7 Culture of peace

Our emperor was thus born under the auspicious sign of peace.1
Tokyo nichinichi shinbun, Dec. 25, 1926

The future of our empire is as bright as the spring ocean. We are in a

pivotal position in the world – bearing the enormous responsibility for
world peace.2 Higashi Honganji Abbot Ōtani Kōzui, July 1929

On the morning of the return of Japan’s delegates from the Washington

Conference, Ueno Park began a joyous celebration. Though a rainy day
and early for spring blossoms, the Tokyo Peace Exposition, according to
the daily Tōkyō asahi, honored “the best of world culture” (sekai bunka no
seika) and stood as “a harbinger of dazzling beauty” (kenran no bi no
sakigake).3 Costing 6 million yen and comprising almost fifty pavilions,
a 110,000 square meter natural lake, two triumphal gates, a signature
“peace tower” (heiwa no tō) and a “peace bell” (heiwa no kane), the
four-month extravaganza became the largest Japanese exposition to
date.4 On this morning of March 11, 1922, a rain-washed white marble
goddess stood majestically at the main gates, watching quietly over the
dignitaries – Tokyo Governor Usami Katsuo, Mayor Gotō Shinpei,
cabinet ministers and national MPs – as they filed in for a ten o’clock
opening ceremony. With the tolling of the peace bell, several dozen doves
flew “happily” (ureshige ni) toward the skies. Festival chair Prince Kan’in,
backed by a stage adorned with celebratory pine, plum and bamboo,
officially opened the expo by declaring world sentiment fed up with “the
ghastly evils of war” (senka no seisan) and “full of admiration for the

1
“Arata ni aogu, seijō heika,” Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun, Dec. 25, 1926; reprinted in
Nakajima, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 14, 455.
2
Ōtani Kōzui, Teikoku no zendo (Tokyo: Daijōsha Tōkyō shibu pamphlet, July 1929), 1.
Kyoto University Library.
3
“Sekai bunka no iki o atsumete heiwahaku no hanayaka na kaijōshiki,” Tōkyō asahi shinbun,
March 11, 1922, evening edition, 2.
4
For the enormous cost of the fair, and the debate surrounding it, see “Kazoekirenai
fushimatsu: hanashi no hazure no heiwahaku,” Hōchi shinbun, March 16, 1923; reprinted
in Nakajima, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 10, 112.

144

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 Constructing a culture of peace in interwar Japan 145

happiness of peace” (heiwa no kōfuku).5 So it was, noted the daily Yomiuri,

that “on the day of the return of Plenipotentiary Katō from his disarma-
ment sojourn . . . even before the flowers, the tower on the east platform
heralded the start of a spring of peace (heiwa no haru) in the imperial
capital.”6

Constructing a culture of peace in interwar Japan

Specialists of postwar Japan often speak of a peace culture that emerges
from the fallout of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.7 But the first serious
Japanese investment in peace sprang not from a nuclear strike but
from recognition of the global transformation ignited by the First
World War. Just as Japanese subjects in early Meiji clamored over an
array of new Western gadgets, fashions and celebrations in the name of

Figure 7.1 “Establishment of peace.” The global culture of peace

through the eyes of one of Japan’s great Asianist artists.
Itō Chūta, Saikin jūnenkan mangareki (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1928), 1.

5
“Ame ni medasareta heiwa no bamen” and “Sōsai no miya no ryōji,” Tōkyō asahi shinbun,
March 11, 1922, evening edition, 2.
6
“Umi ni zenken kaeru hi, heiwa no kane hibiki hajimu,” Yomiuri shinbun, March 11, 1922;
reprinted in Watanabe, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 10, 107. “Tower on the
east” refers to the peace tower.
7
For the most in-depth study in English, see Lisa Yoneyama, Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space,
and the Dialectics of Memory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

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 146 Culture of peace

“enlightenment,” their successors in the 1920s pursued a range of new

activities in the name of “peace.” As elder statesman Saionji Kinmochi
declared in September 1919, it was time for Japan to invest whole-
heartedly in the arts, industry and commerce, to become an active
contributor to the new global “peace project” (heiwateki jigyō).8
Yoshino Sakuzō had in 1918 understood that the significance of the
Great War, that which would guarantee its place in the “history of civi-
lization,” was its “destruction of wealth, damage to human life, violation
of moral stability and enormity of the accompanying sacrifice.”9 Those
who desired a glimpse of the destruction that had changed the “history of
civilization” could register after the war for two- or three-day package
tours of sites on the Western Front. Yanagita Kunio noted that such tours
were all the rage while he remained in France through October 1921.
Although Americans were the most eager consumers of this opportunity,
there was ample interest among other nationalities, including Japanese.
Indeed, as we have seen, the Japanese crown prince counted visits to
Reims and other World War I battlefields among his most memorable
experiences during his own European sojourn.10 Following the adage that
you could not say “splendid” without viewing Nikko, some, noted
Yanagita, now declared that one could not pronounce anti-war senti-
ments without viewing Great War battlefields.11
Although most Japanese subjects could not take advantage of this novel
sightseeing opportunity, they readily felt, thousands of miles away, a
palpable lifting of darkness after the war. The daily Tōkyō asahi described
the Imperial Palace on the day of the emperor’s annual New Year’s
greeting, January 1, 1919, as “beautifully sparkling out of the faint spring
haze, like a sudden sign of peace.”12 Four days after the July 1 assembly of
2,000 distinguished guests at the Tokyo Imperial Hotel to commemorate
the Versailles Peace,13 Foreign Minister Uchida Yasuya hosted a lavish
gathering for the diplomatic corps. While the July 1 event had presented a
“radiant stage” (hareyaka na butai) upon which had unfolded an exuber-
ant “peace dance” (heiwa odori),14 preparations for this assembly pro-
ceeded under “limitless blue skies and the light of peace.” Members of

8
Saionji Kinmochi den, vol. 3, 323.
9
Yoshino Sakuzō, “Guree kyō no ‘kokusai dōmeiron’ o yomu,” Chūō kōron, 33, no. 7 ( July
1918), 56.
10
See Chapter 5 herein.
11
Yanagita Kunio, “Kokusai renmei no hattatsu,” Kokusai renmei, 2, no. 3 (March
1922), 18.
12
“Hare no gozen,” Tōkyō asahi shinbun, Jan. 1, 1919; reprinted in Watanabe, comp.,
Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 1.
13
See Chapter 3 above. 14 “Hareyaka na butai,” 217.

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 Japanese League of Nations Association 147

the Hara cabinet and the diplomatic corps began trickling into the foreign
minister’s residence around 7:30 p.m. with “bright faces” (hareyaka na
kao). Following banzais to the emperor, toasts and a “pleasant dinner”
(koroyoi shokuji), the party repaired to a separate hall, enlivened by the
“laughter of peace” (heiwa na waraisazameki). Here, around 9 p.m., the
dancing began, buoyed by the presence of wives who “resembled god-
desses of peace” (heiwa no hyōzō taru megami). In the light of the moon,
with bright music and dancing, it seemed “to those drunk on peace” that
this party would never end.15
Just as war’s end breathed new levity into official life in Japan, it
brightened the lives of regular Japanese subjects. As Japanese and foreign
dignitaries assembled at the Imperial Hotel for a peace commemoration
on July 1, common citizens lined up to purchase commemorative peace
stamps at their local post offices.16 Two months later, the tobacco division
of the Monopoly Bureau announced the impending sale of peace ciga-
rettes. While originally planning to call the new brand heiwa (peace) and
to market exclusively in Japan, given the expansive scale of the war and the
hope to “commemorate world peace in perpetuity,” Bureau officials
decided on a global product with the internationally recognizable name,
“Paradise.”17

Japanese League of Nations Association and Armistice Day

Japanese subjects thus had a variety of opportunities from an array of
sources to engage the new culture of peace. But there was one organiza-
tion that stood at the forefront of efforts to cultivate a “peace culture” in
1920s Japan: the Japanese League of Nations Association (Nihon Kokusai
Renmei Kyōkai, JLNA). Just as the Meiji Six Society (Meirokusha) and its
flagship journal, Meiroku zasshi, had led the crusade for “enlightenment”
in nineteenth-century Japan, the JLNA stood at the vanguard of efforts to
introduce a culture of peace in the 1920s.18

15
“Gonen buri no dai butōkai: heiwa o iwau gaishō no shōen,” Yomiuri shinbun, July 6,
1919; reprinted in Nakajima, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 223–4.
16
The stamps went on sale on the same day, July 1, 1919. Katō Hidetoshi, Meiji, Taishō,
Shōwa sesōshi (Tokyo: Shakai shisōsha, 1972), 197.
17
“Heiwa kinen no ‘paradaisu’: Jūichigatsu goro kara uridasu ryōgiri tabako,” Miyako
shinbun, Sept. 20, 1919; reprinted in Nakajima, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi,
vol. 7, 322.
18
There have, to date, been few focused studies on the JLNA. See Ikei Masaru, “Nihon
kokusai renmei kyōkai,” Hōgaku kenkyū, vol. 68, no. 2 (Feb. 1995) and Iwamoto Shōkō,
“Nihon kokusai renmei kyōkai: 30-nendai ni okeru kokusai kyōchōshugi no tenkai,”
Ritsumeikan daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyū kiyō, 85 (March 2005), 115–47.

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 148 Culture of peace

Following the emergence of similar organizations in Britain, Italy,

France and Belgium, an assembly of Japanese academics, businessmen
and bureaucrats established the JLNA in April 1920 to promote the “aims
and spirit of the League of Nations.” It was, these men felt, their critical
responsibility given Japan’s new status “as one of five great powers” (god-
aikoku no ichi).19 At its peak in 1932, the JLNA boasted over 11,700
members and, from the outset, included some of the most influential
statesmen of the interwar period: the “last shōgun,” Tokugawa Ietatsu
(as president), financier and member of the House of Peers Viscount
Shibusawa Eiichi (chair), former finance minister and Peers member
Baron Sakatani Yoshirō (vice chair), member of the court nobility
Prince Konoe Fumimaro and educator Nitobe Inazō.20
With the strong support of Japan’s political party cabinets, the JLNA
championed each component of the New Japan throughout the 1920s.21
But its most critical cultural initiative was a campaign to establish
Armistice Day as a national holiday. From the start, the JLNA placed
great symbolic importance in the commemoration of war’s end. While
officially formed in April 1920, it released the first copy of its house
journal, Kokusai renmei (later, Kokusai chishiki), in November of that
year, followed by an address by vice chair Soeda Juichi and member of
the board of directors, Anesaki Masaharu, to 700 on-lookers in Osaka on
Armistice Day. The association’s opening ceremony took place in Tokyo
one day later to a capacity crowd of 2,000.22

19
“Kokusai renmei kyōkai kaihō,” Kokusai renmei, 1, no. 1 (Nov. 1920), 2. According to the
vice chair, Professor Soeda Juichi, establishing the Japanese League of Nations
Association would “enable our country to live up to our status as one of five great powers
without shame and to enter the company of other countries by contributing to world
peace.” Ibid., 6
20
Other prominent members included Saionji Kinmochi, Gotō Shinpei, Makino Nobuaki,
Kaneko Kentarō, Shidehara Kijūrō, Ishii Kikujirō, Matsuoka Yōsuke, Inoue Junnosuke,
Wakatsuki Reijirō, Hamaguchi Osachi, Ozaki Yukio, Adachi Kenzō, Saitō Takao,
Shimada Saburō, Inukai Tsuyoshi, Baba Tsunego, Yoshino Sakuzō, Minobe Tatsukichi
Nomura Kichisaburō, and Ariga Nagao. Interestingly, the group also included such
conservative activists as Ogawa Heikichi and Ogasawara Naganari. “Kokusai renmei
kyōkai kyōin,” Kokusai renmei, 1, no. 1 (Nov. 1920), 48–52. For membership numbers
and a description of funding, see Sadako Ogata, “The Role of Liberal Nongovernmental
Organizations in Japan,” in Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as
History: Japanese–American Relations 1931–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1973), 462–3.
21
As Tomoko Akami notes, the Hara cabinet (1918–21) encouraged business contributions
to the JLNA, the Tanaka cabinet contributed 70,000 yen in both 1927 and 1928 and the
Wakatsuki cabinet gave 50,000 of a total 80,000 in donations in 1931. Akami,
Internationalizing the Pacific, 80.
22
“Kokusai renmei kyōkai kaihō,” Kokusai renmei, 1, no. 2 (Feb. 1921), 153–4.

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 Japanese League of Nations Association 149

Following its first year in operation, the JLNA began a concerted effort
to introduce the end of war commemoration to Japan. In 1921, it mailed
several thousand invitations to schools, religious organizations, cultural
groups, government offices and businesses across Japan urging them to
hold commemorative events on November 11. A number of high-profile
universities responded to this invitation, including Tokyo, Waseda, Meiji
and Hosei universities. Tokyo city trains carried bulletins announcing
Armistice Day. And the JLNA placed commemorative posters through-
out Tokyo and sent several thousand across Japan and overseas.23 Tokyo
police ruled out a large peace parade on the second anniversary of the
armistice.24 But 150 members of several peace organizations gathered on
Friday, November 11, 1921 to send their best wishes, via telegram, to the
Japanese delegation at the Washington Naval Conference. Sunday,
November 13 was designated “Peace Day” and, with the help of the
Arms Reduction Fraternity (Gunbi shukushō dōshikai), the Women’s
Work Society (Fujin hataraki kai) and the Alliance for the Protection of
Education (Kyōiku hogo dōmei), small peace flags and leaflets were dis-
tributed throughout Tokyo.25 “Peace poster” exhibits subsequently lured
audiences in Tokyo, Osaka and Kagawa prefectures.26
Although a modest beginning, this marked the start of annual Armistice
Day celebrations in Japan through the 1920s. In anticipation of the fourth
anniversary of the German surrender, the Japanese League of Nations
Association and seven other peace organizations proclaimed a new united
effort for peace that would transform Armistice Day into a genuine public
celebration.27 The Japanese Federation of Peace Movements (Heiwa undo
Nihon renmei) petitioned the foreign minister and minister of education to
ensure public celebrations at churches, temples and schools, urged con-
templative editorials in the nation’s prominent papers and arranged for
wide distribution of posters and peace stamps.28 Most dramatically,
November 11, 1922 marked the first large-scale public celebration of

23
“Saikin Nihon no heiwa undō,” Kokusai renmei, 1, no. 12 (Dec. 1921), 64.
24
“Kaiin kurabu,” Kokusai renmei, 2, no. 7 ( July 1922), 108.
25
“Saikin Nihon no heiwa undō,” 64.
26
In November 1923, December 1923 and February 1924, respectively. “Nihon kokusai
renmei kyōkai no katsudō,” Kokusai chishiki, 4, no. 3 (March 1924), 105.
27
In addition to the JLNA, the new federation included the Women’s Peace Association
(Fujin heiwa kyōkai), the Arms Reduction Fraternity (Gunbi shukushō dōshikai), the
Women’s Moral Reform Society (Fujin kyōfū kai), the Christian Youth Society
(Kirisutokyō seinen kai), the Girl’s Youth Society ( Joshi seinen kai), the World
Federation of Christians (Kirisutokyōto sekai renmei) and the Greater Japan Peace
Association (Dai Nihon heiwa kyōkai). “Kyūsen kinenbi ni okeru Nihon zenkoku heiwa
undō no junbi naru,” Kokusai chishiki, 2, no. 11 (Nov. 1922), 154.
28
Ibid.

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 150 Culture of peace

Armistice Day. On that day, a large crowd gathered in Hibiya Park to hear
a marching band perform “familiar songs of peace” (heiwa no meikyoku),
followed by a series of addresses by Foreign Minister Uchida, Education
Minister Kamata, president of the JLNA Shibusawa Eiichi and American
journalist and lecturer in geography at the University of Pennsylvania
Andrew Russell (Drew) Pearson, and the release of 250 doves. With the
onset of evening, a slide show of the European tour of the crown prince
(then under way) and the Washington Conference (recently concluded)
delighted the crowd.29

Chronicling the 1920s through the culture of peace

Honoring Armistice Day marked the most explicit attempt to fashion a
culture of peace in interwar Japan. But one may also describe each of the
four major efforts to transform the nation highlighted in the chapters
above as, more specifically, attempts to promote this new culture. As we
have seen, the new Japanese commitment to internationalism after 1919
derived from recognition of a very tangible benefit: preservation of Japan’s
status, for the first time in history, as a world power. This commitment
was, of course, most essentially, to participate actively in the new interna-
tional conventions and institutions designed to guarantee world peace. As
Prime Minister Hara observed, Japan’s status had “gained all the more
authority” and her “responsibility to the world” had become “increasingly
weighty” with her contributions at Paris to “the recovery of world
peace.”30 Likewise, the editors of Kokusai chishiki in November 1923
urged that Japan “attain glory as a pioneer of peace” (heiwa no sakigaetaru
eiyō).31 The decision to host the third IPR conference in Kyoto high-
lighted not only Japan’s commitment to “conference diplomacy,” private
and public. The special significance of Kyoto accentuated Japan’s partic-
ular resources for peace. As JCIPR chair Nitobe Inazō declared at the
opening of the 1929 assembly, “here we meet in this ancient city, called in
olden times Hei-An, the City of Peace and Ease . . . Thus does Japan
provide the Conference with the geographical requisites for the peaceful
discussion of international relations.”32
The dramatic interwar turn toward democracy was, as we have seen,
partially an extension of a long-term domestic campaign for representative
government. But the new power of domestic political reform after 1919

29
Editors, “Heiwa kinenbi no undō,” Kokusai chishiki, 2, no. 12 (Dec. 1922), 119.
30
Hara, “Hara shushō no tsūchō” ( Jan. 1920); cited in Kawada, Hara Takashi, 150.
31
Editors, “Hensanshitsu yori,” Kokusai chishiki, 3, no. 11 (Nov. 1923), 112.
32
Nitobe, “Opening Address at Kyoto,” 688.

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 Chronicling the 1920s through the culture of peace 151

largely derived from its association with both military victory and peace.
As the Kenseikai Party’s Tomita Kōjirō declared in January 1919,
“Germany’s surrender has challenged militarism and bureaucratism
from the roots. As a natural consequence, politics based on the people,
reflecting the will of the people, namely democracy (minponshugi), has,
like a race to heaven, conquered the thought of the entire world.”33 With
the allied victory, democracy was considered not only the most robust
form of political organization but the best guarantor of peace. Indeed,
Japanese observers had, from the outset, identified political backwardness
as the principal basis of German culpability in the outbreak of hostilities.
“No matter what the outcome of this great European disturbance,”
German language and literature specialist Mukō Gunji had declared in
September 1914, “it will surely carry a great lesson for world history,”
namely “the extent to which absolute monarchy is an anachronism in the
twentieth century.” Kaiser Wilhelm II had resorted to “rash behavior”
because he had considered himself a servant of God, above the will of the
people.34
Each new Japanese initiative in political reform after 1919, in other
words, stood on the bedrock of a new conceptualization of peace.
Champions of universal male suffrage no longer viewed their cause simply
as a means to equalize domestic political imbalances. They considered it
essential for maintaining peace. As vice chair of the Lower House,
Kenseikai MP Koizumi Matajirō, noted in 1927, “our object is to reform
the present, which has exposed the faults of our social system to the
extreme and to construct a society of mutual coexistence and peace.”35
Likewise, improvements in two critical companions to political pro-
gress, education and the press, were described as essential for peace. As
Mark Lincicome has shown, educators in interwar Japan began a crusade
for “international education” following the World Federation of
Educational Associations’ aim “to secure international cooperation in
educational enterprises . . . to cultivate international good will, and to
promote the interests of peace throughout the world.”36 Primary school
texts in the 1920s highlighted both the birth of the League of Nations and
the January 1920 Imperial Rescript on the Establishment of Peace.37

33
Tomita, “Shisō oyobi genron mondai,” 51.
34
Mukō Gunji, “Ōshu senran no atauru kyōkun,” Nihon oyobi Nihonjin, Sept. 15,
1914, 32–6.
35
Koizumi, Fusen undō hisshi, 152.
36
Mark Lincicome, Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and
Education in Japan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), 65.
37
Ibid., 86.

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 152 Culture of peace

A free and vibrant press, likewise, acquired new importance in the

1920s as a fundamental pillar of peace. As journalist Sakaguchi Jirō
declared in January 1928, “newspapers are . . . the driving force of eternal
peace (eikyū heiwa).” This had been demonstrated, he observed, at the
International Conference of Newspaper Journalists in Geneva in August
1927.38 Indeed, Japanese delegates to the conference had submitted a
recommendation that false and exaggerated reporting be prevented “in
the spirit of the League of Nations.” Such reporting, Japan’s representa-
tives had proclaimed, “disturbs world peace and obstructs the mutual
understanding among nations needed to sustain peace.”39
Arms reductions were, perhaps, the initiative most explicitly linked to
world peace. Every overture toward military paring carried an unambig-
uous reminder of its connection with this lofty goal. Tokyo included in its
delegation to the Washington Conference Prince Tokugawa Iesato, the
president of the Japanese organization most dedicated to the promotion
of peace, the Japanese League of Nations Association.40 And just as the
organizers of the Washington Conference arranged for the assembly to
begin on the second anniversary of the German surrender, the JLNA, as
we have seen, orchestrated public words of encouragement to the
Japanese delegation on Armistice Day.41 The delegates’ return to
Tokyo on March 10, 1922 was marked, as we have seen, by great fanfare
with the inaugural ceremony and first sounding of the peace bell at the
massive Tokyo Peace Exposition in Ueno Park.42 And the first large
public celebration of Armistice Day in Japan on November 11, 1922
included a slide show of images from the recently concluded
Washington Conference.43
Conceptions of empire, as we have seen, changed as dramatically as
those regarding international relations, domestic politics and national
defense following the Paris Peace Conference. The push for “cultural
rule” in Japan’s colonial territories derived from an accentuated vision
of the obligation, as a world power, to educate native peoples in the ways

38
Sakaguchi was quoting former British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey. Sakaguchi Jirō,
“Eikyū heiwa no mottomo yūryoku naru hatarakite,” Shinbun oyobi shinbun kisha, 9, no. 1
( Jan. 1928), 13.
39
Draft submitted by the Ōsaka asahi shinbun’s Ueno Seiichi. Midoro, Meiji Taishō shi,
vol. 1, Genronhen, 324.
40
As the journal of the JLNA observed on the eve of the Washington assembly, “since this
conference aims to reduce arms for the sake of peace, it is highly significant (ōi ni yūigi de
aru) that the president of the League of Nations Association became plenipotentiary.”
“Nihon heiwa undo saikin no shōsoku,” Kokusai renmei, 1, no. 11 (Nov. 1921), 39.
41
“Saikin Nihon no heiwa undō,” 64.
42
“Umi ni zenken kaeru hi, heiwa no kane hibiki hajimu,” 107.
43
“Heiwa kinenbi no undō,” 119.

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 Chronicling the 1920s through the culture of peace 153

of higher civilization. But as with internationalism, democracy and arms

reductions, such “education” was prized primarily for the role it would
play to ensure a peaceful world. By 1928, the campaign to promote
Armistice Day was as active in Japanese territories as it was back home.44
Japan specialists are most likely to identify the Great Kantō Earthquake,
rather than the Great War, as a critical catalyst of cultural change in
interwar Japan.45 The quake, after all, fits neatly into the standard vision
of Taishō-era crisis.46 But when contemporaries use the language of the
culture of peace to assess the destruction of Tokyo, the most critical
context becomes clear. Post-earthquake Tokyo, observed the Japanese
League of Nations Association journal in November 1923, “somehow
resembles Europe following the Great War . . . the disaster is truly dreadful
(osoroshiki).” But from the destruction emerged hope: the “deep love”
( fukaki ai) shown by the many foreign countries sending help. On the fifth
anniversary of the end of the Great War, the earth was “overflowing with
love and peace.” “People of the world,” commanded the editors, “be
happy.” It was time to construct “a world without war” (tatakai no nai
sekai). “Japan should have the honor of leading the movement for peace. If
old things are bad, gallantly destroy them. And create new, good things.
Youth of Japan, arise.”47
Meiji University professor of colonial policy Izumi Akira likewise spoke of
the unprecedented opportunity afforded by the destruction of Tokyo. The
earthquake was a “bitter lesson” (nigaki kyōkun). But if it could raise
Japanese consciousness, the people of Japan could easily overcome the

44
The tenth anniversary of the German surrender was marked in Korea, for example, by a
special radio broadcast by Seoul University professor Izumi Tetsu and a symposium
sponsored by the Seoul Times (Keijō nippō). “Hon kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, 9,
no. 1 ( Jan. 1929), 97.
45
The first to do so in English was probably Maruyama Masao, who described the quake as
marking the “second epoch-making period in individuation,” following the 1900–10
years. Maruyama, “Patterns of Individuation and the Case of Japan: A Conceptual
Scheme,” 517–22. See also Seidensticker, Low City, High City. This delightful analysis
of Tokyo culture from the late Edo period through the early twentieth century opens with
the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, which it characterizes as the principal benchmark separating
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The volume was followed by a second title
recounting developments from 1923 to the 1980s. Edward Seidensticker, Tokyo Rising:
The City since the Great Earthquake (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
The most recent English-language analysis of Taishō culture, likewise, begins its coverage
conspicuously in 1923. See Miriam Silverberg, Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture
of Japanese Modern Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
46
Charles Schencking highlights a “culture of catastrophe” surrounding the quake. See
J. Charles Schencking, “The Great Kanto Earthquake and the Culture of Catastrophe and
Reconstruction in 1920s Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies, 34, no. 2 (summer 2008),
295–331.
47
Editors, “Hensanshitsu yori,” Kokusai chishiki, 3, no. 11 (Nov. 1923), 112.

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 154 Culture of peace

Figure 7.2 “The

time is now:
peace exposition
of the blossoming
spring.” Cherry
blossoms and the
Ueno peace expo
are too much for
this dishevelled
soldier left with
only a wooden
bayonet in this
Ogawa Jihei
image.
Manga no
Hatake, April
1922.

terrible physical loss.

The massive outpouring
of aid and sympathy
from foreign nations
spotlighted Japan as an
integral part of a larger
international commun-
ity. “It is not enough for us Japanese to simply be loyal and good subjects.
We must become admirable human beings (rippa naru ningen),” concluded
Izumi, “worthy of respect anywhere in the world.”48
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney intriguingly maps the process whereby the
cherry blossom, which had symbolized a distinct Japanese spirit in early
Meiji, shifted by the 1930s to personify young soldiers and their sacri-
fice.49 But there is a critical interval during the 1920s, when Japan’s
national flower came to symbolize something quite distinct. The Peace
Exposition, which had triumphantly marked the return of Japan’s dele-
gates from the Washington Naval Conference in 1922, had begun in
March, on the eve of the annual excitement over cherry blossoms. As
coverage of the conspicuous paean to peace began to flower, so too did the
cherry trees enveloping the expo grounds in Ueno. The result was a strong
new association of cherry blossoms with the 1920s culture of peace. In
April 1922, renowned political cartoonist Ogawa Jihei penned a

48
Izumi, “Daishinsai no kokusaiteki kansatsu,” 8.
49
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization
of Aesthetics in Japanese History (University of Chicago Press, 2002), ch. 3.

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 Chronicling the 1920s through the culture of peace 155

commemorative image titled “The Peace Expo of the Blossoming

Spring,” which depicted a well-armed, yet perplexed, soldier marching
away from expo grounds blanketed with blossoms. Ogawa perfectly
encapsulated the new dissonance between arms and blossoms with the
caption, “What is this, the long sword of a man viewing blossoms?”50 A
year later, the positive association of blossoms and peace was irrefutable.
“The flowers of Ueno are in bloom,” declared Kokusai chishiki in April
1923. “The weather has turned comfortably warm. Spring is the symbol of
peace.”51
Just as the cherry blossom could, in the 1920s, symbolize the new culture
of peace, so, too, the imperial family. The Taishō emperor, in particular,
stood at the forefront of the symbolism of the new age. In anticipation of
Yoshihito’s annual New Year’s greeting in 1919, the Imperial Palace was
described by the Tōkyō asahi shinbun as “beautifully sparkling out of the
faint spring haze, like a sudden sign of peace.”52 And the January 1920
Imperial Rescript on the Establishment of Peace exhorting Japanese sub-
jects to “realize, in accordance with the international situation, a League of
Nations peace (renmei heiwa),”53 marked the strongest official endorsement
of the new peace culture, equivalent to the 1868 Charter Oath’s command
for knowledge to be “sought throughout the world.”
As specialists of the early twentieth century are well aware, by the time of
the January 1920 Rescript, the Taishō emperor was physically incapaci-
tated. Plagued by chronic health problems stemming from a childhood bout
of meningitis, Yoshihito made his final public appearance on the fiftieth
anniversary of the transfer of the national capital to Tokyo, in May 1919.54
But even as his actual physical presence faded, the Taishō emperor, like his
father before him, retained a critical symbolic presence at least through his
funeral in February 1927. A central component of that presence was the
dazzling picture, consciously cultivated since Yoshihito’s celebrated wed-
ding of May 1900, of a very modern monarchy of particularly Western
style.55 In his last public appearance, the emperor and Empress Sadako
rode together in an open Western-style horse-drawn carriage, Yoshihito in
his customary Western military uniform, Sadako in a light red robe montante

50
Ogawa Jihei, “Toki wa ima, hana saku haru no heiwahaku,” Manga no Hatake, April 1922;
reprinted in Maeda Ai and Shimizu Isao, eds., Taishō kōki no manga (Tokyo: Chikuma
shobō, 1986), 16.
51
Editors, “Hensanshitsu yori,” Kokusai chishiki, 3, no. 4 (April 1923), 144.
52
“Hare no gozen,” Tōkyō asahi shinbun, Jan. 1, 1919; reprinted in Nakajima, comp.,
Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 1.
53
“Heiwa kokufuku no taishō happu,” Ōsaka asahi shinbun, Jan. 14, 1920; reprinted in
Watanabe, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 8, 24.
54
Dickinson, Taishō tennō, 134. 55 For full articulation of this point, see ibid., ch. 2–4.

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 156 Culture of peace

(highnecked dress) with white bonnet and parasol, and were greeted by
throngs of adoring crowds.56
Even more critical as Yoshihito withdrew from public view was an
amplification of his image as modern husband and father. With Crown
Prince Hirohito designated regent and assuming full responsibility for
imperial leadership in November 1921, public word of Yoshihito came
to focus on activities shared with Empress Sadako and the children at
their many summer and winter escapes. The Ōsaka mainichi shinbun
captured Yoshihito and Sadako enjoying friendly “chats about all and
sundry” at Hayama in October 1926.57 And as the emperor’s health
gradually worsened, Sadako was increasingly portrayed as his most
devoted caregiver.58 While time spent with the children decreased as
they entered adulthood, reports of occasions shared with the sons sus-
tained the picture of warm family life that had become so familiar as the
four princes were growing up.59 The October 16, 1923 Hōchi shinbun
captured Yoshihito “nod[ding] affectionately” to Hirohito and Chichibu
upon departing Nikko for Tokyo.60 That the picture of a caring husband
and father in the early 1920s replaced the image of Yoshihito as
commander-in-chief at military maneuvers perfectly befit the new cul-
ture of peace.
Historians typically contrast a feeble Yoshihito and visions of his lack-
luster era with a young and energetic crown prince and a dynamic
Shōwa.61 But one should not forget that Hirohito was a product of the
age in which he grew up – the early twentieth century – and, at least during
the 1920s, he was very much an extension of the symbolic presence of his
father. A critical component of that symbolism was a strongly modern and
Western style, as evident in Hirohito’s Western dress, association with the
wondrous new technologies of the airplane and film, facility with golf and
tennis, and a relatively egalitarian relationship with his “commoner”
wife.62 But most remarkable is the degree to which, from very early in
his public life, the crown prince was associated, even more explicitly than

56
“Tento gojūnen shikiten no sakae,” Chūō shinbun, May 10, 1919; reprinted in Nakajima,
comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 161–2.
57
“Otabako mo yamete hitasura goyōjō no mainichi,” Ōsaka mainichi shinbun, Oct. 31,
1926; reprinted in Uchikawa, comp., Taishō Nyūsu jiten, vol. 7, 368.
58
“Onetsu sagarazu, kōgō heika yotei o hayame Hayama e,” Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun,
evening edition, Nov. 4, 1926; reprinted in ibid., vol. 7, 368.
59
For more on Yoshihito and his sons, see Dickinson, Taishō tennō, 49–54, 117–18,
139–49.
60
“Seijō kankō,” Hōchi shinbun, Oct. 16, 1923; reprinted in Watanabe, comp., Shinbun
shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 11, 433.
61
See, for example, Hara Takeshi, Taishō tennō (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 2000), 236.
62
For in-depth coverage, see Dickinson, Taishō tennō, 140–4.

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 Taishō icons as symbols of the New Japan of peace 157

his father, with the postwar culture of peace. As we have seen in Chapter 5,
that association was evident in Hirohito’s six-month tour of Europe in
1921, where he viewed key World War I battlefields, paid his respects to
the fallen heroes of Europe and Japan, and made frequent reference to the
war’s lessons and the importance of peace. The association was institu-
tionalized when the Wakatsuki government in December 1926 chose
Shōwa (enlightened harmony) as the new era name for Hirohito’s reign.
Although drawn from the Confucian classic the Shujing (Classic of
History), the passage described a situation very similar to the mood in
Japan following the Great War: “enlightenment of the people, harmony
among nations” (hyakushō shōmei, banpō kyōwa). Elder statesman Saionji
Kinmochi was particularly pleased by the inclusion in the era name of the
character wa, of critical importance in such newly significant terms as
peace (heiwa) and harmony (chōwa).63 And the public greeted Hirohito’s
ascension to the throne on December 25, 1926 with a reinvigorated hope
for peace. On that day, the daily Tōkyō nichinichi described how, the day
after the crown prince’s birth, two swans had alighted in the courtyard of
the Imperial Palace. Four days later, the same swans made an appearance
in the sacred inner chamber of the palace. “The symbol of peace on the
lawn of the palace garden, full of joy for the birth of the prince,” declared
the Nichinichi. “Our emperor was thus born under the auspicious sign of
peace.”64

Taishō icons as symbols of the New Japan of peace

Just as major political and diplomatic events of the 1920s were viewed by
contemporaries within the general rubric of peace, so too were the era’s
principal cultural symbols. The most celebrated symbols of Taishō cul-
ture are, of course, components of a new standard of leisure: cafés,
movies, jazz, radio, and the “modern girl.” Such developments are
directly related to a new level of prosperity in early twentieth-century
Japan. But it is important to recall that this prosperity is most dramatically
a product of the First World War. While cafés, movies, jazz and a change
in women’s roles all predate Sarajevo, the Great War marks the first time
in which they become fixtures of mainstream society. Contemporary
observer Ubukata Toshirō locates the material transformation of Tokyo
squarely in the prosperous middle years of the war. It was at this time, he

63
Wakatsuki Reijirō, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa seikai hisshi – kofūan kaikoroku (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1983), 284–5.
64
“Arata ni aogu, seijō heika,” Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun, Dec. 25, 1926; reprinted in
Watanabe, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 14, 455.

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 158 Culture of peace

notes, that young Japanese women “became conspicuously stylish” and,

with their new dexterity with make-up, began to surpass the beauty of
geisha.65
Although historians used to echo contemporary condemnation of the
“decadence” of this “erotic, grotesque nonsense,” in recent years they
have begun to highlight the “vitality” of these trends.66 They have, how-
ever, yet to place the new cultural movement within its proper historical
context. Miriam Silverberg considers the “nonsense” of popular vaude-
ville a challenge to “relationships of domination of one class, culture, or
nation-state by another.”67 But these developments symbolize much
more than a new level of oppositional politics. They are, like the fervent
pursuit of Western gadgets and mores in the mid nineteenth century, most
significant as reflections of a massive new effort in national construction.
The preeminent symbol of Taishō culture, the “modern girl” (moga) is,
in other words, much more than a “militant,” defying accepted class,
gender and cultural norms.68 Like the “close-cropped head” (zangiri
atama) of the early Meiji years, she represents a complete transformation
of national culture. In early Meiji, shaving a samurai head marked the
most powerful symbol of dramatic change. As the popular ditty had it,
“Tap a half-shaved head and you will hear the sound of temporizing
conservatism. Tap a full head of hair and you will hear ‘Restore imperial
rule.’ Tap a close-cropped head and you will hear ‘Civilization and
Enlightenment.’”69
Likewise, in the 1920s, changing women’s roles came to embody the
monumental transformation of the Japanese nation. The evolution of
women’s rights in Japan is appropriately traced back to the nineteenth
century and often includes such critical benchmarks as the foundation of
the Bluestocking Society in 1911. Dina Lowy has recently described the
era of the “New Woman” proclaimed by members of this society as the
most dynamic in prewar Japanese women’s history. The “third generation
of New Women” in the 1920s, she argues, lost the energy of their pre-
decessors when they “shifted from being producers of new social and
cultural trends to being consumers.”70

65
Ubukata Toshirō, Meiji Taishō kenbunshi (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1978), 239 (originally
published by Shunjūsha, 1926).
66
In English, see Silverberg, Erotic Grotesque Nonsense, xvi 67 Ibid., v.
68
For this characterization, see Silverberg, “The Modern Girl as Militant.”
69
For an intriguing discussion of the symbolic importance of this ditty in histories of the
Meiji era, see Suzanne G. O’Brien, “Splitting Hairs: History and the Politics of Daily Life
in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies, 67, no. 4 (Nov. 2008), 1309–39.
70
Dina Lowy, The Japanese “New Woman”: Images of Gender and Modernity (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 119.

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 Taishō icons as symbols of the New Japan of peace 159

It is important, however, to make a clear distinction between the era of

the “New Woman” surrounding the activities of members of the
Bluestocking Society and the age of the “modern girl,” which is strictly a
post-First World War phenomenon, intimately tied to the monumental
effort of national reconstruction. What would eventually be identified as
the “modern girl” (moga) was very much the product of structural changes
from the Great War.71 As the daily Hōchi explained in January 1919,
changing women’s roles were a direct product of institutional develop-
ments spurred by the war. “Given that Western women made impressive
accomplishments taking the place of men in all areas of work during the
Great War (taisen), it is clear that in the West and even in Japan, the
number of working women will increase significantly in the future.”72
The transformation of women’s place in society epitomized universal
progress after 1918. As journalist Kiyosawa Kiyoshi observed in 1926,
Japanese “civilization and fate” (koku’un to bunmei) hinged upon a “recon-
struction” (tatenaoshi) of male–female relations in Japanese society.73
Opponents of such change, declared the Hōchi, “are truly in the dark
about world trends (sekai no taisei).”74 Those against improvements in
women’s daily lives, added the daily Chūō shinbun, challenged “advanced,
civilized living” (shinposhita bunmei no seikatsu).75 Member of the House of
Peers and founder of a secondary school for girls Yamawaki Gen
described women’s financial autonomy as a top priority for the sake of
women and “for humanity” (ningen no mondai toshite).76
Like the change of samurai status in the mid nineteenth century, the
improvement of women’s lives was, therefore, central to the transfor-
mation of Japanese state and society after 1918. And it was, by exten-
sion, a critical pillar of the new peace culture. As a member of the
Japanese Christian Women’s Reform Society (Nihon kirisutokyō fujin
kyōfūkai) Moriya Azuma declared in April 1923, “Until the day the
words ‘woman and child’ resonate with value (tōtoi oto ni hibiku),

71
Miriam Silverberg locates the first documented use of the term “modern girl” in the title
of an article in the August 1924 issue of the women’s magazine Josei, and highlights
contemporary discussions distinguishing the self-sufficient “modern girl” from the earlier
“New Woman.” Siverberg, “The Modern Girl as Militant,” 240, 248.
72
“Keshite haji ni naranu: fūfu no tomokasegi,” Hōchi shinbun, Jan. 4, 1919; reprinted in
Nakajima, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 5.
73
Kiyosawa Kiyoshi, Modan gaaru (Tokyo: Kinseidō, 1926), 2.
74
“Keshite haji ni naranu: fūfu no tomokasegi,” 5.
75
“Fujin no nichijō seikatsu kairyō dai ippo wa jūtaku daidokoro no kairyō,” Chūō shinbun,
March 10, 1919; reprinted in Nakajima, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 97.
76
“Kekkon no kaizō ga mottomo kyūmu,” Yomiuri shinbun, Oct. 8, 1919; reprinted in
Watanabe, comp., Shinbun shūroku Taishōshi, vol. 7, 344. Yamawaki founded
Yamawaki Gakuen in Akasaka, Tokyo.

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 160 Culture of peace

Figure 7.3 “Power

of the times.” The
times are strong
enough to place
kimono-clad
Japanese women in
Western dress and
to manifest in a
popular outcry for
universal suffrage in
this Kitazawa
Rakuten image.
Jiji manga, 14,179
( Jan. 1, 1923),
cover.

there will be no gen-

uine peace in the
world.” The natural
instinct of women,
Moriya explained, is
to preserve peace.
“As long as women
cannot maintain
peace but, rather,
become a source of
conflict, there will be no peace in this world.”77 Japanese UNESCO
representative Ayusawa Fukuko elaborated on the special role of
women in promoting world peace. Detached from the scene of battle,
women during wartime enjoyed a freedom unknown to men. Besides,
they were the mothers of the nation and possessed a natural inclination
to preserve life. Women were, finally, the guardians of education and
could help eliminate the exaltation of war, militarism and heroism.
“Women,” Ayusawa declared, “must unite for the sake of peace and
humanity (sekai jinrui heiwa no tame ni).”78
Just as the “close-cropped head” had symbolized the Meiji pursuit of
“enlightenment,” in other words, Japanese women after the First World
War became the most powerful image of the new culture of peace.
Contemporary critics of the “modern girl” had much more to fear than

77
Moriya Azuma, “Kokusai heiwa to fujin,” Kokusai chishiki, 3, no. 4 (April 1923), 80.
78
Ayusawa Fukuko, “Fujin mondai no yuku michi,” Kokusai chishiki, 3, no. 5 (May 1923),
46–7.

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 The new media as peace media 161

mere “decadence.” The rise of the moga symbolized the destruction of an

entire order. In May 1922, the journal of the Japanese League of Nations
Association, Kokusai renmei, noted the profound implications of a recent
visit by the most celebrated international proponent of birth control.
Margaret Sanger’s tour of Japan in March helped sever the assumed
connection between population and national strength. “The vitality of a
nation depends not on the ebb and flow of population but on the quality of
its citizens (kokumin),” declared the editors. If Japanese authorities could,
following the trend of world thought, quit viewing population expansion
as a “given,” Japan, too, might move beyond a policy of “militarism and
aggression” (gunkokushugiteki shinryaku seisaku).79 Although Sanger was
prohibited from giving public talks on birth control during her visit, the
effect of women’s new freedoms on the pre-World War I definition of
national power was clear.

The new media as peace media

As closely associated as the modern girl with the new culture of “deca-
dence” in 1920s Japan, of course, are two important new media forms,
radio and film. But, as with the moga, these new means of communication
are best seen less as simple manifestations of a new devotion to leisure,
and more as both products and purveyors of the new global peace culture.
Chapter 2 described the centrality of the First World War in the develop-
ment of radio technology and mass film viewership. The postwar years
subsequently saw these new media become pivotal conduits in the mass
diffusion of the new culture of peace.
Radio, we already know, played a central role in the runaway popularity
of such fixtures of the new 1920s culture as jazz and baseball. As governor
general of Taiwan Kawamura Takeji explained in the monthly Rajio no
Nihon (Radio Japan), “jazz” was practically synonymous with radio. It was
a term coined in the United States to describe the “soft” radio program-
ming of music and idle chatter, as opposed to the “hard” programming of
news and educational broadcasts. In Japan, urbanites enjoyed “jazz,” while
those in the countryside preferred celebrity lectures.80 As for baseball, by
airing it live for the first time in 1927, the Tokyo Central Broadcasting
Bureau (forerunner of NHK) helped spread what began in 1915 and
remains a wildly popular national ritual today – the annual National

79
“Jinkō mondai to Nihon,” Kokusei renmei, 2, no. 5 (May 1922), front.
80
Kawamura Takeji, “Shokuminchi to hōsō jigyō,” Rajio no Nihon, 7, no. 4 (Oct.
1928), 4.

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 162 Culture of peace

High School Baseball Tournament at Koshien Stadium in Kobe.81 Radio

played a critical role, as well, in modernizing and popularizing older
pastimes. By limiting what had been an unrestricted ritual build-up to
each bout (the shikiri) to ten minutes, the first radio broadcasts of sumo in
1928 helped the sport adapt to the new fast pace of the modern world.82
But radio is most significant as a critical component of the infrastruc-
ture of the New Japan. The League of Nations was, of course, integral to
the spirit of the new age, and radio played a vital role in promoting its
activities. From its first radio broadcast in December 1925, the Japanese
League of Nations Association made ample use of the new technology to
advance the principles of the League.83 JLNA members made regular
broadcasts describing League activities and covering such League-related
topics as the International Labor Organization, the Locarno Treaties and
the Kellogg–Briand Pact.84 JLNA president Shibusawa Eiichi addressed
the nation via radio for such important anniversaries as Armistice Day.85
Deliberations of the League General Assembly were broadcast in Europe
from 1925 and, by May 1928, were available in Japan in Japanese, English,
French and Dutch.86 And information circulated on the airwaves directly
from such League organizations as the International Labor Bureau and
the League Information Bureau.87

81
Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 708, note 27. Broadcasts were not, of
course, limited to high school tournaments. The diary of Kawai Yahachi notes the
pleasure that the deputy chamberlain took in the late 1920s listening to college baseball
games on the radio. Kawai Yahachi, Shōwa shoki no Tennō to kyūchū: Jijū Jichō Kawai
Yahachi nikki, 6 vols., ed. Takahashi Hiroshi, Awaya Kentarō and Otabe Yūji (Tokyo:
Iwanami shoten, 1993), vol. 3, 84 (diary entry of May 20, 1929).
82
Lee A. Thompson, “The Invention of the Yokozuna and the Championship System, Or,
Futahaguro’s Revenge,” in Stephen Vlastos, ed., Mirror of Modernity (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1998), 182.
83
“Kyōkai tayori,” Kokusai chishiki, 6, no. 2 (Feb. 1926), 128.
84
For example, Sugimura Yōtarō, “Sekai no taisei to Kokusai renmei” (World Trends and
the League of Nations, Nov. 21, 1926); Yasuma Tokushō, “Kokusai renmei to Nihon”
(The League of Nations and Japan, March 6, 1928); Maeda Tamon, “Rōdō mondai ni
kansuru kokusai shufu toshite no jene-bu” (The International Capital for Labor
Problems, Geneva, Feb. 13, 1927); Hayashi Kiroku, “Rokaruno jōyaku no seiritsu”
(Conclusion of the Locarno Treaties, Dec. 6, 1925); Izumi Tetsu, “Rokaruno yori
Jeneba o hete Ro-Doku teikei e” (From Locarno through Geneva to a Russo-German
Agreement, July 4, 1926); Okayama Shūji, “Fusen no yakusoku ni tuite” (On the Anti-
war Promise, Jan. 29, 1928). All noted in Kokusai chishiki.
85
See Shibusawa Eiichi, “Heiwa kinen ni tsuite,” Kokusai chishiki, 7 ( Jan. 1927), 146–8 and
“Hon kyōkai nyūsu, Kokusai chishiki, 9, no. 1 ( Jan. 1929), 97.
86
“Nihongo de kokusai renmei no rajio hōsō,” Rajio no Nihon, 7, no. 1 ( July 1928), 6.
87
For example, “Kokusai heiwa to shakaishugi” (International Peace and Socialism, Dec. 7,
1928) by International Labor Bureau member Albert Thomas (“Hon kyōkai nyūsu,”
Kokusai chishiki, 9, no. 2 [Feb. 1929], 119) and “Shi o tsukuru mono” ( What Makes
History, May 23, 1926) by head of the Tokyo branch of the League Information Bureau
Aoki Setsuichi (“Honbu Dayori,” Kokusai chishiki, 6, no. 7 [ July 1926], 152).

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 The new media as peace media 163

As integral as internationalism was to the spirit of the New Japan, so

radio was to spreading the word. Through the end of the decade, Tokyo’s
first radio frequency, JOAK, sponsored an “International Lecture” (koku-
sai kōza) series, highlighting talks by accomplished diplomats, bureau-
crats and academics on such diverse topics as the “spirit of
internationalism,” “people’s diplomacy and the papers,” “the discovery
of Japan by Westerners” and “international cooperation on the health of
Asia.”88 And radio promoted such trends as international pen pals and
International Goodwill Day.89
Representative government was, as we have seen, as much a pillar of the
new age as the League of Nations and internationalism. And radio stood
at the forefront of an increasingly engaged body politic. Just as broad-
casting began in the United States with a flash report on results of the
November 1920 presidential election, one of the first experimental broad-
casts in Japan announced the outcome of the fifteenth general election of
May 10, 1924.90 Radio enabled a dramatic new level of public access to
the thought and speeches of Japan’s politicians and bureaucrats. Elder
statesman Saionji Kinmochi heard former Communications Minister
Den Kenjirō speak publicly for the first time in an August 1925 radio
broadcast and rejoiced that Den had a good ten years of public service
ahead of him.91 Radio also played a pivotal role in the popularization of
the Japanese monarchy. Its centrality in the national vigil and February
1927 funeral of the Taishō emperor was a fitting end to a reign marked by
an unprecedented level of popular consciousness of the throne.92 Between
December 14 and Yoshihito’s death on December 25, 1926, 433
announcements about the emperor’s condition filled the airwaves.93
Radio subscriptions in Japan leapt from 5,000 at the start of official
broadcasts in March 1925 to 230,000 during the emperor’s death vigil.
And it jumped again to over 360,000 at the time of the funeral.94 The

88
Nitobe Inazō, “Kokusai gokoro to wa nani ka” (March 23, 1927), noted in “Hon kyōkai
nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, 74 (May 1927), 153; Fukuda Yoshizō, “Kokumin gaikō to
shinbun” (Sept. 25, 1927), noted in “Hon kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, 7, no. 11
(Nov. 1927), 164; Rinpatsu Sueo, “Seiyōjin no Nihon hakken” (Dec. 11, 1927), noted in
“Hon kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, 8, no. 2 (Feb. 1928), 105; Satō Masaru, “Tōyō no
eisei ni taisuru kokusai kyōryoku” (April 6, 1928), noted in “Hon kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai
chishiki, 8, no. 6 ( June 1928), 127.
89
See “Renmei kyōkai honbu dayori,” Kokusai chishiki, 3, no. 4 (April 1923), 114 and
“Kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, vol. 8, no. 7 ( July 1928), 129, respectively.
90
Takeyama Akiko, Rajio no jidai (Tokyo: Sekai shisōsha, 2002), 20.
91
Oka and Hayashi, comp., Taishō demokurashiiki no seiji, 437 (diary entry of Aug. 21,
1925).
92
Dickinson, Taishō tennō, 158–9. 93 Takeyama, Rajio no jidai, 76. 94 Ibid., 109.

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 164 Culture of peace

Shōwa emperor’s November 1928 coronation garnered over twenty days

of special radio coverage.95
Just as peace was the hallmark of interwar society, radio led the way in
its promotion. One of the popular attractions at the 1922 Peace
Exposition was music broadcast from the roof of the daily Tōkyō asahi
offices in downtown Tokyo (Kyōbashi) and played at the Electronic
Pavilion at the expo in Ueno.96 And a variety of political, economic and
intellectual leaders peppered the airwaves throughout the 1920s with their
thoughts on such topics as “War and Peace,” “Peace among Nations,”
“International Peace from an Economic Perspective” and, most fittingly,
“Peace and the Great Enterprise of Nation-building.”97
Just as closely associated as radio with the new culture of “decadence”
in 1920s Japan was film. Students of Taishō recognize both Harold Lloyd
glasses and Charlie Chaplin caramels as ubiquitous symbols of the mass
penetration of film in Japanese culture after the First World War. But, as
with the “modern girl” and radio, film after 1918 represented much more
than a vibrant leisure culture. It was another critical component of the
infrastructure of peace in interwar Japan.
Just as radio served as a critical conduit for the promotion of internation-
alism, film became a vital window into the new era of peaceful intercourse.
The Treaty of Versailles was the first international treaty whose signing
ceremony ( June 28, 1919) was captured on film.98 And the Taishō
emperor’s association with the new medium comprised an important part
of his image as a modern, Western-style monarch.99 When Matsutake
Kinema turned its cameras on Crown Prince Hirohito’s departure for
Europe in March 1921, it captured a member of the Japanese imperial
family on film for the first time. In so doing, it accentuated the court’s
association with internationalism, so effectively promoted by the Taishō
emperor since his distinctly modern wedding of May 1900.100 Shown to
several hundred thousand subjects during the prince’s six-month overseas

95 96
Itō, Seitō seiji to tennō, 303. Takeyama, Rajio no jidai, 13–14.
97
Kiyozawa Kiyoshi, “Sensō to heiwa” (Feb. 7, 1926), noted in “Kyōkai dayori,” Kokusai
chishiki, 6, no. 3 (March 1926), 138; Ishii Kijūrō, “Kokusaikan no heiwa” (Oct. 22,
1927), noted in “Hon kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, 7, no. 12 (Dec. 1927), 137;
Morita Yoshio, “Keizaijō yori mitaru sekai heiwa” (Nov. 20, 1927), noted in “Hon
kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki, 8, no. 1 ( Jan. 1928), 141; Soeda Juichi, “Kenkoku no
daigyō to sekai no heiwa” (April 2, 1928), noted in “Hon kyōkai nyūsu,” Kokusai chishiki,
8, no. 6 (June 1928), 127.
98
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (New York:
Random House, 2001), 476.
99
Dickinson, Taishō tennō, 100–2.
100
For a full exposition of this theme of internationalism and the Taishō emperor, see
Dickinson, Taishō tennō. Compare this point with the decidedly conservative function

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 Synopsis 165

tour,101 the images inextricably linked film, as well, to the excitement of the
new internationalism.

Synopsis
Edward Seidensticker long ago captured the scholarly ambivalence sur-
rounding interwar Japan by describing it as “unexciting.” “Taishō his-
tory,” Seidensticker declared, “contains little to be either very proud of or
deeply ashamed of.”102 But ambivalence can define our vision of the
1920s only if we remain preoccupied with the drama of the 1930s. If,
alternatively, we examine the interwar years on their own terms, we
discover an era of remarkable distinction. Contemporaries were not con-
fused about what defined their age. Whether they agreed with the new
national trajectory or not, soldiers and statesmen, citizens and pundits
universally recognized interwar Japan as a product of the First World War.
And they understood the principal aim following the devastating confla-
gration to be global peace.
As was the case in the capitals of the principal Western belligerents,
Japan’s own League of Nations Association led the effort to define a new
peace culture in interwar Japan. With a membership boasting some of the
most eminent statesmen of the day, the JLNA took every opportunity, in
its flagship journal Kokusai chishiki and in a decade of peace- and
disarmament-related activities and promotions, to advance the values of
the new age. Among the most prominent was observing Armistice Day as
an annual national commemoration.
The JLNA was not alone in promoting the cause of peace. Each of the
major political and diplomatic initiatives pursued in the name of a New
Japan – internationalism, representative government, arms reductions
and redefining the empire – was firmly rooted in a solemn desire for
peace following a ruinous war. While historians typically forefront the
Great Kantō Earthquake as the watershed moment of 1920s Japan, con-
temporaries viewed even this event within the context of the lessons of the
Great War. And for a brief but glorious moment, they peered upon what
are customarily considered nationalist symbols of the ultimate sacrifice –
the cherry blossom – as another powerful symbol of peace. Both the
Taishō emperor and his successor, the Shōwa emperor, reigned in the
1920s as clear personifications of the new peace culture.

that Hara Takeshi attributes to the filming of the crown prince’s departure. According to
Hara, this helped shore up the monarchy in a time of increasing domestic crisis. Hara,
Taishō tennō, 235.
101
Saraki, Taishō jidai o tazunete mita, 166. 102 Seidensticker, Low City, High City, 256.

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 166 Culture of peace

Most historians today recognize the enormous cultural dynamism of

interwar Japan. And they typically associate such powerful new cultural
symbols as the modern girl, film and the radio with conspicuous economic
growth and a new material culture following the Great Kantō Earthquake.
Like the major political and diplomatic initiatives of the decade, however,
these symbols are best understood as products of the Great War. As such,
they represent much more than a new material or leisure culture. Just as
the “close-cropped head” of early Meiji samurai stood as the most power-
ful symbol of a new age of “civilization and enlightenment,” the modern
girl and the new media that sustained her were the quintessential signs of
the new culture of peace. She became a lightning rod of controversy not
because of her “decadence” but because she symbolized the power of the
New Japan. In our final chapter, we will see exactly how powerful the New
Japan could become.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139794794.008 Published online by Cambridge University Press