Season 14, Episode 7: A League of Their Own
When Terauchi Masatake stepped down as prime minister in September of 1918, he was replaced by Hara Takashi. In many ways, the two men were practically polar opposites. While Masatake was born into a samurai family in Choshu domain and joined a Kiheitai militia in his youth to fight the shogunate, Takashi was born into a shogunate-serving samurai family in Morioka Domain in Tohoku. Masatake enjoyed a storied military career which led him into political ambitions while Takashi failed the entrance exam for the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and had to settle for an education from a French seminary instead. Separating Hara Takashi even further from the Japanese political mainstream, he converted to Roman Catholicism when he was seventeen and two years later he rejected his status as a shizoku or former samurai and officially declared himself Heimin, or “Commoner.”
Hara Takashi’s early adult life was spent as a reporter for various newspapers. In 1882, he was approached by Innoue Kaoru about working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the department which Kaoru was in charge of at the time. Takashi accepted, first working in Tianjin as consul-general and then later in Paris, which I imagine suited him well because he was fluent in French. After a stint as ambassador to Korea, he returned to newspaper work as the manager of Mainichi-Shinbun, one of the big five national newspapers which is still in circulation today. When Ito Hirobumi founded the Seiyukai party in 1900, Takashi became the party’s first secretary-general. In 1902 he was elected to the House of Representatives, and proceeded for the next decade to serve in a variety of cabinet posts. During his time as Home Minister, he became well-known for his slash-and-burn approach to bureaucratic appointees and almost gleefully dismissed those who were incompetent, corrupt, or otherwise ineffective. He believed in meritocracy, and his domestic policies certainly reflected that to an almost ruthless degree.
He had taken over leadership of Seiyukai from Saionji Kinmochi in 1914. The following year, 1915, Seiyukai lost its majority in the House of Representatives but they managed to regain that majority in 1917, which was part of the reason he was selected as prime minister the following year. While Saionji Kinmochi was no longer an active political presence in the Diet, he now served as a genro, or elder statesman, who advised the emperor and privy council behind the scenes. Kinmochi tended to always choose a prime minister whose party had a majority in the Diet because he favored an active government over a deadlocked state.
When Hara Takashi became prime minister in September of 1918, he already represented two large milestones upon taking office. He was the first prime minister who was a commoner - every premier before him was from a shizoku background - and he was also the first prime minister of Japan who was a Christian. Liberal activists initially rejoiced at news of his appointment - surely here was a prime minister who, with the assistance of his party which currently enjoyed a majority in the Imperial Diet, would enshrine the next logical step in the long road of social progress - universal male suffrage. After all, the popular discontent that fueled the rice riots of 1918 which resulted in the resignation of Takashi’s predecessor might be quelled or perhaps redirected by the chance for greater political participation.
We’ll discuss Takashi’s domestic policies in greater detail in just a few minutes but first we must explore Japan’s new elevated role on the international stage. Supporting the Entente Powers in the First World War was a gamble that had already paid huge dividends in terms of new acquisitions over German claims in the pacific, expanded Japanese influence over China, and eliminated their national debt. While Germany had signed an armistice on November 11 of 1918 which effectively ended the fighting, there were still further treaties needed to fully end the war and, more importantly, determine the future pecking order of the triumphant empires.
What ensued was called “The Paris Peace Conference” and its proceedings were rich with symbolism - beginning with the start date of January 18, 1919, which was the anniversary of Kaiser Wilhelm I’s proclamation as the Emperor of Germany in 1871, just before the end of the Franco-Prussian War. While the conference was officially led by the so-called “Big Five” nations of the Entente - that is, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. - Japan’s role throughout the conference was fairly minimal compared to the U.S., Britain, and France.
As I mentioned in the previous episode, one thing which these nations agreed upon enthusiastically was that the First World War was entirely Germany’s fault. It was, they argued, Germany who supported Austria-Hungary’s punitive invasion of Serbia, Germany who mobilized for war before any declarations had even been made, and, critically, Germany who invaded Belgium and violated that nation’s sacrosanct neutrality. Thus the treaty involving Germany took precedence and was completed before the final peace treaties with the other Central Powers nations.
The resulting Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919 - exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Duchess Sophie, yet another symbolic date. The treaty imposed a harsh war indemnity upon Germany, a measure which the French leaders considered non-negotiable. Britain and the U.S. enjoyed considerable natural barriers between themselves and Germany whereas France shared a land border and refused to settle for anything other than drastic economic sabotage. Germany likewise was forced to give up any remaining claims to colonial enterprises, most of which had been seized by Japan and the other Entente powers regardless. In the midst of deciding Germany’s guilt and necessary repentance, the Treaty of Versailles also contained the Covenant of the League of Nations, which called for the creation of a worldwide intergovernmental body aimed at preserving and ensuring peace throughout the world.
The League of Nations was not the first attempt at creating an intergovernmental council aimed at preventing future armed conflicts before they began. Previous efforts, however, had largely been confined to Europe and rarely included any nations outside the continent. Nevertheless, many of the principles which those preceding organizations promoted helped create a framework for the League of Nations.
Many of the League’s proposals reflected high ideals and sounded great on paper. Representatives from all member states would form a General Assembly, the representatives of so-called great powers would form an Executive Council, and all member states were expected to respect one another’s territorial integrity and to disarm (quote) "to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety" (end quote). That last item was especially important - a critical element in the prelude to the first world war was the creation of massive national stockpiles of arms. No large stockpiles, no long, drawn-out wars of attrition that result in over twenty million dead. Any time there was a dispute between member states, they were required to submit official complaints which could be subjected to arbitration or adjudication before they went straight to declaring war. The Executive council of the League were tasked with creating a Permanent Court of International Justice which would handle these disputes and render impartial judgments which would hopefully avert war.
However, almost from its very inception, the League of Nations was beset by shortcomings, compromises and half-measures. Equality among religious faiths was established but when Japanese delegates proposed a parallel clause establishing equality among races, this was sternly opposed, especially by delegates from the United States. While many of the procedures for peacefully resolving disputes were high-minded and sounded very nice, there was no practical enforcement mechanism for ensuring that belligerent parties would come to the negotiating table in the event of a conflict. France proposed creating an international army capable of enforcing the League’s will but Britain and the US both opposed this idea on various grounds.
The most controversial part of the Covenant of the League of Nations, for the United States, was Article Ten. This particular section obliged members of the League with defending their fellow member states if they were attacked unjustly. This mutual defense did not include defending a member state from rebels within their own borders, but it did forbid member states from supporting such groups in their fellow members’ nations. Woodrow Wilson supported the formation of the League of Nations and likewise supported the US joining as a member of the Executive Council. Several of his fellow Republicans in the Senate, however, were not convinced. The isolationist tendencies of the Republican party in the 1910s were very strong, and the party generally opposed involving the United States in international conflicts if it could be avoided.
This may come as a surprise to some listeners, but the U.S. Constitution does not imbue the president with absolute power - any international treaties which the President signs must be ratified by a two-thirds majority in the Senate, a vote referred to as “advice and consent.” Although the Senate eventually voted 49 to 35 in favor of ratification, this fell short of the two-thirds majority required. Sorry, Woodrow Wilson, you don’t have the votes.
Thus the League of Nations was created with the US declining to become a member state, though President Wilson later received a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in its creation. The League persisted regardless, adopting Geneva, Switzerland as the location of its headquarters. Switzerland had maintained its neutrality even longer than Belgium and the International Red Cross was also headquartered in Geneva. The building where they met was a former grand hotel which was renovated and renamed “The Wilson Palace,” after Woodrow Wilson, which I think is kind of sweet.
The initial member states who formed the Executive Council were Britain, Italy, France, and Japan. It’s no coincidence that the leaders of the Entente Alliance formed the leadership of the newfound international organization. They were, after all, the big winners of the great war and their robust consumer economies were poised for massive growth in the post-war period.
We will continue to periodically check in on the League of Nations, especially next season, but for the moment we will return to Japan. The premiership of Hara Takashi proved frustrating for those who hoped he would enact sweeping liberal reforms like universal male suffrage. Communists and socialists were especially frustrated that he did not use his majority in the lower house for anything other than business as usual and the support he initially enjoyed from liberal activists soon melted away. This is not to say, however, that the conservatives liked him any better.
Trouble was brewing on the Korean Peninsula. An international movement had been fomenting for years which bears some similarity to the Tongmenghui of Chinese emigres. These Korean National Associations were likewise composed of members of the Korean diaspora and their long-term objective was the liberation of Korea from Japanese tyranny. Several Koreans living in the US, including future political leader Syngman Rhee, attempted to crash the Paris Peace Conference to force the issue of Korean sovereignty but were denied exit visas by the US government. A few Koreans did manage to attend the conference with the Chinese delegation, as China hoped to rebuff Japanese aggression, but the issue of Korean sovereignty was ignored by the great powers.
A few Koreans living in China even hatched a plan to smuggle Emperor Gojong out of Korea and bring him, in person, to the conference but their plans were delayed indefinitely when he died on January 21, 1919. The death of the man who had been Korea’s last king and first emperor was a blow to the cause of Korean sovereignty, and he was mourned throughout the peninsula and in diaspora communities around the globe. However, that mourning soon turned to anger as rumors circulated that the Korean Emperor did not, as the Japanese claimed, die of natural causes.
I was unable, in my research, to uncover any actual evidence that the former sovereign living in virtual house arrest was murdered by the Japanese government. There are vague accounts that the emperor had been in good health until suddenly falling ill and dying one day. If these accounts are true, then his death is certainly suspicious. However, these accounts appear to be mostly rumors spread by anti-Japanese activists across the peninsula rather than hard evidence that anything fishy happened. Emperor Gojong had led a very stressful life and the trauma he endured as his nation was annexed by a hostile neighbor against his wishes seems to have been just as likely a candidate for his cause of death as a cup full of poison. Still, whether he was killed or not, anti-Japanese sentiment on the peninsula soon reached a fever pitch and the organizations dedicated to liberating Korea decided now was the time to strike a blow against Japanese suzerainty.
Many of the leaders of these organizations had been exchange students who had studied in Japan throughout the 1910s. While the Japanese government probably thought that such a program would result in a readily-available pool of Korean leaders who were loyal to Japan, many of the students were instead radicalized by the high ideals expressed among liberal Japanese parties - ideals which they brought back to the peninsula. They organized throughout the 1910s and in early 1919, incensed by Emperor Gojong’s possibly-unnatural death and furious that Korean representatives had been ignored by the League of Nations, they drafted a declaration of Korea’s independence. On February 8, 1919, six hundred Korean students gathered to publicly read the declaration and eleven of their representatives signed the document. Copies which were translated into English and Japanese were distributed to press outlets, many of whom happily published it.
Afterward, Japanese police arrested sixty students in connection with the declaration -- a document which obviously violated Japanese law. However, the actions of February 8 would pale in comparison to those that occurred a few weeks later. Independence organizers spent three feverish weeks trying to build upon the momentum they established in the preliminary declaration, gaining the cooperation of various religious blocs like the Presbyterians of Pyeongyang and their Buddhist counterparts, along with various scattered student independence movements nationwide. On March 1, throngs of Koreans would gather in the capital for the official funeral of Emperor Gojong. Hoping to take advantage of the large crowd of mourners, independence organizers planned political action for that same day.
Because of the date, this confederation of independence groups is called “The March First Movement.” Just before March first, they made a second draft of the February 8 declaration of independence and arranged for the printing of 21,000 copies. The new declaration contained more moderate language than its rather fiery predecessor, but this was a strategic decision aimed at garnering international sympathy. The final document was signed by 33 religious leaders from Christian, Buddhist, and Cheondo organizations. Cheondo is a syncretic religion which descended from the Donghak movement, which we discussed last season.
What ensued was not one massive, central protest, but many large protests across the capital. Residents who witnessed the marches often joined in, swelling the numbers to tens of thousands in the capital alone. Simultaneous protest marches began in other cities across the peninsula and similar demonstrations took place in Manchuria, Russia, and the United States. Protests continued throughout the month of March. By all accounts, these protests were nonviolent and extremely peaceful. The Japanese response, however, was not.
Japanese authorities on Korea were taken completely by surprise and the brutality of their response reflects a certain unpreparedness. Crowds in many places on the peninsula were ordered to disburse and, when they refused, Japanese officers ordered their troops to open fire or to charge the crowd with bayonets. Mass casualties ensued, followed by beatings and arrests, with arrestees often subjected to further beatings after their detention.
In the months that followed the March First Protests, Japanese authorities on Korea conducted massive crackdowns up and down the peninsula which included burning villages, enacting collective punishment which included non-participants, and straight-up mass murder. In one well-known incident, between twenty and thirty unarmed Korean villagers who were each believed to be part of the March First Movement were brought into a church, being told that their presence was required at an official meeting. Once they were all gathered in, a group of Japanese infantry shot them to death with rifles and then burned the church down with the bodies inside to conceal the evidence of their involvement. The cover-up may have worked except that it was secretly witnessed by other Koreans, who spread the word. Diary entries from Japanese officers directly involved in what came to be called the Jeanmi Massacre confirm that there was an attempt by the military’s top brass to pin the incident on local unrest and hide the Japanese Imperial Army’s official involvement.
The protestors who had been detained, and who had almost always been brutally beaten in the process, were shoved into crowded makeshift prison facilities and forced to live in horrifically inhumane conditions. However, the eyes of the world were now on Korea and, more critically, on Japan. In spite of the Japanese government’s propaganda about their concentration camps being like vacation resorts, the real stories emerged in spite of their attempts at repression. Foreign missionaries, especially the Canadian Frank Schofield and American Homer Hulbert, spoke to the press openly of what they witnessed and what some of their congregants had been made to endure. Schofield even met with a group of Japanese political leaders including Prime Minister Hara Takashi, begging them to put a stop to the violent repression in Korea.
While the repression continued in the short term, Hara Takashi does appear to have been somewhat moved by the plight of the Korean people under Japanese oppression. In August of 1919, he appointed his political ally Saito Makoto as the new Governor-General of Korea, instructing him to take a more conciliatory approach with independence activists and to let up on the repressive measures. Makoto took this advice to heart and he went to relatively great lengths in his attempts to meet independence activists in the middle. While the Empire of Japan had been requiring Korean school children to learn Japanese, Makoto allowed Korean language instruction back into the usual curriculum. He also sought opportunities, at Hara Takashi’s direction, of increasing the level of local autonomy in Korea, though it was always maintained that the Korean peninsula was considered Japan’s imperial domain in perpetuity.
The middle road which Hara Takashi sought in Korea was, like his domestic social policies, ultimately unsatisfying to nearly all parties involved. While the independence activists appreciated that their children were allowed to learn and speak Korean in schools again, they were not satisfied with remaining under Japan’s thumb. The next prime minister, after all, might undo these changes and then they would be back to square one. On the other side of the fence, conservatives in Japan were outraged by the conciliatory measures on the peninsula, which they saw as tantamount to encouraging future demonstrations like the March First Movement.
On November 4, 1921, Hara Takashi arrived at a train station in Tokyo, intending to take a train to Kyoto for a party meeting. He would never arrive at that meeting. Shortly after he entered the station, he was stabbed to death by an ultranationalist worker at the station who later claimed that he murdered the prime minister because he believed he was corrupt and that he would pass universal male suffrage which would allow for a communist takeover. The man was sentenced to life in prison but would be released thirteen years later.
The death of Hara Takashi, Japan’s first commoner and Christian to serve as prime minister, was a terrible tragedy. Takashi’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man named Uchida Kosai, was installed as acting prime minister but he would be replaced by Takahashi Korekiyo. We will discuss both men and many of their successors next time.