ebarasoroku

Probably Soroku Ebara, envoy from Japan sent to try to ease tension over California's "Alien Land Law" of 1913: "The appeal from the Japanese residents of California was so insistent and the excitement of the public opinion of Japan so great, that the political parties, the Christian organizations and the business interests of Japan, all decided to send representative men to California to counsel moderation and to give comfort to the compatriots who appeared to be made the object of economic persecution. At the same time such men sent from Japan could study the situa- tion on the spot and report upon the causes of the perennial outbursts of anti- Japanese sentiment and point out the way to the possible solution of the difficulty. With such an object in view, Mr. Soroku Ebara, then a member of the House of Representatives and later of the House of Peers of the Imperial Diet, was selected by the Seiyukai, or the Constitutional party which has been dominant in the domestic politics of Japan for fully a decade." www.archive.org/stream/growthofinternat00miyaiala/growtho...

rjones0856: Thanks for the information. It's helpful to know what likely made the photo newsworthy for the Bain News Service. The date written in reverse on the upper right corner of the negative, 7/11/13, corresponds with the time Ebara was on his mission to the US. We'll adjust the description when we update the record

He has a Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebara_Soroku

Another Bain/LOC photo of Ebara, taken on the same occasion: www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/3738813225/in/p...

The title "Sokoru [i.e., Soroku] Ebara (LOC)" is improper. His name is "SOROKU". It seems someone made a miss writing "R" to "K" and "K" to "R" in signature on the glass negative. Anyway, thanks for sharing my grand grand father Soroku's old picture.

Explendida imagen històrica.Gracias por su amable correo. Saludos.

Ebara Soroku (江原素六?) (March 10, 1842-May 19, 1922) was a samurai of the late Edo period who went on to become an educator and politician in the Meiji era and head of the Tokyo YMCA. He visited the U.S. some time after the Meiji Restoration but I can't find the exact date. www.lib.city.minato.tokyo.jp/yukari/e/man-detail.cgi?id=14 Kanichi Yamamoto (1879-1961) was the first Japanese Bahá'í. He came to the U.S. in 1903. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanichi_Yamamoto

Jim Rees : Thank you for your interesting information on Soroku and Yamamoto. We will add some of it to the description when we reload the database.

welcome news pagine

In 1913, the California legislature overrode objections of President Woodrow Wilson and the government of Japan, and enacted the racist Alien Land Law, which restricted ownership of land in California by Japanese immigrants. (Japanese already were ineligible for naturalization as U. S. citizens.) Ebara and Yamamoto were part of a 1913 Japanese delegation to the U. S. to protest the California act. Soroku Ebara was a member of the House of Representatives of the Japanese Diet (or Parliament). He was a devout Christian. The Yamamoto in this photograph is Kuninosuke (or Kuniosuke?) Yamamoto, who was Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) of Tokyo. Taken on the same occasion, here is another Bain/LOC photo of Ebara, dated 7/11/13: www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/3681836201/