JAPAN: EXPERIMENT IN DEMOCRACY
by Eleanor Roosevelt
. . . Though my work for the American Association for the United Nations began in the spring of 1953, it did not become intensive until autumn. Consequently I accepted an invitation that spring to be one of a group of exchange people going from the United States to Japan. The trip was under the auspices of Columbia University, which acted as host in this country for the Japanese who came here. Our hosts in Japan were Shigeharu MATSUMOTO and Dr. Yasaka TAKAGI, who represented the International House of Japan and the Committee for Cultural Exchange. There had been two Americans ahead of me, Dr. Charles W. Cole, the head of Amherst University, and Father George Ford of Corpus Christi Church, who studied Japanese prisons and other institutions.
The reason the Japanese invited me was that their women were just coming into the responsibilities of functioning in a democracy after centuries in which feudalistic concepts had dominated their lives and customs. The attempt to change over to more or less democratic concepts in a short time naturally created many problems both of a political nature and in regard to family life. Some of the Japanese leaders hoped that an American woman, talking to groups of Japanese women and men, would be able to explain to them the meaning of democracy and the manner in which a democratic government functioned. The fact was that after World War II the United States had rather arbitrarily insisted on giving the Japanese a democratic constitution, telling them that now they were going to be a democratic country. But this, of course, did not automatically change the old customs or turn feudalism into democracy. There were various articles in the new Japanese constitution that had been taken almost verbatim from Western documents, as I will explain later, and some of these meant nothing to the Japanese or merely confused them because of the great differences between their social and economic background and the social and economic concepts of, say, the United States or France. So, a period of education obviously was necessary, and I was happy to have a chance to do whatever I could to help spread the idea of democracy.
I left New York on May 21, accompanied by Miss Corr [her secretary, Maureen Corr] and my daughter-in-law Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt. Minnewa and Elliott had not been married very long and I think she felt the need of understanding the motivations of her new family, since the environment into which she had married was very different from anything she had known in the past. So she as well as Miss Corr went with me to Japan. Minnewa proved to be a good traveling companion and we enjoyed many delightful experiences together.
Our first glimpse of Japan after we got off the plane was on the long drive into the city, most of it through drab streets and past dreary houses and shops--the kind of uninteresting approach you find to so many of our cities in the United States. Seldom in traveling around the world have I seen an attractive drive from an airport into a city, and a visitor often gets a completely erroneous first impression of the community he is visiting. But when we reached the Imperial Hotel in downtown Tokyo we found that we had a charming sitting room, a pleasant place for breakfast in the early morning.
In fact our hotel accommodations were very much like those in a hotel at home, except for the sunken bathtub, which I like because it is easy to step down into. There were flowers everywhere in our rooms and later members of the United Nations Association of Japan who came from the northern prefecture of Aomori to see me brought a beautiful basket of firm and juicy apples, as good as those grown in New York State. Coming from me, that is a compliment because I particularly like the fruit of my own home state.
I went over my schedule for the next few days with Dr. Takagi and Mr. Matsumoto. One of the first persons I encountered in the lobby of the hotel was Marian Anderson, who had been singing with great success all over Japan. Later, I held a press conference. I had always heard that the Japanese were avid photography fans, but I never expected to see as many news photographers as greeted us in Tokyo. They were all over the landscape all the time. I was told that Adlai Stevenson gazed in wonder at them during his trip to Japan and exclaimed: "This is a photographic dictatorship!"
I will not attempt to describe our experiences in Japan in any chronological order because we covered so much ground in the five weeks we were there, but there were some highlights that stand out in my mind. A few days after our arrival, we visited Princess Chichibu, the widow of the Emperor's brother. The Princess had gone to the Friends School in Washington when her parents, Ambassador and Mrs. Tsuneo MATSUDAIRA, were stationed there. After her marriage she was apparently able to keep in much closer touch with the people of Japan than were other members of the royal family. For years while her husband was ill, they lived on a farm at the foot of Mount Fuji and knew many of the farm families in the district. Now she was living in a small house with a very small garden nearer to Tokyo, but she still raised delicious strawberries that ripen all year around. Her farmer friends still came to see her regularly to talk over problems of farming. She also kept busy working with the Girl Guides, which is similar to our Girl Scout organization, and with Four-H Clubs, which have been active in Japan since the war in an effort to help young farmers learn modern methods of production.
We were served black tea, English fashion, with dainty sandwiches and cakes and a dish of strawberries with whipped cream. But later everyone was given a bowl of green Japanese tea and it was explained that such tea is always given to guests when they "are making a ceremonial call." One of the guests was Madame Takagi, lady-in-waiting to the Empress, and she said that it used to be a custom to call on all your friends and relatives to say good-by before starting a trip.
"You had to drink a cup of this green tea without sugar or lemon at
each place," she added. "By the time you had finished making all of your calls you really had consumed a lot more tea than you needed in one afternoon."
The photographers continued to swarm around us. The previous day two of them had even followed us up into the mountains in a rain storm when we went to spend the night at the home of Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Griffith, Americans with business interests in Japan. One of them remained somewhere in the neighborhood all night, although we were not aware of it until breakfast time, when he sent in a little drawing of himself with a camera and one of me with an umbrella--an invitation for me to come outside for a photograph! Mr. Matsumoto went out and told him that on Sunday one should not be disturbed by newspaper photographers and he retired, but when we reached Princess Chichibu's house there were numerous photographers there. The Princess said that she did not appear in public, but she did consent to have a photograph taken with our party in the garden.
The next day I had an interesting meeting at the Ministry of Labor with the people who run bureaus for women in industry, for improvement of rural life, child welfare and the like. These government bureaus bear the stamp of American organization but that does not mean they operate the way they do in the United States. The organization was imposed in Japan by the occupation authorities and, as usual, American methods were not entirely suited to the facts of life in Japan-the place of women in the industrial system, the necessity for children to contribute to the family income, the ability of the economy to support such public services. In order to make these organizations practical they had to be adjusted to fit conditions in Japan, and that has been a very complicated task.
There is also the very important question whether such services are welcomed by the public. As I was leaving the Ministry a group of Communist party women, led by an American who is married to a Japanese, were waiting outside. The American woman stared at me and seemed to be highly strung to the point of fanaticism. As I stepped out the door the group began shouting anti-American slogans.
"Go home to America. We women who went through the war do not want any more war!"
The obvious answer was, of course, that neither did I want war, but it is groups such as this one that keep the fear of war constantly alive in the peoples of the free world. I made numerous inquiries about Communist activities and strength in Japan. On one occasion I met with a number of college presidents at Nara and made a point of asking them about the attitude of students and professors.
"Do you think a majority of students in your colleges are convinced Marxists?" I asked. "How many of your professors advocate the Marxist ideology?"
It was a little difficult to get these men to warm up to a frank discussion-perhaps we were somewhat overawed by each other-but they generally agreed that both students and professors like to study Marxism.
"But," one of them added, with the agreement of the others, "I doubt that more than a few are really convinced Communists. A few, however, can make a good deal of noise and gain a prominent position because they know what they really believe in, while the others are divided and groping to find their way."
This seemed to me to be a familiar situation. I was inclined, however, to believe there was more real acceptance of Marxism as a theory among the students in Japan than these college presidents were willing to acknowledge to me. They did say frankly that democracy was not making headway among the students and that it was not being well taught.
Not long afterward in Tokyo I dined with three eminent professors and we discussed the relative responsibility of the Soviet Union and the United States for the tensions existing in the world and the fear of another war. The Japanese attitude was to put more blame on the United States than I would admit was deserved, but I suppose this was only natural since they constantly were seeing and sometimes suffering from the fact that we have military installations in their country. They are thus far more conscious of our military power than they are of the threat of Soviet military expansion.
The Japanese, of course, resent the presence of foreign soldiers as much as any other people would, but the space taken up by our military installations is an important factor in their grievance. It is difficult to realize that every acre, almost every yard of land is needed if it can be used to raise some kind of crop in Japan. The dinner I shared with the three professors, for example, was in an excellent restaurant on the French style. The big range was part of the dining room so you could see the orders being cooked, and the food-- mostly fish--was as good as any in Paris, to my taste. But even here very little meat was served and for the mass of the people there is rarely any meat and often not enough food of any kind.
It seems to me that the Japanese have tended throughout their history to deal in theory and to shun reality. In their difficult economic situation, the Marxist theory as an ideal has a certain definite appeal. But I doubt very much whether the Communist reality as developed by Lenin and Stalin in Russia would have any real appeal to the Japanese. One can only hope that the arguments one puts forth in behalf of democracy will bear fruit later. The men with whom I was talking on these occasions were scholars and I believe their integrity will oblige them to examine what has been said in spite of their dislike of facing realities.
I talked to countless groups of women in many cities oŁ Japan and there were certain broad themes that ran through all of our discussions. One was the attitude of young people toward their elders and the attitude of the elders toward the young. Since the Japanese had been urged to accept the democratic idea of free discussion, there had developed a great deal of criticism between the two groups and this antagonism was increased by the fact that the young people blamed their elders for telling them that Japan could not lose the war. Much of the authority of the elders was undermined when the Japanese armies were defeated and the Emperor was declared to be a man rather than a god. The young people became cynical and disillusioned.
Another theme in our discussions was the age-old question of prostitution, and of babies of mixed blood. These matters were very serious in Japan because of the American soldiers, who had plenty of money and food while the Japanese standard of living for the masses was so low that the main consideration of many was how to get enough to eat.
There also were many questions, particularly from the students, that I answered as best I could. Sometimes I was asked why the United States used the atom bomb and how I felt about it. I tried to explain the urgent reasons that prompted our leaders to make the decision in an effort to end the war quickly, but at the same time I expressed my feeling of horror about any kind of warfare. Another question was "Do the people of the United States understand that the young people of Japan dislike rearmament and that, in order to rearm as urged by Washington, we have to change our constitution, which was adopted at the request of the United States in the first place?"
Of course, world conditions had changed since they adopted the constitution that renounced war forever, but it was not so easy to see the threat of Soviet expansion through Japanese eyes as it was through American eyes. And I don't suppose my explanations of the danger to democracies were entirely satisfactory to people who had never really experienced democratic life.
These sessions were often exhausting, particularly if there were a large number of students in the audience, but what was most tiring me was the fact that everything had to be translated. I had fine interpreters, including Yoko MATSUOKA, who had spent seven years in America and is the author of a book called Daughter of the Pacific. But whenever I made a speech I would talk for only two or three minutes and then stop while the translator told the audience what I had said. Then I would resume for a few minutes and halt again for the translation. This makes it difficult sometimes to keep to a train of thought and in any event it is far more wearying than making an ordinary speech. And the same system, of course, had to be followed in asking and answering questions, which made the meetings much longer than they would have been otherwise.
My daughter-in-law Minnewa was one of the most patient persons I have ever known. She went with me to every meeting and listened many speeches over and over again, yet she never seemed to be bored or weary. Once when I spoke to a group of women and men in a village, there were many questions from the audience, one of which sounded quite unusual to American ears.
"In the United States," a young woman asked me, "what do you with your mothers-in-law?"
I replied that I didn't think there was any set formula for that problem in America. But then I glanced at Minnewa and thought how tired she must be of listening to my speeches and I added with a smile:
"Perhaps my daughter-in-law can answer your question better than I can."
My joke was taken seriously by our audience and poor Minnewa found herself confronted by a battery of Japanese eyes, curious and earnestly anxious to know the answer to a very serious question. But daughter-in-law only blushed, shook her head and refused to answer.
The question was an important one for the Japanese. In their country the mother-in-law is in authority over the women of the household and, in fact, over all members of the household except her husband and her eldest son. She also often is the keeper of the purse and all earnings of members of the family are turned over to her. She doles out money as she thinks it is needed, even to married sons and their wives.
I remember one charming and rather sophisticated Japanese newspaperwoman who was beautiful in her native costume yet seemed to be familiar with Western customs. She told me that her greatest difficulty at home was with the "system of the pouch."
"What is that?" I asked.
"My mother-in-law," she said, "is old-fashioned. She has a large leather pouch and each week she puts into that pouch all of the family earnings. Then all of us become dependent on her ideas of how much we should spend or whether we should spend anything-in fact, she can practically tell us how to run our lives."
I found that this custom was practiced in many places. A woman who worked in a factory told me she went home on weekends to the farm where her family lived and that she always placed her earnings on the household shrine the night she arrived. The next morning they were gone-into the mother-in-law's pouch. I found that most of the Japanese mothers in the working class look forward to the day when they will be mothers-in-law and can tyrannize over their daughters-in-law. Slowly, these outdated customs are changing under the present government but it will be a long time before they are entirely gone.
In some of the rural areas we visited it was usual for the mother-in-law to take care of the children while other members of her household worked in the field. But in general the daughter-in-law is almost a slave indoors. She must arise early and prepare the food and serve everyone before she kneels a step below her husband and his mother to eat her own meal. She works in the fields and then returns to prepare the Japanese bath. In many farm homes, this is a huge copper caldron which has to be filled by hand from a water supply quite a distance away. Once the tub is filled, she builds a fire under it and keeps it going so the water will be at the right temperature. Members of the family bathe according to their importance but the daughter-in-law is always last.
I mentioned earlier that principles in various Western documents had been incorporated into the new Japanese constitution and that this had caused confusion. As I read the Japanese constitution, it seemed obvious that there was much in it that required interpretation and that it might well be interpreted in different ways by the Japanese and by the experts in Washington. I was told that the document written in English is regarded as the original but that the Japanese translation is not identical with the original. Some Japanese have insisted that the original document is the document they accepted and that they did not accept the Japanese translation. The United States had a great deal to do with the writing of the constitution and with its acceptance by the Japanese, but I wonder if we really know exactly what we and they accepted? The exact meaning of the constitution was a burning question whenever I spoke to students or to members of the labor organizations.
Basically, this controversy arises from the differences between the cultural and political backgrounds of the Japanese and American people. Let me give one example, a rather amusing one which would never have been noticed by anyone who had not participated in drawing up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I discovered that the Japanese constitution included some of the articles, verbatim, from the Declaration but without any background material. That is, there was no reference to the record of the hearings that preceded the drafting of the Human Rights Declaration.
Now this makes a great difference in determining what the words of the Declaration mean. Quite often, the record shows, the United States would say that they accepted this article because it meant thus and so. But at the same time, the Soviet Union would say that they accepted the same article because they interpreted it to mean something quite different.
The article on economic rights says: "Everyone has the right to work." The United States interpretation of this, which went into the record, was: "We take this to mean that a government has an obligation to strive to create an economic climate which makes it possible for everyone in the country to find work if they want it." Also it means to us that if people cannot find work through no fault of their own a government must create work, since it cannot let its people starve. But the Soviet Union statement said only the Soviet Union could implement this article because in Russia the government controlled all jobs and the government would see to it that every individual not only had a job but worked at it. The Communists always looked down on what they called "eighteenth-century rights," which were the rights of freedom of religion, of assembly and of equality before the law. So, in reading the Japanese constitution, which we had given them, I could not help wondering which of the two explanations of the right to work had been presented to the Japanese people, feeling they had a right to be clear about which interpretation they were accepting. Later, I was told that no explanation at all had been given them.
There are minorities in Japan and although some of them have been there for hundreds of years they are still considered backward people. The Koreans are still looked down on and so is a group called the Ettus [etas, a prejorative term, officially replaced by the slightly less dismissive term, burakumin ]. They are generally engaged in the slaughter of animals, which is repugnant to a Buddhist. Their standard of living is still lower than that of the average Japanese, as I discovered in one minority village we visited-a village where I was to learn from the head man how important it is to recognize that there is a bond among all peoples.
The rain was pouring down when we left Osaka to visit this village in the middle of June. About two thousand people belonging to the minority group live there and, by law, they are equal citizens, but in practice it proves difficult to break with the old customs and the old relationship. This minority descended from the aborigines who originally inhabited the island and were conquered by the Japanese. To them, quite naturally, was given the lowest and most degrading work. They were butchers. They tanned hides and made shoes. They were day laborers. When Buddhism became powerful in Japan, they were more than ever looked down upon. The average income of a worker in this village was perhaps 13,000 yen a year as compared to some 300,000 yen a year earned by a well-to-do farmer. The village had no sewage system but there were public baths. The oldest one was small and dirty, but the cost of a bath was only three yen and everybody took advantage of them. Most of the houses had two rooms, a kitchen with a mud floor and another room with the floor raised off the ground. The average family had five members but as many as seven lived in one house we visited. Attached to that house was a shed where bicycles and materials for making shoes were kept. On the floor of the entrance, where there was very little light, sat an old woman of sixty-eight, who looked as if she were eighty. She was weaving the "' straw sandals that are worn by so many Japanese.
The head man of the village escorted us in considerable discomfort through streets that were rivers of mud. The rain beat on our umbrellas and dripped down our necks. It was, indeed, a miserable village and you might have said a pitiful people, but the head man attempted to show us what was best. There was not much.
"I suppose," he said as we were preparing to depart, "that you have never seen such misery as you saw here today."
Listening to his voice, I suddenly realized that this was an important moment; that his words were both an appeal and a kind of defense of his village.
"Sir," I said quickly, "misery is the same in any country. There was a time in my country when certain areas were poverty-stricken. I have seen misery in those areas and nothing I saw today is any worse than what I saw in some mining areas in West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania some years ago. I hope you will be able to raise the standards of your people in just the way we have been able to do it. One must never give in to discouragement."
His eyes lit up, and I was glad that I had said the right thing.
"The government," he told me eagerly, "has just granted me some money for better public baths, and that will make a difference in my community!"
The friendliness of the Japanese people seemed to me to be surprisingly warm considering that they had been defeated by our armed forces and that many of our peacetime actions had been most irritating to them. I was pleased to have old Admiral Kichisaburo NOMURA, who was in Washington during the period just before the war and was a friend of my husband, tell me that he hoped I did not believe he had been in favor of the attack on Pearl Harbor or had acted in any way unbecoming to his ambassadorial position. He said he had always wanted peace with us and had done his best to bring it about and that he knew nothing of the plans of the military for the attack on Pearl Harbor at the very time he was trying to negotiate some kind of settlement in Washington.
I believe I may have learned more from the Japanese than they learned from me. Even my visit to the Emperor and Empress of Japan, despite its rigid formality, taught me that human beings have great adaptability.
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ReferenceRoosevelt, Eleanor. On My Own. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958.
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