Nagayama Yoshida (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Nagayama Yoshida (ながやま よしだ; 永山吉田; Nagayama Yoshida; Koshigaya, Musashi Province, April 8, 1871 – Tokyo, July 25, 1952) was a Japanese nationalist, revolutionary, politician, writer, journalist, and political theorist. He was the leader of Nationalist Party of Japan (1919-1949) and the first President of the Republic of Japan (1922-1948).

Childhood
Nagayama Yoshida was born in Koshigaya, Musashi Province on April 8, 1871, the only son of Nagayama Yoshitoshi and his wife, Aiko. Yoshida is part of Nagayama clan, one of the prominent gakke families during the Era of Seclusion. His great-grandfather, Nagayama Masahisha (1761-1828), was a disciple of famous kokugaku scholar, Motoori Norinaga, and later serving as the one of elders within the Council of the State in 1811 following the rise of Motoori clan. Yoshida's grandfather, Nagayama Masano (1800-1862), who also a rōju, was killed by a pro-modernization partisan during the political crisis in 1860s.

Yoshida's father, Yoshitoshi, later served as a soldier for pro-Council forces during the First Japanese Civil War (1866-1867). After the abolition of the Council of State in 1868, Yoshitoshi was stripped from his bureaucratic post by the new government and lost most of the private property that previously owned by his family. Yoshitoshi moved from his family residence in Kyoto and then lived in Koshigaya as a farmer where he later married a local resident, Aiko, in 1869.

During his childhood, Yoshida's family only owned small pieces of land for farming and they lived in poverty. Young Nagayama was taught about the traditional Japanese and kokugaku sculptures by his father started in his age of 9. He also attended the local temple school (寺子屋 terakoya) in the age of 10.

University years
Although his father desired Nagayama to continue the education, he voluntarily entered the first Imperial Military Academy in Osaka at the age of 15. He formally joined the Imperial Navy of Japan in 1890 at the age of 19. After contacted a tuberculosis, Nagayama discharged from the Navy and returned to his hometown in 1891. Followed his father’s advice, Nagayama began to study science in Keio-Gijuku School in 1892, and later classical literature in Shōheikō University in 1895 while also worked as a part-time editor in Hochi Shimbun.

Soon after entered the Shōheikō University, Nagayama involved in the protests against the Treaty of Shimonoseki where Japan viewed to be treated unequally by the West and the government almost has no power to force the West to grant all of Korean peninsula to them. Since the northern Korean peninsula entered into a part of Russian sphere of influences, it was also viewed as "the spear that directly pointed toward the heart of Japanese Realm" by the nationalists.

Unlike other nationalists at his time, Nagayama had a deep interest about the idea of republicanism and socialism. and held a strong view of anti-elitism against the wealthy ruling class inherited from his father and other people with gakke family background that deposed from their social prominence by the then-government of Japan. He also viewed the modernization of Japan corrupted and destroyed the thousand-year old traditional moral building of Japanese nation. Nagayama joined the Society for the Study of Socialism in 1896 and being one of its active contributors as an editor for the organisation weekly journal.

Nagayama is also a long-time friend of Chinese revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen, since the latter exile in Japan following the failure of Guangzhou uprising in 1895. During Sun's stay in Japan, both of them often exchanged their respective revolutionary ideas. They held a deep respect toward each other where Sun praised Nagayama for his intelligence and strong patriotic stance and Nagayama respected Sun for his braveness and modern democratic idea. During Sun's later years, he revealed that despite Nagayama's support to republicanism, the latter stubbornly rejected about the concept of Western democracy and believed the true democracy of one country only can found through the country's traditional social mechanism.

In the Philippines
In 1898, Nagayama was conscripted again to the Navy and stationed in Manila during the Spanish-Japanese War. Being a polyglot, Nagayama worked instead in the Communication Department as a clerk and translator. During his stay, he brought three big bookcases to the Philippines which annoyed his superior. Just after one year working behind the desk, Nagayama finally stationed as an active soldier on the part of intelligence network in northern Luzon during the Philippine-Japanese War. Nagayama remained in the Philippines even after the war ended and after discharged, he worked as a Japanese language teacher in a local school in Manila until 1906.

He finished his first book in 1905 while during in the Philippines, "The Strange Case of Capitalism", which was an analogue about the similarity of the nature of capitalism with the story of "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Nagayama believed the capitalism has two contradictory natures.

He agreed with the exploitative nature of capitalism and even wrote the book to defend the workers' struggle for its basic rights. However, Nagayama believed the capitalism is undestroyable. He linked the good nature of capitalism with the concept of "national struggle". Opposed with Marxian concept of class struggle, he believed the competing nature of humanity is the one who creating the world civilizations and the social order. Capitalism included into the category of economic competition according to Nagayama. The termination of capitalism only worsening the situation and will leading the society into backwardness and primitive life. The best solution, according to him, is th capitalism of one nation should controlled by whole national population, instead only by one small ruling wealthy class, through the social ownership and the cooperative movement.

Social activist
Nagayama returned to Japan in 1906 and immediately joined the newly founded Japanese Socialist Party. During his membership days, he was known for alaways openly debating the anarchist Shūsui Kōtoku over the issues such as revolution, capitalism and anarchism. His arguments that linked Socialism with ancient Japanese tradition, instead to Marxism shocked most of his contemporaries and also made him as an enemy for most of Japanese Marxists and anarchists. Nagayama also personally against any violent attempts to overthrow the government and instead the Socialists should employed more peaceful ways, such as through the parliamentary election. He often referred Kōtoku and another anarchists as "terrorists" and even "bandits" during his speeches.

After the Socialist Party banned by the government in 1908, Nagayama founded the non-political, neo-traditionalist National Cultural Movement (国民文化運動 Kokumin Bunka Undō). According to its constitution, the Movement tried to promote the Japanese Cultural Renaissance by the purification of Japanese culture from Buddhist and Confucian influences and the re-exploration of the ancient Japanese spirit and combining it into Western ideals, in order to achieve the advanced and modern Japanese society with a strong moral building. Many of the kokugaku scholars, the linguists, and the historians joined this organization.

While devoted himself into the field of education and culture, Nagayama entered politics again in 1910 by joining the Constitutional Nationalist Party (立憲国民党 Rikken Kokumintō) that led by Inukai Tsuyoshi. He soon established himself as an able orator and the leading figure of the party's left-wing.

Senator
In 1912, Nagayama was elected as the member of Imperial Senate, representing his home province of Musashi. As a senator, Nagayama hated by most of his seniors from the conservative parties much to his republicanism, his gakke background and being a former member of the Socialist Party. But, some older liberal senators such Inukai Tsuyoshi and Ozaki Yukio praised Nagayama for his idea of general welfare and social ownership, which viewed as revolutionary at that time.

In office from 1912 to 1919, Nagayama became the aide for leading opposition figure, Inukai Tsuyoshi, despite the political differences between these two political figures. Inukai viewed Nagayama as the part of his own family and even trusted Nagayama for being the private teacher for his son, Takeru (who later became the aide for Nagayama himself and appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs during the World War II).

In January 1913, about half of the Constitutional National Party defected to join the ruling Constitutional Party (憲政党 Kenseitō). With the permission from Inukai, Nagayama soon took over the party leadership and shifted the party's political position from centre-right to being more moderate left in policy. He advocated for the universal suffrage, emancipation of the working class, the cooperative movement, and elimination of disparities in wealth, while keeping his usual nationalist rhetoric. As the party's leader, he refused any kind of financial banking from zaibatsu and chose to change the party into a self-funded cadre-based organization.

Thanks to its popular programs, the party drew a broad support not only from the urban working class and many intellectual figures, but even from the rural population that still doesn't understand anything about politics at that time. The party memberships grew significantly between 1914-1915 from only 1000 in 1913 to more than 7100 throughout Japan in 1916. However, due to the limited male suffrage, the party only able to gain 70 seats during the 1917 general election, making its the third largest party in the Senate of Japan.

In 1916, Nagayama also being an active supporter for Japan's entry to the World War I in order to regain the Nan'yo Islands from Imperial Germany that regarded as the inseparable part of Japan. Despite being a part of winning side, Japan, however, failed to gain the control over German New Guinea. Much to their disappointment, Nagayama, Inukai, and other Constitutional-Nationalist senators resigned from their office as senator in 1918.

Japanese Revolution
Following the end of war, Japan’s economy also already suffered and the country was succumbed into deep economic crisis. On August 1918, rice riots caused by this inflation erupted in towns and cities throughout Japan. Following the resignation of all Constitutional-Nationalist senators from the Senate, Emperor Keishin dissolved the Senate and announced a new general election to be scheduled in September 1918.

The Constitutional Nationalist then gained a narrow victory with more than 95 seats in the Senate, making it the second largest party in the Senate. But, the coalition between the Constitutional Party and the Liberal Party able to form a government under conglomerate Iwasaki Hisaya. With the domestic situation being more turbulent, Nagayama and other opposition members instead advocated for the formation of the Emperor's Cabinet as they afraid the newly parliamentary government unable to maintain the order. The death of Emperor Keishin in March 27, 1919 viewed as a disaster for the Constitutional-Nationalist as there were now no any conciliatory figure in Japanese politics.

Japan's failure to gain the control over German New Guinea and to include the racial equality proposal in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference angered the Constitutional Nationalists. In front of 400 demonstrators in Tokyo Imperial Park on April 22, 1919, Nagayama delivered a patriotic speech against the United States, Great Britain, the Confederate States, and Australia which voted against Japanese aspirations during the Paris Peace Conference.

The nation-wide demonstrations and strikes against the government sparked throughout the country, especially in major cities such Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima. This events later climaxed on November 13, 1919 where more than 5,200 peoples gathered in Imperial Park, Tokyo. When the demonstrators marched from the park and approached toward the Imperial Palace, the Imperial Guards opened fire on the masses, killed 50 individuals and injured 327 others.