The Kaneko Correspondence (Part 1) (Translation)Kaneko Kentarō
Edited by James Kanda and William A. Gifford
MN 37:1 (1982) pp. 55–76
When Kaneko Kentarō quietly passed away at the venerable age of ninety in May 1942, the raging war with Japan did not deter The New York Times from expressly running a lengthy obituary notice in his memory. He was a man of many faces–a recognized diplomat, scholar, statesman, and, above all, a jurist in his own right. He was also a foremost authority on the United States who had dedicated much of his life toward better Japan-U.S. relations. When Japan began international radio broadcasting in 1931, for example, it was his greetings that first reached American listeners. Yet the very versatility that marked his long and eventful public life also had the adverse effect of blurring his identity in the eyes of later historians. As a consequence, his name of late has become no more than a footnote to the history of modern Japan.
What is here called the Kaneko Correspondence, now gathered together for the first time, consists of some 130 personal letters and other forms of correspondence that were exchanged intermittently for a period of over fifty years between Kaneko and some of his most intimate American friends and acquaintances. Unless discoveries are yet to be made elsewhere, it is believed to be the only substantial collection of private correspondence in English by a leading Japanese figure. The correspondence is by no means a literary masterpiece, nor does it add significantly to our knowledge of Meiji politics. It is, however, in the most fundamental sense a precious personal legacy of a man of the Meiji era.
