Japan: Count Kaneko Kentaro (1853-1942), statesman and diplomat in Meiji Era Japan, as a young man

Count Kaneko Kentarō (金子 堅太郎, February 4, 1853 – May 16, 1942) was a statesman and diplomat in Meiji period Japan. Kaneko was born into a samurai family of Fukuoka Domain (Chikuzen Province's Sawara district, present-day Chuo-ku, Fukuoka). At the age of 9, he began his studies at Shuyukan. He was selected to be a student member of the Iwakura Mission, and was left behind in the United States to study at Harvard University while the rest of the mission continued on to Europe and around the world back to Japan.

From 1906, Kaneko served as a member of the Privy Council, and was elevated in title to viscount (shishaku) in 1907.

In his later years he was engaged in the compilation of a history of the Imperial family and served as secretary general of the association for compiling historical materials about the Meiji Restoration. He completed an official biography of Emperor Meiji in 1915. He was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 1928, and elevated to hakushaku (count) in 1930.

Kaneko was a strong proponent of good diplomatic relations with the United States all of his life. In 1900, he established the first American Friendship Society (米友協会 Beiyu Kyōkai). In 1917, he established and became chairman of the 'Japan-American Association' (日米協会 Nichibei Kyōkai). In 1938, during a time of increasingly strident anti-American rhetoric from the Japanese government and press, he established the Japan-America Alliance Association (日米同志会 Nichibei Dōmeikai ), a political association calling for a Japanese-American Alliance, together with future Prime Minister Takeo Miki. He was one of the few senior statesmen in Japan to speak out strongly against war with the United States as late as 1941.

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Pictures From History

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RISING SUN