Press translations [Japan]. Editorial Series 0200, 1946-01-05.
Date5 January, 1946
RepositoryRauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
Call Numbereditorial-0623
Call NumberDS801 .S82
Persistent Identifier
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EDITORIAL SERIES: 200
ITEM 1 A New Resolution After the Defect - Nippon Sangyo Keizai - 1 Jan 46. Translator:
K.
Takahashi.
Full Translation:
A new year has come. We do not knew whether we should great the New Year with cheer
or with grief. However, the defeat is an
accomplished fact four and a half months have elapsed since the day of surrender.
It is a bad dream and a past memory, which
we would like to blot out, if possible, but there still remain real and cruel phases
of the defeat.
We have celebrated every new year with new emotion and hope, but have we ever experienced
or expected to experience such a new
year as this? The Nation may be said to have been benumbed so much that it can entertain
no sentiments for the new year. With
meaningless joy, but not with a bright hope, the people are tempted to run desperately
away from-deep grief. "Real property, a
real purpose" as the proverb goes, says that poverty is apt to induce men to wayward
ways.
Moral delinquency and social restlessness are nothing but the reflection of the realities
of defeat. Though time may wear away
the reality of the memorable day of surrender, the spiritual and material hardships
of the defeat will last through this
year.
Hardships, following the defeat, are the deserved torture and atonement for the people
who are entirely responsible for the
ear. Hence, we have no right to be in high spirits and to be intoxicated with the
new year spirit.
As compared with, the years of suppression, when we were misguided with a baseless
hope for victory and charmed by the
meaningless idea of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, this new year may
be a cursed one. All our people, stripped of
the sense of superiority in every way, must welcome the new year with the selfrealization
of having been relegated to the
position of a fourth-class nation. On the other hand we are confronted with a living
which totters on the edge of the cliff of
starvation.
In these respects, this new year is one unworthy of its name and without precedent
in our history. But these material and
spiritual hardships are bared realities without vanity and. disguise, however, we
prefer unveiled hardships to false and
disguised easygoing ways, and thus we can find significance in the first new year
of the defeat and a hope for the
future.
The Allied Powers promise and expect us here after, as a peaceful Nation, to participate
in international relations and to
render our substantial contribution to the advancement of the world. This is not compulsory
but rather something thsy hope we
can accomplish. If not, we shall
EDITORIAL SERIES: 200 (Continued)
ITEM 1 (Continued)
Obliged to remain as an inferior state in the world forever. If we have some worthy
merits, we can contribute to the welfare
and progress of the world by using them.
New Year's Day is the Key to the year. The shackles of militarism, of feudalism of
regime relation of body and soul, which are
the basis of the present destitution, have been removed. The construction of the new
in place of the old must be done in the
future, and this year must be the year of construction. Let us step forward forcefully
to build up a new JAPAN with peace and
democracy. Thus we can make this new year a hopeful one, even though we remain under
the occupation of the Allied Forces.
Furthermore, in building up a democratic JAPAN, we must avoid any repetition of the
misconduct of the past.
Mystic ideology, apart from reality, is to blame for having misled the Nation in
the wrong political, economic and social
directions. The democratic ideology after the defeat has an inclination to make the
country and the people turn toward
unexpected directions. Pragmatism in the UNITED STATES forms a striking contrast to
our democratic ideology.
In reconstructing a democratic JAPAN, our country's systems and organizations , adjusted
to the real state of things, should
be modelled upon American matter-of-factness. The accomplishment of democracy in our
country, by ourselves, is recognized and
expected by the Allied Headquarters. "The truth, and the light" as stated in General
MacARTHUR's New Year message to the
people of JAPAN, may certainly be the way for us to begin this New Year.
ITEM 2 The Hope and Vow of Restored JAPAN - Tokyo Shimbun - 1 Jan 46. Translator:
T. Unayama.
Full Translation:
"New Year's Eve is nonsense, New Year's Day is still more nonsense.” It is a hard
fact that our joy in welcoming New Year's
Day grows less as our ages advance. When we were boys, we used to wait for the coming
of New Year's Day, counting the days on
our fingers. We grown-ups can no longer have the inspiration of those days.
Without fail , New Year's Eve awaits New Year's Day. In our country where all accounts
are settled on New Year's Eve according
to custom, persons who are not rich cannot have a gay time. MASAOKA, Shiki, who could
say "New Year's Eve is nonsense, New
Year's Day is still more nonsense", one of his 'haiku' (TN a form of poetry), was
more blessed than those who were suffering
from debts. ISHIKAWA, Takuboku, regretted that he felt nothing but boredom on New
Year's Day. In contrast to his "tanka" on
New Year's Day, we can sympathize with him as he was always suffering from extreme
poverty, though he "worked and worked day
and night."
Since we are not poets we cannot understand the profound poetical sentiment in their
"tanka" and "haiku," but under the social
circumstances prevailing at the year's end and the new year, we cannot feel any special
gladness if we have to admit that both
New Year's Eve and Nee Year's Day are new meaning loss.
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EDITORIAL SERIES: 200 (Continued)
ITEM 2 The masses are hardly maintaining a livelihood. During, last year's end, although
there was
restlessness among the people, they still had enough composure to decorate their gates
with a spray of pine branch. This year,
however, most of then forgot it, and thus not even the sacred straw festoons can be
found on the front of the houses. The New
Year's pine decorations and straw festoons can never satisfy their appetite, and their
purses cannot afford the expense. Their
minds are pre-occupied in another direction.
At any rate, the year 1945, which cannot be forgotten as long, as JAPAN exists, or
as lonas the Japanese race remains, has
rolled away. Next year, when it comes around again, it may be accompanied by more
misfortune. What can overcome the expected
misfortune is only the people's own effort. We shall never again rely on "divine guidance."
Let us do our best to support the
hope of a New JAPAN.
Do without the pine decorations. We will pledge to the flag of the rising sun the
hopes and prayers for a restored JAPAN.
ITEM 3 Is the New Year Happy? - Tokyo Shinbun - 1 Jan 46. Translator: S. Fukuda.
Full Translation:
In spite of the severe food shortage, the authorities considerately rationed extra
rice and rice-cake materials to citizens at
the year's end, to help celebrate, New Year's. Because of their hard work and good
will, however: some people objected to our
being, allowed to celebrate tae New Year's holiday as usual this year. They say that
this is the first January of defeat in
the history of JAPAN.
It is, to be sure, a fact that a New Year has come. Do Japanese wish to celebrate
the happy New Year? Air-raid victims, who
have trembled from cold and hunger, fellow Japanese overseas who have not yet been
repatriated, unemployed, faced by the
hardships of living, and poor citizens cannot celebrate. People of better living standards
should sympathise with them. One
man states that some of those who are glad to celebrate the New Year are the black
market dealers who made money last year.
That is a radical statement. People who extol freedom of speech and religion may enjoy
a pleasant New Year such as they have
not had for years. There may be many who think of themselves as released from the
heavy oppression of many years and have
utter disregard for the waves of destitution.
Originally, greeting; the New gear is a ceremonial thought of the people with a long
tradition, and many explanations have
been made in the study of local customs, the study of races and the study of folk-lore.
The primary significance and feelings
gradually have been lost. Though the words "happy" or "anspicous" are put on people's
lips, the people think only of eating
rice-cake, sending. New Year's cards and making New Year's calls. To be happy means
that all members of a family celebrate and
enjoy the New Year safely.
In one adage we say that "The plans of a year must be made on the .first day of the
year." That the New Year is happy because
there is a complete renewal and a bright hope for the future is common knowledge today.
In this meaning, we must think of the
present situation as unprecedentedly
- 3 -
EDITORIAL SERIES: 200 (Continued)
ITEM 3 (Continued)
serious. This New Year is a great historical time when we cast off the old nays or
the past and greet the birth of a new JAPAN
of peace. In ancient times, the name of an era would have been renamed. We are at
the stating point from which we throw away
the depression of defeat and rise bravely to open wide the road of thorns that lies
before us. The New Year must be greatly
celebrated. Japanese people. Let us all celebrate it:
(Sent by OSATAKE; Takeshi)
ITEM 4 JAPAN's Birth Control - Yomiuri - 3 Jan 46. Translator: Y. Suzuki.
Full Translation:
There are many problems which we, who have to maintain ourselves in such small islands,
have to think over. Above all,
unquestioning subservience to the theory of divine nationalism lasted so long, that
we have to push forward from the first
stages of many problems. One of them is birth control. The former ideas about birth
control were only the propaganda of
militaristic and aggerssive policy. "Poor men get children" describes the proletarian
class. They are troubled by
over-fortibity and yet their death rate is the highest. The governing classess do
not mind in the least how much suffering we
endure; they only wanted to increase the population so that their aggressive policy
[illegible]could be
carried out and more men could be sent to the battle fronts.
That was why, when Miss Margret SANCER, AMERICA birth control advocate, came over
to JAPAN in March 1922, the military and the
police tried to stop her from landing, and obliged her to refrain free any speeches
when she did land.
In enabling nearly 80,000,000 people to live in such a small country, birth control
takes an important place in the movement
of liberation. It is very strange that the Social Democrats say nothing about it.
YAMAMOTO, Senji, the first communist member,
before he was executed, attempted to make a speech on birth control, after the discussion
on peace regulations. Objections
were made against abortion, since YAMAMOTO'S cherished opinion was that "A baby is
a human being, even if he is in his
mother's body. I can't bear to see any human being, killed." However for all that
contraception spread. To this day his
opinion is repeated.
For the future, we must study contraception scientifically and, by gradual stages,
make it popular, so that there will be some
relief in bringing up children.
DISTRIBUTION "X"
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