Introduction
For Nakano, the decade following his entry into politics in 1920 was one of political progress and personal advancement. Known commonly as the era of Taishō democracy, these years saw the realization of some political aims that Nakano had long advocated and sought to achieve. Constitutional government, which for Nakano meant party cabinets, seemed to become firmly established with the 1924 cabinet of Katō Kōmei, which also passed universal suffrage.
Nakano’s own career also progressed positively and can be seen as a slow if steady move from the political fringe to the center. As a new parliament member, Nakano first joined a group of unaffiliated MPs, then a small party led by his mentor, Inukai Tsuyoshi, before finally entering the Kenseikai (later renamed Minseitō) - one of the two large established parties in 1924 - just as this party formed the Katō Kōmei cabinet. Once inside the party, he rose relatively quickly through the ranks to become head of its propaganda bureau. He was rewarded for his services with positions in the administration, becoming first parliamentary councilor in the Ministry of Finance in 1927, and in 1929 parliamentary vice-minister of Communications, a position he held for 18 months. By the decade’s end, Nakano was a well-known political figure, of whom many expected an ascent to minister of state and perhaps more. Nakano’s private life, too, was by and large happy and characterized by material progress.
This is not to say that the 1920s were all roses for Nakano. He suffered personal tragedies, such as his father’s death and losing his leg due to a botched surgery. Politically, too, there were setbacks and failures. Nakano had entered politics with the idealistic hope of reforming the political system through a popular mass party. Accordingly, during his first term, he took a pro-Soviet stance, hoping to use Russia as a rallying point of popular (i.e. labor) sentiment and support. The move, however, alienated his Fukuoka constituency and spurred him to switch
strategy after he almost lost an election. In 1924, he joined the Kenseikai, a move which by many was seen as a necessary compromise with the realities of power; others, however, saw it as a betrayal of Nakano’s deepest ideals. Within the Kenseikai, Nakano’s advance was thwarted by the bureaucratic faction. Frustrated, Nakano left the party at the end of 1931.
The greatest source of his political dissatisfaction was Japan’s role in international affairs. The Anglo-American Powers, for one thing, continued cementing what Nakano perceived as an unfair global order through a series of international treaties, beginning with Versailles in 1919 and followed by Washington in 1921-2 and London in 1930. Even worse in Nakano’s eyes, Japan – rather than becoming a champion of freedom and opposing this unjust international order - became both a bully and servile supporter of the system.
Nakano’s Election to the Diet
When in 1920 Premier Hara Kei dissolved the Diet and called a new election, Nakano immediately began planning a campaign, his second after the botched 1917 effort. Several factors worked in his favor this time: First, Genyōsha president Tōyama had convinced Miyagawa Ikkan not to run, meaning Nakano enjoyed the undivided support of voters who wished to be represented by a Fukuoka native (the only other candidate, the incumbent Matsunaga, hailed from Nagasaki). Second, the tax requirement for voter qualification had been lowered in the intervening years, broadening the electoral base. Nakano took advantage of this more-inclusive political playing field by relying more on mass-targeting activities such as rallies and newspaper ads than on the traditional campaign tactic of visiting individual voters’ homes (and buying their votes with money1). Matsunaga also experimented with mass tactics but could not match
1 Concerning the custom of politicians to visit individual homes to buy votes, see Kojima Kazuo [幣戡慎 ], “Reminiscences of an old politician” [慎 膕齠广貢憐熾], (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron-sha, 1951), p. 107-109.
Nakano’s reliance on the press.2 Finally, Nakano received help from Inukai Tsuyoshi, Baba Tsunego and many others, who supported him by endorsing him either in their writings or speeches (often traveling all the way to Fukuoka to speak on his behalf).
Even before election day, many expected Nakano to win, but the strength of his victory came as a surprise – even to Nakano himself. After the votes were cast on May 10, 1920, the count showed Nakano with 2,596 votes, giving him a lead of 879 votes over Matsunaga. This election was Matsunaga’s last. He left politics for good, devoted himself to a successful business career and later supported Nakano’s political activities financially. For Nakano, the election marked the beginning of a lifelong career as a parliamentarian.
The Professional and Economic Dimension of Nakano’s Life
From May 1920 until his death, Nakano held – almost without interruption3 - a seat in the Diet. Parallel to that he continued his journalistic work, writing for various Japanese outlets and publishing his own magazines (Tōhōjiron until 1923, Gakan [癪 ] between 1923 and 1936 and thereafter Tōtairiku [覩哢 ]). In 1928, Nakano also became president of the Kyūshū Daily News [屋協郭匁], successor of the Genyōsha’s organ, Fukuryō Nippō [ 万咒匁], a position he held until 1940 when the paper was bought by the Yomiuri Shimbun.4
Journalism and politics were complementary activities. Writing let Nakano reach a large
2 See Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1, p. 284.
3 The only interruption was between spring of 1939 when Nakano voluntarily resigned from his seat in the Diet and February 1942 when he was reelected. See chapter five.
4 Founded in 1887 by Tōyama as the Genyōsha’s organ, the paper had declared bankruptcy in 1927-8 after seeing its advertisement income dwindle in the course of the Shōwa financial crisis. Unwilling to give up the paper, its employees had gathered capital and continued its operation inviting Nakano to act as president. Busy with his own projects in Tokyo, Nakano often left the day-to-day management of the paper to one of his followers. See Nakano Yasuo, vol.1, p. 462-64.
audience, and his name recognition became a valuable asset when popular masses appeared on the Japanese political stage following the introduction of universal suffrage. Having control over the Kyūshū Daily News, one of two daily papers in Fukuoka city, also gave Nakano a vehicle to influence public opinion in his electoral district, which turned out to be a great advantage in election campaigns.5 Parliamentary office, meanwhile, provided Nakano a stipend high enough for a life free of financial worries; plenty of time when the Diet was not in session to travel, read, research, and write; and access to important personalities in Japan as well as abroad.6 Such was the basic structure of Nakano’s professional life from 1920 on.
Within this framework, there were of course continuities and discontinuities. Motivated by a desire to gather first-hand information about overseas developments, he continued to travel regularly – to Korea and Manchuria in 1920; to China, Manchuria and Siberia in 1925. Such trips yielded, as they had in the past, material for subsequent writings and speeches. Nakano continued to be a prolific and successful writer, publishing some three dozen books (and many pamphlets) in his remaining 23 years, bringing his lifetime total to over 40. Simultaneously, he published about one article a month (less in the late 1920s, more in the 1930s).
He was less successful as a magazine manager. After Higashi resigned from the Tōhōjiron-sha presidency due to ill health in September 1918, Nakano assumed managerial duties.7 Combined with the responsibilities of his Diet seat, magazine management proved overwhelming. When the paper’s financial situation started deteriorating amid the Japanese economy’s post-WW1 downturn, Nakano tried keeping the magazine afloat with his private money. In 1922, however, he handed the management reins over to Hayashi Shizuo [詒 啌].
5 The other daily paper in Fukuoka was the Seiyūkai-affiliated Fukuoka Daily [ 慟荳荳] which on occasion carried articles critical of Nakano.
6 As a member of the lower house Nakano received 3.000 Yen p.a. See Nakano Yasuo, vol. 2, p. 178.
The magazine’s finances continued deteriorating, giving birth to the idea of combining Tōhōjiron with Miyake Setsurei’s Japan and the Japanese, but it was not until the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 destroyed the offices of both magazines that the merger was actually carried out.8 The entity that emerged in October 1923 was the magazine Gakan [癪 ], meaning “Our Views” or “My Views.” Nakano’s responsibilities within the magazine varied with time. He often contributed articles, but when necessary also acted as editor, manager or fundraiser.
Private Life
Thanks to Nakano’s income from writing, publishing and serving as an MP, his family enjoyed a lifestyle that, by the standards of the day, was wealthy if not elite. Goods that for average Japanese would become affordable only during the post-WW2 era’s economic boom - such as a radio, a gramophone, a French-made car, and regular dinners at Western restaurants - became part of Nakano's private life during the 1920s.9
In the years following his return from England, Nakano’s family grew steadily. Between 1918 and 1922 three more sons - Yūshi, Tatsuhiko and Yasuo - were born, making Nakano the proud father of four boys.10 As before, Nakano took care of his parents as well as his younger siblings. In addition, the family also employed up to three maids and one driver, and offered room and board to a number of students. All heads counted, there were anywhere between 12 and 17
8 When the earthquake hit Tokyo on September 1, 1923, Nakano was on his way to work and immediately turned around to look after his family, which was unhurt. Some people from Fukuoka living in Tokyo had been less fortunate and the Nakano family offered shelter to as many as possible of those who had been rendered homeless in the disaster. See Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1, p. 367-68.
9 For a description of the family’s consumption patterns see Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1 p. 458-60. 10 Of his four sons, the first two Katsuaki (1914 – 1931) and Yūshi [ 沒] (1918 – 1933) were to die in accidents before their father. The other two, Tatsuhiko [ 檢] (1920 -?) and Yasuo [┘ ] (1922 - ?) survived their father. While little is known of Tatsuhiko except that he worked as Ogata Taketora’s secretary after the war (see Ogata, p. 263), Yasuo later became professor at Waseda University and wrote several books about his father.
people living under Nakano’s roof during the 1920s and 30s.11
To accommodate all these people, the family in 1918 moved into a house in Harajuku, financing the move with money borrowed from Takagi Rikurō of the Mitsui Zaibatsu. Following Nakano’s electoral victory in 1920, he was able to repay Takagi’s loan and henceforth owned his own home, which in the course of the 1920s expanded repeatedly, growing to twice its original size by the decade’s end. The family lived in the Harajuku house until 1932, when they moved one final time to nearby Yoyogi.
The only truly tragic event in this otherwise happy tableau was the loss of Nakano’s leg in 1926.12 Hopeful of losing the ugly scars left by previous operations and assured by his doctor Sumita Masao13 that cosmetic surgery would preserve his leg and he would be scar-free within three weeks, Nakano decided to undergo surgery in the first half of 1926. The operation miscarried, leaving his leg with insufficient blood flow and causing it to rot from the toes upward. Encouraged by his doctor and with the help of increasingly strong opiates, Nakano struggled for some weeks hoping to save his limb, but when the pain became unbearable, he asked a second doctor, Maeda Tomosuke,14 to amputate the leg above the knee.
Nakano took the blow stoically. He did not blame the doctor responsible nor did he ever regret his decision to undergo surgery. Jokingly, he told his friend Ogata that the missing leg provided him with an excellent excuse to skip boring social events, for he now could claim that his injury made sitting for long periods of time difficult.15 For the rest of his life, he wore a
11 See Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1, p. 407-8.
12 Nakano provides a personal account of the operation in Nakano Seigō, “Hold on, Father” [査再混鷺査咋刷債債], in Chūō-kōron [腎啅鍍 ], August 1933, republished in “Expressions of the Soul” [ 惚鋪晃], (Tokyo, May, 1938), p. 312 and following.
13 Sumita Masao [創譓驟 ] (1878 – 1946), medical doctor. 14 Maeda Tomosuke [撚譓仏拍] (1887 -1975), medical doctor. 15 See Ogata, p. 32 – 33.
prosthesis and walked with a stick, neither of which kept him from practicing jūdō and sumō, participating in brawls, or taking up horseback riding in 1932, a sport at which he excelled in various tournaments.16
Losing his leg, especially the many weeks of intense pain, made Nakano re-evaluate his life. According to his own account he came out of the experience resolved to pay more attention to his family, even if this meant giving up politics. His resolve, however, was not very strong and before long he returned to political life with the same devotion he had shown in the past.
The Student
Dorm:
Yūkō-kyoNakano continued offering students room and board, and to this end built a dormitory annexed to his house in the spring of 1921. Called “Yūkō-kyo” [㍎ 悖],17 the dormitory housed about five students at any given time. Admission to the dorm was informal: Of the 50-some students who stayed with Nakano over the years, many were distant family members or relatives of friends and mentors, while others arrived at Nakano’s doorstep with little but a letter of introduction. Hasegawa Shun18, who had no prior connection to Nakano and came to Tokyo in 1929 with nothing but a basket containing all his belongings, secured a room after a short informal talk. Nakano explained his motives to Hasegawa:
“The reason I have decided to offer board to students such as yourself is that I did not want to use the compensation I receive for lecturing for my own private purposes, but much rather prefer to see it used for your expenses. When, during my lecturing tours
16 See Ogata, p. 43.
17 According to Nakano the name was derived from a saying by Mencius, to wit : “A heroic warrior will rise even without the King of Wen” [ 苧貢吩購艙侒荒浩膏 豪㍎ 鵠]. When boarding students asked him what it meant, he explained that “Even though your teacher [i.e. Nakano himself?] is stupid, at least one of you should turn out to be great!” See Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1, p. 314.
through the countryside, I see a young student burning with the desire to study, I offer him a place here. Even if this means I will have to face some financial difficulties at times, it does not really matter to me.”19
In some cases, Nakano offered free boarding, and if students could not afford their school fees, Nakano would also pay those, providing lucky students with an all-round scholarship to complete their education.
At least two considerations motivated Nakano’s generosity toward students. First, offering lodging to students was a way to return favors to and cement relationships with mentors, patrons and supporters. Among the students who lived in Nakano’s dorm we find not only Shintō Kazuma20 - the son of Genyōsha founder Shintō Kiheita, who ran Nakano’s constituency organization in Fukuoka21 - and Shibata Tokuo, the nephew of Nakano’s former Chinese teacher22, but also the cousin of the nurse who had cared for Nakano at Kyūshū hospital.23
Nakano’s second motivating factor was the belief, doubtless influenced by the example of Kaneko Sessai’s academy at Dalian, that education should be accessible to all members of society. In 1919 Nakano wrote:
“Soon education will only be for the children of rich families, while the offspring from anywhere below the middle will be denied access at the school’s gate. The progress of civilization, however, does not pause a single day. Compared to the farmers of nowadays, the farmer of the future will be required to have modern knowledge. The carpenter who today can hold a hammer, in the future will have to able to operate
19 The conversation is recorded in Hasegawa Shun [ 擺 戮 ] “The Master and the Yūkō-kyo” [纏﨟膏㍎ 悖], in “Nakano Seigō is Alive” [腎 驟悩購﨟攻肱広鵠], eds. Seigō-kai [驟悩善], (Tokyo: Akane-shobō [巷拘講蟷蘯], 1954), p. 27-28.
20 Shintō Kazuma [ 慎㮈] (1904 - 1992), later became mayor of Fukuoka. 21 See Oates, p. 25 and p. 40.
22 Shibata Tokuo [讒譓毫 ] was the nephew Shibata Fumishiro.
23 Noguchi Kiyoshi [ 塀 ] was cousin to Yukiko Noguchi, Nakano’s teenage love and nurse at Kyūshū University Hospital. See Nakano Yasuo. vol. 1, p. 390.
sophisticated machinery. If education is limited to the descendents of the upper classes, then the children of the middle classes and lower classes will not grow up to become sound workers.”24
Though Nakano offered students generous help, he did not spoil them. He served bland food and expected students to take on some household chores. Most were minor, such as walking the dog or clipping newspaper articles when Nakano was absent from Tokyo,25 but some students got actively involved in supporting Nakano’s political activities. Kanematsu Naoki, who had been Kaneko Sessai’s student, accompanied and supported Nakano during the 1924 election campaign, giving speeches on Nakano’s behalf.26 While staying at the dorm, Shintō Kazuma accompanied Nakano on his 1925 trip to Siberia, Manchuria and Northern China; after graduation he became Nakano’s secretary. Nagata Masayoshi27 worked first as a journalist after graduating from University, but later became actively involved in Nakano’s fascist party.
Voyage to Korea and Manchuria
Nakano’s 1920 voyage to Manchuria and Korea followed a now-familiar pattern. Nakano put the impressions gained abroad on paper; originally published as a series of 51 articles in Tokutomi’s Kokumin Shimbun, Nakano’s descriptions were so popular that they were subsequently published as a book, entitled “Reflections in the Mirror of Manchuria and Korea.”28
24 See Nakano Seigō, “Opening Article”[敝 ], in Tōhōjiron, October 1919, quoted in Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1, p. 278.
25 See Nakano Yasuo, vol. 1, p. 487-88.
26 Kanematsu Naoki [倒觚 袍] died of Typhus while still living with the Nakano’s in February 1925. Nakano seems to have formed unusually close ties with Kanematsu and held a long at his funeral. See Nakano Seigō, “Yūkō-kyo and Kanematsu Naoki” [㍎ 悖膏倒觚 袍] in “Expressions of the Soul” [ 惚鋪晃], Tokyo, 1938, p. 301 and following.
27 Nagata Masayoshi [鵑譓驟 ] (1911 - ?), journalist, and Nakano’s political followers. 28 Nakano Seigō, “Reflections in the Mirror of Manchuria and Korea” [ 貢 行萵港肱], (Tokyo, Tōhōjiron-sha, March 1921). One of the fondest readers of Nakano’s travel
Nakano arrived in Korea about 18 months after the violent rebellions that engulfed the Korean peninsula in the spring of 1919 had put an end to Governor General Terauchi’s harsh rule, which Nakano had criticized as an Asahi correspondent in 1913-4. Terauchi was succeeded by the moderate Navy admiral Saitō Makoto,29 who strove to replace Terauchi’s “militarism” with “civility.”30 Nakano welcomed the shift in colonial policy,31 but as he traveled through Korea he identified a different, deeper threat to peace in Korea: Japanese racism toward the Koreans, which he called “mean thinking of the Japanese people” [漂矧淞熾].32 The crux of this problem lay not with the colonial administration but with Japanese expatriates who demanded a return to iron-fisted suppression of Korea and whose “rudeness …. and nastiness surprised and disillusioned” 33 Nakano:
“The shadow of the haggard Yamato people is cast over Korea and Manchuria. … The rebels are not in the mountains. They have hidden inside the hearts of our decadent compatriots. The most urgent task in our policy today is not that of suppressing rebellion … We have to polish the mirror inside our hearts that enables us to see the demon [ ⻀劵] and instead of doing away with dangerous thought, we should do away with mean thought. … The corruption of Japan’s politics is nowhere better visible than in Korea. It has made the Japanese residents there mean in their thought.”34