The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (55 page)

The next day I had an interesting meeting at the Ministry of Labor with the people who run bureaus for women in industry, for improvement of rural life, child welfare and the like. These government bureaus bear the stamp of American organization but that does not mean they operate the way they do in the United States. The organization was imposed on Japan by the occupation authorities and American methods were not entirely suited to the facts of life in Japan: the place of women in the industrial system, the necessity for children to contribute to the family income, the ability of the economy to support such public service. In order to make these organizations practical, they had to be adjusted to fit conditions in Japan, and that has been a complicated task.

There is also the important question whether such services are welcomed by the public. As I was leaving the ministry a group of Communist party women, led by an American who is married to a Japanese, were waiting outside. The American woman stared at me and seemed to be highly strung to the point of fanaticism. As I stepped out the door the group began shouting anti-American slogans.

“Go home to America! We women who went through the war do not want any more war!”

The obvious answer was, of course, that neither did I want war. It is groups such as this one that keep the fear of war constantly alive in the peoples of the free world. I made numerous inquiries about Communist activities and strength in Japan. On one occasion I met with a number of college presidents in Nara and made a point of asking them about the attitude of students and professors.

“I doubt that more than a few are really convinced Communists,” one said. “However, a few can make a good deal of noise because they know what they really believe in, while the others are divided and groping to find their way.”

I was inclined to believe there was more real acceptance of Marxism among the students in Japan than these college presidents were willing to acknowledge to me. They did say that democracy was not making headway among the students and that it was not being well taught.

I talked to countless groups of women in many cities of Japan and there were certain broad themes that ran through all our discussions. One was the attitude of young people toward their elders and the attitude of the elders toward the young. Since the Japanese had been urged to accept the democratic idea of free discussion, there had developed a great deal of criticism between the two groups and this antagonism was increased by the fact that the young people blamed their elders for telling them that Japan could not lose the war. Much of the authority of the elders was undermined when the Japanese armies were defeated and the Emperor was declared to be a man rather than a god. The young people became cynical and disillusioned.

There were also many questions, particularly from the students, that I answered as best I could. Sometimes I was asked why the United States used the atom bomb and how I felt about it. I tried to explain the urgent reasons that prompted our leaders to make the decision in an effort to end the war quickly, but at the same time I expressed my feeling of horror about any kind of warfare. Another question was, “Do the people of the United States understand that the young people of Japan dislike rearmament and that, in order to rearm as urged by Washington, we have to change our constitution which was adopted at the request of the United States in the first place?”

Of course, world conditions had changed since they adopted the constitution that renounced war forever, but it was not so easy to see the threat of Soviet expansion through Japanese eyes as it was through American eyes. I don’t suppose my explanations of the danger to the democracies were satisfactory to people who had never experienced democratic life.

These sessions were often exhausting, particularly if there were a large number of students in the audience, but what was most tiring to me was that everything had to be translated.

I remember one charming and rather sophisticated Japanese newspaperwoman who was beautiful in her native costume yet seemed to be familiar with Western customs. She told me that her greatest difficulty at home was with the “system of the pouch.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“My mother-in-law,” she said, “is old-fashioned. She has a large leather pouch and each week she puts into it all the family earnings. Then all of us become dependent on her ideas of how much we should spend or whether we should spend anything. In fact, she can practically tell us how to run our lives.”

I found that this custom was practiced in many places. A woman who worked in a factory told me she went home on weekends to the farm where her family lived and that she always placed her earnings on the household shrine the night she arrived. The next morning they were in the mother-in-law’s pouch. I found that most of the Japanese mothers in the working class look forward to the day when they will be mothers-in-law and can tyrannize over their daughters-in-law. Slowly these outdated customs are changing under the present government but it will be a long time before they are entirely gone.

I have had many experiences in my life, but I could not help feeling a twinge of anxiety as I prepared for my interview with Emperor Hirohito, the 124th of his line, and Empress Nagako. Knowing that old habits and customs were changing, especially for the women of Japan, I felt it would be interesting to know whether the Empress was able or desired to give some leadership in these changes.

The more I talked with groups of women in Japan the more I was convinced that, while the women were a force in their homes behind the scenes, they had not gained direct equality with men as provided in their new constitution, despite the fact that there were thirty women members of the Diet, or parliament.

There were certainly some intellectuals among the prominent women in the field of labor, in farm organizations and in social work, but they could not be called the most influential in Japan from the standpoint of social prestige. They were not, if I except Princess Chichibu, finding out how the girls in the factories lived or how the farm women worked in their fields or their homes.

There was a good deal of protocol attached to this meeting with the Emperor and Empress, in which I was guided by our ambassador, John M. Allison. After we were seated in the palace the Emperor and his wife arrived. The Empress wore a kimono. As I looked at her sitting calmly with her hands in her lap, with her face unlined and impassive, I could not help wondering what lay behind that placid surface. She must be a woman of extensive education. Her husband is a student of the sciences and has written several books. The Empress had always taken an interest in child education.

We talked about conditions generally and at one point the Emperor said he had always regretted that we had gone to war in spite of his vigorous efforts to prevent it. Now he hoped we were embarked on an era of friendship and peace.

Under the new constitution his position is changed but the Emperor can be an important figure. I think he was sincere in saying that he had tried to prevent the war and I decided that, if we behaved with tact and caution, we could count on him to help us build friendly relations with the Asian world. Even at that time he was hoping that Japan would become a member of the United Nations, as it later did, and that we could all work together for harmonious international relations.

I am afraid that during this interview I did not observe the rule that one should speak only when spoken to. I asked a few questions, or rather I made some remarks intended to draw out the ideas of the Empress.

“When I visited Pakistan and India,” I said, “many changes were taking place, particularly in the status and activities of women. It seemed to me that women of all classes were drawing closer together and gaining in strength because of their greater knowledge of each other.”

I looked at the calm face of the Empress, waiting for her to comment. She said nothing for a few moments and then replied: “We need more education.” The Emperor broke in with some comment, and I thought perhaps that would be all the response I would get from the Empress, but she seemed to be thinking over my remarks, for in a few minutes she said: “There are great changes coming about in the life of our women. We have always been trained in the past to a life of service, and I am afraid that as these new changes come about there may be a loss of real values. What is your impression, Mrs. Roosevelt?”

“In all eras of change,” I said, “there is a real danger that the old values will be lost. But it seems to me much less dangerous when the intelligent and broad-minded women who have had an opportunity to become educated take the lead to bring about the necessary changes.”

“Our customs are different, Mrs. Roosevelt,” the Emperor broke in. “We have government bureaus to lead in our reforms. We serve as an example to our people in the way we live and it is our lives that have influence over them.”

That seemed to be the final word on how far the imperial family might go in assuming leadership in the new era in Japan. But I cannot help believing that, since the older women have been such an important influence in the home in the past, the future may see greater leadership exerted by the women of high social status, including members of the entourage of the imperial family.

As I look back on my visit to Japan, many incidents stood out as illustrative of the problems of establishing a democratic form of government in the Far East, and especially of educating women to take an active part in public affairs. One day in Tokyo I attended a round-table conference at the national Young Women’s Christian Association with perhaps the most representative women leaders in the country. They were gravely concerned about progress in the new era of freedom. They made me see more clearly the difficulties created by an army of occupation or even by the presence of many American boys stationed at military bases in Japan. Unfortunately, we do not train our youngsters carefully enough before sending them throughout the world. They do not always remember that they are not merely soldiers but ambassadors, representing all that their own country stands for and all that democracy means to the rest of the world. The women were particularly concerned about the spread of prostitution and believed it could be controlled only by the closest co-operation between Japan and the United States.

The education of Japanese in democratic ways also was made more difficult at times by news from the United States telling of racial discrimination, of instances in Los Angeles and Texas where the work of UNESCO was attacked as communistic, and of the methods employed by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy in his Congressional investigations. Again and again Japanese told me they were confused and bewildered by these news dispatches, which were displayed prominently in the newspapers. “Will you please explain these attitudes?” one leading Japanese businessman asked me. “Japan hopes one day to be a member of the United Nations and to work loyally with that organization. But we are unable to understand why these things happen in a great democratic nation like the United States.”

On another occasion a young man showed me a news dispatch from the United States saying that the Japanese government’s victory in a recent election was because the majority of Japanese were accepting the policy of gradual rearmament which had been urged on the Tokyo government by our State Department.

“Do people in the United States really believe that?” he demanded. “Everybody knows that the government in Japan has been careful to say practically nothing on the subject of rearmament. Don’t you realize that there is deep resentment here because many Japanese feel the United States used economic pressure at the time of the election in order to put into office people who favor the U.S. State Department’s policies? For that reason, many feel that the United States is trying to make Japan economically a slave.”

These are some of the suspicions and some of the grave problems that must be overcome—and, I feel sure, will be overcome—if our relations with the Far East are to be secure. Progress has been made toward this goal, but there are constantly arising new causes of misunderstanding, so that the road is a long and rough one. Perhaps our best hope is that the Japanese as well as ourselves want peace above all. This was impressed upon me strongly at the tragic city of Hiroshima.

To arrive in Hiroshima is an emotional experience. Here is where the first atom bomb ever to be dropped on human beings was actually used. The people of the United States believe that our leaders thought long and carefully before they used this dread weapon. We know that they thought first of the welfare of our own people, that they believed the bomb might end the war quickly with less loss of life everywhere than if it had not been dropped.

In spite of this conviction, one cannot see a city and be shown the area that was destroyed by blast and fire and be told of the people who died or were injured without deep sadness. To see the home where orphans were being cared for was to wish with one’s whole heart that men could learn from this that we know too well how to destroy and must learn instead how to prevent such destruction. It is useless to say that Germany started the war and even started the research that led to the atomic bomb. It is useless to remember, as I did, the feelings of my husband and of the people of the United States when he heard the shocking news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was only the climax of years of mounting misunderstandings and antipathies throughout the world. And out of all this came Hiroshima.

But it was not just here in this sad Japanese city that men and women and children suffered. All the world suffered. So it seems to me that the only helpful thing we can do, as we contemplate man’s adventure into the realm of outer space, is to pledge ourselves to work to eliminate the causes of war through action that is possible only by using the machinery of the United Nations. If we do, then the peoples may understand each other a little better; they may have a better chance to be heard.

Contemplating the fate of Hiroshima, one can only say: “God grant to men greater wisdom in the future.”