Ito Kinsuke

2022/12/07

Image: Collection of the Keio Institute for Fukuzawa Yukichi Studies

The newspaper business that published the Jiji Shimpo was one of the important projects undertaken by Fukuzawa Yukichi. Ito Kinsuke, the subject of this article, studied at Keio University and played a major role in an era of the Jiji Shimpo. After working for the Bank of Japan, he acquired a newspaper company himself and managed the newspaper business.

Ito Kinsuke was born on August 4, 1857, as the youngest child (second son) of Ito Ichiemon, a samurai of the Hagi Domain. Ichiemon was said to be a man of great learning who taught at the domain school, Meirinkan, but he died at the age of 40 the year after Kinsuke was born. Kinsuke's childhood name was Yagoro. He was robust and active, but he was a child who never quarreled with others and handled things carefully. At the age of 15, he was adopted into the Hayashi family of the same domain as a son-in-law and began using the surname Hayashi, and eventually a son, Ryutaro, was born.

Kinsuke began studying at the domain school Meirinkan, and after going to Tokyo and entering Kogyokusha, he entered Keio University in June 1877. According to his classmates at the Juku, he was good at the abacus and his mathematics grades were perfect. At that time, debating within Keio was active, and he stood out for his skillful eloquence in the Yukosha, which he formed with Inukai Tsuyoshi, Murai Yasukata, and others.

Around this time, his relationship with his adoptive father in the Hayashi family deteriorated, so he dissolved the adoption and returned to the Ito surname. After graduating in April 1879, he wrote for the Shizuoka Shimbun and the Chinzei Nippo in Nagasaki, and became a reporter for the Jiji Shimpo in 1885. After Nakamigawa Hikojiro, the president who played a central role in the paper, became the president of Sanyo Railway, Ito took charge of editing the Jiji Shimpo.

In 1886, Ito was sentenced to eight months of light imprisonment and a fine of 30 yen for violating the Newspaper Ordinance by sending 300 copies of a "Report" to newspaper companies and banks without permission along with Akagawa Eizo (Tokyo Asahi). Given the length of the sentence, it is thought that the content was suspected of disturbing public order, not just being unauthorized (maximum light imprisonment of six months). When he was released from prison in May of the following year, Fukuzawa provided money for Ito and asked Okamoto Teikyu to help him. Ito, exhausted from prison life, tried hard to study, but remained in a weakened state for a while, and Fukuzawa worried about his physical and mental health.

In July of the same year, Fukuzawa, who had been observing the situation, entrusted Ito with the "General Editing" of the Jiji Shimpo after Nakamigawa left. Later, Fukuzawa appointed Sakata Minoru as the accountant and decided to entrust the management of the Jiji Shimpo to Ito and Sakata, arranging for them to be able to make an independent living. In fact, when the land adjacent to Kojunsha was put up for sale, he moved to purchase it for company housing and have Ito live there.

In October, young reporters Ishikawa Mikiaki and Watanabe Osamu began to voice objections to Ito within the company. The dissatisfaction of the young reporters was that power was biased toward editing, and they, as reporters, were "working hard for no reward." At that time, the young reporters "spoke unsettling words," and an uneasy atmosphere drifted through the company. Fukuzawa, the de facto owner, harshly criticized the two, saying "Both Watanabe and Ishikawa are poor writers," and stood by Ito, who was engaged in management, saying "Useless boys are not needed." The conflict was resolved through Fukuzawa's persuasion (Fukuzawa Yukichi Shokanshu Vol. 6).

In Fukuzawa's estimation, Ito was not only older, but also wise, handled things briskly, and was eager to study. At that time, Fukuzawa, who checked every corner of the articles, is said to have been furious when he found mistakes, but Ito, the general editor, took it all on himself, listened in silence, and made no excuses, so Fukuzawa's trust in him deepened further. It is said that Ito, who understood the unique Fukuzawa style, was always in charge of the furigana for the editorials written by Fukuzawa.

During his time at Jiji Shimpo, Ito's daily routine was to arrive at the office around 11:00 a.m., read at Kojunsha, and when the manuscripts were ready in the evening, a page would go to call him, and he would return to work on editing until around 12:00 midnight. After Sakata transferred to become the head of the Yochisha, he also took charge of accounting. When the first rotary printing press in Japan was introduced, he directed the workers based on his own research and completed everything from assembly to installation. Also, as a reporter, almost no long essay-style articles were found in his writing, and he was good at sharp satire in short reviews.

Perhaps because he was from Choshu, he had a network with Ito Hirobumi, and not only obtained important information as a reporter but also acted as a de facto staff member. However, it is a testament to Ito's strength of character that this did not dull his criticism of the domain cliques. In the reporting of the Sino-Japanese War, he used his network to land scoops and contributed to the expansion of circulation. Fukuzawa also evaluated Ito's work, giving him an extraordinary bonus of 1,000 yen at the end of 1894, and his annual salary jumped to 3,000 yen the following year.

After that, Ito moved from being a journalist to the business world. This was because Iwasaki Yanosuke, who was approached about becoming the Governor of the Bank of Japan, consulted Fukuzawa and hesitated because he had no acquaintances at the Bank of Japan, so Fukuzawa recommended his appointment by having Ito accompany him.

In December 1896, Ito was appointed as the Deputy Manager of the Bank of Japan. His annual salary was 1,500 yen. He served as the Issuing Bureau Officer and the Document Bureau Officer, and was heavily relied upon as a right-hand man by Governors Iwasaki and Yamamoto Tatsuo, frequently entering and leaving the executive offices. Ito was knowledgeable and a "Navy expert," and the Bank of Japan's luncheons were dominated by Ito's talk about the Navy (Yamana Jiro, "Secret Stories of Great Men"). Also, from February to October 1898, he was ordered to inspect banking operations in Western countries, but he also seems to have researched the newspaper business.

Later, when Matsuo Shigeyoshi of the Ministry of Finance became the Governor, his de facto treatment as an executive ended, and the opportunities for Ito to demonstrate his abilities gradually disappeared. Eventually, in May 1906, he retired from the Bank of Japan for health reasons. When former Governor Yamamoto, who had been consulted beforehand, tried to persuade him to stay because the path to becoming a future executive was visible, Ito clearly stated, "Joining the Bank of Japan was a temporary position from the beginning, and my ambition lies in managing a newspaper company. I can get either the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun or the Nippon, or both depending on negotiations, but the Tokyo Nichi Nichi is too expensive, so I will take over the Nippon." As expected, joining the Bank of Japan was at Fukuzawa's request and was not his true intention.

After that, he acquired the "Nippon" newspaper company founded by Kuga Katsunan and began its management. The source of funds for the acquisition is said to have been not only his savings but also 80,000 yen in profits from a mine he invested in with a friend. In a public notice published in various newspapers, Ito expressed his aspirations, saying "I hope to follow the influential newspapers of Europe and America," and using his experience in managing the Jiji Shimpo, he declared an independent path, saying he would "proceed only according to my own beliefs" without bringing in other capital.

However, the employees rebelled against the new president Ito's populist reforms of the paper, which were different from the previous high-toned content specialized in politics and literature, and eventually clashed. In the end, 22 reporters, led by Editor-in-Chief Miyake Setsurei, resigned. Upon their resignation, the reporters cursed Ito as "powerless, incompetent, and ignorant." They renamed the magazine "Nihonjin" to "Nippon and Nihonjin" and claimed to be the legitimate successors of the "Nippon" newspaper.

Ito, who was left behind, showed no sign of giving up at all, and had the spirit to publish the newspaper alone, doing everything from editing the pages to arranging the typesetting (Takano Sei, "Remembering the Late Mr. Kinsuke Ito," Diamond). After that, he hired new talent, exerted his pen with a focus on economic theory, and once criticized and forced the withdrawal of a bond issue by the Katsura Cabinet.

Ito later managed the "Nippon" newspaper with the help of Keio-educated businessmen such as Asabuki Eiji and Ikeda Seihin, but the management was hit by a fire at the company building caused by arson at the end of 1914, and he was forced to discontinue publication. Yamamoto Tatsuo analyzed that a major factor in the failure of Ito's newspaper business, which he thought would surely succeed, was that Ito's specialty, economic theory, was not favored by the readers of the "Nippon," which had been a political newspaper.

In addition, as a manager, he served as a director of Chiyoda Mutual Life Insurance, Nippon Flour Mills, and others. Also, at the request of Ishiyama Kenkichi, a Keio University alumni who founded the economic magazine "Diamond" after working as a reporter for the "Nippon" newspaper, he took charge of supervising the magazine and continued to write articles three times a month for 14 years until a few months before his death.

Keio University began raising funds in 1889 with the aim of establishing a college. At that time, Nakamigawa Hikojiro and Ito, acting on Fukuzawa's wishes, worked behind the scenes to lobby the Imperial Household Ministry for an imperial grant. Nakamigawa requested Shinagawa Yajiro, the Director-General of the Imperial Estate Bureau, and Ito persuaded Prime Minister Yamagata Aritomo. As a result, 1,000 yen was granted for "educating human resources for many years and having no small merit." Fukuzawa not only sent letters of thanks to Yamagata and Shinagawa but also informed his family widely, and did not hide his joy at the prospect of realizing the establishment of the college.

After that, Ito continued to participate in the management of Keio University, serving as a councilor and trustee, and was also involved in the decision to establish the School of Medicine.

Once, Fukuzawa described Ito as "a hero." Although he had a gentle personality, his heroic nature is said to have appeared in the fact that he maintained his criticism of the domain cliques while being among the Choshu clique, and in the sharpness of his arguments criticizing the Katsura Cabinet during the Movement to Protect Constitutional Government. Ito loved to talk so much that he never ran out of topics even if he talked all night, and at Kojunsha, he was called "Ito Koshaku" (Prince Ito), a play on storytelling (koshaku) and Prince Ito.

On the other hand, he had a humane side, and worried about the family of a worker who died in the fire at the "Nippon" newspaper company, making various arrangements to send condolence money to the bereaved family. When he received a report that the bereaved family was happy, he was relieved but continued to care about them for a long time (Collected Works of Ito Kinsuke, Volume 2). Also, some see the education of independence and self-respect he received from Fukuzawa as a strong influence on why he did not desire success using his Choshu connections and maintained his criticism of the domain cliques.

The Fukuzawa that Ito saw was an "intelligent person." He also recalls that Fukuzawa had a common touch, and after listening to the long stories of people from the countryside to the end, he would rush to his next appointment and complain that he was "busy." And although he spoke of the preciousness of money, he had no aim of making money, so he said, "The teacher is a Genroku samurai" (Fukuou Kunwa).