after fires, and regulate the emigration of Japanese women for the purposes of prostitution. Other activities directed specifically at women included the operation of a rescue home for prostitutes and destitute women, the opening of a facility to provide factory girls with an education and wholesome entertainment, the holding of classes to teach mothers how to care for their children, and the organization of Ys among students at Christian schools. They also issued a monthly periodical; sent soldiers and sailors fighting in the Russo-Japanese War hymnals and pickled plums; provided material relief to victims of industrial pollution; and, one year, celebrated the empress’ birthday by giving her a Bible. With these and their many other activities, the members of the Meiji-period WCTU claimed a place and a say in the public sphere. They used that voice to present their ideas about what was appropriate behaviour, sound government policy, and “good” citizenship. Put another way, they offered their opinion about what Japan needed to become modern and what role men

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and women should play in the country’s development. At the same time, they tried to convince their fellow Japanese of the rightness of their vision and induce them to change their actions. Linking their reform goals to the imperial institution to benefit from its prestige and legitimacy was one way. Not content to depend on the whims of individuals, however, they also sought to achieve their objectives by harnessing the authority of the state through official decrees and legislation. They looked to the state because they believed it had the power to dictate behaviour in public and private. Yet they also believed they had a right to engage and influence officials, and they attempted to do so repeatedly with written petitions. Whether calling for an end to the giving of sake cups to reward patriotic service or for the exclusion of geisha from public ceremonies, members regularly couched these appeals in nationalistic language. That they did so reflected not only their own patriotic sentiments but also a realistic appraisal of the environment in which they operated. They understood that entreaties “for the sake of Japan’s honour and fortune” would resonate more strongly among certain audiences, so they played to such sensibilities. By the same token, they infused their speeches and writings with Biblical references when they knew that their listeners and readers would be receptive to a reform message wrapped in religion. The impact of such pragmatism on the success of the WCTU is impossible to determine. For that matter, so is the extent to which unionists influenced behaviour. Circulation statistics for reform-oriented publications, membership figures for reform organizations, and the number of union petitions that accomplished a change in policy or the passage of a law simply provide too little information for an analysis. The significance of the WCTU, however, does not rest solely or even primarily with its quantifiable accomplishments. Much more important is why and how members attempted reform. Much more important is understanding that, through their activities, they contributed to the construction of the public sphere, advanced the feminist and reform movements, and helped shape the nature of citizenship. In short, they played a role in Japan’s modernization and that participation should be acknowledged.

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Notes











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Introduction 1 Japan Evangelist vol. 6, no. 3 (March 1899): 84-86, quoted from 85. 2 “Shōhai haishi no seigan” [The petition to ban prize cups], Fujin shimpō [Woman’s herald], no. 58 (25 February 1902): 4. The Japan WCTU regularly relied on Christian politicians in the Meiji Diet to submit its petitions. Who interceded with this particular appeal regarding ceremonial cups and whether that person had a seat in the House of Representatives or the House of Peers are unclear. So is the identity of the petition’s author. I assume here that a female member did the drafting and so use the feminine pronoun. 3 Ibid., 5. The entire petition is reprinted in Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 193-95. 4 Fujin shimpō no. 25 (20 May 1899): 29. 5 Mikiso Hane, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1992), 132. 6 Scholars of American feminism in the nineteenth century have shown how women used their role as defender of the home to justify greater public activism. See, for example, Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1981); Janet Zollinger Giele, Two Paths to Women’s Equality: Temperance, Suffrage, and the Origins of Modern Feminism (New York: Twayne, 1995). 7 The original motto of the WCTU in the United States had been “for God, home, and native land.” In 1891, the world body modified this in keeping with its global aims and reach. Patricia Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents in the International Women’s Movement, 1848-1948 (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999), 57. I do not mean to suggest here that the Japan WCTU’s use of kokka in the singular was unique; rather, I want to draw attention to the difference in the English- and Japaneselanguage versions of the slogan as they appeared in the union’s magazine. 8 It would be wrong to imply that the members of the WCTU in Japan were generally disengaged with the world around them. Many did join the hundreds of Japanese and millions worldwide in signing the World WCTU’s Polyglot Petition, the epitome of that society’s global aspirations in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. In this document, women and, later, men bemoaned international trafficking in stimulants and opiates and asked rulers and governments worldwide to “raise the

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Notes to pages 4-6

standard of law to that of Christian morals, to strip away safeguards and sanctions of the state from the drink traffic and the opium trade, and to protect our homes by the total prohibition of these curses of civilization” [reprinted in Dorothy Staunton, Our Godly Heritage: A Historical Review of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1883-1956 (London: Walthamstow, n.d.), 11]. In addition to supporting this petition, a handful of Japan WCTU local and national leaders worked to organize unions and spread reform principles in California, Korea, and Taiwan. Still, the homeland remained the focal point, and this overseas outreach targeted only Japanese during the Meiji period. For discussions of work in California and the colonies respectively, see Rumi Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920 (New York: NYU Press, 2004), 105-34; Manako Ogawa, “American Women’s Destiny, Asian Women’s Dignity: Trans-Pacific Activism of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 18861945” (PhD diss., University of Hawai’i at Manoa, 2004), 236-48. Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol. 2 (Protestant Missions) (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909; reprint, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1976), 296. Cary did not indicate whether he included student totals for Protestant schools established by Japanese and financially and managerially independent or semi-independent of missions. Even if not, the revised figure would still be much less than twenty thousand. Carol Mattingly expounded on this idea of women’s rhetoric made more effective in Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998). Lori D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 29. Quoted in ibid., 1. With an 1889 electoral law, the government restricted the right to vote for the Diet to men who were over twenty-five and who paid a minimum of fifteen yen per year in taxes, did not work as priests, were not actively serving in the military, and were sane. Hiroko Tomida unequivocally offered that assessment in her biography of Hiratsuka Raichō. To quote her, the ban “closed the door on further female participation in politics. The enactment of this law enabled the government to suppress women’s involvement in all political matters.” Hiroko Tomida, Hiratsuka Raichō and Early Japanese Feminism (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 48. For select others who have supported that interpretation, see Sotozaki Mitsuhiro, Ueki Emori to onnatachi [Ueki Emori and women] (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1976); Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983); Sharon Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, “The Meiji State’s Policy toward Women, 1890-1910,” in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 151-74; Akiko Tokuza, The Rise of the Feminist Movement in Japan (Tokyo: Keio University Press, 1999). Notable scholarly exceptions in English include E. Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Emily G. Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest in Meiji Japan: Deguchi Nao and Ōmotokyō, Cornell East Asia Series (Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993); Marnie S. Anderson, “A Woman’s Place: Gender, Politics, and the State in Meiji Japan” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2005); Mara Patessio, “The Creation of Public Spaces by Women in the Early Meiji Period and the Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai,” International Journal of Asian Studies vol. 3, no. 2 (2006): 155-82. I include Anderson here with one caveat. While she has argued that women did continue to occupy a

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political space in public after 1890, she has implied that they could no longer “engage in overtly political activities.” I see the submission of petitions to appointed government officials and those elected to legislatures as openly political and, given that the WCTU continued to engage in such throughout the Meiji period, disagree about how much of a turning point 1890 was. Anderson, “A Woman’s Place,” 200. Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 117-18. David R. Ambaras, “Social Knowledge, Cultural Capital, and the New Middle Class in Japan, 1895-1912,” Journal of Japanese Studies vol. 24, no. 1 (1998): 1-33; idem, Bad Youth: Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). Tanaka Masato, “Fujin shimpō no kōshitsu kanren kiji” [Articles in Fujin shimpō in connection with the imperial family], Kirisutokyō shakai mondai kenkyū no. 51 (December 2002): 214. For broader examinations of Buddhist, Catholic, and Protestant activities, see Asano Kenshin, Nihon Bukkyō shakai jigyōshi [A history of Japanese Buddhist social welfare] (Tokyo: Bōninsha, 1934); Tashiro Kikuo, Nihon Katorikku shakai jigyōshi kenkyū [Studies in the history of Japanese Catholic social work] (Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 1989); Namae Takayuki, Nihon Kirisutokyō shakai jigyōshi [A history of Christian social work in Japan] (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1931); Yajima Yutaka, Meiji-ki Nihon Kirisutokyō shakai jigyō shisetsushi kenkyū [Research on the history of Japanese Christian social welfare facilities in the Meiji period] (Tokyo: Yūzankaku Shuppan, 1982). In the mid-1980s, Fuji Shuppan compiled all surviving issues of the WCTU’s magazine from its appearance in 1888 through 1958 and published them in sixty volumes. The biography reprint series put out by Ōzorasha has also made readily accessible autobiographies by several WCTU members and biographies of others written by union and family members. Cary, A History of Christianity; Charles W. Iglehart, A Century of Protestant Christianity in Japan (Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1959); Winburn T. Thomas, Protestant Beginnings in Japan: The First Three Decades, 1859-1889 (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1959); Richard H. Drummond, A History of Christianity in Japan (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1971); Kuyama Yasushi et al., eds., Kindai Nihon to Kirisutokyō: Meiji-hen [Modern Japan and Christianity: The Meiji edition] (Nishinomiya: Kirisutokyō Gakuto Kyōdaidan, 1956). Albert E. Baggs, “Social Evangel as Nationalism: A Study of the Salvation Army in Japan, 1895-1940” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1966); R. David Rightmire, Salvationist Samurai: Gunpei Yamamuro and the Rise of the Salvation Army in Japan (Lanham: Scarecrow, 1997). Representative of the biographical focus are Ichibangase Yasuko, “Ushioda Chiseko (1845-1903),” in Zoku shakai jigyō ni ikita joseitachi: Sono shōgai to shigoto, ed. Gomi Yuriko (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1980), 33-44; Takamizawa Junko, Nijūnin no fujintachi [Twenty women], Ai to kibō no kiroku Series, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1969). Notable among the few member studies that look beyond anti-prostitution activities is Abe Reiko, “Ashio kōdoku mondai to Ushioda Chiseko” [The Ashio mine pollution problem and Ushioda Chiseko], Rekishi hyōron no. 347 (March 1979): 98-117. Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism.

23 Chapter 1: The Founding of the WCTU in Japan Material from this chapter originally appeared in “Mary Clement Leavitt, Japan, and the Transnationalization of the World WCTU, 1886-1912,” in Women and Transnational

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Activism in Historical Perspective, ed. Kimberly Jensen and Erika Kuhlman, with a preface by Kathryn Kish Sklar (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Republic of Letters Publishing, 2010), 13-36. Reproduced with permission from Republic of Letters Publishing. Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol. 2 (Protestant Missions) (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909; reprint, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1976), 36-39, quoted from 37 and 38. William R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 45-46; George M. Marsden, Religion and American Culture (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990), 48; Cary, A History of Christianity, 45-46. Americans were the only Protestant missionaries in Japan until the inauguration of work by the Church Missionary Society in England in 1869. Lay and ordained Protestant evangelists from Canada, Scotland, Germany, and Finland later joined the field during the Meiji period. Despite this diversity, the Protestant Christian influence remained decidedly American, thanks in large part to the head start of American agencies, widespread popularity of foreign missions among mainline American denominations, and the much greater resources they expended on Japan. Cary, A History of Christianity, 357-58. Ibid., 45-78, quoted from 53; Winburn T. Thomas, Protestant Beginnings in Japan: The First Three Decades, 1859-1889 (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1959), 117-27. Notto R. Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue, 1854-1899 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1987), 13-15; Joseph L. Van Hecken, The Catholic Church in Japan since 1859, trans. and rev. John Van Hoydonck (Tokyo: Herder Agency, 1963), 17-18. Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity in Japan, 53-55, quoted from 55; Charles W. Iglehart, A Century of Protestant Christianity in Japan (Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1959), 47; Helen J. Ballhatchet, “The Modern Missionary Movement in Japan: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox,” in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 37. Mark Edward Lender, Dictionary of American Temperance Biography: From Temperance Reform to Alcohol Research, the 1600s to the 1980s (Westport: Greenwood, 1984), 290; Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 11. Robert T. Handy, A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 52. The founding Washingtonians regularly gathered in a bar to socialize. A flier for a temperance meeting sparked their interest one day, and they sent one from their group to attend. He returned only to convince the rest of the merits of abstinence and the need to reach out to fellow drunkards. Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1981), 92-93. Ibid., 92. Ibid., 95-114; Ruth Bordin, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981; reprint, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 15-32. Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity, 117-18; Bordin, Woman and Temperance, 36-46. Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity, 118-19; Bordin, Woman and Temperance, 56-64; Mary Earhart, Frances Willard: From Prayers to Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), 151-73.

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14 This remained true of the WCTU until the early 1890s, after which women’s foreign mission societies, clubs, and suffrage groups began to surpass the organization in size. For a discussion of the factors that contributed to the WCTU’s diminished role as an outlet for women in the United States, see Bordin, Woman and Temperance, 140-50. 15 Ibid., 3; Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity, 119-20. 16 Scientific Temperance Instruction entailed educating young people about how the body functioned and how the consumption of alcohol and tobacco impeded the proper working of bodily organs, the goal being to convince them to abstain. The WCTU’s Mary Hunt led the drive to have it required as part of primary school curricula in the United States in the late 1870s and 1880s, and the decision of thirty-three states to mandate STI between 1882 and 1890 owed much to the society’s organizational network and the commitment of its members to the issue. Jonathan Zimmerman, Distilling Democracy: Alcohol Education in America’s Public Schools, 1880-1925 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), xii-13. For a brief biography of Hunt and a look at efforts to have STI taught in Japanese schools, see Chapter 5 here. 17 Richard W. Leeman, “Do Everything” Reform: The Oratory of Frances E. Willard, with a foreword by Bernard K. Duffy, Great American Orators, vol. 15 (New York: Greenwood, 1992), 17; Bordin, Woman and Temperance, 97-116; Alison M. Parker, “‘Hearts Uplifted and Minds Refreshed’: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Production of Pure Culture in the United States, 1880-1930,” Journal of Women’s History vol. 11, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 135-58; Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity, 123-24. 18 Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 12. 19 Frances E. Willard, Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman, with an introduction by Hannah Whitall Smith (Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publication Association, 1889), 430; idem, Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners (Chicago: Ruby I. Gilbert, [1895]), 10-11. 20 I use quotation marks here to highlight my departure from Tyrrell in seeing the WCTU’s overseas expansion as transnational rather than international. My interpretation owes much to the work of Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Jacqui Alexander, and Chandra Mohanty, who have argued that “transnational” is free of any connotation that non-Western women were subordinate to Westerners and instead acknowledges their own agency in organizing and agitating for change. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, eds., Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 17-19; M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, eds., Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (New York: Routledge, 1997), xxi. 21 Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 11, 19-23. 22 Jack S. Blocker Jr., David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell, eds., Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (A-L) (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2003), 363-64; Patricia Ward D’Itri, Cross Currents in the International Women’s Movement, 1848-1948 (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999), 50. 23 Margaret C. Manns, “First in the Field” (Evanston: National WCTU Publishing House, n.d.), 1, Mary Clement Leavitt Folder, Japan Collection, Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives. The World WCTU had 766,000 dues-paying members at its peak in 1927. Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 2. 24 Mary Clement Leavitt, “World Trip of a Pioneer: Ten Years’ White Ribbon Missionary Journey to Fifty Foreign Countries,” New Voice, 4 February 1904, 6, Mary Clement Leavitt Folder, Japan Collection, Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives.

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25 Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 37-38, 108. 26 Mary Clement Leavitt, Report Made to the First Convention of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Held in Boston, U.S.A., Nov. 10-19, 1891 (Boston: Alfred Mudge and Son, 1891), 27; Union Signal, 5 August 1886, 8. 27 Even before then, Clara Hepburn had taken Leavitt to Tokyo for a student assembly at Graham Seminary, a Presbyterian boarding school for Japanese girls. Isabella Leete, her sister and acting principal, also lent assistance by inviting Leavitt to lodge at the school. Union Signal, 5 August 1886, 8-9. 28 Union Signal, 12 August 1886, 9. 29 Hutchison, Errand to the World, 9. 30 Leavitt subtly offered this criticism in several lectures she gave while in Japan. For example, in a talk titled “Sake no rekishi: Sono seishitsu oyobi gai” (The history of alcohol: Its characteristics and harms), she expressed regret that Japanese were consuming increasing quantities of Western liquor. She blamed this trend largely on a California distillery/winery that was producing for export to Japan. Implied in her renunciation of America’s role in furthering the international drink trade was the idea that the United States was inhibiting the spread of Christian beliefs and morals and preventing the civilization of others. Imamura Kenkichi, Kinshu enzetsushū [Temperance lectures (by Mrs. M.C. Leavitt)] (Osaka: Fukuinsha, 1887), 11. 31 Ernest Hurst Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 3 (Downing-Kansas) (Westerville: American Issue Publishing, 1926), 1384. 32 Leavitt, 1891 Report, 27; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō rekishi daijiten [A historical dictionary of Christianity in Japan] (NKRD) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1988), 567. 33 In January 1876, thirty-five of Janes’s students climbed to the top of Mount Hanaoka, where they declared their faith and vowed to spread Christianity. News of their conversion ignited a firestorm of opposition from within the school’s doors and the wider community. Among distraught relatives, Yokoi Tokio’s mother threatened suicide to restore her family’s honour, and Tokutomi Sohō’s parents burned his Western books. Despite the persecution, Tokutomi alone recanted and then only temporarily. F.G. Notehelfer, American Samurai: Captain L.L. Janes and Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 196-205. 34 Hiromichi Kozaki, Reminiscences of Seventy Years: The Autobiography of a Japanese Pastor, trans. Nariaki Kozaki (Tokyo: Kyobunkan, 1933), 1-65; Leavitt, 1891 Report, 27. 35 For Mori’s attack on marriage customs, see his “On Wives and Concubines,” translated and reprinted in William Reynolds Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Enlightenment, with the assistance of Adachi Yasushi and Kikuchi Yūji (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 104-5, 143-45, 189-91, 252-53, 331-33. 36 Union Signal, 11 November 1886, 7. The avenues open to Leavitt did not extend into the Imperial Palace, as the Imperial Household Ministry refused her request for an audience with the empress. Leavitt, 1891 Report, 29. 37 Jogaku zasshi [Woman’s education magazine], no. 28 (5 July 1886): 260; no. 29 (15 July 1886): 278; Union Signal, 26 August 1886, 8; 2 September 1886, 8; Leavitt, 1891 Report, 9. 38 Union Signal, 18 November 1886, 8; 30 December 1886, 8; Leavitt, 1891 Report, 28; quoted from Jogaku zasshi no. 30 (25 July 1886): 295. 39 Rumi Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920 (New York: NYU Press, 2004), 68-69. 40 Judges 13:8. For Leavitt’s entire text, see Jogaku zasshi no. 28 (5 July 1886): 257-59; no. 29 (15 July 1886): 273-74. 41 Union Signal, 30 December 1886, 8.

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42 Union Signal, 2 September 1886, 8. 43 Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 24. 44 Notto Thelle has pointed out that Christian expansion in the 1880s combined with a feeling of “moral and spiritual decay” to create a sense of crisis among Buddhists. On the one hand, they criticized Christianity, yet, on the other, they took inspiration from Christian models of social action as a means to counter this rotting. Thelle has suggested that Leavitt stimulated the founding of the Hanseikai (Self-Examination Society), a Buddhist temperance group. The society’s establishment actually took place two months before her visit, but this timing does not negate the fact that Leavitt and other Christian reformers did arouse Buddhist interest in temperance reform. Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity in Japan, 196-202. 45 Union Signal, 19 May 1887, 3. 46 Nakamura set forth this argument in the Meirokusha’s journal. Nakamura Masanao, “Creating Good Mothers,” translated and reprinted in Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi, 401-4, quoted from 401. For a secondary analysis of this article, see Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), 22-23. 47 Nobeji Kiyoe, Josei kaihō shisō no genryū: Iwamoto Yoshiharu to “Jogaku zasshi” [The origins of thinking about women’s liberation: Iwamoto Yoshiharu and Jogaku zasshi] (Tokyo: Azekura Shobō, 1984), 163-80; Braisted, trans., Meiroku Zasshi, xvii-xix, xxx-xxxi. 48 Takahashi Masao, Nakamura Keiu, Jimbutsu Series, ed. Nihon Rekishi Gakkai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1966), 128-33; Nobeji, Josei kaihō shisō no genryū, 181-84, 194-97. 49 Though the Meiji government mandated universal elementary education in 1872, officials neither provided sufficient funds for school openings nor challenged traditional attitudes about the value of educating daughters. As a result, only about 20 percent of young girls were enrolled in public elementary schools in 1882. Official disinterest extended to post-primary education for girls until the end of the nineteenth century. Protestant missionaries stepped into this open field and by 1890 were running forty-three boarding schools and fifty-six day schools for girls. Five different French orders of nuns also established schools for girls during the Meiji period, including the Dames of St. Maure in Yokohama and the Madames of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo. Karen Seat, “Mission Schools and Education for Women,” in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 324-27; Rebecca L. Copeland, Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), 11; Johannes Laures, S.J., The Catholic Church in Japan: A Short History (Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1954), 239. 50 Copeland, Lost Leaves, 13-14, 235. 51 Ibid., 27. 52 Iwamoto Yoshiharu, “Yūryoku naru fujinkai,” Jogaku zasshi no. 21 (25 April 1886): 145-47, quoted from 145 and 146. 53 Idem, “Rebitto fujin no kinshu enzetsu” [Mrs. Leavitt’s temperance talk], Jogaku zasshi no. 27 (25 June 1886): 245-46. 54 For the text of the speech, see Mary Clement Leavitt, “Kain oyobi kanai shofutoku ni taisuru fujin no gimu” [Women’s duties regarding overdrinking and immorality in the home], Jogaku zasshi no. 31 (5 August 1886): 1-3; no. 32 (15 August 1886): 21-22. 55 Jogaku zasshi no. 29 (15 July 1886): 278; no. 32 (15 August 1886): 22; Takamizawa Junko, Nijūnin no fujintachi [Twenty women], Ai to kibō no kiroku Series, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1969), 14; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin

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Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 35-36, 40; Union Signal, 2 September 1886, 8. As its name implies, this organization advocated Western hairstyles for women. In 1872, the Meiji government made it illegal for women to abandon their time-consuming traditional butterfly coiffures and cut their hair short. Sharon Sievers has referred to this law as an attempt by the government to deny women’s “right to participate and contribute actively” to social change. Conversely, the adoption of Western hairstyles was a very visible way for women to assert their voice and right to self-identification. Sievers, Flowers in Salt, 14-15, quoted from 15. “Kimura Tōko no den” [A biography of Kimura Tōko], Jogaku zasshi no. 34 (5 September 1886): 71-77; no. 35 (15 September 1886): 92-95; no. 37 (5 October 1886): 135-36; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 36. Mainline American churches had long maintained that the Bible strictly prohibited women from speaking or praying before mixed audiences. The public experience that women gained in temperance, abolition, and mission movements led many to question the validity of this position. The WCTU itself issued several defences of women’s public voice in the late 1880s. See “Let Your Women Keep Silence in Churches,” Union Signal, 1 July 1886, 7-8; Geo. P. Hays, May Women Speak? A Bible Study (Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publication Association, 1889). Mary Clement Leavitt, “Nihon no shimai ni tsugu,” Jogaku zasshi no. 36 (25 September 1886): 111-12; no. 37 (5 October 1886): 131-32; no. 39 (25 October 1886): 171-72, quoted from 172. Jogaku zasshi no. 40 (5 November 1886): 197, 200-1; Utsu Yasuko, Saisō yori, yori fukaki tamashii ni: Sōma Kokkō, wakaki hi no henreki [More than a poetic talent, a deeper spirit: Sōma Kokkō and her early travels] (Tokyo: Nihon YMCA Dōmei Shuppanbu, 1983), 50. Ōgimi Motoichirō had accompanied Mori Arinori to the United States in 1870 and had remained for the next twelve years, studying first with Kimura Kumaji at Hope College in Michigan and then at Princeton and New Brunswick theological seminaries. Back in Japan, he pursued a career as a minister, evangelist, and Christian educator, prepared a Greek-Japanese dictionary for the New Testament, and helped establish the Kyōfūkai in 1883. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 213. Jogaku zasshi no. 41 (15 November 1886): 16-17; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 36-37. Jogaku zasshi no. 44 (15 December 1886): 76. Iwamoto Yoshiharu, “Fujin Kyōfūkai” [Woman’s Moral Reform Society], Jogaku zasshi no. 41 (15 November 1886): 1-3, quoted from 2. I do not wish to assert that I am alone in using the WCTU moniker. Rumi Yasutake is among others who do, though she justifies her choice by stressing that World WCTU missionaries employed it in letters and reports because it was what was familiar to them. This reasoning discounts the ties that Japanese members envisioned with the World WCTU, as does Yasutake’s statement that “Japanese churchwomen made their society an independent women’s organization” – that is, independent from the world body. Her claim that Iwamoto and the other Japanese men who encouraged the society’s establishment anticipated that it would be an “auxiliary” to the male Kyōfūkai is also problematic. It takes from the women involved any agency in the naming of the group. Chapter 2 here will discuss the disagreement among founding female members over the name and will highlight the fact that they were anything but passive recipients of male guidance. Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 45-46, quoted from 46.

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65 One of Japan’s most influential theologians, Ebina had studied at L.L. Janes’s School of Western Studies in Kumamoto and had converted while there. He completed his education at Dōshisha and, after serving as pastor at numerous churches throughout Japan, returned as the school’s president. Tamura, introduced to Christianity by Dutch Reformed missionaries, had studied theology in Tokyo and gained his own pulpit at the age of twenty-three. In 1893, he published, in English, The Japanese Bride, a comparative study of American and Japanese marriage practices. For “exposing” the subordinate place of Japanese women in the family, he was harshly criticized and divested of his ministry in the Nihon Kirisuto Kyōkai (Church of Christ in Japan). He was not reinstated until three decades later, though he continued to minister independently during those years. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 195; Kudō Eiichi, Meiji-ki no Kirisutokyō: Nihon Purotesutanto shiwa [Meijiperiod Christianity: Historical tales of Japanese Protestants] (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1979), 210-12. For an analytical look at The Japanese Bride, see Emily Anderson, “Tamura Naoomi’s The Japanese Bride: Christianity, Nationalism, and Family in Meiji Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies vol. 34, no. 1 (2007): 203-28. 66 Jogaku zasshi no. 44 (15 December 1886): 76.

Chapter 2: The Tumultuous Early Years of the Tokyo WCTU Material from this chapter originally appeared in “Wearing the White Ribbon of Reform and the Banner of Civic Duty: Yajima Kajiko and the Japan Women’s Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji Period,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal nos. 30-31 (2006): 60-79. Reproduced by permission from Josai International University. 1 Anne Walthall, “Devoted Wives / Unruly Women: Invisible Presence in the History of Japanese Social Protest,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 20, no. 1 (Autumn 1994): 106-36; idem, “Bakumatsu Meiji no josei to kōkyōsei: Matsuo Taseko no baai” [Women and the public sphere in the bakumatsu and Meiji periods: The case of Matsuo Taseko], trans. Miyazaki Fumiko, Shisō no. 925 (June 2001): 105-22. 2 Mara Patessio, “The Creation of Public Spaces by Women in the Early Meiji Period and the Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai,” International Journal of Asian Studies vol. 3, no. 2 (2006): 156. I am indebted to this article for drawing my attention to the two previous sources by Walthall. 3 Women active in the Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights and Kishida in particular have attracted the attention of a number of scholars. Works in English include Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), 26-53; Mara Patessio, “Women’s Participation in the Popular Rights Movement (Jiyū Minken Undō) during the Early Meiji Period,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal no. 27 (2004): 3-26; Marnie S. Anderson, “Kishida Toshiko and the Rise of the Female Speaker in Meiji Japan,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal nos. 30-31 (2006): 36-59. A very useful Japanese-language source on women’s organized activities prior to the founding of the Tokyo WCTU is Chino Yōichi, Kindai Nihon fujin kyōikushi: Taiseinai fujin dantai no keisei katei o chūshin ni [A history of women’s education in modern Japan: With a focus on the process of formation of women’s organizations within the establishment] (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1979), 13-55. 4 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 39. 5 The percentage of members during the Meiji period for whom personal information is readily available is very small. In this and later chapters, I will provide background details when sources allow and will simply mention names when they do not.

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6 The seven were Yuasa Hatsuko, married to Jirō, a member of the Gunma prefectural assembly, a church deacon, and owner of a soy sauce and miso factory; Ebina Miya, wife of Danjō, the evangelist and ordained minister who spoke at the Tokyo WCTU’s founding meeting; Shimada Masako, whose husband Saburō served as a Kanagawa assemblyman and a writer and editor for Mainichi shimbun (The daily paper); Sasaki Toyoju, who was wed to Motoe, a doctor; Ibuka Seki, married to Kajinosuke, an ordained minister and instructor at Union Theological Seminary in Tokyo; and Ōgimi Yoneko and Miura Riuko, both wives of pastors, as mentioned in Chapter 1. 7 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 36-38, 309; Katano Masako, “Asai Saku oboegaki: Wasurerareta josei Purotesutanto” [Notes on Asai Saku: A forgotten Protestant woman], in Kindai Nihon no Kirisutokyō to joseitachi, ed. Tomisaka Kirisutokyō Sentā (Tokyo: Shinkyō Shuppansha, 1995), 18-22, 28-29; Kubushiro Ochimi, Yuasa Hatsuko (Tokyo: Tokyo Shimin Kyōkai Shuppanbu, 1937; reprint, Denki sōsho Series, vol. 169, Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1995), 77, 88-89, 98-102, 116-17, 135; Utsu Yasuko, Saisō yori, yori fukaki tamashii ni: Sōma Kokkō, wakaki hi no henreki [More than a poetic talent, a deeper spirit: Sōma Kokkō and her early travels] (Tokyo: Nihon YMCA Dōmei Shuppanbu, 1983), 47-49; Morioka Kiyomi, Meiji Kirisuto kyōkai keisei no shakaishi [A social history of the formation of Meiji Christian churches] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 2005), 79; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō rekishi daijiten [A historical dictionary of Christianity in Japan] (NKRD) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1988), 122, 175, 195, 213, 567, 626, 1451-52. 8 Kudō Eiichi, “Ashio kōdoku jiken ni okeru Ushioda Chiseko: Kirisutokyō no mondai o chūshin to shite” [Ushioda Chiseko and the Ashio mine pollution incident: A focus on the issue of Christianity], Mita Gakkai zasshi vol. 75, no. 3 (June 1982): 4-7, quoted from 5. 9 In addition to these factors, Helen Ballhatchet has stressed that the social upheaval of the early Meiji period contributed greatly to the growth of the Christian community by making Japanese “more open to new ideas and less bound by traditional customs.” Helen J. Ballhatchet, “The Modern Missionary Movement in Japan: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox,” in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 37. 10 Familial ties among WCTU members were quite common, but no more so than with Yajima. In addition to Yuasa and Ebina, her sister Tokutomi Hisako was active in the union during the Meiji period and her grandniece Kubushiro Ochimi for decades thereafter. 11 Noriko Kawamura Ishii, American Women Missionaries at Kobe College, 1873-1909: New Dimensions in Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004), 146. 12 I do not mean to gloss over denominational differences or variations in attitudes and personalities among missionaries. They certainly existed and impacted the kind of influence missionaries had on individual Japanese. My purpose here, however, is simply to describe their collective influence. 13 Takamizawa Junko, Nijūnin no fujintachi [Twenty women], Ai to kibō no kiroku Series, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1969), 12-14; Utsu, Saisō yori, 40-41; Helen Ballhatchet, “Christianity and Gender Relationships in Japan: Case Studies of Marriage and Divorce in Early Meiji Protestant Circles,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies vol. 34, no. 1 (2007): 182-83. I have uncovered virtually nothing about Ōgimi, Miura, and Shimada beyond marital status. Whether they had ties with missionaries thus remains uncertain. Given that foreigners converted the vast majority of Japanese Christians during the first three decades following Japan’s opening, it is not groundless to think that missionaries had at least some impact on these three. As for Asai, she did not receive the rite of baptism until 1893. Earlier writings, however, reveal that her faith

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was quite deep by the late 1880s. Again, records do not reveal details about her early exposure to Christianity, but she might have been introduced by missionaries or Yajima at Sakurai Jogakkō, where she taught for a number of years before opening her private school in 1884. Katano, “Asai Saku oboegaki,” 20-24. Kubushiro, Yuasa Hatsuko, 34-35, 45-46; F.G. Notehelfer, American Samurai: Captain L.L. Janes and Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 73-74, 138-49, 181-94. It would be a mistake to underestimate just how important the missionary influence on Japanese men was to the activism of WCTU women. As earlier stated, most of the union’s founding members and, indeed, a significant portion of those active during the Meiji period were married. A husband’s support was not a precondition for involvement, but a wife would have been hard-pressed to maintain her membership if he were antagonistic. Janes contributed in this respect by emphasizing women’s worth and abilities to his male students. Helen Ballhatchet has pointed out that Janes and his denominational cohorts exerted a similarly important influence through their interactions with their wives and other female missionaries. In particular, the partnerships they had with their spouses and the support they gave to women’s public work came across as Christian ideals and inspired some early Japanese converts to try to replicate both. Ballhatchet found this to be the case with four of the five Japanese Protestant leaders she studied. Of note, three of those became husbands to leading WCTU members: Ibuka Kajinosuke to Seki; Ebina Danjō to Miya; and Kozaki Hiromichi to Chiyo. Ballhatchet, “Christianity and Gender Relationships in Japan,” 177-201. Further investigation into the opinions of these three on women falls outside the perimeters of this book. The same is true for the thinking of the many other prominent Japanese male Christians linked to the WCTU through family ties and/or activism. That said, their collective published writings are extensive, and much more can be learned from them about gender relations among reformers and the extent and nature of the support that unionists received from their male contemporaries. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 39-43, 49-50, 54; Jogaku zasshi no. 47 (15 January 1887): 137; no. 52 (19 February 1887): inside back cover; no. 88 (10 December 1887): 160.2; Minutes of the Second Biennial Convention and Executive Committee Meetings of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Including Addresses, Superintendents’ Reports, Papers, and Letters (Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, 1893), 154. In addition to being a WCTU husband, as mentioned in note 6, Ibuka was an ordained minister and both a teacher at and director of Meiji Gakuin, a joint venture among Dutch Reformed and American and Scottish Presbyterian missionaries and Japanese converts. Matsuyama was a staff member at Dōshisha and pastor of Kyoto’s Heian Church and had earlier helped compile Japan’s first hymnal and translate the Old and New Testaments. Hoshino, a former pupil of Nakamura Masanao, was an evangelist and an ordained minister with his own pulpit in Gunma. Yokoi, again Yajima’s nephew, had followed his studies with Janes with a stint at Dōshisha. In 1887, he was serving as pastor of a church in Tokyo and writing for Rikugo zasshi, which the YMCA published. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 130, 1257, 1284, 1333, 1463. Jogaku zasshi no. 55 (12 March 1887): 98; no. 63 (7 May 1887): 59; no. 65 (21 May 1887): 98; no. 84 (12 November 1887): 80-3; no. 140 (29 December 1888): 7-11; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi [Tokyo woman’s moral reform magazine], no. 1 (14 April 1888): 16-17; no. 10 (19 January 1889): 19-20. Rumi Yasutake has attributed the WCTU’s early reliance on male speakers to the practice among American Protestant missionaries of having men oversee women’s

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public activities and serve as the mouthpieces for both sexes. Under the influence of these envoys, native clergymen and reformers, male and female, perpetuated that division of labour. According to Yasutake, Sasaki deserves credit for ending this male control of the WCTU’s voice and thus with “breaking women’s silence.” This interpretation fits with her assertion that a strong feminist consciousness permeated the union while Sasaki was active but not thereafter. I challenge this view of Sasaki elsewhere. Here I want to stress that, even after WCTU women became more common at the lectern, the union continued to rely heavily on male speakers. This was due not simply to missionary influence but, again, because male involvement made the society more respectable, more acceptable, and more authoritative. Among the many other ways in which male supporters helped the society, their introductions to government officials and submission of petitions to the Diet stand out. Leading WCTU members were well aware of just how critical that assistance was, and they did not hesitate to seek it. Rumi Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920 (New York: NYU Press, 2004), 46-50, quoted from 48. Jogaku zasshi no. 55 (12 March 1887): 98; Ibuka Kajinosuke, “Kirisutokyō to fujin no chii” [Christianity and the position of women], Jogaku zasshi no. 58 (2 April 1887): 147-52, quoted from 148; no. 59 (9 April 1887): 165-66; no. 60 (16 April 1887): 185-87. Word of mouth contributed to the event’s success, clearly indicated by the fact that the size of the audience nearly doubled from the first night to the last. Jogaku zasshi no. 84 (12 November 1887): 80.3; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (14 April 1888): 16-17; no. 10 (19 January 1889): 20. While still novel in 1888, stereopticons had become a common feature of disaster relief events by the early 1890s. They enabled organizers to demonstrate graphically the devastation that earthquakes, typhoons, and floods had caused and led audiences to sympathize with and be more generous toward victims. Isshiki Aki, “Nisshin, Nichi-Ro sensō kanki ni okeru Kirisutokyō media to sensō” [War and the Christian media during the period of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars], Kirisutokyō shigaku vol. 51 (1997): 190. James L. Huffman, Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 24-75. A notable percentage of those periodicals was issued by reform societies advocating abstinence. Indeed, publishing a magazine became common practice among temperance organizations in the late 1880s and early 1890s, with no fewer than five other unions joining the WCTU in launching their own vehicles in 1888 and 1889 alone. They were the Yokohama Kinshukai with Yokohama Kinshukai zasshi (The Yokohama Temperance Society magazine), the Hokkai Kinshukai with Gokoku no tate (The nation’s shield), the Hanseikai with Hanseikai zasshi (Magazine of the Self-Examination Society), the Hokusō Kinshukai with Hikari (The light), and the Dai-Nihon Chōyūkai with Hi no maru (The rising sun). Hi no maru vol. 1, no. 2 (20 June 1889): 82; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 442. These two visions personified competing ideas about the role women should play in Japan’s modernization. Katō Keiko, “Josei to jōhō: Meiji-ki no fujin zasshi kōkoku o tōshite” [Women and information: Advertisements in Meiji-period women’s magazines], Shimbun Kenkyūjo nempō no. 32 (1989): 31-33; Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai, ed., Fujin zasshi no yoake [The dawn of women’s magazines] (Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1989), 4-41. Takahashi Kikue, “Meiji-ki shuppan hōki ni yoru Kyōfūkai kikanshi no hensen (Part 1)” [Changes in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union’s periodical in accordance with Meiji-period publishing rules], Fujin shimpō no. 1163 (August 1997): 25-26; Gomi

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Yuriko, “Kaisetsu” [Commentary], in “Fujin shimpō”: Kaisetsu, sōmokuji, sakuin (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1986), 5-6. Asai Saku, “Kyōfūkai no mokuteki” [The purpose of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (14 April 1888): 1-4; and in same, Sasaki Toyoju, “Onore no omoi” [My own thoughts], 4-5. Seven tours were undertaken during this period, and ten women participated in total, with Yajima, Kushida, Ushioda, and Sasaki travelling multiple times. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 2 (19 May 1888): 13, 22; no. 3 (16 June 1888): 14. That Gunma received so much attention is not surprising. While its proximity to Tokyo made for a relatively easy trip, of greater import were the size of its Christian community and public opposition to licensed prostitution. The former owed much to the evangelization of Niijima Jō, co-founder of Dōshisha, and the latter to Yuasa Jirō, who, as a member of the prefectural assembly in the 1880s, led the fight to outlaw brothels. In short, these two helped mould an audience and environment welcoming to the WCTU. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 480, 1017-18, 1451. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 54. See the next section for detail on this prospectus. Union Signal, 27 October 1887, 7; 26 May 1887, 9; 28 July 1887, 7. Nemoto was born in 1851 into a pro-Tokugawa samurai family and as a youth received an education steeped in Confucianism. After the Meiji Restoration, he moved to Tokyo, where he pursued Western learning at Dōninsha. He continued his studies with missionaries in Kobe and Yokohama and, under their influence, converted to Christianity in 1878. Over the next decade, he studied at various schools in the United States, eventually graduating from the University of Vermont in 1889. He returned to Japan one year later and became a government servant. He also deeply immersed himself in the temperance movement and continued to report to the World WCTU on temperance activism in his homeland. Japan Evangelist vol. 7, no. 10 (October 1900): 309-10; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 1085. Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai, ed., Fujin zasshi no yoake, 16. For lists of those who pledged membership in 1888 up through July, see the inside back covers of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (14 April 1888); no. 2 (19 May 1888); no. 3 (16 June 1888); no. 4 (21 July 1888). In contrast to the connection between WCTU members and Japanese clergymen and prominent male laymen, very little is known about the ties of unionists with churchbased women’s groups (fujinkai). The society’s periodical and writings by and about members shed no significant light on such questions as how involved WCTU women were in fujinkai and how much collaboration occurred to build institutional strength and conduct activities. The same is true of the centennial histories of Annaka, Reinanzaka, Hongō, and Banchō Churches, which were known for their reform-minded ministers and congregations and which a number of leading WCTU women attended. According to Garrett Washington, church archives and publications provide some answers. As such primary research is beyond the scope of this book, I await the completion of his dissertation to read his findings. The church histories mentioned above are Niishima Gakuen Joshi Tanki Daigaku Niishima Bunka Kenkyūjo, ed., Annaka Kyōkai-shi: Sōritsu kara hyakunen made [A history of Annaka Church: From its establishment through one hundred years] (Annaka, Gunma: Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Annaka Kyōkai, 1988); Ii Kiyoshi and Fugami Seizō, eds., Reinanzaka Kyōkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of Reinanzaka Church] (Tokyo: Reinanzaka Kyōkai Sōritsu Hyakunen Kinen Jigyō Jikkō Iinkai, 1979); Yumichō Hongō Kyōkai Hyakunenshi Iinkai, ed., Yumichō Hongō Kyōkai hyakunenshi [A centennial history of Yumichō Hongō Church] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Yumichō Hongō Kyōkai, 1986); Itō

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Kiyoshi et al., eds., Banchō Kyōkai hyakunenshi [A centennial history of Banchō Church] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Banchō Kyōkai, 1986). Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol. 2 (Protestant Missions) (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909; reprint, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1976), 163, 209. Unlike single women Protestant missionaries and Protestant schools for girls, Bible women have received scant scholarly attention, in part because of their comparatively small number and ranking at the bottom of the hierarchy of Protestant Christian workers. Nonetheless, the services they performed contributed significantly to Protestant expansion. Employed for minimal pay by women missionaries, Japanese churches, and foreign mission societies, these native women worked as interpreters, did Bible readings, conducted Sunday school classes, and gave testimonials about their own conversions. These and other evangelistic activities focused primarily on women, a constituency most male preachers could not reach outside of the pulpit because of social barriers. The objective was to convert mothers and daughters, who would in turn build Christian homes. Ruth A. Tucker and Walter L. Liefeld, Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from New Testament Times to the Present (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 340-42; A.B. West, “Bible Women and Their Training,” in Proceedings of the General Conference of Protestant Missionaries in Japan Held in Tokyo October 24-31, 1900, with Extensive Supplements (Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House, 1901), 289-300. As of December 31, 1888, the number of dues-paying members totalled 546, of whom 102 were special members. Fewer than thirty had joined only to withdraw their membership by this date. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 11 (16 February 1889): 20-21. The product of a very pious New York family, True professed her own faith at the age of fifteen when a revival swept her community. She married a minister shortly thereafter and worked at his side proselytizing until his death in 1871. Eager to fulfill his dream of foreign mission work, she did a brief stint in China before arriving in Japan in 1874, where she undertook evangelistic and educational outreach on behalf of first the interdenominational Woman’s Union Missionary Society and then the Presbyterian Church in the United States. The invitation to assume control of Shin’ei Jogakkō prompted the switch in affiliation. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 940; Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 21. Kubushiro Ochimi, ed., Yajima Kajiko den [Biography of Yajima Kajiko] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1956), 3-28, 65-66; Nakamura Akito, Meien to hisseki [Famous princesses and their writings] (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1909), 110-12; Takamizawa, Nijūnin no fujintachi, 7-14; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 681. On her deathbed, Yajima called Moriya Azuma to her side and asked her frequent travel companion and fellow Japan WCTU member to write down her words for a biography. The resulting work includes no direct mention of her illegitimate daughter. Nor do the two official biographies by her grandniece, Kubushiro Ochimi. Moriya Azuma, Yajima Kajiko, with an introduction by Tokutomi Sohō (Tokyo: Fujin Shimpōsha, 1923); Kubushiro Ochimi, ed., Yajima Kajiko den [Biography of Yajima Kajiko] (Tokyo: Fujiya Shobō, 1935; reprint, Denki sōsho Series, vol. 31, Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1988); ibid. (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1956). Katano Masako, “Fujin Kyōfūkai ni miru haishō undō no shisō: Futatabi tennōseika no sei to ningen o megutte” [Thoughts displayed by the WCTU about the movement to abolish licensed prostitution: Sex and humans under the emperor system once again], in Josei to bunka III: Ie, kazoku, katei, ed. Ningen Bunka Kenkyūkai (Tokyo: JCA Shuppan, 1984), 245.

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39 Yajima originally gave this speech to the Yokohama branch of the Japan WCTU, a transcribed version of which later appeared in the union’s periodical. Yajima Kajiko, “Warera no shūchō” [Our assertions], Fujin shimpō no. 65 (25 September 1902): 9-14, quoted from 11. 40 Utsu, Saisō yori, 54. 41 Born in 1834, Kidder decided at an early age that she wanted to engage in foreign mission work, but the lack of opportunities for single women overseas precluded an appointment. She thus gladly accepted an invitation to accompany Dutch Reformed missionary S.R. (Samuel Robbins) Brown and his wife to Niigata in 1869. She spent one year in that outpost and then relocated to Yokohama. There she took over Clara Hepburn’s English class and, in 1871, opened her own school. She became Mrs. Mary Miller two years later when she married Rothesay Miller, a Presbyterian missionary who under denominational pressure transferred to the Dutch Reformed mission. With his support, she continued to devote herself to women’s education until she resigned from her school in 1881 to focus her energies on publishing and evangelism. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 358; Cary, A History of Christianity, 70. 42 Utsu, Saisō yori, 40-41, quoted from 41. 43 Sasaki’s two older sisters enjoyed none of the freedoms she had while growing up and, instead, were raised in a rigidly traditional manner. Even if only subconsciously, Sasaki must have been cognizant from an early age of the fact that Japanese women as a whole were treated as social and intellectual subordinates. 44 Takahashi Masao, Nakamura Keiu, Jimbutsu Series, ed. Nihon Rekishi Gakkai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1966), 47-50. 45 John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” and “The Subjection of Women,” with an introduction by Jane O’Grady, Wordsworth Classics of World Literature (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1996), 117. 46 For circulation statistics, see Huffman, Creating a Public, 386. 47 Sasaki Toyoju, “Dōhō shokei ni nozomu (Dai-ni)” [To ask my fellow countrymen and dear friends (Part II)], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 4 (21 July 1888): 3-6. 48 Utsu, Saisō yori, 38-49; Abe Reiko, “Sasaki Toyoju oboegaki: Wasurerareta fujin kaihō undō no ichi senkusha” [Notes on Sasaki Toyoju: A forgotten pioneer of the woman’s liberation movement], Nihonshi kenkyū no. 171 (November 1976): 54-55; Kohiyama Rui, Amerika fujin senkyōshi: Rainichi no haikei to sono eikyō [American women missionaries: The background to their coming to Japan and their influence] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1992), 274-75. 49 Sasaki Toyoju, “Sekinen no shūkan o yaburu beshi” [We must destroy age-old customs], Jogaku zasshi no. 48 (22 January 1887): 154-55; no. 52 (19 February 1887): 34-35; no. 54 (5 March 1887): 75-77. 50 Idem, “Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai no kaiin aishi ni tsugu” [To tell my beloved sisters in the Tokyo Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Jogaku zasshi no. 56 (19 March 1887): 114-16. As noted earlier, Sasaki used this same reasoning to justify the publication of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi in 1888. That year also saw her issue a twenty-nine-page tract titled Fujin genron no jiyū [Women’s freedom of speech] (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1888). This text offered a Biblical defence of women’s speech and was a translation of an elaborated version of “Let Your Women Keep Silence in Churches,” which had appeared in Union Signal, 1 July 1886, 7-8. 51 Jogaku zasshi no. 62 (30 April 1887): 38; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 49-50. As the following discussion of Sasaki’s public statements reveals, concubines quickly replaced geisha as a primary evil in need of elimination. The WCTU

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did periodically oppose the participation of geisha in public ceremonies, including the 1902 festival associated with Kitano Tenmangū, a Shinto shrine in Kyoto. However, members devoted so much more energy to the problem of concubinage that “the abolition of concubines and prostitutes” better reflects the union’s priorities over the course of the Meiji period. “Kyōto Fujin Kyōfūkai no odo(ri) haishi undō” [The movement by the Kyoto Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to do away with dancing], Fujin shimpō no. 60 (25 April 1902): 12-13. The text of Sasaki’s speech, titled “Fujin bunmei no hataraki” [Women’s work for civilization], appeared in Jogaku zasshi no. 65 (21 May 1887): 86-88, quoted from 87 and 88. Sasaki Toyoju, “Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai shuisho” [Prospectus of the Tokyo Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Jogaku zasshi no. 65 (21 May 1887): inside back cover. Yajima Kajiko, “Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai shuisho” [Prospectus of the Tokyo Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Jogaku zasshi no. 70 (6 August 1887): 190-92, quoted from 191 and 192. For a critical analysis of the two prospectuses and their differences, see Katano, “Asai Saku oboegaki,” 14-16. One copy went to the leading Tokyo daily, Chōya shimbun (The national paper), which carried the text in full on August 6, 1887. The WCTU contributed another from a subsequent printing to the World WCTU’s exhibit at the 1893 World Exposition in Chicago. The former has been reprinted in Suzuki Yūko, ed., Nihon josei undō shiryō shūsei [A collection of materials on the Japanese women’s movement], vol. 1 (Shisō, seiji 1) (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1996), 86-87. The latter, with a handwritten note about the fair, can be found in a folder labelled Japan, World Collection, Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives. Tsuda Sen, Sake no gai [The dangers of alcohol] (Tokyo: Sasaki Toyoju and the Tokyo Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1887), 40. Yajima’s depiction of the role women should play in reform differed from the part she assumed herself. Her choice of words, I would argue, was thus strategic and her brand of feminism practical and pragmatic. As with her invocation of the imperial institution, she realized that situating the WCTU within mainstream discourses would make the union more approachable and acceptable. For more on the society in relation to the imperial family, see Chapter 6. Sasaki’s niece was sent home immediately and died ten years later after having gone mad pining over Yajima’s son. In her autobiography, Sōma Kokkō, younger sister of the “returned” bride, squarely placed blame for her sibling’s fate on Yajima’s highhandedness. Sōma Kokkō, Mokui: Sōma Kokkō jiden [Moving to silence: The autobiography of Sōma Kokkō] (Tokyo: Josei Jidaisha, 1936; Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999), 314-22; Utsu, Saisō yori, 56-57. The letter was printed in Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (14 April 1888): 12-13, quoted from 12. Ibid., 13. In the following decades, the WCTU sent many more letters to public figures either praising them for reform-minded acts or chastising them for immoral conduct. Born in 1851, Ogino married at sixteen and was divorced two years later after her husband infected her with a sexually transmitted disease. Her hospital experience awakened her to the shame women felt as victims of male promiscuity and patients of male doctors, and she vowed to become a physician. In 1885, she achieved her goal when she was licensed as Japan’s first female doctor. Baptized the following year, she joined the Tokyo WCTU and became a vocal opponent of licensed prostitution. Ogino Gin, “Experiences of the First Woman Physician in Modern Japan,” Japan

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Evangelist vol. 1, no. 2 (December 1893): 88-91; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 251-52. Thirteen years Ogino’s junior, Shimada was adopted by a Yokohama merchant after her pro-Tokugawa samurai family collapsed in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. In 1871, she enrolled in Mary Kidder’s school, where she met Sasaki and converted to Christianity. After graduating in 1882, she taught at the school and simultaneously began a literary career as first an independent writer and then a staff member of Jogaku zasshi. She became active in the WCTU shortly after its founding and married Iwamoto Yoshiharu in 1889. Rebecca L. Copeland, Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), 99-121; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 48. Utsu, Saisō yori, 57-58, 62-63. Asai Saku, “Fujin hin’i o kaishin suru o ronzu” [A discussion of how to advance women’s character], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 2 (19 May 1888): 1-2. Sasaki, “Fujin bunmei no hataraki,” 86-87; Kohiyama, Amerika fujin senkyōshi, 276-77. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 176; Ballhatchet, “Christianity and Gender Relationships in Japan,” 188-94, quoted from 190. Ushioda Chise, “Kaikō to kibō” [Recollections and hopes], Fujin shimpō no. 67 (25 November 1902): 16-17; Utsu, Saisō yori, 65-66. Asai Saku, “Kyōfūkai-in ni kankoku su” [Advice to the members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 3 (16 June 1888): 1-3. This vocational school will be discussed in Chapter 4. For information on Sasaki’s fund-raising activities for Dōshisha, see Utsu, Saisō yori, 72-73. Asai Saku, “Fujin kairyō o ronzu” [A discussion of women’s reform], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 4 (21 July 1888): 1-3. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 5 (18 August 1888): 1. Possibly reflective of the battle for control over the magazine, issues 2 through 10 (minus 8, which is missing) listed both Sasaki and Asai in Japanese as the editors. In English, however, numbers 2 through 4 and 9 identified only Sasaki and numbers 5 through 7 and 10 only Asai. Union Signal, 23 May 1889, 5; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 11 (16 February 1889): 16, 24, 32; no. 12 (16 March 1889): 12-14; no. 13 (20 April 1889): 21-23; Japan Evangelist vol. 3, no. 1 (October 1895): 34. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 61. Asai Saku, “Kaitō no jishoku oyobi kōsen” [The president’s resignation and the upcoming election], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 13 (20 April 1889): 1-4. Iwamoto Yoshiharu, “Kyōfū no jigyō, shakai kairyō no jigyō” [The work of moral reform and social improvement], Jogaku zasshi no. 159 (27 April 1889): 1-5. Jogaku zasshi no. 167 (22 June 1889): 30. Ibid., 29; no. 168 (29 June 1889): inside front cover; Utsu, Saisō yori, 75. For brief discussions of the contents of Tōyō no fujo and Sasaki’s preface, see, respectively, Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 60-61; Patessio, “Women’s Participation,” 19-20. For more on Ueki and his words and actions in support of greater rights for women, see Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 63-65, 153-54; Sotozaki Mitsuhiro, Ueki Emori to onnatachi [Ueki Emori and women] (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1976). Sasaki Toyoju, “Fujin Hakuhyō Kurabu no seishitsu o nobete sejō no ichi gimon ni kotau” [In response to a public question about the nature of the Woman’s White Ribbon Club], Jogaku zasshi no. 186 (9 November 1889): 8-9. Frances E. Willard, Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners (Chicago: Ruby I. Gilbert, [1895]), 21.

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80 Jogaku zasshi no. 183 (19 October 1889): 23, 27. 81 Shimizu Shikin, “Naniyue ni joshi wa seidan shūkai ni sanchō suru koto o yurusarezaru ya” [Why are women not allowed to participate in and listen to political talks?], Jogaku zasshi no. 228 (30 August 1890): 5-8. Shimizu was first drawn into the popular rights movement by her activist husband. In the late 1880s, she became a frequent travelling companion of Ueki on the lecture circuit; like Sasaki, she contributed a preface to his Tōyō no fujo. The women’s ties deepened thereafter. Following Shimizu’s divorce in 1889, she lived with Sasaki temporarily and, through Sasaki’s intercession, found a job with Jogaku zasshi. Copeland, Lost Leaves, 163-67. 82 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 70. 83 The Public Peace Police Law (Chian keisatsuhō) superseded the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations in 1900 and upheld the prohibition on women joining political organizations and attending or sponsoring political meetings. Revision in 1922 allowed women access to political assemblies but did not go so far as to permit party membership. Women only gained that right and the vote in late 1945 through Occupation-directed electoral changes. For a copy of the Public Peace Police Law as of 1900, see Ichikawa Fusae, ed., Nihon fujin mondai shiryō shūsei [A collection of materials on Japanese women’s issues], vol. 2 (Seiji) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1977), 139-40. A discussion of the campaign to revise the Public Peace Police Law can be found in Barbara Molony, “Women’s Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925,” Pacific Historical Review vol. 69, no. 4 (2000): 646-55. 84 The law can be found in Ichikawa, ed., Nihon fujin mondai shiryō shūsei, 131-34. 85 The campaign for a repeal succeeded with vocal support from the press. Admission to the gallery was strictly on a spectator basis, yet the right to a seat meant that women were able to participate in political discussions just as the vast majority had done before the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations had gone into effect. In short, they were still able to hear. That right – albeit only within the confines of the lower assembly – reveals yet another chink in the supposedly impenetrable ban on women’s political activities. Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 66-68; Patessio, “The Creation of Public Spaces,” 164-65. For a lengthier look at opposition to the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations and the ban on women in the gallery, see Marnie S. Anderson, “A Woman’s Place: Gender, Politics, and the State in Meiji Japan” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2005), 198-245. 86 Yuasa Hatsuko, “Rinri no motoi no yōshi” [The fundamental principles of morality], Jogaku zasshi no. 161 (11 May 1889): 30. According to Rumi Yasutake, Ueki directly shaped this argument through conversation with Yuasa. Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 63-64. 87 Jogaku zasshi no. 168 (29 June 1889): 26; no. 171 (20 July 1889): 26. These petitions encompassed much more than women’s desire to influence public opinion and shape government policy. As Susan Zaeske has written with respect to anti-slavery petitioning by American women in the nineteenth century, written appeals “capitalized on the subversive potential of the right to petition to expand significantly the ability of women to participate in politics absent the right of suffrage and at the same time provided a means of asserting citizenship.” Susan Zaeske, Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women’s Political Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 13. 88 Sasaki, “Fujin Hakuhyō Kurabu,” 8. 89 Asai Saku, “Kurayami no itchi o nasu koto nakare” [We must not be united in darkness], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 23 (15 March 1890): 2-5, quoted from 3. 90 Utsu, Saisō yori, 77. 91 Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 23 (15 March 1890): 6.

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92 Koshio Kanji, Nihon kinshu undō no hachijūnen: Tōkyō Kinshukai, 1890-1970 [Eighty years of the Japanese temperance movement: The Tokyo Temperance Society, 18901970] (Tokyo: Nihon Kinshu Dōmei, 1970), 27-52. 93 Ibid., 52; Utsu, Saisō yori, 77-78. 94 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 54; Fujin shimpō no. 123 (25 July 1907): 2. While these two figures do provide a numerical sense of the Tokyo WCTU’s troubles, they obscure the fact that only a small percentage of members were exceptionally active in the union’s early years. The names of but a handful appeared with any regularity in Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi as attendees at meetings, subscribers to the magazine, and/or financial contributors to particular activities. Such limited involvement reveals that the society’s leaders had failed to induce the rank-and-file to make engagement in organized reform a significant aspect of daily life. 95 Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 11 (16 February 1889): 18-19; no. 12 (16 March 1889): 11-12; no. 44 (19 December 1891): 6-9; Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai, ed., Fujin zasshi no yoake, 33. In comparison, circulation of Jogaku zasshi jumped from 13,023 in 1888 to 102,813 in 1890. Given its more focused appeal, Dai-Nihon Fujin Kyōikukai zasshi (Magazine of the Greater Japan Women’s Education Society) may offer a better gauge of the environment for women’s periodicals at the time. The society originated as a women’s conversation group in 1886 and launched its magazine in December 1888 for the purpose of encouraging chastity and cultivating womanly virtues. Its circulation for 1890 totalled 3,768, a figure only marginally higher than that for Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi. Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai, ed., Fujin zasshi no yoake, 16, 34-37. 96 Unfortunately, the Fuji Shuppan reprint is missing issues numbered 16 through 22 (July 1889 through January 1890), which makes it impossible to determine exactly when these changes took effect, who was the editor at the time, and what kind of explanation, if any, was provided. 97 The cover changed two more times during Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi’s nearly five-year run. Both were similarly stark in appearance, with only words featured. 98 Asai Saku, “Kyōfūkai zasshi ni tsuiki chūi” [A warning about the magazine of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 13 (20 April 1889): 18. 99 Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 32 (20 December 1890): 13. 100 Utsu, Saisō yori, 80; Katano, “Asai Saku oboegaki,” 44; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 82.



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Chapter 3: The Organization and Development of the Japan WCTU 1 Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 20. 2 For a discussion of worker protests and the Tokyo riots, see Andrew Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 26-79. 3 Union Signal, 12 May 1892, 1. 4 Union Signal, 7 March 1889, 4. 5 Union Signal, 5 June 1890, 5. 6 Union Signal, 7 April 1892, 10. 7 Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 84-85. 8 Union Signal, 26 January 1893, 1-5; Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, eds., A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied

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by Portraits of Leading American Women in all Walks of Life (Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893; reprint, Detroit: Gale Research, 1967), 760-61. Union Signal, 8 December 1892, 1. Union Signal, 20 October 1892, 5; 24 November 1892, 15; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 51 (28 August 1892): 5-6; no. 52 (28 September 1892): 4-5. Union Signal, 24 November 1892, 9, 15. Union Signal, 1 December 1892, 4-5; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 53 (31 October 1892): 1-3. These pages in the Tokyo WCTU’s periodical include a lecture West gave in Sapporo. For reprints of some of her other talks, see pages 3-6; Takekoshi Takeyo, Wesuto joshi ikun [Miss West’s dying instructions] (Tokyo: Tokyo Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1893); Nagato Tsurumatsu, Uesuto-jō kinshu enzetsu hikki [Notes on Miss West’s temperance lectures] (Nagoya: Tokita Daiichi, 1893); Nemoto Shō, ed., Uesuto-jō shōden oyobi kinshu enzetsushū [A short biography of Miss West and a collection of temperance lectures] (Tokyo: Kōyūsha, 1892); Ushioda Chiseko, ed., Nihon fujin no tomo: Kyōfūkai no meifu [A companion for Japanese women: Distinguished women in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Tokyo: Nihon Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1903), 11-28. Union Signal, 22 December 1892, 5. Union Signal, 29 December 1892, 5. When and under what circumstances the Tokyo WCTU changed its stated purpose and pledge are impossible to determine based on a survey of its periodical. As mentioned in note 96 in the previous chapter, the Fuji Shuppan reprint does not include numbers 16 through 22 (July 1889 through January 1890). Also missing are numbers 24, 26, and 45 (April 1890, June 1890, February 1892). Together, these issues represent nearly a quarter of those published during Asai’s tenure as president. Those surviving from her term mention nothing about the revisions, and a copy of the rules so changed did not appear until the June 1892 issue. According to it, the union sought to “cultivate morals, reform the evil ways of society, advance women’s dignity, and promote the happiness of all of society.” The words “alcohol” and “temperance” were likewise absent from the pledge, in which members promised, “with God’s help, to use every appropriate method in line with the general plans of each department of work to accomplish the organization’s purpose.” Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 49 (30 June 1892): inside front cover. To speculate about possible motivations for these revisions, the desire to make the society attractive to a wider range of potential members might have played a role. One reason the YMCA in Japan similarly departed from the model that missionaries from the American organization had set forth lends weight to this answer. In the early 1890s, the association at Tokyo Imperial University dropped the requirement that members be in good standing at an evangelical church, namely one that embraced the idea of the Holy Trinity and proclaimed Christ’s divinity. The group did so in order to “engage the pressing issues accompanying modernization, rather than be distracted by a membership rule.” The American reaction, one of dismay tinged with a sense of Christian superiority, mirrored West’s and points to the struggle between what missionaries saw as their own orthodoxy and Japanese heterodoxy. Jon Thares Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan, 1890-1930 (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1998), 89-90, quoted from 89. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 53 (31 October 1892): 7-8. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 54 (28 November 1892): 3-4, quoted from 3. The stipulation that ten members were needed to establish a department had come under intense criticism the year before. In an anonymous letter to the periodical, one member had named it as the reason why the union then had only two functioning sections: Customs and Charity. The author argued that rules should be made for the good of the

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society, not the reverse, and thus this particular one should be revised or reform work would continue to be undermined. “Kyōfūkai soshiki kaisei no kibō” [Hopes for the restructuring of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 38 (20 June 1891): 10-12. Union Signal, 29 December 1892, 5; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 53 (31 October 1892): 7-8. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō rekishi daijiten [A historical dictionary of Christianity in Japan] (NKRD) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1988), 158; Union Signal, 26 January 1893, 5-6; Minutes of the Second Biennial Convention and Executive Committee Meetings of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Including Addresses, Superintendents’ Reports, Papers, and Letters (Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, 1893), 18; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 57 (28 February 1893): 4; Takekoshi, Wesuto joshi ikun, 19. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 55 (28 December 1892): 8-9. Four days after Yajima rang the bell at West’s Tokyo funeral, it was shipped to the United States in time to be displayed at the World WCTU’s booth at the 1893 World Exposition in Chicago. Ibid., 16; quoted from Union Signal, 26 January 1893, 8. Union Signal, 26 January 1893, 9. For copies of many of the letters sent from Japan, see same, 5-10. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 55 (28 December 1892): 4-5; Jogaku zasshi no. 333 (10 December 1892): 29; Ōhama Tetsuya et al., Joshi Gakuin no rekishi [A history of Joshi Gakuin] (Tokyo: Joshi Gakuin, 1985), 316-17. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 55 (28 December 1892): 6-8. Born in 1842 into the family of a domain retainer, Tsuda spent part of her youth employed as a servant. She wed Sen in 1861, and together they became the first converts of American Methodist missionaries in Tokyo when they received the rite of baptism from Julius Soper in 1875. Hatsuko later devoted much energy to the establishment of Aoyama Joshi Gakuin, in addition to her work with the WCTU. She is best known, though, as the mother of Umeko, the youngest member of the Iwakura Mission and the founder of Tsuda College. Haga Noboru et al., eds., Nihon josei jinmei jiten [A biographical dictionary of Japanese women] (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 1993), 713. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 57 (28 February 1893): 5. Takekoshi Kumasaburō, ed., Takekoshi Takeyo no shōgai [The life of Takekoshi Takeyo] (Tokyo: Takekoshi Ryūtarō, 1965; reprint, Denki sōsho Series, vol. 193, Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1995), 1-16. Takekoshi Takeyo, “Zenkoku fujinkai no dōmei” [A national alliance of women’s societies], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 57 (28 February 1893): 3. “Taku o kakonde: Meiji nijūnen kara sanjūnen goro made” [A roundtable discussion: From 1887 until around 1897], Fujin shimpō no. 370 (1 January 1929): 30. Union Signal, 8 June 1893, 10. Psalm 146 owed this distinction to Eliza Thompson, one of the leaders of the first concerted campaign against saloons by women in Ohio. Thompson decided to participate only after reading the Psalm, having interpreted the line about how God makes the blind see as a sign that temperance work was God’s work. Ruth Bordin, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981; reprint, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 16-17. Union Signal, 8 June 1893, 10. An extensive search did not uncover the original text of Yajima’s letter in Japanese. Because she typically used the word kokka in this triumvirate, I would argue that it is not a mistake to think that she did likewise in this

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letter, making “Japan” a more accurate translation than “humanity.” On a separate note, the fact that Yajima did not mention societies in Nagasaki and Kobe as affiliates of the new national organization suggests that they had been dissolved or were inactive. Also, according to a list of branches published in 1902, unions had been established in Hakodate and Morioka in 1888 and in Chiba in 1891. Why they did not affiliate with the Japan WCTU in 1893 remains unclear. Fujin shimpō no. 60 (25 April 1902): 7-10. Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (2 November 1893): 1-2 of back announcements; no. 3 (2 January 1894): 24; no. 6 (6 April 1894): 3 of front announcements, 38. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 54. Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 6 (6 April 1894): 38; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 137. The daughter of a purveyor to the Tokugawa, Sakurai was born in Tokyo in 1855. She married a naval officer at the age of eighteen and, as a newlywed, began to study English and attend church. Following her 1874 baptism by David Thompson, she enrolled at Kyōritsu Jogakkō and, two years later, used her own funds to open a Christian school for girls. It quickly expanded, thanks in part to the addition of Japan’s first private kindergarten. In 1881, Sakurai turned the school, by then known as Sakurai Jogakkō, over to the American Presbyterian mission when her husband relocated to Hokkaido to embark on a ministerial career. She remained active as an educator and added WCTU work after a branch was established in Hakodate. Haga et al., eds., Nihon josei jinmei jiten, 486-87. Union Signal, 11 January 1894, 5. Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (2 November 1893): 2 of back announcements; quoted from Union Signal, 2 November 1893, 6. Union Signal, 5 July 1894, 10; 1 November 1894, 4; 8 November 1894, 4-5; Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 14 (8 December 1894): 34; Takekoshi, Wesuto joshi ikun. The founding and work of the rescue home will be discussed in detail in Chapter 4 and the WCTU’s wartime outreach in Chapter 6. Whether or not the Tokyo WCTU resumed publication of Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi after the February 1893 suspension has been disputed. Moriya Azuma claimed in her fifty-year history of the WCTU that this order forced the union to cease publication. Gomi Yuriko has proposed, instead, that the society might have published a few more issues, which simply have not survived. Details of this May 1893 meeting suggest a third possibility – namely, that the Tokyo WCTU lacked guarantee money to put out issues in March and April and then, in May, decided to discontinue Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi in order to publish a magazine for the national union. Moriya Azuma, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai gojūnenshi [A fifty-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1936), 11; Gomi Yuriko, “Kaisetsu” [Commentary], in “Fujin shimpō”: Kaisetsu, sōmokuji, sakuin (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1986), 6; Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (2 November 1893): 2 of back announcements. Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai, ed., Fujin zasshi no yoake [The dawn of women’s magazines] (Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1989), 31; Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (2 November 1893). For a representative example, see “Teifu” [A virtuous woman], Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 4 (2 February 1894): 24-25. Sharon Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, “The Meiji State’s Policy Toward Women, 1890-1910,” in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 151-57.

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Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 2 (2 December 1893): 34. Ibid. Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 5 (2 March 1894): 28. Abe Reiko, “Sasaki Toyoju oboegaki: Wasurerareta fujin kaihō undō no ichi senkusha” [Notes on Sasaki Toyoju: A forgotten pioneer of the woman’s liberation movement], Nihonshi kenkyū no. 171 (November 1976): 62-63. Utsu Yasuko, Saisō yori, yori fukaki tamashii ni: Sōma Kokkō, wakaki hi no henreki [More than a poetic talent, a deeper spirit: Sōma Kokkō and her early travels] (Tokyo: Nihon YMCA Dōmei Shuppanbu, 1983), 85. Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), 102-13; Rumi Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920 (New York: NYU Press, 2004), 79. While the WCTU as an organization did not persist in calling for revision of the Law on Assemblies and Political Associations and its successor, the Public Peace Police Law, individual members did, and their efforts did not go totally unrecognized. For example, the January 1905 issue of Fujin shimpō notified readers of a new petition and reproduced a copy. Twelve years later the union did take up woman suffrage as an issue after members waged an intense eighteen-month campaign against the building of a brothel district in Osaka. In defeat, they realized that only when they had the vote would they finally succeed in ridding Japan of licensed prostitution. Fujin shimpō no. 93 (25 January 1905): 7; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 346-50. Charles W. Iglehart, A Century of Protestant Christianity in Japan (Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1959), 91-93; Helen J. Ballhatchet, “The Modern Missionary Movement in Japan: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox,” in Handbook of Christianity in Japan, ed. Mark R. Mullins (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 38, 46-48. For the book, see Inoue Tetsujirō, Kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu [The conflict between education and religion] (Tokyo: Keigyōsha, 1893). Iglehart, A Century of Protestant Christianity, 92; Ballhatchet, “The Modern Missionary Movement,” 38. Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 10 (2 August 1894): 33; Nakadzumi Naoko, “Onna ni yoru onna no tame no katsudō: Yokohama Fujin Kyōfūkai no gojūnen” [Activities for women by women: Fifty years of the Yokohama Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], in Shi no Kai kenkyūshi: Jidai no mezame o yomu, vol. 3, ed. Shi no Kai (Yokohama: Esashi Akiko, 1996), 10-11. Fujin shimpō no. 3 (28 April 1895): 31-34. Takekoshi Takeyo, “Ichiji no fūha ni mayou nakare” [Do not become lost in the temporary tempest], Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 15 (20 January 1895): 3-4. Gomi, “Kaisetsu,” 6-7. This cover had first appeared the previous month on the final issue of Fujin kyōfū zasshi. Fujin shimpō no. 15 (28 April 1896): 31-32. Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 80; Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 109. Frances Benton Clapp, Mary Florence Denton and the Doshisha (Kyoto: Doshisha University Press, 1955), 4-14; Union Signal, 1 January 1891, 1. Methodist missionaries decided to create the Methodist Publishing House in 1885 to import Western works on Christianity and publish and distribute Sunday school texts, hymnals, tracts, and other literature in Japanese. The firm came under native management in 1896, the same year that its Japanese name was standardized to Kyōbunkan. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 402-3.

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62 Union Signal, 3 October 1895, 10; 27 February 1896, 10; Japan Evangelist vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1896): 237-40; vol. 3, no. 5 (June 1896): 291-92. 63 Japan Evangelist vol. 3, no. 3 (February 1896): 174. 64 Ibid., 173-76, quoted from 174. 65 Japan Evangelist vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1896): 239; vol. 3, no. 5 (June 1896): 290; vol. 3, no. 6 (August 1896): 317; vol. 4, no. 1 (October 1896): 27. 66 Parrish’s assignment to Japan indicated another shift in World WCTU policy with respect to round-the-world missionaries. Not only was she to reside in country for a prolonged period, but also her destination signalled a new emphasis on organizing outreach beyond the Anglo-American sphere of dominance. Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire, 85. 67 Japan Evangelist vol. 4, no. 2 (November 1896): 47-48; quoted from Union Signal, 19 November 1896, 1. 68 Union Signal, 28 January 1897, 4. 69 Japan Evangelist vol. 4, no. 8 (May 1897): 253. 70 Frances E. Willard, Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners (Chicago: Ruby I. Gilbert, [1895]). 71 Japan Evangelist vol. 4, no. 8 (May 1897): 253-54. According to Do Everything, by 1895, the World WCTU had identified fifty different departments of work and adopted twenty-one itself. Willard, Do Everything, 91-92. 72 Union Signal, 20 May 1897, 8. 73 Report of the Fourth Biennial Convention and Minutes of the Executive Committee Meetings of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Including President’s Address, Secretary’s and Treasurer’s Reports, Superintendents’ Reports, Papers, and Letters (London: White Ribbon Company, 1897), 152; Wirādo Furanshisu [Frances Willard], Bankoku Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai annai [Guide to the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (original title: Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners)], trans. Ukai Takeshi (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1898). Do Everything’s translator, Ukai Takeshi, was well known within Christian circles in Japan. He had spent a decade studying in the United States, part of that time under the wing of evangelist Miyama Kan’ichi. On a proselytizing tour to Hawaii with Miyama, he had met Andō Tarō and been introduced to temperance work on the islands. He became an ordained Methodist minister before his return to Japan and was serving at Ginza Church when Parrish commissioned him to prepare the translation. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 169. 74 Japan Evangelist vol. 5, no. 9 (September 1898): 286-87. 75 Union Signal, 29 April 1897, 10. 76 Union Signal, 1 July 1897, 10. 77 Claims about these dates appear in Kyōfūkai Seinenbu, Kyōfūkai Shibuya Shibu, ed., Ai to kaihō o motomete: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai Seinenbu no ayumi [In search of love and liberty: A history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union’s youth group] (Tokyo: Kyōfūkai Seinenbu, Kyōfūkai Shibuya Shibu, 1986), 13; Union Signal, 29 April 1897, 10; Report of the Fourth Biennial Convention, 174. According to the WCTU’s one-hundred-year history, however, the Hakodate Y was not founded until October 1897, after young women had already united at three other girls’ schools in Yokohama and Tokyo. Such contradictory details make any attempt to construct an accurate chronology of Ys in Japan difficult at best. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 1009. 78 Fujin shimpō no. 60 (25 April 1902): 7-8; Report of the Fourth Biennial Convention, 174. 79 Japan Evangelist vol. 5, no. 1 (January 1898): 23; vol. 5, no. 4 (April 1898): 116.

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80 Fujin shimpō no. 10 (20 March 1898): 27; no. 33 (25 January 1900): 2-6; Union Signal, 22 February 1900, 6. 81 Union Signal, 28 January 1897, 4. 82 Union Signal, 20 May 1897, 5. 83 Japan Evangelist vol. 5, no. 5 (May 1898): 151-56, quoted from 151-52. 84 Fujin shimpō no. 13 (11 May 1898): 24. According to this issue of the magazine, the Tokyo union gained 76 members between 1897 and 1898, for a total of 244. This was a very respectable increase, but it did not compare to the Yokohama WCTU’s jump from 30 to 192 members. 85 Japan Evangelist vol. 5, no. 1 (January 1898): 26. 86 Japan Evangelist vol. 5, no. 10 (October 1898): 320. In addition to these efforts to unite the WCTU and the Auxiliary, Parrish worked to bring together native and foreign male-temperance activists. The desire to create a national temperance league had guided much of her outreach in 1898, and her endeavours paid off when her farewell party in October 1898 became the occasion for the establishment of the Nihon Kinshu Dōmeikai (Japan Temperance League). Japan Evangelist vol. 6, no. 2 (February 1899): 54-55; Koshio Kanji, Nihon kinshu undō no hachijūnen: Tōkyō Kinshukai, 1890-1970 [Eighty years of the Japanese temperance movement: The Tokyo Temperance Society, 1890-1970] (Tokyo: Nihon Kinshu Dōmei, 1970), 87-94. 87 The daughter of a Christian merchant from Gunma, Yamaji attended Tōyō Eiwa Jogakkō, a girls’ school that missionaries of the Women’s Missionary Society of the Methodist Church of Canada founded in Tokyo. She graduated in 1892 and, shortly thereafter, married Yamaji Aizan, a convert himself and one of the most prolific Christian journalists in the Meiji period. A. Hamish Ion, The Cross and the Rising Sun: The Canadian Protestant Missionary Movement in the Japanese Empire, 1872-1931 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1990), 119. 88 Yamaji Taneko, “Warera no kibō” [Our hope], Fujin shimpō no. 24 (15 January 1897): 1-3. 89 Idem, “Sara ni kokoro o tsukusu beshi” [We must exert ourselves anew], Fujin shimpō no. 26 (15 March 1897): 1-2. 90 Fujin shimpō no. 371 (1 February 1929): 38. 91 Yajima Kajiko and Yamaji Taneko, “Fujin shimpō kaikan no ji” [A word regarding the revised publication of Fujin shimpō], Fujin shimpō no. 1 (26 May 1897): 1-2. 92 Togawa Hideko, “Shasetsu made kaita ano koro: Keishichō e yobidasareta” [The days when I even wrote editorials: My summons to the Metropolitan Police Department], Fujin shimpō no. 372 (1 March 1929): 24-25. 93 “Joken no kakuchō” [The expansion of women’s rights], Fujin shimpō no. 6 (20 October 1897): 22-27; no. 7 (20 November 1897): 10-15; no. 9 (20 January 1898): 17-21; no. 10 (20 February 1898): 9-13; no. 11 (20 March 1898): 15-19. 94 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 129-30; Nakadzumi, “Onna ni yoru,” 15. 95 Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai, ed., Fujin zasshi no yoake, 33. 96 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 196, 1008-9; Fujin shimpō no. 37 (25 May 1900): 31. 97 Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol. 2 (Protestant Missions) (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909; reprint, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1976), 253, 296-99, quoted from 299. 98 F.G. Notehelfer, “Japan’s First Pollution Incident,” Journal of Japanese Studies vol. 1, no. 2 (Spring 1975): 360-80; Kenneth Strong, Ox against the Storm: A Biography of Tanaka Shozo: Japan’s Conservationist Pioneer (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1977), 62-93, 99-111,

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114-16. Eldest son of a daimyo retainer and recipient of an early education steeped in the Chinese classics, Honda began studying English in Yokohama in 1870 and, under the influence of James Ballagh, converted to Christianity two years later. The next decade saw him working as a teacher, school administrator, evangelist, and member of the Aomori prefectural assembly. In 1884, he became an ordained Methodist minister and thereafter continued to straddle the worlds of education and ministry, eventually becoming president of Aoyama Gakuin and the first bishop of the Japanese Methodist Church. His 1888 marriage to Teiko and her active involvement in the WCTU facilitated his own engagement with the union. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 1302. For more on Teiko, see Chapter 4, note 56. Among these three fellow unionists, Matsumoto is the best known. Born in 1866 in Chiba, she was raised more like a son than a daughter. Her father pushed her to excel academically and even moved to Tokyo so that she could pursue a more advanced education. She initially enrolled at Tsuda Sen’s girls’ school, where Tsuda’s own witness nurtured in her a fervent faith. While still a student, she became an active church member, evangelist, translator, and interpreter. Marriage and a son followed, though the former collapsed after just a few years, possibly due to financial problems. Matsumoto then briefly taught at the Peeress’ School and worked as Ushioda’s secretary before becoming a staff writer for Mainichi shimbun (the daily paper) in 1901. Partly in that last capacity, she travelled to the polluted area and, from shortly thereafter until February of the next year, used the paper’s pages to present fifty-nine poignant vignettes of pollution victims, which did much to draw attention to their suffering. Esashi Akiko, Onna no kuse ni: Kusawake no josei shimbun kishatachi [Even though they were women: Pioneer women newspaper reporters] (Tokyo: Bunka Shuppankyoku, 1985; reprint, Tokyo: Impakuto Shuppankai, 1997), 114, 118-25. A collection of some of these portraits can be found in Matsumoto Eiko, ed., Kōdokuchi no sanjō: Dai-ippen [The pitiful situation of the mine-polluted land: Vol. 1] (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1902), reprinted in Meiji bunka shiryō sōsho, vol. 6 (Shakai mondai-hen), ed. Kaji Ryūichi, (Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1961), 105-54. Ushioda Chiseko, “Kōdoku higaichi Watarase no min” [The people of the Watarase and the mine-polluted area], Fujo shimbun no. 81 (25 November 1901): 4. A weekly paper launched in 1900, Fujo shimbun aimed to advance women’s education in part by spreading information that would help women raise upstanding families, economically manage their households, care for their own bodies, and be knowledgeable about and active in women’s organizations. Its founder, Fukushima Shirō, was a vocal opponent of licensed prostitution and concubinage, and his support of the WCTU’s activities extended to printing periodic articles by members. Fujo shimbun o Yomu Kai, ed., “Fujo shimbun” to josei no kindai [Fujo shimbun and the modern age of women] (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1997), 3, 213. A portion of the petition, which was published in Mainichi shimbun in mid-January of 1902, can be found in Esashi, Onna no kuse ni, 116. Fujin shimpō no. 56 (25 December 1901): 15, 25, 29; no. 70 (25 February 1903): 16; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 181-82; Abe Reiko, “Ashio kōdoku mondai to Ushioda Chiseko” [The Ashio mine pollution problem and Ushioda Chiseko], Rekishi hyōron no. 347 (March 1979): 105-9. See also Elizabeth A. Dorn, “Pollution Relief and the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,” Asian Cultural Studies vol. 27 (2001): 49-58. A listing of the twenty with the names of their superintendents can be found in Fujin shimpō no. 180 (25 June 1912): 5.

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104 Chapter 6 will elaborate on the union’s work among soldiers and sailors, while Chapter 5 will discuss outreach to youth. 105 A sizable portion of the salaries for paid Japanese unionists came from bazaars, programs with Japanese entertainment, sales of postcards, and other fundraising activities put on by Ys and LTLs in the United States. Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism, 94. For more on Tsuneko Gauntlett, the first native Y organizer, see Chapter 5, note 47. As for the first Japanese LTL worker, Moriya Azuma was born in Tokyo in 1884 and raised as a future head of family. Her father’s death when she was nine from heavy drinking and overwork deepened her sense of duty and left her well aware of the harm of alcohol. She converted in 1901 at the deathbed behest of her sister and joined the WCTU the following year after hearing Smart deliver a temperance lecture. Though without formal training, she was able to secure a teaching position at a school for the poor in 1903. Her experiences there convinced her that children needed to be taught the value of abstinence before they ever took a drink and led her to accept Davis’ offer to become a salaried LTL organizer in 1909. Hayashi Chiyo, “Moriya Azuma (1885-1975),” in Zoku shakai jigyō ni ikita joseitachi: Sono shōgai to shigoto, ed. Gomi Yuriko (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1980), 64-66; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 268. 106 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 197-98, 201. For the Airinsha’s prospectus, see “Tōkyō Airinsha shuisho,” Fujin shimpō no. 66 (25 October 1902): 7; reprinted in Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 198-99. 107 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 153, 210-12. 108 Ibid., 294-95. 109 Fujin shimpō no. 169 (25 August 1911): 24.

Chapter 4: The Fight against Prostitution An unrevised version of this chapter previously appeared in “Crusading against Prostitution: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in Meiji Japan,” Japanese Religions vol. 29, nos. 1-2 (2004): 29-43. Reproduced by permission from the NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions. 1 For an introduction to purity work in the United States and England, see Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 191-220; Ruth Bordin, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 18731900 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981; reprint, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 110-11. 2 J.E. de Becker, The Nightless City or the History of the Yoshiwara Yūkwaku, with a foreword by Donald Ritchie (1899; reprint, New York: ICG Muse, 2000), 2-5. 3 Ibid., xvii; Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 90; Hiromi Sone, “Prostitution and Public Authority in Early Modern Japan,” trans. Akiko Terashima and Anne Walthall, in Women and Class in Japanese History, ed. Hitomi Tonomura, Anne Walthall, and Haruko Wakita, Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, no. 25 (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1999), 170, 181. 4 Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, Women and Prostitution: A Social History (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1987), 188-95. 5 Fujime Yuki, Sei no rekishigaku: Kōshō seido, dataizai taisei kara baishun bōshihō, yūsei hogohō taisei e [A history of sex: From a system of licensed prostitution and illegal abortions to the Prostitution Prevention and Eugenic Protection Laws] (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1997), 89-90; Grace Fox, Britain and Japan, 1858-1883 (Oxford: Clarendon,

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1969), 475-77. Chapter 2 of Fujime’s book, from which this citation comes, has been translated by Kerry Ross and published as “The Licensed Prostitution System and the Prostitution Abolition Movement in Modern Japan” in Positions: East Asian Cultures Critique vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 135-70. Morosawa Yūko, Onna no rekishi (ge) [A history of women (Part 2)] (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1970), 53-55; Itō Hidekichi, Nihon haishō undōshi [A history of the movement to abolish prostitution in Japan] (Tokyo: Kakuseikai Fujin Kyōfūkai Haishō Renmei, 1931; reprint, Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1982), 71-78. Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 81-82. Morosawa Yūko, Shinano no onna (jō) [The women of Shinano (Part 1)] (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1969), 259. Many of these “reforms” involved the simple substitution of one term for another. For example, yūjoya (brothel) became kashizashiki (room for rent), and zenshakkin (advance) replaced minoshirokin (ransom) to refer to the money a brothel operator gave to a young woman’s family after concluding a contract for her service. Yoshimi Kaneko, “Baishō no jittai to haishō undō” [The actual state of prostitution and the anti-prostitution movement], in Nihon joseishi, vol. 4 (Kindai), ed. Joseishi Sōgō Kenkyūkai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982), 224-25. Takai Susumu, ed., Toyama-ken joseishi: Oni to onna wa hito ni mienu zo yoki, ka [A history of Toyama women: Are demons and women invisible to others?] (Toyama: Katsura Shobō, 1988), 158. To emphasize, these figures include only licensed prostitutes. Thousands more worked outside of approved brothel quarters, with some, such as barmaids, receiving tacit government approval. In 1882, revenue generated from prostitute and brothel licences paid for more than one-quarter of Kanagawa prefecture’s expenses, a fact that highlights how vital such income was to administrative Japan. Fujime, Sei no rekishigaku, 92-94, 113. Ibid., 97-98; Sabine Frühstück, Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 7. Sharon L. Sievers, Flowers in Salt: The Beginnings of Feminist Consciousness in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), 183. Garon, Molding Japanese Minds, 93; Fujime, Sei no rekishigaku, 93, 97. Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 32 (20 December 1890): 8-11, quoted from 11. The petition’s mention of the link between licensed prostitution and the spread of venereal disease stands out as one of the few occasions when the WCTU used syphilis to argue against the brothel system. More commonly, petitions and articles spoke about national shame, damaged morals, and corrupted youth, as the following discussion of campaigns in opposition to particular brothel districts reveals. Karen Colligan-Taylor, “Introduction,” in Tomoko Yamazaki, Sandakan Brothel 8: An Episode in the History of Lower-Class Japanese Women, trans. Colligan-Taylor (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), xv-xxiv; Yuki Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation (London: Routledge, 2002), 167-69; James Francis Warren, Ah Ku and Karayuki-san: Prostitution in Singapore, 18701940 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1993), 67-70. Tomoko Yamazaki, The Story of Yamada Waka: From Prostitute to Feminist Pioneer, trans. Wakako Hironaka and Ann Kostant (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1985), 53-54. A more detailed look at the tactics procurers used to secure Japanese women for prostitution overseas can be found in Kazuhiro Oharazeki, “Japanese Prostitutes in the Pacific Northwest, 1887-1920” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Binghampton, 2008), 82-107. In explaining the unreliability of government registers, Karen Colligan-Taylor mentioned that many women listed jobs other than in prostitution to avoid stigmatization

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and that the government did not include those working as prostitutes in Taiwan and Korea after the two became formal colonies. Colligan-Taylor, “Introduction,” xxii. For a breakdown of the residences of prostitutes registered in 1910, see same, xxiii. Quoted in Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women, 168. Quoted in Warren, Ah Ku and Karayuki-san, 159. Reprinted in Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 29 (20 September 1890): 11-12. Rumi Yasutake, Transnational Women’s Activism: The United States, Japan, and Japanese Immigrant Communities in California, 1859-1920 (New York: NYU Press, 2004), 109-10. Asai Saku, “Kyōfūkai no mokuteki” [The purpose of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 1 (14 April 1888): 4. For representative articles, see “Hitan subeki ichi daimondai” [One great problem we should lament], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 48 (31 May 1892): 4-5; “Zaigai baiinfu torishimarihō seitei ni kansuru” [Concerning the enactment of regulations for overseas prostitutes], Fujin shimpō no. 21 (20 January 1899): 23-25. A variety of influences gave rise to this vilification of prostitutes. First and foremost was the moralistic rhetoric of American Protestant missionaries, especially their claims that women were more virtuous than men by nature and that any woman who did not closely guard her chastity must necessarily be a deviant. As Fujime Yuki has stressed, Meiji state policy also had an impact. Without a doubt, the very act of regulating prostitution implied that there was something shameful or corrupting about the business, while the criminalization of adultery by married women fed the focus on female sexuality and helped make prostitutes rather than their customers the target of attack. Equally important was the class consciousness of WCTU women. Their unwillingness or inability to transcend status distinctions prevented them from feeling any real affinity for prostitutes as fellow Japanese women and made easier their contempt. For this and their tendency to lay blame only on prostitutes and thereby absolve the state, the patriarchal family, and capitalism of responsibility for sustaining prostitution, they have been and continue to be criticized. One could argue rightfully so. I instead follow the example of Mara Patessio, who has warned that a focus on the shortcomings of WCTU women obscures the radicalness or progressiveness of what they did and results in a disregard or undervaluing of their contributions to the development of Japanese feminism. Fujime, Sei no rekishigaku, 105; Mara Patessio, “The Creation of Public Spaces by Women in the Early Meiji Period and the Tōkyō Fujin Kyōfūkai,” International Journal of Asian Studies vol. 3, no. 2 (2006): 177-78. “Kawaguchi Masue-shi no shojō” [A letter from Kawaguchi Masue], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 28 (16 August 1890): 6-7. “Gaikoku ni okeru Nihon fujo hogoan” [A bill to protect Japanese women abroad], Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 35 (21 March 1891): 8-9; no. 48 (31 May 1892): 6; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A onehundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 76. Opposition to overseas prostitutes gave rise to economic and nationalistic arguments in favour of their emigration. Fukuzawa Yukichi, for one, maintained that those going abroad would have no future in Japan other than as prostitutes. They could therefore better serve their country by plying their trade overseas and earning much-needed foreign currency. By emigrating, they would also propel the establishment of Japanese communities, the development of which would ease population and resource pressures on the homeland. The end result would be, according to Fukuzawa, a stronger and more prosperous Japan. Warren, Ah Ku and Karayuki-san, 62-63; Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women, 170-71; Bill Mihalopoulos, “Modernization as Creative Problem

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Making: Political Action, Personal Conduct, and Japanese Overseas Prostitutes,” Economy and Society vol. 27, no. 1 (February 1998): 59-61. For a copy of the petition, see Fujin shimpō no. 21 (20 January 1899): 23-24, quoted from 24. “Senryōchi no shūgyōfu” [Prostitutes in occupied territory], Fujin shimpō no. 99 (25 July 1905): 4. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 614; Kurahashi Katsuhito, “‘Karayuki’ to Fujin Kyōfūkai (2): Kyūshū no itchi chiiki joseishi no shikaku kara” [“Karayuki” and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (2): From a regional viewpoint of women’s history in Kyushu], Kirisutokyō shakai mondai kenkyū no. 52 (December 2003): 95-98, 131. Fujin shimpō no. 68 (25 December 1902): 5-6, 27-28, quoted from 6; Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai Ōsaka Shibu nempō [Annual report of the Osaka branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Osaka: Fujin Kyōfūkai Osaka Shibu, 1937), 15-16. Fujin shimpō no. 68 (25 December 1902): 28. The Osaka WCTU’s third crusade took place in early 1912 after a fire destroyed most of the Namba district and, like the second, ended triumphantly for the city’s anti-prostitution forces. For accounts, see Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 296-302; Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 229-39; Yang Sun-young, “Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai no haishō undō: 1900-nendai ni okeru shibu no katsudō o chūshin ni” [The Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union’s movement to abolish prostitution: A focus on the activities of branches in the 1900s], Gengo chiiki bunka kenkyū no. 9 (March 2003): 157-58. Ōsaka asahi shimbun [Osaka daily newspaper], 1 August 1909, 11; 2 August 1909, 4, 9-11. Japan Evangelist vol. 16, no. 9 (September 1909): 357; Fujin shimpō no. 148 (15 September 1909): 5. Hayashi was born in 1864 as the eldest daughter of a lower-level samurai in Echizen. Her father placed great value on her education and early on introduced her to the Chinese classics. She formally enrolled in school prior to her tenth birthday and subsequently pursued advanced studies at a teacher training institute. Several years of work as an elementary teacher preceded marriage and the arrival of a son. A bitter succession dispute between her father and her in-laws, however, led to her divorce and forced separation from her newborn. Seeking a fresh start, she moved to Tokyo, where she found employment first with a foreign couple and then at the American Protestant Episcopal mission’s Rikkyō Jogakkō. Regular church attendance and contact with missionaries influenced her decision to be baptized in 1887, together with Kobashi Katsunosuke. Soon thereafter, Kobashi invited her to become head of the orphanage he had opened in Hyōgo. She agreed and spent the next decade toiling and sacrificing to shore up the facility’s foundation, efforts that included relocation in 1894 to Osaka. Five years later she helped establish the WCTU’s Osaka branch and, as its first president, was largely responsible for its rapid growth and vibrant activism in the following years. For her leadership against brothel districts in particular, she was labelled the “female anti-prostitution shogun of Kansai” by proponents for rebuilding. Itō Hidekichi also likened her to Josephine Butler, the British crusader who waged a fierce international battle against state regulation of prostitution during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Tanaka Mitsuko, “Koji kyūsai, haishō ni torikumu: Ai ni ikita Kurisuchan: Hayashi Utako” [Engaged in the rescue of orphans and the abolition of prostitution: Hayashi Utako, the Christian who lived through love], in Fukui josei no rekishi, ed. Fukui Josei no Rekishi Hensan Iinkai (Tokyo: Fenikkusu Shuppan, 1996), 166-69, quoted from 169; Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 207. Fujin shimpō no. 149 (15 October 1909): 22-24; Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 198-99.

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37 A copy of this resolution appeared in Fujin shimpō no. 148 (15 September 1909): 7. 38 Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 198-200; Fujin shimpō no. 149 (15 October 1909): 24. 39 Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō rekishi daijiten [A historical dictionary of Christianity in Japan] (NKRD) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1988), 223. 40 Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 204-5; Fujin shimpō no. 148 (15 September 1909): 2-3. 41 Fujin shimpō no. 148 (15 September 1909): 4-6, quoted from 4. 42 Ibid., 3-4, quoted from 3. 43 A brief article on the ordinance appeared in the Ōsaka asahi shimbun the day after it was issued. Though this notice provided no explanation for the governor’s decision, one possible motive can be inferred from an earlier piece on new rules that the brothel association had adopted. They included a ban on the placement of oil lamps with paper coverings under the eaves of brothels. Apparently, the police were on the verge of imposing such a regulation, and brothel owners, aware of this, had acted first. The order aside, the police were motivated by the desire to restrict fire hazards, and the governor may very well have been also. Ōsaka asahi shimbun, 30 August 1909, 7; 11 September 1909, 9. 44 Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 205-7; Fujin shimpō no. 149 (15 October 1909): 25-26. 45 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 145-47, 256-58; Fujin shimpō no. 162 (15 December 1910): 2-4. 46 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 275-78; Fujin shimpō no. 164 (25 February 1911): 11-12, 24-25; quoted from no. 167 (25 June 1911): 15. 47 Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 5 (May 1911): 166-68. 48 “Yoshiwara yūkaku zenshō wa ten’i nari” [The complete destruction of Yoshiwara by fire is God’s will], Fujin shimpō no. 166 (15 May 1911): 1-2. 49 “Kōshō haishi ni kansuru chinjōsho” [Petition for the abolition of licensed prostitution], Kakusei [Purity], no. 2 (August 1911): 59-60, quoted from 59. Reprinted in Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 210-12; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 278-79. For an English translation, see Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 5 (May 1911): 17677. What induced Yajima to be so candid in laying blame remains a matter of speculation. The great success of the Osaka, Gunma, and Wakayama campaigns may very well have emboldened her. The amount of national and international attention focused on the fire and the fate of Yoshiwara may have been a factor as well. 50 The Salvation Army emerged as a leader in the anti-prostitution movement in 1900 when officers entered licensed quarters in Tokyo and urged prostitutes to take advantage of a recent legal ruling that greatly simplified the procedure for quitting. Their promotion of “self-emancipation” met with violence by brothel-hired thugs, but their efforts did provide the encouragement many of the thousands who quit in 1900 and 1901 needed. Albert E. Baggs, “Social Evangel as Nationalism: A Study of the Salvation Army in Japan, 1895-1940” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1966), 85-104. 51 Fujin shimpō no. 166 (15 May 1911): 30-32; no. 167 (15 June 1911): 32-34; Kakusei no. 2 (August 1911): 62-65; Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 5 (May 1911): 175-82; Union Signal, 7 December 1911, 3. 52 A copy was published in Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 5 (May 1911): 181. 53 For more on Ebara, Suzuji, Masutomi, Yabuki, Yamada, and Yamamoto, see Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 194, 724, 1317, 1427, 1439, 1445, respectively. 54 For a copy of the rules, see Kakusei no. 1 (July 1911): 9-10, quoted from 9. 55 Yajima surprised her fellow WCTU members by wearing a white silk kimono under formal dress, a practice common among samurai going off to war in ages past. When

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Moriya Azuma asked her why, she declared: “Warriors do not die disgracefully on the front. I think this society is our battlefield.” Quoted in Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 284. Ibid.; Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 215-28. Honda was born in 1862 into the family of a Morioka domain retainer. After moving to Tokyo in her teens, she completed a teacher training course and then taught at a number of mission schools for girls, Sakurai Jogakkō included. She converted during the early days of her career, a decision that facilitated her 1888 marriage to Honda Yōitsu, then an ordained Methodist minister teaching at the precursor of Aoyama Gakuin. She herself became very active in the WCTU and served as a national vice-president and editor of Fujin shimpō, to mention two leadership roles she assumed. Ibuka shared much in common with Honda. She too was the daughter of a samurai family, born in Okayama in 1865. She had mission school ties as well, as first a student and later a teacher at Kobe College, and the environment had similarly influenced her decision to convert. In the intervening years, she saw her first marriage fail, and she spent time studying abroad at Mount Holyoke. In 1899, she married the recently widowed Ibuka Kajinosuke and, settling in Tokyo, soon took a teaching position at Joshi Gakuin and joined the Tokyo WCTU. A generation older than Honda and Ibuka, Tokutomi was born in 1829. She left her parents’ house at a relatively early age to marry into a country samurai family and in short order became mother to six children. In 1884, she converted, largely through the influence of her son Sohō and the strength of his faith. She established a girls’ school in Kumamoto a few years later and eventually worked her way to Tokyo, where she joined her sister Yajima Kajiko as a WCTU member. As for Kozaki, a brief biography is provided in Chapter 6, note 20. Haga Noboru et al., eds., Nihon josei jinmei jiten [A biographical dictionary of Japanese women] (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 1993), 946; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 130, 944. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 284; Union Signal, 7 December 1911, 15. “Kyōfūkai to Kakuseikai” [The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Purity Society], Fujin shimpō no. 176 (25 February 1912): 1-2. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 605-13, 1038. Takemura Tamio has surveyed the eight extant issues of Haishō (The abolition of prostitution) from the early 1890s and noted the complete absence of both commentary on the social factors driving Japanese prostitutes overseas and discussion of rescue measures. Yoshimi Kaneko has further pointed out that Shimada Saburō and Iwamoto Yoshiharu, two of the most famous anti-prostitution advocates during the Meiji period, did not include in their theoretical arguments any consideration of specific steps to save and rehabilitate. Takemura Tamio, “Kaisetsu: Teikoku gikai kaisetsuki ni okeru haishō undō: Zasshi Haishō no kankō o chūshin ni” [Commentary: The movement to abolish prostitution during the period of the Diet’s opening: A focus on the publication of Haishō], in “Haishō”: Sōmokuji, hanrei (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1993), 8-9; Yoshimi, “Baishō no jittai to haishō undō,” 238-41. Yoshimi, “Baishō no jittai to haishō undō,” 238; Itō, Nihon haishō undōshi, 89-98, quoted from 96. This group included Matilda Spencer, a Methodist Episcopal missionary under whom Ushioda was then serving as a Bible woman, and Mary Soper, whose husband, Julius, had baptized Ushioda in 1882. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 309. Jogaku zasshi no. 107 (28 April 1888): 23; quoted from Sasaki Toyoju, “O.S.C.-kun ni kotau” [In response to Mr. O.S.C.], Jogaku zasshi no. 165 (8 June 1889): 28; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 3 (16 June 1888): outside back cover.

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64 Sasaki, “O.S.C.-kun ni kotau,” 28; Utsu Yasuko, Saisō yori, yori fukaki tamashii ni: Sōma Kokkō, wakaki hi no henreki [More than a poetic talent, a deeper spirit: Sōma Kokkō and her early travels] (Tokyo: Nihon YMCA Dōmei Shuppanbu, 1983), 58-59. 65 Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 3 (2 January 1894): inside back cover. 66 Utsu, Saisō yori, 78-79; Ushioda Chiseko, “Jiaikan no koto ni tsuite” [Concerning the Home of Mercy and Love], Fujin shimpō no. 18 (20 October 1898): 11; idem, “Fujin Kyōfūkai to Sasaki Toyoju fujin (II)” [The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and Sasaki Toyoju (II)], no. 35 (25 March 1900): 20. 67 Ushioda’s sentiments typified those of American and Japanese Christian women who engaged in rescue work from mid-Meiji. Female reformers in the United States did not share with their contemporaries across the Pacific similar worries about national honour. Instead, they expressed concern about unrestricted emigration, the growing number of immigrant prostitutes, and the potential for race deterioration. As Ruth Rosen has noted, however, “their feelings of compassion [toward prostitutes] were [also] frequently mixed with condescension and self-righteousness.” Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 63. 68 Ushioda, “Jiaikan no koto ni tsuite,” 11-14. 69 Kohiyama Rui, Amerika fujin senkyōshi: Rainichi no haikei to sono eikyō [American women missionaries: The background of their coming to Japan and their influence] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1992), 195, 199. 70 Japan Evangelist vol. 11, no. 7 (July 1904): 225. 71 Ibid.; vol. 2, no. 6 (August 1895): 351-52. 72 Spencer joined Miller in the field in 1878, just five years after the Methodist Episcopal mission opened. She also engaged in educational and evangelistic work and, as mentioned previously, assisted Sasaki, Ushioda, and Motora in establishing their vocational school in Tokyo in 1888. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 731. 73 Japan Evangelist vol. 11, no. 7 (July 1904): 225; Ushioda, “Jiaikan no koto ni tsuite,” 14; Shakai Fukushi Hōjin Jiaikai, ed., Jiairyō hyakunen no ayumi [One hundred years of the Hostel of Mercy and Love] (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1994), 15. 74 Harris and her husband, Merriman (M.C.), became the first American Protestant missionaries to reside in Hokkaido when they established a Methodist Episcopal outpost in Hakodate in 1874. After Flora’s ill health forced their return to the United States in 1882, M.C. became superintendent of the church’s outreach among Japanese immigrants in California. Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol. 2 (Protestant Missions) (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909; reprint, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1976), 110, 234. 75 Japan Evangelist vol. 2, no. 6 (August 1895): 351. 76 Quoted from ibid., 352; vol. 11, no. 7 (July 1904): 225. 77 Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 4 (2 February 1894): inside front cover, 27. 78 Fujin shimpō no. 370 (1 January 1929): 29; Shakai Fukushi Hōjin Jiaikai, ed., Jiairyō hyakunen no ayumi, 22-23. 79 Shakai Fukushi Hōjin Jiaikai, ed., Jiairyō hyakunen no ayumi, 16-21; Japan Evangelist vol. 11, no. 7 (July 1904): 226. 80 Japan Evangelist vol. 6, no. 4 (April 1899): 117; vol. 11, no. 7 (July 1904): 226-27; Union Signal, 17 March 1898, 5; 25 August 1898, 10; Shakai Fukushi Hōjin Jiaikai, ed., Jiairyō hyakunen no ayumi, 21, 31-35, 41-42; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 173-74, 275. 81 A self-made millionaire before he turned fifty, Crittenton experienced an intense religious conversion after the death of his daughter in 1882. His new faith led him to

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devote his later years first to slum evangelism and then to the founding of rescue homes for prostitutes. The American WCTU became a staunch ally in this rescue work, with members contributing in a variety of ways to many of the forty-five facilities he established before the turn of the century. Norris Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums: Evangelical Social Work, 1865-1920, ATLA Monograph Series, no. 10 (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press and American Theological Library Association, 1977), 79-81. The Salvation Army opened its home in conjunction with its campaign to encourage prostitutes to emancipate themselves. Efforts to publicize the facility’s existence within the licensed quarters and the active role Army members played in helping women flee made it more visible and approachable and contributed to its greater numbers. Baggs, “Social Evangel as Nationalism,” 87, 103; Yamamuro Gumpei, Yamamuro Kieko (Tokyo: Kyūseigun Nihon Ei, 1916; reprint, Denki sōsho Series, vol. 70, Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1989), 52-79. Over time, moulding residents so that they would create good homes became a more important aspect of this goal, as revealed in changes made to Jiaikan’s rules just before the move back to Ōkubo. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 149. “Jiaikan kisoku” [Rules for the Home of Mercy and Love], Fujin shimpō no. 117 (25 January 1907): 15-16. “Hakuai naru shokei shimai ni uttau” [An appeal to our charitable brothers and sisters], Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 9 (2 July 1894): 1. Fujin shimpō no. 62 (25 June 1902): 11; no. 150 (15 December 1909): 13-17, quoted from 15. These articles suggest that marriage prospects were comparable for Jiaikan residents whether or not they converted or had once worked as prostitutes. The basic training they acquired to maintain a household likely helped their chances, as did the fact that most Japanese did not perceive of prostitution as a great moral evil. As mentioned earlier, prostitutes were stigmatized as being responsible for the spread of venereal disease, and Christians certainly viewed them as shameful. Yet predominant was the opinion that prostitution was a way for daughters to provide financially for poor parents, and the perception of former prostitutes as having fulfilled their filial obligations contributed to their eligibility.

Chapter 5: The Struggle to Create a Sober Society 1 Ryusaku Tsunoda et al., comp., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 7. 2 Donald L. Philippi, trans. and with an intro., Kojiki (Tokyo: Princeton University Press, University of Tokyo Press, 1969), 89-90. 3 Wakamori Tarō, Sake ga kataru Nihon-shi [Alcohol in Japanese history] (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1971), 14. 4 Watanabe Minoru, Nihon shoku seikatsushi [A history of eating habits in Japan] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1964), 103. 5 To this day two of the requisite seasonings in a Japanese household are mirin and sake. Ibid., 43-64, 102-3, 146-49, 204. 6 John Henry Wigmore, ed., Law and Justice in Tokugawa Japan: Materials for the History of Japanese Law and Justice under the Tokugawa Shogunate, 1603-1867, part VII (Persons: Civil Customary Law) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1976), 16, 41-71. 7 Watanabe, Nihon shoku seikatsushi, 156. 8 Ibid., 284-85, 290-91. According to figures culled from government reports, the amount of sake brewed in 1871 was 122,336,701 gallons, compared to 171,500,000 gallons in 1911. Ernest Hurst Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 3 (Downing-Kansas) (Westerville: American Issue Publishing, 1926), 1382.

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9 Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 3, 1382-83. 10 Fujin shimpō no. 45 (25 January 1901): 2. Ironically, the Tokyo WCTU and the Tokyo Kinshukai (Temperance Society) had called for high taxes from early on and, in 1891, submitted a petition asking the Diet to reject an appeal from brewers to lower sake taxes. They succeeded, but stopped agitating for high licences the next year at the urging of Mary Allen West on the grounds that taxes of any amount represented government support for the liquor industry. Union Signal, 14 January 1892, 11; 29 December 1892, 5. 11 Kirin Bīru, ed., Bīru to Nihonjin: Meiji, Taisho, Shōwa bīru fukyūshi [Beer and the Japanese: A history of the spread of beer in Meiji, Taishō, and Showa] (Tokyo: Sanshōdō, 1984), 3-11, 55-62, 72-82. The cartoon appears on page 19. 12 Satō Kenji, Nihon bia, raberu seisuishi [A history of the rise and fall of beer and labels in Japan] (Tokyo: Tokyo Shobōsha, 1973), 15. 13 As mentioned in Chapter 1, the new Meiji government dispatched this mission in 1871 with the intention that its members would collectively seek treaty revisions in the United States and Europe and learn as much about the West as possible. Court noble Iwakura Tomomi served as its leader, and Kume went as his private secretary. In his report on the brewery, Kume used the term inryō, which refers to beverages in general. “Alcohol” is a more accurate translation, however, given the context of the passage. Quoted in Kirin Bīru, ed., Bīru to Nihonjin, 9. 14 Ibid., 18, 55-74; Keizō Shibusawa, comp. and ed., Japanese Life and Culture in the Meiji Era, trans. Charles S. Terry, Centenary Cultural Council Series on Japanese Culture of the Meiji Era, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Ōbunsha, 1958), 81-82. For production histories of the more than forty different beers brewed in Japan during the Meiji period and reprints of labels, see Satō, Nihon bia, raberu seisuishi. 15 Kirin Bīru, ed., Bīru to Nihonjin, 71-73, 88-92, 107-27, 140. 16 Satō, Nihon bia, raberu seisuishi, 287-89. 17 According to Shibusawa, Japan’s population was 50,577,000 in 1912. Shibusawa, comp. and ed., Japanese Life and Culture, 332. 18 Watanabe, Nihon shoku seikatsushi, 64, 95, 122-24, 244-46, 254; Katō Benzaburō, ed., Nihon no sake no rekishi: Sakedzukuri no ayumi to kenkyū [Japanese sake: A history of and research into sake making] (Tokyo: Kyōwa Hakkō Kōgyō, 1976), 674-87. 19 Asano Kenshin, Nihon Bukkyō shakai jigyōshi [A history of Japanese Buddhist social welfare] (Tokyo: Bōninsha, 1934), 247. 20 John F. Howes, “Japanese Christians and American Missionaries,” in Changing Japanese Attitudes toward Modernization, ed. Marius B. Jansen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 344-45. 21 Howes has suggested that the facility with which the first generation of samurai converts accepted Puritan morality as their own stemmed from the code’s compatibility with their Confucian training. Ibid., 346. 22 Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō rekishi daijiten [A historical dictionary of Christianity in Japan] (NKRD) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1988), 253; Japan Evangelist vol. 16, no. 12 (December 1909): 489. Falling off the wagon, so to speak, remained a persistent problem for both temperance societies and churches and did lead some to rewrite membership requirements so as to eliminate direct mention of absolute abstinence. 23 Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 123, quoted from 161. 24 At least five of the Meirokusha’s ten charter members lent their support to the Nihon Sesshukai. They included Nishi Amane, Tsuda Mamichi, Katō Hiroyuki, Nishimura Shigeki, and Nakamura Masanao. “Nihon Sesshukai ni Nishi Amane, Katō Hiroyukira mo sandō” [Nishi Amane, Katō Hiroyuki, and others also endorse the Japan

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Temperance Society], Tokyo nichi nichi shimbun, 26 December 1884, reprinted in Meiji nyūsu Jiten Hensan Iinkai, Mainichi Komyunikēshonzu Shuppanbu, ed., Meiji nyūsu jiten, vol. 3 (1883-87) (Tokyo: Mainichi Komyunikēshonzu Shuppanbu, 1984), 246. Japan Evangelist vol. 16, no. 12 (December 1909): 489; Union Signal, 18 November 1886, 8; 30 December 1886, 8; Jogaku zasshi no. 37 (5 October 1886): 140; no. 46 (5 January 1887): 119-20. I culled the identification of most of these unions from the pages of Kinshu zasshi (Temperance magazine), a monthly that Tsuda Sen began publishing in February 1890. The best known by historians is probably Sapporo’s Hokkai Kinshukai, discussed in Chapter 3. Despite the society’s reliance on rules Leavitt had set forth for unions, its pledge permitted members to use alcohol as medicine. This loophole was common among early temperance societies, and World WCTU missionaries would make a specific point of trying to close it. Cherrington, Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 3, 1384-85; Japan Evangelist vol. 16, no. 12 (December 1909): 490; Union Signal, 24 November 1892, 9. Barbara Rose, Tsuda Umeko and Women’s Education in Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 12-26; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 886. Tsuda Sen, “Sake no gai” [The dangers of alcohol], Jogaku zasshi no. 85 (15 November 1887): 85-88; no. 86 (26 November 1887): 111-14; no. 87 (3 December 1887): 126-29. Idem, Sake no gai [The dangers of alcohol] (Tokyo: Sasaki Toyoju and the Tokyo Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1887). As mentioned earlier, Sasaki Toyoju included a copy of her own prospectus in this tract in defiance of Yajima Kajiko’s move to claim ideological leadership over the Tokyo WCTU. As discussed in Chapter 2, Yajima suffered physical abuse at the hands of her alcoholic husband, yet even she did not advocate abstinence as a means to protect women from violence. Her reticence to call on personal experience may have stemmed from shame, a deep-seated desire to keep her life private, or a cultural upbringing that did not categorically stigmatize physical mistreatment of those in subservient positions. The influence of the language of World WCTU and denominational missionaries, though, should not be discounted. Nor should a pragmatic understanding that castigating Japanese men could do more harm than good to the temperance cause. Hunt, the product of a dry New England family, became active in the WCTU in its early days. She was elected vice-president of the Massachusetts union in the mid1870s, and in that capacity she tried to use moral suasion to win converts to temperance. The inability of many drinkers to stay sober eventually convinced her that the only real solution lay in legislation. This conviction converged with her belief that the future of temperance rested with youth yet unpolluted by drink. She began to agitate for state legislatures to pass STI laws first independently and then, from 1879, as head of the WCTU’s Department of STI. Jonathan Zimmerman, Distilling Democracy: Alcohol Education in America’s Public Schools, 1880-1925 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 1-22. Nemoto finally won passage in 1899, and the bill became law the following year. It prohibited tobacco smoking by youth under the age of eighteen and set forth fines both for guardians who failed to prevent youngsters from smoking and for those who sold them tobacco or smoking paraphernalia. Shō Nemoto, The Anti-Smoking Bill: Its Passage through the Imperial Diet of Japan, trans. Takeshi Ukai (Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House, 1900). The daughter of a Methodist minister and an active WCTU member, Smart was born in 1870 in New York City and spent much of her childhood and adolescence in dry communities in Illinois and the Dakotas. She attended seminary and studied business

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before becoming first a teacher and then a stenographer in a law office. While working as a typist, she organized a Y, a foray into union work that eventually led to appointments as district superintendent of Scientific Temperance Instruction and state Y president. Grace Van Vleet, “Kara G. Smart,” Life Sketches, no. 8 (Chicago: Ruby I. Gilbert, n.d.). This can be found in a folder labelled Japan, World Collection, Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives. Japan Evangelist vol. 9, no. 11 (November 1902): 368. Mary H. Hunt, Health for Little Folks, Authorized Physiology Series, no. 1 (New York: American Book Company, 1890); translated by Andō Tarō and published in Japanese as Kinshu, kinen: Yōnen seiri tokuhon (Tokyo: Nihon Kinshu Dōmeikai, 1903). Report of the Sixth Convention of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (n.p.: n.p., 1903), 70. Japan Evangelist vol. 12, no. 3 (March 1905): 92. In describing medal contests in Do Everything, Frances Willard urged that organizers impress on participants the idea that winning was not the primary objective of participation. They should instead stress the important work the reciters were doing in educating those in the audience about the harms of drinking and possibly convincing a number to abstain, for then even non-medal winners would see their talks as worthwhile. Frances E. Willard, Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners (Chicago: Ruby I. Gilbert, [1895]), 67. Japan Evangelist vol. 12, no. 3 (March 1905): 92-93. Report of the Seventh Convention of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (n.p.: Bowman Publishing, 1906), 115; Japan Evangelist vol. 11, no. 8 (August 1904): 268. Japan Evangelist vol. 11, no. 8 (August 1904): 268. This auspicious date marked the nineteenth anniversary of the American WCTU’s first medal contest, as well as Yajima’s seventy-fourth birthday. “Kenshō bungakkai” [Medal contest], Fujin shimpō no. 97 (25 May 1905): 4. Japan Evangelist vol. 12, no. 3 (March 1905): 92. This assertion is supported by the fact that non-victorious participants in later contests received as “consolation” religious booklets. Japan Evangelist vol. 16, no. 1 (January 1910): 32. Shirai had cemented his connection with the WCTU in 1902. That year he married member Hirose Sumeko, joined Ushioda Chiseko and other unionists on a publishing house-sponsored charity trip for seventy disadvantaged girls, and, as mentioned in Chapter 3, collaborated with Ushioda and Yajima Kajiko in establishing the Tokyo Airinsha. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 197, 201. “Kenshō bungakkai,” [Medal contest], Fujin shimpō no. 97 (25 May 1905): 4; World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union White Ribbon Bulletin (August 1905); Japan Evangelist vol. 12, no. 5 (May 1905): 165-66, quoted from 166. Japan Evangelist vol. 12, no. 7 (July 1905): 245. Japan Evangelist vol. 12, no. 11 (November 1905): 379, 381. The suggested program for the meeting included the singing of a temperance doxology, which went: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him who heals the drunkard’s woe, Praise Him who leads the temperance host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Ibid., 37980. As for Gauntlett, she was born in 1873 as the eldest daughter in a samurai family. While still very young, she spent much time with an aunt and uncle, whose Christian faith and social work nurtured in her an interest in both. Their concern over her father’s drinking, adultery, and reckless spending led to her enrolment at Sakurai Jogakkō when she was six. The eleven years she spent there strengthened her beliefs, yet her real conversion occurred in her early twenties when she was teaching at the

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Congregational Kyōai Jogakkō, living with Frances Parmelee, and interpreting and translating for the missionary. She had previously joined the WCTU, but Parmelee’s own involvement and a request that she interpret for Smart at the union’s annual meeting in 1903 paved the way for active participation. With her husband Edward’s consent, she became Smart’s full-time translator and thereafter served in a number of administrative posts, including an eight-year stint as president postwar. Gantoretto [Gauntlett] Tsune, Nanajūnananen no omoide [Remembrances of seventy-seven years] (Tokyo: Uemura Shoten, 1949; reprint, Denki sōsho Series, vol. 68, Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1989), 3-78; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 688-89. Japan Evangelist vol. 13, no. 3 (March 1906): 94. Indeed, the Medal Contest Department stood out as one of the three most commonly adopted by LTLs. Japan Evangelist vol. 17, no. 7 (July 1910): 269. The figure of fifty represents a rough estimate based on only those contests reported in Japan Evangelist. For the 1909-10 number, see ibid. Japan Evangelist vol. 17, no. 8 (August 1910): 314; vol. 13, no. 3 (March 1906): 93. An extensive search of materials in Japanese failed to uncover any reciters from the Meiji period, unfortunately making more than mention of these few entry titles impossible. Japan Evangelist vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1910): 223. Japan Evangelist vol. 16, no. 1 (January 1909): 32; vol. 17, no. 8 (August 1910): 314. Recitations also dealt with the harm of smoking, and these proved equally effective. For example, a youngster speaking at an LTL rally in Tokyo in 1911 convinced a businessman to pledge abstinence from tobacco. Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 4 (April 1911): 150. Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 2 (February 1911): 66. Chūgaku sekai vol. 14, no. 5 (April 1911): 87; Japan Evangelist vol. 18, no. 5 (May 1911): 183. Chūgaku sekai vol. 14, no. 9 (July 1911): 162-69; vol. 14, no. 10 (August 1911): 160-67; Report of the Ninth Convention of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (n.p.: n.p., 1913), 107. Chūgaku sekai vol. 14, no. 10 (August 1911): 127. For the winning essays, see vol. 14, no. 16 (December 1911): 162-75. Janet E. Hunter, comp., Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 40-41; Watanabe, Nihon shoku seikatsushi, 290. Tsuji Iwao, Daigokai naikoku hakurankai jyushō meiroku [A list of prize winners at the Fifth National Industrial Exposition] (Kobe: Deirī Nyūsusha, 1903), 2-4, 35; Inoue Kumajirō, ed., Naikoku kangyō hakurankai annaiki [Guide to the National Industrial Exposition] (Tokyo: Kōbunsha, 1903), 2. Tsuji, Daigokai naikoku hakurankai jyushō meiroku, 1, 4-21, 28-29, 32, 35; Inoue, ed., Naikoku kangyō hakurankai annaiki, 2; Watanabe, Nihon shoku seikatsushi, 290. I offer the following chart to make easier a quick comparison of the five national exhibitions. The figures come from Tsuji, Daigokai naikoku hakurankai jyushō meiroku, 35, and Inoue, ed., Naikoku kangyō hakurankai annaiki, 2. Fairs Grounds (tsubo) Days open Visitors Exhibits Exhibitors

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1st 1877

2nd 1881

3rd 1890

4th 1895

5th 1903

29,800 102 454,168 84,552 16,174

40,000 122 822,395 331,168 31,239

43,000 122 1,023,653 167,066 77,436

50,000 122 1,136,695 169,098 73,781

104,087 153 5,305,209 276,478 132,564

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62 Fujin shimpō no. 33 (25 January 1900): 25-26, quoted from 26. 63 Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 35 (21 March 1891): 2-5; Koshio Kanji, Nihon kinshu undō no hachijūnen: Tōkyō Kinshukai, 1890-1970 [Eighty years of the Japanese temperance movement: The Tokyo Temperance Society, 1890-1970] (Tokyo: Nihon Kinshu Dōmei, 1970), 81-82, quoted from 82. 64 As mentioned in the introduction, note 8, the Polyglot Petition represented the World WCTU’s attempt to unite women worldwide behind not just temperance but also reform and the advancement of women more broadly. Its many critics questioned its effectiveness for a variety of reasons, including the fact that women in most countries lacked voting rights and could not demand any official response. It did, however, prove an effective educational, organizational, and public relations tool at the national and international levels. The first copy arrived in Japan with Mary Clement Leavitt’s belongings. Tsuda Sen took the lead in collecting signatures, though the petition drive gained more momentum among Japanese in the early 1890s when the Japan WCTU and the Methodist publishing house Kyōbunkan began to distribute copies. A key push among foreign residents came in June 1895 when Japan Evangelist carried the original English version. Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World / Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 39-43; Elizabeth Putnam Gordon, Women Torch-Bearers: The Story of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 2d ed. (Evanston: National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Publishing House, 1924), 70-73; Japan Evangelist vol. 2, no. 5 (June 1895): 295-96; vol. 3, no. 2 (December 1895): 103; vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1896): 238. A copy in Japanese, along with the names, addresses, and gender of nine signatories, can be found in a folder labelled Japan, World Collection, Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives. 65 Minutes of the Second Biennial Convention and Executive Committee Meetings of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Including Addresses, Superintendents’ Reports, Papers, and Letters (Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, 1893), 229; along with the copy of the prospectus, the issues of the periodical can be found in the file labelled Japan, World Collection, Frances E. Willard Memorial Library and Archives. 66 Japan Evangelist vol. 2, no. 2 (December 1894): 66-67. 67 Japan Evangelist vol. 2, no. 5 (June 1895): 311. 68 Japan Evangelist vol. 13, no. 4 (April 1906): 149-51; vol. 13, no. 6 (June 1906): 220; vol. 14, no. 3 (March 1907): 102; vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1910): 465-66, 470-71; Fujin shimpō no. 161 (15 November 1910): 19-21. 69 Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 3 (March 1903): 84, 87; vol. 10, no. 4 (April 1903): 135-36. Page 135 carries a photo of the gospel hall. 70 Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 5 (May 1903): 145, including a photo. 71 The six WCTU members on the committee were Yajima Kajiko, Ushioda Chiseko, Kozaki Chiyoko, Watase Kameko, Shimizu Fukiko, and Ukai Taeko. 72 Otis Cary, A History of Christianity in Japan, vol. 2 (Protestant Missions) (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1909; reprint, Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle, 1976), 201-2; Fujin shimpō no. 35 (25 March 1900): 30-31; no. 45 (25 January 1901): 28; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 1374. 73 “Wagatō no jindate” [Plan for battle], Fujin shimpō no. 70 (25 February 1903): 1-2; “Hakurankai kyōfū undō iinkai” [Temperance committees for the Osaka exposition], in same, 7. 74 “Hakurankai kyōfū undō iinkai,” 7-8. 75 ¥100 in 1903 would be roughly equivalent to ¥714,000 in 2009. Fujin shimpō no. 70 (25 February 1903): 21; “Hakurankai kyōfū undōhi kifukin” [Contributions for reform work at the Osaka exposition], no. 71 (25 March 1903): 31-32.

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76 Tsuji, Daigokai naikoku hakurankai jyushō meiroku, 6-21, appendix 1-3. A series of unnumbered pages in this volume carries celebratory announcements by award winners, including the Sapporo and Osaka Beer Brewery Companies. 77 Kara Smart, “Hakurankai ni okeru kyōfū jigyō” [Temperance work at the exposition], Fujin shimpō no. 73 (25 May 1903): 11-12; Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 3 (March 1903): 86-87 [reprinted in Union Signal, 7 May 1903, 3]; Kirin Bīru, ed., Bīru to Nihonjin, 143, quoted from Japan Evangelist, 86. 78 Smart, Hakurankai ni okeru kyōfū jigyō, 12. Smart was not alone in criticizing the presence of Murai, Ebisu, and other brewers. Henry Bullard, a colonel in the Salvation Army, did likewise when he reported in Japan Evangelist that “evidences everywhere of the increasing hold that the drink and tobacco evils are gaining upon the nation” will be a “source of extreme disappointment.” Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 5 (May 1903): 145. 79 Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 3 (March 1903): 85, 87; “Hakurankai kinshu kyūkeijo” [Temperance rest house at the exposition], Fujin shimpō no. 71 (25 March 1903): 7. 80 Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 3 (March 1903): 85. 81 According to a final report of the campaign printed in the July 1903 issue of Japan Evangelist, the work of the rest house had already stimulated the organization of a temperance society in Osaka, and the WCTU’s headquarters had received requests for speakers and printed materials. Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 7 (July 1903): 236-37; Smart, “Hakurankai kyōfū undō saigo hōkoku” [Final report of reform work at the exposition], Fujin shimpō no. 75 (25 July 1903): 23-24. 82 Case in point, the WCTU’s revenue for the period from April 1902 to March 1903 totalled only ¥220. Fujin shimpō no. 72 (25 April 1903): 31. 83 Ibid., 23; “Hakurankai kyōfū undō iinkai” [Temperance committee for the Osaka exposition], Fujin shimpō no. 73 (25 May 1903): 7; Japan Evangelist vol. 10, no. 7 (July 1903): 238.

Chapter 6: Imperial Loyalty and Patriotic Service Japan WCTU-Style Material from this chapter originally appeared in “Wearing the White Ribbon of Reform and the Banner of Civic Duty: Yajima Kajiko and the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the Meiji Period,” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal nos. 30-31 (2006): 60-79. Reproduced by permission from Josai International University. 1 As I will discuss in this chapter, two scholars who have made such assertions about Christians and the WCTU in particular are Mitsuki Hiroko, “Meiji fujin zasshi no kiseki” [The locus of Meiji women’s magazines], in Fujin zasshi no yoake, ed. Kindai Josei Bunkashi Kenkyūkai (Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1989), 3-102; Chino Yōichi, Kindai Nihon fujin kyōikushi: Taiseinai fujin dantai no keisei katei o chūshin ni [A history of women’s education in modern Japan: With a focus on the process of formation of women’s organizations within the establishment] (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1979). 2 Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 6-18, 46-55. 3 Miyazawa Masayoshi, “Jogaku zasshi” [Jogaku zasshi], in Kindai tennōsei to Kirisutokyō, ed. Dohi Akio and Tanaka Masato, Dōshisha Daigaku Jimbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo Series, no. 25 (Kyoto: Jimbun Shoin, 1996), 105-11. Fujin shimpō contained ninety articles on the imperial family from 1889 until 1905, a number that pales in comparison with Jogaku zasshi but still puts its coverage on par with that in the Salvation Army’s Toki no koe (Voice of the times) as well as in Jindō (Humanity), an influential Christian monthly that Tomeoka Kōsuke had established to enlighten readers about welfare work. Tanaka Masato, “Fujin shimpō no kōshitsu kanren kiji” [Articles in Fujin shimpō

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in connection with the imperial family], Kirisutokyō shakai mondai kenkyū no. 51 (December 2002): 213-26, quoted from 216; Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō rekishi daijiten [A historical dictionary of Christianity in Japan] (NKRD) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1988), 704. Sōdōshū Sensho Kankōkai, ed., Sōdōshū sensho [Select writings from the Sōdō sect of Buddhism], vol. 7 (Kyōgyō-hen: Kessha katsudō) (Tokyo: Dōmeisha Shuppan, 1982), 4, 6-7, quoted from 6-7. Notto Thelle has argued that Buddhists were uncritical of the imperial cult and the state’s efforts to propagate it and that they continued to express “political and religious loyalty” to the imperial institution during the Meiji period just as they had done in the past. This comment mirrors those about Christians with its implication that Buddhists became puppets of the state. The objective of the Sonnō Hōbutsu Daidōdan allows for a counter-interpretation as it highlights the fact that members consciously linked themselves to the emperor and used the alliance to advance their own faith. Doing the same was the Shinshū Kyōsankai (Pure Land Mutual Aid Society), an organization founded in 1889 by followers of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism (True Pure Land School) to reform customs and promote temperance in particular. For example, at a two-day meeting in July 1891, its invited lecturer, layman Ōuchi Seiran, advocated abstinence in a talk titled “Sonnō hōbutsuron” (Arguments for revering the emperor and serving Buddha). Two exceptions clearly do not make a rule, but they suggest the need for more research on Buddhist engagement with the imperial institution. Notto R. Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity in Japan: From Conflict to Dialogue, 1854-1899 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1987), 115; the talk was printed in Onaka Ikuta, ed., Sonnō hōbutsuron [Arguments for revering the emperor and serving Buddha] (Mitashirimura, Yamaguchi: Shinshū Kyōsankai, 1891). Mitsuki, “Meiji fujin zasshi no kiseki,” 34. Chino, Kindai Nihon fujin kyōikushi, 59. Yajima Kajiko, “Hōshuku no shin’i” [The true meaning of the coronation], Fujin shimpō no. 220 (28 November 1915): 1-4. Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 116-21. Fujin shimpō no. 34 (25 February 1900): 1; no. 36 (25 April 1900): 29; no. 37 (25 May 1900): 37; no. 39 (25 July 1900): 32. Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 118. “Tōgū gokekkon no seiyaku” [The promise of the crown prince’s marriage], Fujin shimpō no. 34 (25 February 1900): 1. When discussing articles in the WCTU’s periodical in this chapter, I will attribute authorship to the woman then serving as editor unless bylines were printed. To distinguish between the two cases, I will provide simply the reference when there is no designated author and include within the notes the names of writers when they are specifically identified. “Gokeiji to ippuippuron” [The imperial wedding and the argument for monogamy], Fujin shimpō no. 37 (25 May 1900): 1. “Tōgō gokeiji to kinshu” [The crown prince’s wedding and temperance], Fujin shimpō no. 36 (25 April 1900): 2. One exception was the announcement in Fujin shimpō of the birth of the crown prince and princess’ son in 1901. This lead article acknowledged the great satisfaction and happiness the emperor and empress must have felt at the birth of their first grandchild and referred to the baby’s safe arrival as a “lucky omen” for the perpetuation of the unbroken imperial line. It ended with an expression of gratitude for this blessing in the life of the imperial family and a prayer that the new addition would live a long life full of wisdom. “Kōson no gokōtan” [The birth of the imperial grandchild], Fujin shimpō no. 49 (25 May 1901): 1. A number of other articles did not specifically link

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the imperial family to temperance and monogamy but had a similarly reverential tone and as such helped disseminate the imperial cult. As Tanaka Masato has pointed out, these focused on the empress’ charitable endeavours, especially those in connection with the Red Cross, and dovetailed with Jogaku zasshi’s portrayal of her as a benevolent woman. Tanaka, “Fujin shimpō no kōshitsu kanren kiji,” 218. “Shuku chikyūsetsu” [Celebrating the empress’ birthday], Fujin shimpō no. 133 (25 May 1908): 1. Yajima Kajiko, “Chikyūsetsu no yurai” [The origins of the empress’ birthday celebration], Shimin vol. 4, no. 4 (28 May 1909): 16-18; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Hyakunenshi) (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 54; “Chikyūsetsu o shuku shi waga kaiin shokun ni nozomu” [Hoping our members will celebrate the empress’ birthday], Fujin shimpō no. 49 (25 May 1901): 1. Japan Evangelist vol. 1, no. 5 (June 1894): 284. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 308; Fujin shimpō no. 181 (10 August 1912): 1. Union Signal, 19 May 1898, 5. “Kyōfūkai to kinshu jigyō” [The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and temperance work], Fujin shimpō no. 60 (25 April 1902): 1. Born in 1862, Kozaki studied at Kaigan Jogakkō, an American Methodist mission school for girls in Tokyo. She converted to Christianity and taught Sunday school while a student. Shortly after graduating in 1883, she married fellow convert Kozaki Hiromichi and became immersed in supporting his career, working as an English and music instructor, and eventually raising their five children. In spite of those demands on her time, she was especially active in the WCTU from the beginning and assumed a myriad of official roles before becoming editor of Fujin shimpō in 1902. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 277, 519-20; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 503-4. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 156; Japan Evangelist vol. 17, no. 4 (April 1910): 152; vol. 17, no. 7 (July 1910): 271; Fujin shimpō nos. 157-58 (15 August 1910): 16. Kubushiro Ochimi, ed., Yajima Kajiko den [Biography of Yajima Kajiko] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1956), 42-53. The highlights of the WCTU’s interwar peace work coincided with the Washington and London Conferences, at which Japan agreed with the world’s leading sea powers to curtail naval build-up. Yajima, Kozaki, and Moriya Azuma attended the former meetings in 1921 and there presented President Warren Harding with a peace petition bearing ten thousand signatures. That same year the words “peace, purity, and temperance” became a regular feature on the cover of Fujin shimpō. In 1930, Hayashi Utako and Tsuneko Gauntlett submitted another appeal to delegates in London, which expressed the support of nearly twice as many Japanese women for arms limitation. Nakadzumi Naoko, “Onna ni yoru onna no tame no katsudō: Yokohama Fujin Kyōfūkai no gojūnen” [Activities for women by women: Fifty years of the Yokohama Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], in Shi no Kai kenkyūshi: Jidai no mezame o yomu, vol. 3, ed. Shi no Kai (Yokohama: Esashi Akiko, 1996), 224; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 1026, 1029. Robert Kisala, Prophets of Peace: Pacifism and Cultural Identity in Japan’s New Religions (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999), 16-22.

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25 Nobuya Bamba and John F. Howes, eds., Pacifism in Japan: The Christian and Socialist Tradition, with a foreword by Robert N. Bellah (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1978), 8-10, 15. 26 Kisala, Prophets of Peace, 16. 27 “Nisshin no sen to kyōfū mondai” [War between Japan and China and moral reform problems], Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 10 (2 August 1894): 33. Christians offered this defence whether they were writing in Japanese or English and publishing in religious or secular media. Case in point, just after the war started, Uchimura Kanzō provided a lengthy piece to the Japan Weekly Mail, the leading English-language paper in Yokohama, in which he declared that Japan had not only a right but also a duty to act. He justified this assertion by arguing that Korean “independence [was] in jeopardy, because the world’s most backward nation [was] grasping it in her benumbing coils, and savagery and inhumanity reign[ed] there when light and civilization [were] at her very doors.” Uchimura Kanzō, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū [Collected works of Uchimura Kanzō], vol. 3 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1981), 42-43, quoted in Kisala, Prophets of Peace, 38. 28 “Sensō to Kyōfūkai” [War and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union], Fujin shimpō no. 82 (25 February 1904): 1-2, quoted from 1. 29 The just-war defence was by no means the lone purview of converts to Christianity during either of the Meiji period’s two wars. Quite the opposite, it transcended religious affiliation and affected mainstream opinion. Wielding an even greater influence on popular thought leading up to and during the Russo-Japanese War was a pervasive chauvinism about Japan’s rights and responsibilities on the international stage. Part and parcel of that mood was antagonism toward Russia after its role in the Triple Intervention and its forceful acquisition of territory in China following the Boxer Rebellion. Kozaki’s editorial in support of war with Russia reflects that greater animosity; so do articles in Buddhist publications, including a piece in the March 1904 issue of Shin-Bukkyō (The new Buddhism). Its author excoriated Russia as “a violent country and a destroyer of civilization” and argued that Japan had to crush this most unenlightened of Western countries in order to guarantee peace and defend civilization. “Nichi-Ro sensō kan” [Views of the Russo-Japanese War], Shin-Bukkyō vol. 5, no. 3 (March 1904): 169-72, quoted from 171. For more on the popular media during wartime, see James L. Huffman, Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 199-223, 271-309. 30 Kozaki included a passage of this lecture, titled “Komponteki no kyōfū” [Fundamental moral reform], in Fujin shimpō no. 99 (25 July 1905): 1-2, quoted from 1. 31 “Gunkoku fujin no tachiba” [The place of women in countries at war], Fujin shimpō no. 83 (25 March 1904): 1-3, quoted from 2 and 3. 32 Katano Masako, “Fujin Kyōfūkai ni miru haishō undō no shisō: Futatabi tennōseika no sei to ningen o megutte” [Thoughts displayed by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union about the movement to abolish prostitution: Sex and humans under the emperor system once again], in Josei to bunka III: Ie, kazoku, katei, ed. Ningen Bunka Kenkyūkai (Tokyo: JCA Shuppan, 1984), 239. 33 Chino, Kindai Nihon fujin kyōikushi, 107-11. The biggest and most involved of organizations was the Red Cross. In 1877, Sano Tsunetami had founded the Hakuaisha (Society of Benevolence) for the explicit purpose of providing medical aid to those wounded during the Satsuma Rebellion. The International Committee of the Red Cross extended it formal recognition in 1886 after the Japanese government signed the Geneva Convention, and it was renamed the Sekijūjisha (Red Cross Society) the following year. As such, the organization concentrated on training nurses, operating

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hospitals for paying and charity cases, and dispatching medical personnel to areas hit by natural disasters. The society struggled at first, but imperial patronage, its semiofficial status, and especially the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War changed its fortunes. Membership jumped from 36,700 in 1893 to 160,000 in 1895, as Japanese flocked to support its care of troops on the battlefield, at sea, and at home. Olive Checkland, Humanitarianism and the Emperor’s Japan, 1877-1977 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1994), xii-xiv, 8-9, 29-46; Hyakunenshi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Jindō - sono ayumi: Nihon Sekijūjisha hyakunenshi [Humanity - that history: One hundred years of the Japan Red Cross Society] (Tokyo: Nihon Sekijūjisha, 1979), 160-64. “Nisshin no sen to kyōfū mondai.” “Kyōfū jigyō to aikokushin” [Reform work and patriotism], Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 11 (2 September 1894): 1-2, quoted from 2. This link between abstinence from vice and the raising of money for military expenses was one that the WCTU again stressed during the Russo-Japanese War. For examples, see Nemoto Tokuko, “Gunshi to kitsuen” [War funds and the smoking of tobacco], Fujin shimpō no. 82 (25 February 1904): 16-17; “Sei-Ro kōen toshite no kinshu” [Temperance as a means to support the attack on Russia], Fujin shimpō no. 83 (25 March 1904): 17-19. “Fujin no shin’yō to menmoku” [The faith and honour of women], Fujin kyōfū zasshi no. 12 (2 October 1894): 1-2; Takekoshi Yosaburō, “Kokunan no fujin” [The national crisis and women], no. 13 (2 November 1894): 1-6. Minutes of the Third Biennial Convention and Executive Committee Meetings of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Including President’s Address, Superintendents’ Reports, Papers, and Letters (London: White Ribbon Company, 1895), 160. Takekoshi Takeyo, ed., Gunjin no izoku ni okuru sho [A letter to the bereaved families of soldiers and sailors] (Tokyo: Fujin Kyōfū Zasshi Jimusho, 1894), 18-19. Ibid., 21. Protestants were not alone in using the war as an opportunity to promote their faith as a source of comfort in the face of death at the same time that they stressed the taking up of arms as a patriotic duty. Buddhists did as well. In a tract for soldiers remarkably similar to Takekoshi’s, Jōdo Shinshū chief priest Hino Reizui stressed that all Japanese had a responsibility to sacrifice during the Sino-Japanese War for the sake of society and as repayment for the “goodness of our Emperor.” He continued that, if a soldier hesitated to lay down his life on the battlefield and thus failed in his part, the end result would be a shameful death. Should the soldier repeat Buddha’s name with sincerity, however, he would achieve internal peace and ensure that, when he did die, Buddha would “instantly come to receive him to the blessed state of the Pure Land, or Paradise.” Indeed, Hino emphasized, Buddha liked loyalty to the Emperor and proper performance of civic duty and would reward both. Translated and reprinted in Japan Evangelist vol. 3, no. 1 (October 1895): 25-27, quoted from 26. Fujin shimpō no. 3 (28 April 1895): 32. Fujin shimpō no. 2 (28 March 1895): 29. Checkland, Humanitarianism and the Emperor’s Japan, 9, 47-70; Hyakunenshi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Jindō - sono ayumi, 165-67. Chino, Kindai Nihon fujin kyōikushi, 124, 134-35. For a more extensive overview of the Aikoku Fujinkai’s activities during the Russo-Japanese War, see Mitsui Kōsaburō, Aikoku Fujinkai-shi [A history of the Patriotic Women’s Association] (Tokyo: Aikoku Fujinkai Hakkōsho, 1910), reprinted in Aikoku, kokubō fujin undō shiryōshū, ed. Chino Yōichi, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 1996), 104-37. Born in 1874, Satō studied at Meiji Jogakkō and became a Christian while there. She joined the WCTU before graduating in 1895, and her reformist zeal and educational background quickly led to her appointment as secretary. In 1899, she married Yama-

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muro Gumpei, and her deep involvement in the Salvation Army, particularly her work overseeing the Army’s home for former prostitutes and destitute women, left her little time to devote to the gunjinka. Shimada Tomiko, “Yamamuro Kieko (18741916),” in Shakai jigyō ni ikita joseitachi: Sono shōgai to shigoto, ed. Gomi Yuriko (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1973), 141-49. For elaboration on Yamamuro’s education, conversion, marriage, and involvement with the Salvation Army, see Yamamuro Gumpei, Yamamuro Kieko (Tokyo: Kyūseigun Nihon Ei, 1916; reprint, Denki sōsho Series, vol. 70, Ōzorasha, 1989), 8-79. Shimizu Fukiko, “Gunjinka ni tsuite” [Concerning the Department of Servicemen], Fujin shimpō no. 82 (25 February 1904): 3. In this report, Shimizu did not indicate whether the servicemen Sōshū members visited were injured in regular training exercises or while participating in the international expedition to suppress China’s Boxer Rebellion. The YMCA and the Salvation Army likewise saw in the war opportunities to advance their own agendas. The former set up tents at first near bases in Japan and later in Manchuria to provide a comfortable and morally upstanding place for soldiers and sailors to relax. There members put out pens and paper for letter writing, newspapers, magazines, and books for reading, and tea for refreshment. They also cut hair, washed clothes, filled baths, and regularly held Bible study sessions and lectures on topics ranging from the patriotic to the religious. As for the Salvation Army, it focused on providing solace to the wounded, the bereaved, and the captured. More specifically, Salvationists visited military hospitals to mend clothes, write letters for and read to the incapacitated, convene religious meetings, and distribute Bibles, tracts, and copies of the Army’s magazine. Many components of this work were duplicated among the families of soldiers and sailors killed in action as well as Russian prisonersof-war. Jon Thares Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress: The American YMCA in Japan, 1890-1930 (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1998), 113; Albert E. Baggs, “Social Evangel as Nationalism: A Study of the Salvation Army in Japan, 1895-1940” (PhD diss., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1966), 137. Shimizu, “Gunjinka ni tsuite,” 3-7. Reinforcing Shimizu’s message about service were the following two articles, which appeared after hers in this same issue of Fujin shimpō: Honda Teiko, “Gunkoku no fujin” [Women in a nation at war], 7-8; Matsuyama Takashi, “Nichi-Ro no sensō to Kirisutokyōto fujin” [The Russo-Japanese War and Christian women], 17-19. Smart also published a list of suggestions for activities similar to Shimizu’s in Japan Evangelist to inspire missionaries and members of the Foreign Auxiliary in particular to lend a helping hand. Japan Evangelist vol. 11, no. 4 (April 1904): 132-33. “Gunjin izoku no dendō” [Evangelistic outreach toward the bereaved families of servicemen], Fujin shimpō no. 86 (25 June 1904): 3-4. Fujin shimpō no. 84 (25 April 1904): 17; no. 85 (25 May 1904): 8, 16-20; no. 99 (25 July 1905): 15; no. 107 (25 March 1906): 26; World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union White Ribbon Bulletin (July 1906); Union Signal, 5 May 1904, 3. The military had facilitated the development of a culture of consumption among troops from at least 1887. That year a canteen began operation at a base in Osaka, and among its initial offerings were beer, wine, and sake. As the story goes, how much sake an individual could buy was limited, but there was no restriction on beer purchases. Nearly identical canteens quickly became common features of bases across Japan. During the Russo-Japanese War, servicemen not only could buy alcohol on their own but received rations at their billets as well. Kirin Bīru, ed., Bīru to Nihonjin: Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa bīru fukyūshi [Beer and the Japanese: A history of the spread of beer in Meiji, Taisho, and Showa] (Tokyo: Sanshōdō, 1984), 127-29.

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51 Union Signal, 10 August 1905, 2. 52 Early in the war, comfort bags were alternatively referred to as gunjinbukuro (bags for servicemen), nagusamebukuro (consolation bags), and benribukuro (handy bags). Because imonbukuro became in time the standard designation, I rely on its literal translation, comfort bag, here. Any mention of “comfort” in connection with wartime Japan is problematic, given the word’s widely known use to refer to the 80,000 to 100,000-some women, mainly from Korea, but also from Taiwan, China, and parts of Southeast Asia, who were forced to serve in Japanese military brothels from the early 1930s until the end of the Pacific War. I want to stress that “comfort” carried no connotation of sexual contact, consensual or otherwise, during the Russo-Japanese War, as the following discussion of the WCTU’s aims with the sending of bags should make clear. 53 Fujin shimpō no. 83 (25 March 1904): 13. 54 Fujin shimpō no. 82 (25 February 1904): 5, 7. 55 Fujin shimpō no. 83 (25 March 1904): 13; no. 84 (25 April 1904): 5-8. 56 Fujin shimpō no. 85 (25 May 1904): 7; no. 90 (25 October 1904): 29; Kubushiro, ed., Yajima Kajiko den (1956), 41. 57 Born in 1858 as the second daughter of a chief retainer of a pro-Tokugawa daimyo, Ōzeki spent her adolescence in Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration turned her family’s fortunes upside down. She eventually married and returned to her birthplace only to divorce after having two children. Back in Tokyo and in need of a means to support them, she enrolled in the newly opened nurses’ training school attached to Sakurai Jogakkō. The education she received and her conversion at the hands of Uemura Masahisa paved the way for her to work first as chief surgical nurse at a university hospital in Tokyo and then as both an evangelist and a dormitory supervisor at a girls’ school Japanese Christians had opened in Takada (Niigata). In 1896, she again moved back to Tokyo to take charge of a nursing school, concurrently working as a visiting nurse and becoming increasingly active in the WCTU. Nihon Kirisutokyō Rekishi Daijiten Henshū Iinkai, ed., NKRD, 225. 58 In her reports in Fujin shimpō, Ōzeki identified individuals who had donated their time, labour, and money during her month-long campaign. A scan of names reveals that men were as inclined as women to support comfort bag work. This fact suggests that the WCTU effectively argued that the giving of solace during wartime was not the sole responsibility of women but rather the patriotic duty of all Japanese. Ōzeki Chikako, “Tōkyō ni okeru imonbukuro boshū” [The collection of comfort bags in Tokyo], Fujin shimpō no. 89 (25 September 1904): 24-25; ”Tōkyō ni okeru imonbukuro boshū (zengō no tsuzuki)” no. 90 (25 October 1904): 18-24; “Tōkyō imonbukuro boshū hōkoku” [Report on the collection of comfort bags in Tokyo], no. 91 (25 November 1904): 18-23; Kohiyama Rui, Amerika fujin senkyōshi: Rainichi no haikei to sono eikyō [American women missionaries: The background of their coming to Japan and their influence] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1992), 279. 59 Fujin shimpō no. 94 (25 February 1905): 4. 60 Union Signal, 29 December 1904, 4. After initially refusing to grant the YMCA permission to set up tents in Manchuria, the War Department similarly reversed that stance. Jon Thares Davidann has suggested that evidence the society was providing comfort and helping maintain morale without eroding troop loyalty informed this policy change. He has proposed as a second causal factor the calculation that the “involvement of a prominent American institution like the YMCA on the Japanese side [would increase] the possibilities for positive press coverage of the war and favorable impression in the United States.” Both ring true for the War Department’s shift regarding comfort bags. So does the explanation Sharon Nolte and Sally Hastings have posited

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for why the state approved and even advocated women’s public work during wartime. Specifically, they have written that the state supported activities that were “extensions of traditional feminine responsibilities.” Along those lines, one could argue that, once war officials confirmed that the sending of comfort bags fell under that rubric, they became supporters of the enterprise. Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress, 113-17, quoted from 114; Sharon Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, “The Meiji State’s Policy toward Women, 1890-1910,” in Recreating Japanese Women, 16001945, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 157-63, quoted from 161. Fujin shimpō no. 92 (25 December 1904): 7-8. “Shussei gunjin imon to seisho: Nagano, Ōsaka, Kōfu shichō no gokai” [Bibles and the comfort of soldiers on the front: Misunderstanding by the mayors of Nagano, Osaka, and Kōfu], Fujin shimpō no. 96 (25 April 1905): 1-2, quoted from 1. The WCTU learned that the report about the mayor of Osaka had been false shortly after the April 1905 issue was published, leading Kozaki to issue a retraction the next month. In that, she actually lauded the mayor as a union sympathizer and noted that he had written a letter of introduction for the Osaka WCTU when the branch wanted to gain admittance to a reservists’ hospital in order to offer condolences to the injured. Fujin shimpō no. 97 (25 May 1905): 2. Fujin shimpō no. 96 (25 April 1905): 20-23. Fujin shimpō no. 97 (25 May 1905): insertion facing the table of contents, 14-30, 36-38; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 224. Fujin shimpō no. 100 (25 August 1905): 18. Ibid., 16-17, quoted from 16; reprinted in Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 223-24. Fujin shimpō no. 100 (25 August 1905): 16. A testament to this awareness appeared in “Masa ni jōzu beki kōkikai” [An excellent opportunity we must naturally take advantage of], Fujin shimpō no. 92 (25 December 1904): 2-3. Moriya Azuma, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai gojūnenshi [A fifty-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1936), 17; Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai Ōsaka Shibu nempō [Annual report of the Osaka branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Osaka: Fujin Kyōfūkai Osaka Shibu, 1937), 19; Union Signal, 8 November 1906, 6. Not all gifts the WCTU received were as welcome as these. The Hirosaki branch was sent a wooden sake bowl by the governor of Aomori prefecture in recognition of its ¥62 contribution to an official relief fund for soldiers and sailors. The union promptly returned it with a note to the effect that using it as intended was inconsistent with the society’s principles. Fujin shimpō no. 106 (25 December 1905): 6. Mitsui, Aikoku Fujinkai-shi, 137-46; Davidann, A World of Crisis and Progress, 120. That the emperor and empress gave the YMCA money and the WCTU utensils not strictly associated with alcohol consumption suggests that temperance forces did succeed in modifying official gift-giving practices. That said, the selection of gifts remained the prerogative of the giver and could be situational, as the examples of the Hirosaki branch and the Aikoku Fujinkai illustrate. Japan Evangelist vol. 4, no. 8 (May 1897): 252-53; Fujin shimpō no. 33 (25 January 1900): back cover; Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Hyakunenshi, 214. Similarly, though members of the Tokyo WCTU had responded to a plea from Smart to add “Christian” to the branch’s official name at their annual meeting in 1903, references to the local in Fujin shimpō continued to exclude that religious marker. Fujin shimpō no. 80 (25 December 1903): 28.



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Notes to pages 171-74

Epilogue 1 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, ed., Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai hyakunenshi [A one-hundred-year history of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1986), 1024-31. 2 Ibid., 1014, 1032-33. 3 Ibid., 1034-61. 4 Ibid., 1062; Arubamu Iinkai, ed., Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu [A visual one-hundred-year history: The 1886 founding of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988). 5 Shizuko Ohshima and Carolyn Francis, Japan through the Eyes of Women Migrant Workers (Tokyo: Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1989), vii, 3-179, 19597. The statistics come from a table I received in 1998 from Takahashi Kikue, then the General Secretary of the Japan Anti-Prostitution Association and an active member of the WCTU. 6 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai nempyō: 101-shūnen ~ 110-shūnen [A chronological table of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union: 1987-96] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1997), 3; Ohshima and Francis, Japan through the Eyes of Women Migrant Workers, 200-12. 7 Against Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation Activities in Japan (Tokyo: Japan AntiProstitution Association, 1997), 14-39; Japanese Women Supporting WWII Sexual Enslavement Victims (Tokyo: Japan Anti-Prostitution Association, 1993). The latter source includes translated appeals to three prime ministers, two education ministers, and several members of the Diet. 8 Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai nempyō, 3-10.



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Japanese-Language Primary Sources Japanese-Language Periodicals Chūgaku sekai [Middle school world] Fujin kyōfū zasshi [Woman’s moral reform magazine] Fujin shimpō [Woman’s herald] Fujo shimbun [Woman’s newspaper] Haishō [The abolition of prostitution] Hanseikai zasshi [Magazine of the Self-Examination Society] Hi no maru [The rising sun] Hikari [The light] Jogaku zasshi [Woman’s education magazine] Kakusei [Purity] Kinshu zasshi [Temperance magazine] Kirisutokyō sekai [The Christian world] Kuni no hikari [The light of the country] Ōsaka asahi shimbun [Osaka daily newspaper] Shin-Bukkyō [The new Buddhism] Tōkyō asahi shimbun [Tokyo daily newspaper] Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi [Tokyo woman’s moral reform magazine] Yokohama Kinshukai zasshi [Yokohama Temperance Society magazine] Other Japanese-Language Primary Sources (All texts were published in Tokyo unless otherwise noted.) Arubamu Iinkai, ed. Me de miru hyakunenshi: Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai 1886-nen sōritsu [A visual one-hundred-year history: The 1886 founding of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union]. Nihon Kirisutokyō Fujin Kyōfūkai, 1988. Ayumi: Ōsaka Fujin Hōmu sanjūnenshi [A history: Thirty years of the Osaka Home for Women]. Osaka: Fujin Kyōfūkai Osaka Shibu, 1937. Fujiwara Gyōzō. Nihon kinshushi [A history of temperance in Japan]. Nihon Kokumin Kinshu Dōmei, 1940. Fukuoka-ken Joseishi Hensan Iinkai, ed. Shimbun ni miru Fukuoka-ken josei no ayumi: Meiji, Taishō-hen [A history of women in Fukuoka prefecture as seen in newspapers: Meiji and Taisho edition]. Fukuoka: Fukuoka-ken Kikaku Shinkōbu, Kenmin Seikatsukyoku, Josei Seikakuka, 1993.

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Index

Note: “(f)” after a page number indicates a figure, and “(t)” indicates a table Abe Reiko, 7 Ackerman, Jessie, 60-61 Aikoku Fujinkai (Patriotic Women’s Association), 161, 169, 223n70 alcohol: military consumption, 163, 221n50; promotion of Western liquors, 129-30; sake production and consumption, 127-29, 130, 210n8. See also expositions: alcohol and tobacco at the Osaka exposition Alexander, M. Jacqui, 181n20 Ambaras, David, 6 American Protestant missionaries, 28, 94, 113; appointment as WCTU missionaries, 82, 83; drive to evangelize overseas, 15, 17, 21; early work in Japan, 15-16, 17, 114; influence, 4, 34, 36, 37, 38, 44, 47, 49, 50, 131, 156, 180n3, 183n49, 186n13, 187n15, 187n19, 205n24, 208n56, 212n30, 213n47. See also Auxiliary WCTU of Japan; Ladies’ Christian Conference American temperance activism, 18-19, 134, 184n58, 197n30. See also Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), United States Anderson, Marnie, 178n14 Andō Tarō, 53-54, 60-61, 136-37, 138, 200n73; exposition work, 142-43; Health for Little Folks, 135, 147 Andrew, Elizabeth, 73, 79 Annaka Church, 189n32 Aoki Shūzō, 119

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Aoyama Gakuin, 202n98, 208n56 Aoyama Joshi Gakuin (Women’s Academy), 197n24 Asai Saku: biography, 35, 72, 186n13; criticism of Sasaki Toyoju, 55-56, 57, 60; editorial work, 41-42, 54, 193n71; leadership problems, 61, 62, 67; petitions against licensed prostitution and overseas prostitutes, 107, 109, 110; views of prostitutes, 109 Ashikaga shogunate (bakufu), 102 Ashio copper mine, 93 Auxiliary WCTU of Japan, 117, 221n47; exposition work, 142-48(f), 216n81; formation and early problems, 83-84, 87; medal contests for youth, 136, 137; merger with the Japan WCTU, 89; rescue home work, 73, 122, 123. See also American Protestant missionaries Azabu Christian Church, 136 Baba Matsue, 163 Baika Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 70 Ballagh, James, 131, 132, 202n98 Ballhatchet, Helen, 55, 186n9, 187n15 Banchō Church, 189n32 Bible: arguments for/against women speaking in public, 29, 30, 184n58, 191n50; arguments for temperance, 26; controversy over sending copies to servicemen, 166-68, 223n62; reformers’ distribution of, 154, 163, 165, 168, 221n46; translation, 16, 187n17

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Index

Bible Society, 23, 145, 147 Bible women, 44, 93, 190n33, 208n62 Billings, Frederick, 44 Book of Judges, 26 brothel districts: campaigns against, 111-17, 206n32, 207n43, 207n49; creation and regulation of, 102-3, 105-6, 115; number, 105; Sonezaki, 112, 115, 116, 207n43; Yoshiwara, 7, 102, 115-16, 207n49 Brown, S.R. (Samuel Robbins), 191n41 Bullard, Henry, 216n78 bunmei kaika (civilization and enlightenment), 2 Bushnell, Katharine, 73, 79 Butler, Josephine, 206n35 Cary, Otis, 44, 93, 178n9 Chino Yōichi, 151-52 Chōya shimbun (The national paper), 192n55 Christian community in Japan, 3, 189n27, 211n21; Catholic beginnings, 14-15; criticism, opposition, and persecution, 14-15, 16, 78, 92, 102, 157, 164-65, 166-67, 182n33, 183n44; focus of reformers, 7; fujinkai (church-based women’s groups), 189n32; growth and size, 4, 14, 17, 44, 78, 92, 93, 114, 178n9, 186n9. See also American Protestant missionaries; Bible women Christian Work Committee, 141-42, 144 Chūgaku sekai (Middle school world), 138 Churchill, Randolph, 42 civil and criminal codes, 59, 60 Civil War (American), 17, 156, 164 Colligan-Taylor, Karen, 107, 204n18 comfort bags, 163-69(f), 222n52, 222n58, 223n60 concubinage, 28, 29, 52, 55, 59, 191n51. See also Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan and Tokyo: promotion of monogamy Constitution (Meiji), 17, 56, 58, 63, 74 Constitutional Party, 33 Contagious Diseases Act (England), 103 Copeland, Rebecca, 28 Cornes, Edward, 156 Council of State, 104, 105

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243

Crittenton, Charles, 123, 209n81 crown prince. See imperial family Dai-Nihon Chōyūkai, 188n23 Dai-Nihon Fujin Kyōikukai (Greater Japan Women’s Education Society), 195n95 Dai-Nihon Fujin Kyōikukai zasshi (Magazine of the Greater Japan Women’s Education Society), 195n95 Dames of St. Maure, 183n9 danson johi (respect men and despise women), 45, 52, 153 Davidann, Jon Thares, 222n60 Davis, Ruth, 95, 203n105 Denton, Mary, 82-84, 87 “Do Everything,” 20, 86, 95 Do Everything (Willard), 85-86, 200n71, 213n37; Japanese version, 86, 200n73 Dōninsha, 27, 49, 50, 189n29 Dōshisha, 24, 55, 56, 82, 185n65, 187n17, 189n27 Ebara Soroku, 117 Ebina Danjō, 32, 38, 185n65, 186n6, 187n15 Ebina Miya, 36, 37-38, 186n6, 186n10, 187n15 emperor (Meiji). See imperial family empress (Meiji). See imperial family Epstein, Barbara, 18 expositions, 112, 139-40, 214n61(t); alcohol and tobacco at the Osaka exposition, 143-44, 216n78; reformers’ use of, 140-48(f), 192n55, 197n20 Ferris Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 37 Five Precepts (Buddhist), 131 Fujii Haruko, 125 Fujime Yuki, 205n24 Fujin genron no jiyū [Women’s freedom of speech] (Sasaki), 191n50 Fujin Hakuhyō Kurabu. See Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC) Fujin kyōfū zasshi (Woman’s moral reform magazine): content, 73-74, 76, 77, 79, 90, 122, 124; cover, 75(f), 76, 199n57; criticism of, 76; discontinuation, 79-80; editors and publishers, 73; rationale for publishing, 73, 198n40; readers, 83, 159

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Index

Fujin Kyōfūkai (Woman’s Moral Reform Society). See Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Tokyo Fujin shimpō (Woman’s herald), 83, 96; circulation, 92; content, 80, 90, 91-92, 95, 118, 123, 124-25, 143, 153, 155, 157, 160, 161-62, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 199n50, 216n3, 217n14; cover, 4, 80, 81(f), 91, 177n7, 199n57, 218n23; decision to publish, 79-80; editors and publishers, 90, 117, 153, 155, 208n56, 218n20; suspension and reissuance, 90-91, 171, 172 Fujo shimbun (Woman’s newspaper), 93, 202n100 fukoku kyōhei (rich country, strong army), 2 Fukuhara Yūshirō, 41 Fukuin shimpō (Gospel news), 62 Fukushima Shirō, 202n100 Fukuzawa Yukichi, 27, 129, 205n27 Garon, Sheldon, 6 Gauntlett, Edward, 214n47 Gauntlett, Tsuneko, 137, 146(f), 213n47, 218n23 geisha, 2, 52, 58, 104, 191n51 Ginzberg, Lori, 5 Gluck, Carol, 63 Gokoku no tate (The nation’s shield), 188n23 Gomi Yuriko, 198n40 Gordon, Anna, 140 Graham Seminary, 29, 182n27 Grewal, Inderpal, 181n20 Gulick, Orramel, 24 Haishō (The abolition of prostitution), 208n60 Hakuaisha (Society of Benevolence), 219n33 Hane, Mikiso, 3 Hanseikai (Self-Examination Society), 183n44, 188n23 Hanseikai zasshi (Magazine of the SelfExamination Society), 188n23 Harding, Warren, 218n23 Harris, Flora, 121, 209n74 Harris, Merriman (M.C.), 113, 209n74 Harris, Townsend, 14, 15, 16 Hastings, Sally, 222n60

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Hayashi Shichirō, 45 Hayashi Utako, 112, 113, 206n35, 218n23 Health for Little Folks (Hunt; Andō, trans.), 135, 147 Heian Church, 187n17 HELP (House in Emergency of Love and Peace) Asian Women’s Shelter, 172-73 Hepburn, Clara, 23, 24, 182n27, 191n41 Hepburn, James, 23, 50, 131 Hi no maru (The rising sun), 188n23 Hikari (The light), 188n23 Hino Reizui, 220n39 Hiraiwa Yoshiyasu, 56 Hirose Sumeko, 213n44 History of the Kingdom of Wei, 127 Hōchi shimbun (Information news), 109 Hokkai Kinshukai (Temperance Society), 66, 141, 188n23, 212n26 Hokkaido Colonization Agency, 130 Hokusō Kinshukai (Temperance Society), 188n23 “Home Protection ballot,” 19, 20 Honda Teiko, 117, 155, 202n98, 208n56 Honda Yōitsu, 93, 202n98, 208n56 Hongō Church, 189n32 Hoshino Mitsuta, 39, 187n17 Howes, John, 131, 211n21 Huffman, James, 40 Hunt, Mary, 134, 181n16, 212n31; Health for Little Folks, 135 Hutchison, William, 24 Iai Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 87 Ibuka Hanako, 117, 208n56 Ibuka Kajinosuke, 39, 40, 186n6, 187n15, 187n17, 208n56 Ibuka Seki, 37, 186n6, 187n15 Ichibangase Yasuko, 7 imperial family (Meiji), 53, 140, 182n36; loyalty to and reverence for, 52, 74, 78, 92, 150-55, 192n57, 216n3, 217n4, 217n14, 220n39; recognition of reform efforts, 166, 169, 223n70. See also Kanenomiya, Princess; Tsunenomiya, Princess Imperial Rescript on Education, 63, 74, 78, 151, 157 Inagaki Akira, 132 Inoue Tetsujirō, 78

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Index

Ishii, Noriko Kawamura, 37 Itō Hidekichi, 206n35 Iwakura Mission, 16, 17, 129, 197n24, 211n13 Iwakura Tomomi, 211n13 Iwamoto, Mrs. Kashi. See Shimada Kashi Iwamoto Yoshiharu, 93, 151, 158, 208n60; biography, 27, 133, 193n62; editor for Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, 41; efforts to advance women, 28-29, 39; involvement in the founding of the Tokyo WCTU, 30, 31, 32, 34, 184n64; support for Sasaki Toyoju, 57; Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC), 57-58, 60 Janes, L.L., 24, 36, 37, 38, 156, 182n33, 185n65, 187n15, 187n17 Japan Evangelist, 82, 84, 90, 215n64, 221n47 Japan Peace Society, 155 Japan Punch (Wirgman), 129 Japan Temperance League (Nihon Kinshu Dōmeikai), 136, 201n86; exposition work, 142-48(f), 216n81 Japan Weekly Mail, 219n27 The Japanese Bride (Tamura), 185n65 Jiaikan (Home of Mercy and Love), 73, 83, 165; founding, 121-22; problems, 122-23; purpose, 123-25, 210n83; residents, 125, 210n87 Jindō (Humanity), 217n3 Jogaku zasshi (Woman’s education magazine), 41, 42, 193n62, 194n81; articles on the early Tokyo WCTU, 40, 51, 52, 53, 57, 59, 60; articles on the imperial family, 151, 217n3, 218n14; circulation, 195n95; promotion of women’s organization and the Tokyo WCTU’s founding, 28-29, 30, 31, 34; rationale for publishing, 28. See also Iwamoto Yoshiharu Joshi Gakuin (Women’s Academy), 47, 69, 88, 165, 208n56 Kaigan Church, 66, 131, 155 Kaigan Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 218n20 Kakusei (Purity), 117, 118 Kakuseikai (Purity Society), 117-18, 207n55

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Kamakura shogunate, 102 Kaneko Yoshitarō, 168 Kanenomiya, Princess, 166 Kaplan, Caren, 181n20 Kashiuchi Setsuko, 163 Katano Masako, 47 Katō Hiroyuki, 211n24 Katsura Tarō, 113 Kawaguchi Masue, 109 Kidder, Mary (Mrs. Mary Miller), 37, 49, 50, 121, 191n41, 193n62, 209n72 Kimura Kumaji, 27-28, 30, 184n60 Kimura Semuko, 163 Kimura Tōko, 28, 30 kinshu (temperance), 31, 48 Kinshu zasshi (Temperance magazine), 212n26 Kisala, Robert, 156-57 Kishida Toshiko, 33 Kitano Tenmangū, 191n51 Kobashi Katsunosuke, 206n35 Kobe College, 37, 87, 137, 208n56 Kobe Jogakkō (Girls’ School). See Kobe College Kōdokuchi Fujin Kyūsaikai (Women’s Pollution Relief Association), 94 Kojiki (Record of ancient matters), 127 kokka (country), 4, 177n7, 197n31 Komura Jutarō, 156 Kōseikan, 40, 56 Kōtoku, Emperor, 130 Kozaki Chiyo (Chiyoko), 117, 215n71; biography, 187n15, 218n20; peace work, 155, 218n23; Russo-Japanese War, 157, 158, 162-63, 165, 167-68, 169, 219n29, 223n62 Kozaki Hiromichi, 24-25, 187n15, 218n20 Kubushiro Ochimi, 186n10, 190n37 Kuchida Yoshiko, 93 Kudō Eiichi, 36 Kume Kunitake, 129, 211n13 Kushida Shigeko, 39, 72, 189n27 Kyōai Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 214n47 Kyōbunkan, 86, 199n61, 215n64 kyōfū (moral reform), 31, 48 Kyōfūkai (Moral Reform Society), 25, 30, 184n60, 184n64 Kyōritsu Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 37, 55, 198n35

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246

Index

Ladies’ Christian Conference, 83, 121-22 Large, Eliza Spencer, 87, 122-23 Law on Assemblies and Political Associations (Shūkai oyobi seishahō), 6, 58-59, 74, 77, 178n13, 194n83, 194n85, 199n50 League of Nations’ International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, 111 Leavitt, Mary Clement, 64, 215n64; biography, 17, 21-22(f); help from American Protestant missionaries, 23, 80, 182n27; impediments to work in Japan, 23-24, 182n30; influence in Japan, 4, 26, 27, 32, 48, 132, 134, 182n36, 183n44, 212n26; rhetoric, lectures, and published writings, 22, 25-26, 29, 30, 36, 67, 182n30; travels to and in Japan, 22-23, 25 Leete, Isabella, 182n27 Liggins, John, 16 Loyal Temperance Legions (LTLs), 95, 136, 137, 203n105, 214nn49-50 Madames of the Sacred Heart, 183n49 Mainichi shimbun (The daily paper), 186n6, 202n99 Maishū nippō (The weekly news), 95 Manifest Destiny, 13 Mariz Luz, 104, 105 Martha Washingtonians, 18-19. See also Washingtonians Masutomi Masasuke, 117 Matsumoto Eiko, 93, 94, 202n99 Matsuyama Takayoshi, 39, 187n17 Mattingly, Carol, 178n10 medal contests, 95, 135-38, 171, 213n37, 213n41, 213n47, 214nn49-50, 214n54 Meiji Gakuin, 187n17 Meiji Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 28, 30, 220n44 Meiji state, 139, 178n12; modernizing reforms, 3, 41, 103-5, 149-50, 183n49, 204n9; policies regarding the emperor and imperial family members, 74, 150-51, 152, 153; policies regarding foreigners, 92-93; policies regarding women, 6, 41, 58, 74, 76, 103-5, 10910, 183n49, 184n56, 194n83, 194n85, 205n24, 223n60; recognition of reform

lublin.indd 246

efforts, 1, 123, 164-65, 166, 169, 222n60, 223n62, 223nn69-70; religious policy, 16-17, 56; rules for public meetings, 39; taxation and financing of liquor production, 128, 129-30, 211n10. See also Law on Assemblies and Political Associations; press: regulations; Public Peace Police Law Meirokusha (Meiji Six Society), 27, 124, 132, 133, 183n46, 211n24 Methodist Publishing House, 82, 84, 199n61. See also Kyōbunkan Mill, John Stuart, 49, 50; On Liberty, 49; The Subjection of Women, 49 Miller, Mrs. Mary. See Kidder, Mary Miller, Rothesay, 191n41 Mitsuki Hiroko, 151 Miura Riuko, 30, 31, 186n6, 186n13 Miyama Kan’ichi, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146(f), 148, 200n73 modernization: equation with Westernization and civilization, 3, 27, 129; opposition to, 3, 61, 74 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 181n20 monogamy. See concubinage; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan and Tokyo: promotion of monogamy Mori Arinori, 25, 27, 134, 184n60 Morita Yone, 125 Moriya Azuma, 190n37, 198n40, 203n105, 208n55, 218n23 Motora Yone, 119, 209n72 Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights, 6, 33, 39, 41, 53 Nakagawa Tetsurō, 108 Nakamura Masanao (Keiu), 27, 49-50, 124, 183n46, 187n17, 211n24 National Federation to Abolish Licensed Prostitution, 61 National Progressive Party, 58 nationalist rhetoric in support of reform and Christianity, 1-2, 25, 26, 38, 48, 52, 59, 67, 107, 110-11, 114, 115, 117, 124, 133-34, 154, 159, 163, 220n35 Nemoto Shō, 44, 64, 66, 136-37, 189n29, 212n32 New Century Scientific Temperance Physiologies, 135

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Index

Oda Nobunaga, 14 Ōgimi Motoichirō, 30, 31, 34, 184n60 Ōgimi Yoneko, 30, 31, 186n6, 186n13 Ogino Ginko, 54, 56-57, 192n61 Ōkuma Shigenobu, 113-14, 119 Okuno Masatsuna, 131-32 On Liberty (Mill), 49 Onna daigaku (The greater learning for women), 45 Ordinance Liberating Slaves (Dorei kaihō rei), 104, 107 Ōsaka asahi shimbun (The Osaka morning paper), 207n43 Ōuchi Seiran, 217n4 overseas prostitution, arguments for and benefits of, 110, 205n27; numbers of prostitutes abroad, 108, 204n18; opposition to, 107, 108-11, 173, 208n60; regulation of, 109-10, 111; repatriation, 42; trafficking in Japanese women, 107-8 Ōzeki Chikako, 165-66, 169, 222nn57-58

peace movement (Japan), 156-57. See also Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan: peace work Perry, Matthew, 2, 13, 26 Pierson, Louise, 37 politics and women, 5-6, 19-20, 33, 5860, 77, 177n8, 178n14, 194n83, 194n87. See also Law on Assemblies and Political Associations; Meiji state: policies regarding women; Polyglot Petition; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan and Tokyo: petitions and political activity; Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC) Polyglot Petition, 82, 141, 177n8, 215n64 Poor Boys Who Became Famous Men, 147 post-millennialism, 26, 67 press (Meiji): emergence, 40, 41; regulations, 40-41, 71, 73, 80, 90-91, 96; temperance magazines, 188n23; women’s magazines, 28, 41, 42, 76, 195n95 prostitution, 28, 173; abolition, 118; arguments against the licensed system, 101, 107, 118, 204n15, 208n60; 210n87; arguments for and benefits of the licensed system, 105-6, 204n11; Meiji changes in the licensed system, 103-5, 204n9, 207n50; numbers of brothels and prostitutes, 103, 105, 106, 112, 204n10; regulation pre-Meiji, 102-3. See also brothel districts; overseas prostitution Psalm, 146 (“Crusade Psalm”), 71, 197n30 Public Peace Police Law (Chian keisatsuhō), 194n83, 199n50 public spaces, 33, 34

Parkes, Sir Harry, 103 Parmelee, Frances, 214n47 Parrish, Clara, 85(f), 90, 92, 93, 200n66, 201n86; biography, 84; changes to Japan WCTU conventions, 88-89; efforts to renew interest in reform, 87; merger of the Auxiliary and the Japan WCTU, 89; promotion of departments of work, 85-87, 135, 200n73 Patessio, Mara, 33, 205n24

Ramabai, Pandita, 39-40 Red Cross (Japan), 159, 161, 163, 218n14, 219n33 Reinanzaka Church, 71, 172, 189n32 Rikkyō Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 206n35 Rikugo zasshi (Cosmos magazine), 24, 117, 187n17 Robert’s Rules of Order, 88 Roosevelt, Theodore, 156 Rosen, Ruth, 209n67

Nihombashi Church, 32 Nihon Fujin Kyōfūkai (Japan Woman’s Moral Reform Society). See Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan Nihon Kinshu Dōmeikai. See Japan Temperance League Nihon Sesshukai (Japan Temperance Society), 132, 211n24 Nihongi (Chronicle of Japan), 127 Niijima Jō, 189n27 Nishi Amane, 27, 211n24 Nishimura Shigeki, 211n24 Nishizaki Ayano, 163 Niwa Seijirō, 169 Nolte, Sharon, 222n60

lublin.indd 247

247

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248

Index

Russo-Japanese War, 63, 106, 136, 155, 221n50; arguments in favor of, 157, 219n29; public support for and reformers’ use of, 158, 161-69, 220n35, 221n46, 222n58. See also Meiji state: recognition of reform efforts; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan: RussoJapanese War Ryder, Emma, 39-40 ryōsai kembo (good wives and wise mothers), 41, 74, 77, 124 sake. See alcohol Sake no gai [The dangers of alcohol] (Tsuda), 53, 133-34, 212n29 Sakurai Chika, 72-73, 198n35 Sakurai Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 24, 29, 35, 37, 47, 72, 187n13, 198n35, 208n56, 213n47, 222n57 Salvation Army, 29, 114, 217n3; antiprostitution work, 7, 116, 117, 123, 207n50, 210n82, 220n44; exposition work, 141, 142, 216n78; RussoJapanese War, 221n46 Sano Gen’ichirō, 137 Sano Tsunetami, 219n33 Sapporo Agricultural College, 55 Sasaki Motoe, 50-51, 186n6 Sasaki Toyoju, 60, 70, 189n27, 193n62; attempts to assert ideological control, 51-52, 77, 101, 191n51, 212n29; biography, 35, 37, 48-49, 50-51, 76; 186n6, 191n43, 194n81; conflict with Yajima Kajiko, 45, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 192n58, 212n29; criticism of Fujin kyōfū zasshi, 76; editorial work, 41-42, 54, 56, 193n71; Fujin genron no jiyū (Women’s freedom of speech), 191n50; Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 70, 71; object of Asai Saku’s criticism, 55-56, 57, 60; promotion of women’s speech, 42, 51, 187n19, 191n50; public speaking, 39; sewing circle, 35, 51; Tokyo Women’s Temperance Society (TWTS), 61, 62, 68; Tōyō no fujo (Women of the East), 5758; views on women’s economic independence and roles, 50, 51, 52, 55; vocational school and employment

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agency, 56, 119-20, 209n72; Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC), 57-58, 59, 60 Satō Kieko, 161, 162, 220n44 School of Western Studies (Kumamoto). See Janes, L.L. Scientific Temperance Instruction (STI), 67, 134, 135, 171, 181n16, 212n31 Scripture Reading Society, 25, 26 Seiyō ishokujū [Western necessities of life] (Fukuzawa), 129 Sekijūjisha. See Red Cross (Japan) Shimabara Rebellion, 15 Shimada Kashi (Mrs. Kashi Iwamoto), 54, 58, 193n62 Shimada Masako, 186n6, 186n13 Shimada Nobuko, 93 Shimada Saburō, 114, 117, 138, 186n6, 208n60 Shimizu Fukiko, 142-43, 215n71; RussoJapanese War, 161, 162, 163, 164, 221n45, 221n47 Shimizu Shikin, 58, 194n81 Shin-Bukkyō (The new Buddhism), 219n29 Shin’ei Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 47, 190n35 Shinshū Kyōsankai (Pure Land Mutual Aid Society), 217n4 Shirai Shūichi, 95, 136-37, 213n44 Shōji Jinnai, 102, 103 Sievers, Sharon L., 77, 184n56 Sino-Japanese War, 73, 80, 92, 140; arguments in favor of, 157, 219n27; public support for and reformers’ use of, 158-60, 219n33, 220n35, 220n39, 221n46. See also Meiji state: recognition of reform efforts; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan: Sino-Japanese War Smart, Kara, 162, 203n105, 212n33, 214n47, 221n47, 223n71; exposition work, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146(f), 148, 216n78; focus on youth, 95, 135, 136, 137 Sokuhatsukai (Women’s Association for Western Coiffures), 30, 184n56 Sonnō Hōbutsu Daidōdan (Federation for Reverence of the Emperor and Service to Buddha), 151, 217n4

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Index

Soper, Julius, 133, 197n24, 208n62 Soper, Mary, 208n62 Spencer, Matilda, 121, 208n62, 209n72 Strout, Flora, 95 The Subjection of Women (Mill), 49 Sun Goddess, 150 Susa-nö-wo, 127 Suzuki Bunji, 117 Suzuki Yoshio, 138 Takahashi Kikue, 224n5 Takamizawa Junko, 7 Takekoshi Takeyo, 70; Fujin kyōfū zasshi, 73, 74, 80, 122; Fujin shimpō, 80; Sino-Japanese War, 157, 158-60; Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi, 71 Takemura Tamio, 208n60 Tamura Naoomi, 32, 185n65; The Japanese Bride, 185n65 Tanabe Jitsumei, 119 Tanaka Masato, 218n14 Tanaka Yoneko, 153, 154 temperance movement in Japan: arguments for, 1-2, 130-31, 132, 133-34, 212n30; challenges organizations faced, 132-33, 211n22; pre-modern bans, 130-31; reasons to abstain, 131; societies, 24, 26, 66, 131-33, 188n23, 201n86, 212n26, 216n81, 217n4. See also Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan and Tokyo: temperance work Thelle, Notto R., 183n44, 217n4 Thompson, David, 47, 51, 198n35 Thompson, Eliza, 197n30 Toki no koe (Voice of the times), 217n3 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 102 Tokugawa shogunate (bakufu), 13, 15, 16, 102-3, 107 Tokutomi Hisako, 117, 186n10, 208n56 Tokutomi Roka, 47 Tokutomi Sohō, 36, 93, 182n33, 208n56 Tokyo Airinsha (Neighbourly Love Association), 95, 213n44 Tokyo Fujin Kinshukai. See Tokyo Women’s Temperance Society (TWTS) Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi (Tokyo woman’s moral reform magazine), 55, 70, 83, 195n96; circulation, 44, 61; content, 41-42, 50, 57, 73-74, 76, 90, 195n94;

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cover, 32, 42, 43(f), 61, 109, 195n97; discontinuation, 73; editors and publishers, 41, 54, 56, 70, 72, 193n71; price and page length, 41, 61; rationale for publishing, 40, 61-62, 191n50; suspension, 71, 198n40 Tōkyō keizai zasshi (Tokyo economic journal), 42 Tokyo Kinshukai (Temperance Society), 1, 61, 62, 140-41, 211n10 Tōkyō nichi nichi shimbun (The Tokyo daily paper), 50 Tokyo Women’s Temperance Society (TWTS), 61, 62, 66, 68, 96; merger with the Tokyo WCTU, 69-70 Tomeoka Kōsuke, 217n3 Tomida, Hiroko, 178n13 Toranomon Church, 31 Tōyō Eiwa Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 201n87 Tōyō no fujo (Women of the East), 194n81 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 14, 102 True, Maria, 37, 47, 83, 84, 154, 190n35 Tsuda Hatsuko, 70, 197n24 Tsuda Kimiko, 125 Tsuda Mamichi, 211n24 Tsuda Sen, 30, 44, 60, 66, 93, 212n26, 215n64; bell made from pipes, 69, 141; biography, 27, 70, 133, 197n24, 202n99; “Sake no gai,” 133; Sake no gai, 53, 133-34 Tsuda Umeko, 197n24 Tsunenomiya, Princess, 166 Tyrrell, Ian, 21 Uchimura Kanzō, 55, 78, 157, 219n27 Ueda Kinshukai (Temperance Society), 132 Ueki Emori, 53-54, 61, 194n81, 194n86; Tōyō no fujo (Women of the East), 5758, 194n81; Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC), 57-58 Ukai Taeko, 215n71 Ukai Takeshi, 200n73 unequal treaties, 2, 14, 16, 58, 74, 78, 92. See also US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce Union Signal, 44, 64, 66, 67, 69, 72, 86, 90, 155

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250

Index

Union Theological Seminary, 186n6 US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 13, 14, 15, 16 Ushioda Chiseko, 70, 72, 94(f), 95, 189n27, 202n99, 213n44, 215n71; biography, 35, 36; Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 70, 71, 72, 96, 208n62; Jiaikan rescue work, 121, 122; pollution relief, 93-95; vocational school and employment agency, 11920, 209n67, 209n72; Tokyo Women’s Temperance Society (TWTS), 61, 62, 68, 69; Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC), 58, 60 Utsu Yasuko, 48, 49, 50, 76-77 Verbeck, Guido, 39 Victoria, Queen, 58 Victorian ideology of womanhood, 4, 19-20, 26, 27, 28, 77 Walthall, Anne, 33 Washington, Garrett, 189n32 Washingtonians, 18, 180n9 Watanabe Minoru, 127 Watase Kameko, 29, 215n71 WCTU. See Woman’s Christian Temperance Union ( Japan, Japanese branches other than Tokyo, Tokyo, and United States ) West, Mary Allen, 63, 65(f), 73, 80, 125, 196n12, 211n10; appointment as a World WCTU missionary, 64; biography, 65-66; criticism of the Tokyo WCTU, 67-68, 196n14; death and memorials for, 68-69, 73, 148, 197n20; efforts to strengthen the Tokyo WCTU and unify reformers, 68, 69, 70; impediments to work in Japan, 67; rhetoric, 67; travels to and in Japan, 66-67, 68, 69 Willard, Frances, 18, 21, 22, 25, 42, 69, 82, 95, 125; Do Everything, 85-86, 213n37; leadership of the WCTU, 19-20; World WCTU, 21, 80 Winn, Lila, 68, 69 Winn, Thomas, 68, 69 Wirgman, Charles, 129; Japan Punch, 129 Wittenmyer, Annie, 19, 20 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japan: anti-smoking, 2, 135,

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165, 173; branches, 71, 78, 79, 80, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 96, 111, 115, 163-64, 171, 198n31, 201n84, 206n35; campaigns against brothel districts, 11117, 118, 171, 199n50, 206n32, 207n43, 207n49; Christian orientation and evangelism, 124, 125, 136, 145, 160, 162-63, 165, 166-68, 169, 213n43, 213n47; contact with the World WCTU, 71, 72, 79, 171, 172; conventions, 78, 80, 86, 88-89, 92, 96, 137, 157, 171, 172; criticism of, 76, 85, 151-52; departments of work, 71, 79, 85, 86, 95, 136, 161, 162; early activities, 7273; elections, 71, 96; engagement with the state, 5, 6, 164-65, 166; exposition work, 141, 142-48(f), 192n55, 197n20, 215n71, 216n81; founding, 68, 70-71; government and imperial recognition of reform efforts, 123, 164-65, 166, 169, 223n60, 223nn69-70; growth and decline in membership, 77, 78-79, 80, 87-88, 89, 92, 96, 171-72, 201n84; Kakuseikai involvement, 117-18, 207n55; medal contests for youth, 95, 135, 136-38, 171, 213n47, 214nn49-50, 214n54; need for an office, 72-73, 79, 96, 171, 172; opposition to ceremonial sake cups, 1-2, 4, 177n2, 223nn69-70; opposition to geisha, 2; organization overseas, 178n8; overseas prostitutes, 77, 110-11, 171; peace work, 155-56, 157, 171, 174, 218n23; petitions and political activity, 1-2, 5, 60, 77, 90, 91, 94, 110, 111-12, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 171, 172, 173, 177n2, 178n14, 199n50, 207n49, 215n64, 218n23; pollution and disaster relief, 93-95, 171; prize banner, 88; promotion of monogamy, 2, 60, 77, 79, 90, 153, 171; purpose, 2; reliance on men, 177n2; rescue homes, 2, 73, 83, 121-25, 172-73, 210n83, 210n87; reverence for and use of the imperial family, 151-55, 160, 216n3, 217n14; rhetorical strategy, 4-5; rules, 71, 72, 86, 89, 96; Russo-Japanese War, 95, 151, 157, 158, 161-69(f), 220n35, 221n45, 222n52, 222n58, 223n60, 223n62, 223nn69-70; sense of duty among members, 2, 3-4, 124, 158, 163; Sino-Japanese War, 73, 80, 157,

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Index

158-60, 161; temperance work, 1-2, 135-38, 141, 142-43, 146-47, 153-54, 159, 162, 163, 165, 168, 171, 172, 17374, 220n35; white ribbon symbol, 153, 155. See also Auxiliary WCTU of Japan; Loyal Temperance Legions; Young Women’s Christian Temperance Unions: in Japan; and Fujin kyōfū zasshi (Woman’s moral reform magazine) and Fujin shimpō (Woman’s herald) Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Japanese branches other than Tokyo: Asahikawa, 163; Chiba, 78, 79, 80; Hakodate, 78, 198n35; Hirosaki 87, 223nn69-70; Hiroshima, 92; Jōmō, 115; Kanazawa, 71, 78; Kasaoka, 71, 79, 80; Kobe, 73; Kumamoto, 92; Maebashi, 115; Morioka, 78, 79, 80; Muroran, 87; Nagasaki, 73, 92; Nagoya, 72, 78, 79; Osaka, 92, 111-13, 114, 115, 163, 169, 206n35; Sapporo, 92; Sōshū, 161-62, 221n45; Takahashi, 71, 79, 80; Takasaki, 115; Tsu, 79; Wakamatsu, 92; Wakayama, 115; Yokkaichi, 71, 79, 80; Yokohama, 79, 80, 89, 163 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Tokyo: 14, 71, 80, 141; agenda and priorities, 31, 32, 48, 51, 52, 68, 101, 196n14; agitation and arguments against licensed prostitution, 101, 107, 118, 204n15; Christian orientation and evangelism, 31, 39, 40, 42, 154, 223n71; collective biography of leaders, 35-38; comparison to, and contact with, the World WCTU, 31-32, 44, 62, 68, 189n29; condescension towards prostitutes, 109, 119, 120, 205n24, 209n67; criticism of, 45, 55, 58, 62, 64, 67-68, 69, 151-52, 196n16; departments of work, 68, 71, 196n16; early activities, 38-45, 133, 188n21, 189n27, 192n60, 211n10; elections, 32, 53, 57, 62, 69-70, 76; founding, 29-32, 34, 186n6; growth and decline in membership, 32, 34, 44, 45, 61, 70, 79, 89, 190n34, 195n94; internal conflict, 45, 48, 51-52, 53, 54, 55-56, 57, 60, 64; merger with the Tokyo Women’s Temperance Society (TWTS), 69-70; name, 31-32, 48, 51,

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251

101, 184n64, 223n71; need for an office, 39, 72; overseas prostitutes, 42, 77, 109-11; petitions and political activity, 34, 58-60, 71, 77, 107, 109, 110, 178n14, 194n85, 204n15, 211n10; pledge, 31, 68, 196n14; progressivism versus pragmatism, 77, 205n24; promotion of monogamy, 59; prospectus, 44, 52-53, 77, 141, 151, 152, 192n55, 192n57; publications, 53, 73, 134; reasons for joining, 36, 37, 38, 77; reliance on men, 39, 40, 51, 187n19; reverence for, and use of, the imperial family, 151, 152, 154; rules, 35, 38, 57, 61, 62, 67-68, 196n16; temperance work, 40, 42, 53-54, 56, 73, 133, 134, 211n10. See also Tōkyō fujin kyōfū zasshi (Tokyo woman’s moral reform magazine) Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), United States: 29, 69, 134, 164, 210n81, 212n31; defence of women speaking in public, 184n58; founding and early history, 19-20, 181n14; medal contests, 135-36, 213n37, 213n41; white ribbon symbol and motto, 58, 177n7 Woman’s White Ribbon Club (WWRC), 61, 66, 96; founding, 57, 58, 60; political activities, 58-60 women (Japanese): typical Meiji woman, 34-35; views of, 38, 41, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54-55, 74, 76, 77, 106, 107, 109, 110-11, 120, 124, 183n46, 188n24, 192n57, 210n87. See also danson johi (respect men and despise women); Meiji state: policies regarding women Women’s Home (Fujin Hōmu), 123, 210n82 World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (World WCTU), 71, 101, 153, 164, 212n26, 212n30, 215n64; conventions, 40, 72, 80, 84, 87, 88, 156, 172; departments, 200n71; expositions, 140, 141, 142, 192n55, 197n20; founding, 21; motto, 4; policies, 23, 64, 8081, 88, 200n66; prize banner, 88; promotion of STI in Japan, 134, 135; rules, 30; size of membership, 88, 181n23; transnationalization, 21, 22, 181n20. See also, for World WCTU

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Index

missionaries: Ackerman, Jessie; Davis, Ruth; Denton, Mary; Leavitt, Mary Clement; Parrish, Clara; Smart, Kara; Strout, Flora; West, Mary Allen WWRC. See Woman’s White Ribbon Club Xavier, Francis, 14 Yajima Kajiko, 46(f), 59, 66, 83, 93, 95, 172, 187n13, 197n31, 215n71; antiprostitution activism, 113, 116, 117, 122, 207n49, 207n55; biography, 35, 36, 37, 45-47, 48, 56, 57, 186n10, 187n17, 190n37, 212n30, 213n41; conflict with Sasaki Toyoju, 45, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 192n58, 212n29; Fujin kyōfū zasshi, 73; Fujin shimpō, 80, 90, 91, 96; imperial loyalty and reverence, 52-53, 151, 152, 154, 192n57; leadership of the Japan WCTU, 71, 72, 88, 96; leadership of the Tokyo WCTU, 60, 62, 64, 68, 69-70, 72, 76, 189n27, 197n20; lecture by Leavitt, 29; peace work, 155-56, 157-58, 218n23; prospectus, 44, 52-53, 77, 141, 151, 152, 192n55, 192n57; reasons for protemperance stance, 47-48, 191n39, 212n30; Russo-Japanese War, 165, 168, 169 Yakubi Kōtarō, 117 Yamada Taki, 125 Yamada Waka, 108 Yamada Yajūrō, 117 Yamaji Aizan, 201n87 Yamaji Taneko, 90, 91, 201n87 Yamamoto Kuninosuke, 117 Yamamuro Gumpei, 29, 117, 220n44 Yamamuro Kieko. See Satō Kieko

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Yamanashi Eiwa Jogakkō (Girls’ School), 137 Yasutake, Rumi, 8, 25-26, 77, 184n64, 187n19, 194n86 YMCA. See Young Men’s Christian Association Yokohama Kinshukai (Temperance Society), 66, 131-32, 188n23 Yokohama Kinshukai zasshi (The Yokohama Temperance Society magazine), 188n23 Yokoi Tokio, 36, 39, 182n33, 187n17 Yokokura Hideko, 117 Yoshimi Kaneko, 208n60 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 24, 55, 88, 141, 187n17, 196n14; opposition to brothel districts, 113, 114, 116, 117; RussoJapanese War, 169, 221n46, 222n60, 223n70 Young Women’s Christian Temperance Unions (Ys), 84, 203n105; in Japan, 87, 92, 95, 137, 200n77 Youngman, Kate 121, 122, 154 Yuasa Hatsuko, 39; biography, 35, 36, 37-38, 186n6, 186n10; monogamy petition, 59, 194n86 Yuasa Jirō, 186n6, 189n27 Yūkaku Iden Kiseikai (Union for the Removal of the Pleasure Quarter), 115 Yūkaku Iden Seinen Kisei Dōmeikai (Alliance of Youth to Move the Licensed Quarter), 113-14, 115 Zaeske, Susan, 194n87 Zenkoku Haishō Dōmeikai. See National Federation to Abolish Licensed Prostitution

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