32 Facts About Hara Takashi

Hara Takashi was a Japanese politician who served as the Prime Minister of Japan from 1918 until his assassination.

Hara Takashi served as Home Minister in several cabinets under Saionji Kinmochi and Yamamoto Gonnohyoe between 1906 and 1913.

Hara Takashi was appointed prime minister following the Rice Riots of 1918 and positioned himself as a moderate, participating in the Paris Peace Conference, founding the League of Nations, and relaxing oppressive policies in Japanese Korea.

Hara Takashi was assassinated by Nakaoka Kon'ichi, a far-right nationalist, on 4 November 1921.

Hara Takashi was the first commoner and first Christian appointed to be Prime Minister of Japan, informally known as Hara Takashi Kei, and given the moniker of "commoner prime minister".

Hara Takashi was born on 15 March 1856 in Motomiya, a village near Morioka, Mutsu Province, into a samurai family in service of the Nanbu Domain.

Hara Takashi's family had resisted the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and fought against the establishment of the very government which Hara Takashi himself would one day lead.

Hara Takashi was an outsider in Japanese politics due to his association with a former enemy clan of the new Imperial Government, which at the time was dominated by the former clans of Choshu and Satsuma domains.

Hara Takashi left home at the age of 15 and moved to Tokyo by boat.

Hara Takashi failed the entrance examination of the prestigious Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, and instead joined the Marin Seminary, a free parochial school established by the French.

At the age of 17, Hara Takashi was baptized as a Catholic, taking on "David" as his baptismal name.

At the age of 19, Hara Takashi chose to classify himself as a commoner rather than his family's status as, a distinction for former samurai families who were not made into.

At various times later in his political career, offers were made to raise his rank, but Hara Takashi refused them every time on the basis that it would alienate himself from the common men and limit his ability to gain entrance to the House of Representatives.

In 1882, Hara Takashi took a position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the request of Inoue Kaoru, the Foreign Minister at the time.

Hara Takashi served as Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs and as ambassador to Korea under Mutsu Munemitsu.

Hara Takashi then left the Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist for several years, and became the manager of a newspaper company, the Mainichi Shimbun based in Osaka.

In 1900, Hara Takashi returned to politics and joined Ito Hirobumi's newly founded Rikken Seiyukai, becoming the first secretary-general of the party.

Hara Takashi ran successfully for the House of Representatives as a representative from his native Iwate Prefecture and was appointed Minister of Communications in the Fourth Ito Administration.

Hara Takashi later served as Home Minister in several cabinets between 1906 and 1913, a powerful position that made it able for him to effect many reforms.

Hara Takashi realized that a fundamental political issue in Japan was the tension between the elected government and the appointed bureaucracy, and his career was dedicated to weakening the power of the non-elected bureaucrats.

Hara Takashi understood that maintenance of the supremacy of the elected leaders depended on the government's ability to develop the Japanese national infrastructure and on a long-term economic plan that would address regional as well as national interests.

In 1914, after heated debate, Hara Takashi was appointed the president of the Rikken Seiyukai to replace the outgoing leader, Saionji Kinmochi.

Under Hara Takashi's leadership, Rikken Seiyukai first lost its majority control of the Diet in the 1915 general elections, but regained its majority in the 1917 general elections.

In 1918, Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake fell from office as a result of the Rice Riots of 1918, and Hara Takashi was appointed as his successor on 28 September.

Also, Hara Takashi was the first civilian in Japanese history to become the administrative chief of any of the armed services, when he temporarily took charge of the Navy Ministry, in absence of the Navy Minister, Admiral Kato Tomosaburo, who was serving as the Japanese representative at the Washington Naval Conference.

Particularly following the Samil Uprising, Hara Takashi pursued a conciliatory policy towards colonies, particularly Korea.

Hara Takashi arranged for his political ally, Saito Makoto, a political moderate, to take over as Governor-General of Korea; he instituted a colonial administration consisting mainly of civilians rather than military; and he permitted a degree of cultural freedom for Koreans, including a school curriculum that featured Korean language and history.

Hara Takashi's overtures won few supporters either among Koreans or Japanese; the former considered them inadequate, the latter considered them excessive.

Hara Takashi oversaw most of the Siberian intervention, which led to growing antagonism between the government and the military.

On 4 November 1921, Hara Takashi was stabbed to death by Nakaoka Kon'ichi, a right-wing nationalist railroad switchman, at Tokyo Station while catching a train to Kyoto for a party conference.

Nakaoka's motives for assassinating Hara Takashi were his beliefs that Hara Takashi was corrupt, involving the zaibatsu in Japanese politics, going to pass universal suffrage, and his handling of the Nikolayevsk incident during the Siberian intervention a year earlier.

Hara Takashi was replaced by Uchida Kosai as acting prime minister until Uchida was replaced a week later by Takahashi Korekiyo.