A short biography of Sakujiro OKITA

A tea house called “Geishun-an” was built in the Meiji era by Mr. Sakujiro OKITA (1843-1901) from Oyodo Town. He had a villa of his family by the Yoshino River, as well as the tea house in the middle of a mountain a discreet distance away. These buildings reveal his dilettantism.
I'm going to do a write-up who he is based on some materials.

SUMMARY

Mr. Sakujiro OKITA was born in 1843 in Yoshino. He was a powerful forester who put a lot of his own money into the modernization of this area.
After his hard work toward reestablishing Nara Prefecture as a member of the Osaka prefectural representatives, he participated in the national administration as a member of House of Representatives from 1894 to 1897. He died in 1901 at the age of 58, with a smile, glancing at a single plum flower. He loved Japanese plum trees.
A dilettante and heavy drinker, he excelled at calligraphy and public speaking.

Stone monument commemorating Sakujiro in Yoshino-jingu Shrine

EARLY LIFE AND PERSONALITY

Sakujiro was born in 1843, at the end of the Edo period, in today's Oyodo Town, Yoshino, where the Okitas had been engaged in forestry over many generations. By the way, important figures from the area at that time were often forest holders/wooden material traders on a large scale. Yoshino is historically famous for forestry, particularly Yoshino cedar. Wooden materials produced in the very mountainous area went down Yoshino river.

 
There are no specific records on his early childhood, but the historical background indicates that the period of his youth coincides in time with political and societal upheaval.
When the strong isolationism of the Edo period over 200 years fell apart from about 1853 to 1857, he was 10 to 14 years old. Then, after a civil conflict between the pro-Imperial nationalists (not the Imperial Court itself) and the Tokugawa shogunate forces, the modern empire of the Meiji government was established 1868, when he was 25.
Yoshino wasn't detached from the turbulence. The revolt of Tenchu-gumi erupted in 1863. The pro-Imperial nationalists raised the army in today’s Osaka prefecture and fought in Yoshino, then ended up being suppressed in eastern Yoshino. The army's route passed across the edge of his daily living area, and the punitive force dispatched by the Tokugawa shogunate built a base of operations in the more intimate zone.
Some written accounts say he was merry and laid-back. I wonder how the uncertainty of his young days affected his personality.

TOWARD THE REESTABLISHMENT OF NARA PREFECTURE

Sakujiro started his formal political career in 1881 in his late 30s by becoming an Osaka prefectural representative member for the re-establishment of Nara Prefecture.
In the transient period from the Edo to the Meiji era, the decisions of which land belongs to which authority were overwritten many times. Basically, the former Yamato Province was reorganized as Nara Prefecture from 1868 to 1976, but it was incorporated in Sakai Prefecture in 1876, and then in Osaka Prefecture in 1881.
Local patriots ran a campaign for the re-establishment of Nara Prefecture including lobbying activities. Not a few people spent all their money on it to the edge of bankruptcy, as opposed to Sakujiro, who joined the movement from the beginning but didn’t ruin himself. Apparently, he was shrewd, or otherwise had unlimited financial resources.
Finally, Nara Prefecture came back in 1887 and Sakujiro was elected to the first and the second Nara Prefectural Representatives in 1887 and 1889, one after another.

NATIONAL POLITICS

Sakujiro advanced into the national political scene in the election for the House of Representatives in August, 1894. He formed a good relationship with Marquess Shigenobu OKUMA(*1), and joined the Rikken Kaishinto (i.e. Constitutional Reform Party) headed by Okuma.

*1) OKUMA Shigenobu (1838 to 1922) was a prominent statesman, serving as the Prime Minister of the Empire of Japan in 1898 and from 1914 to 1916.

During the First Sino-Japanese War, the 7th Imperial Diet was held in Horoshima, where the headquarters of the government army was. Sakujiro joined the session there, and was decorated by a series of silver vessels. How could the magnitude of this order be estimated? For example, Viscount Tamaki SISIDO also achieved the same decoration for probably the same reason: the contribution to the 7th Imperial Diet in 1896. Another example is Viscount Eiichi SHIBUSAWA who gained the same decoration in 1899 for a 3,500 yen donation as funds for the establishment and operation of a school. 3,500 yen in 1899 is equivalent to 16,620,000 yen today (approx. 150,000USD) on a consumer's price basis.

CONTRIBUTION TO YOSHINO

In between parliamentary activities, Sakujiro was committed to the modernization of Yoshino by establishing a school and improving access to transportation. He had invested huge amounts of money in repairing and expanding a 20km section of the historical highway nearby since 1884 when he was an Osaka prefectural assembly member (This means his financial ability allowed him to promote the lobbying activities and the civil engineering project simultaneously) with other powerful foresters. The fact that Sakujiro listened to complaints from local residents attentively and strove to respond to them can suggest that he preferred dialogue over heavy-handed strategies.

AFTER RETIREMENT

After the Diet dissolution in December 1897 (*2), he handed over his family estate to his son, Genichiro, and enjoyed the rest of his life in peace. "The History of Oyodo Town" issued in 1973 says he built a "saloon for the public (commoners)" on the mountain behind his house in the village in his later years. This probably refers to our tea house.
He died in 1901 at his age of 58: his retired life lasted only for four years.

*2) The second Cabinet of Prince MATSUKATA Masayoshi dissolved the Diet, getting stuck on the political management after the resignation of Okuma as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a pillar of the Cabinet. However, since the beginning of the Japanese parliamentary system, the Diet has been dissolved almost every few years, and the political impact is smaller than in other countries.

Tea house, 1975

FAMILY

He had a wife called Chiyo. Genichiro was the successor to Sakujiro, but the family register which was recorded at a temple associated with him reveals that Genichiro is an adopted son of Sakujiro. This implies Sakujiro didn’t have sons. Gensaku, son of Genichiro served as a village/city councilor.