Shingoro Takaishi

Image: Takaishi as a Keio student (From "Takaishi-san," edited by the Shingoro Takaishi Biography Publication Committee)

A single audio tape is preserved at the Sapporo Olympic Museum.

My friends, please forgive me for interrupting you at this time…

This message, lasting just over two minutes and featuring Takaishi's voice starting modestly, was played with special permission at the IOC Session in Rome in April 1966. Sapporo, which had bid for the 1972 Winter Olympics, was reportedly in an unfavorable position. Takaishi, an IOC member, first apologized for his inability to attend due to illness. He then spoke of Sapporo's history and pioneer spirit, how the Sapporo Winter Olympics had vanished along with the 1940 Tokyo Olympics, and the success of the 1964 Tokyo Games. He quietly appealed for Sapporo to be granted an equal honor. When the audio ended, the venue was filled with applause. A proposal for a get-well telegram to Takaishi came from the New Zealand representative, to which then-President Brundage responded, "The best get-well gift for Takaishi is the Sapporo Games." It is said that the tide then turned in favor of Sapporo.

When he spoke in support of hosting the Tokyo Olympics at the 1958 IOC Session, he famously remarked, "I am old, but I will not die until the Tokyo Games are realized." The Danish representative jokingly replied, "To keep Takaishi from dying, we must oppose holding the Tokyo Games," which drew a roar of laughter—an episode that became legendary. Where did this behavior, so un-Japanese and which led Brundage to nickname him "young man," come from?

Shingoro Takaishi was born on September 22, 1878, in Tsurumai-machi, Ichihara-gun, Chiba Prefecture (now Ichihara City). The Takaishi family were kimono merchants, but at the recommendation of his brother in Tokyo, he entered Keio University in May 1893, proceeded to the college Department of Law, and graduated in March 1901.

During his student days, he would go to watch Fukuzawa's daily routine of "rice pounding" for physical exercise or go to hear his public speaking, but he did not get more deeply involved than that. However, when a classmate was expelled for taking dance lessons, Takaishi went directly to Fukuzawa to negotiate for the withdrawal of the expulsion. He later repeatedly recounted the image of a meticulous and kind Fukuzawa, who allowed the student to return to school amicably while saving the face of the President at the time.

He led a flashy life as a Keio student; he was the editor-in-chief of a literary magazine, participated in various sports, and it is said that the entrance of his boarding house was lined with red-strapped clogs belonging to women from the Shibaura area, leading Imperial University students to crowd around asking him to "teach the secrets" of how to have fun. In his later years, he boasted that Fukuzawa once gave him a copy of One Hundred Discourses of Fukuzawa with his name written on it, saying, "Even now, I cannot solve the mystery" of why Fukuzawa knew his name. He must have been an extraordinary Keio student. Shinzo Koizumi, who was a Keio Futsubu School student at the time, reportedly said that Takaishi's presence "caught even a child's eye."

As he himself said, "I entered the newspaper company through a back door, or rather a side wicket—not a proper entrance," Takaishi's entry into the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun (now the Mainichi Shimbun; hereafter, Daimai) was unusual. During his graduation exams, he was approached by Vice Principal Ikunosuke Kadono and became a private secretary helping Daimai President Hidetaro Komatsubara write editorials.

While Keio University and newspapers are strongly associated with Jiji Shinpo, founded by Fukuzawa, Daimai also had deep ties. The first president, Osamu Watanabe, and the second, Kiichiro Takagi, were Keio University alumni. After Takashi Hara, the fourth president, Komatsubara, was also a Keio University alumni (he was a slightly different type who entered government service, but he had a history of arrest for radical democratic thoughts and maintained ties with the Juku during his presidency, which is likely why he asked Kadono). Incidentally, the fifth president who succeeded him was Hikoichi Motoyama, who was also a Keio University alumni.

Komatsubara responded to Takaishi, who demanded an exorbitant monthly salary of 50 yen at their first meeting, with an exceptional 40 yen. After having him help while living at the president's house for three months from April 1901, he formally enrolled him as an employee with the same salary. Thus, he was assigned to the Foreign Correspondence Department, but feeling a lack of English proficiency while interviewing foreigners, he requested President Komatsubara for permission to study abroad. Komatsubara replied that while he could not provide tuition, he could continue to pay his salary. Takaishi scrambled to raise the remaining funds, and hearing that the Mitsui family would provide money without conditions, he "received" 3,000 yen and arrived in London in December of the following year. It is said that those who helped with the arrangements included Shogoro Hatano (a Keio University alumni), a managing director of Mitsui Bank whom he had met previously.

In London, he had no obligation to send articles and lived in a boarding house as a mere poor student. He began studying English at a "temple school" (private school) and a year later was reportedly attending lectures by Webb as an auditing student at the London School of Economics.

In February 1904, with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, he joined the London Daily Express as a part-time employee, getting a job checking proper nouns in telegrams from Japan. This was mediated by the Japanese Minister Tadasu Hayashi, who was a relative of Yukichi Fukuzawa and looked after him. Around this time, he also decided to work hard on his German studies, which led to his next opportunity.

In August 1905, a telegram suddenly arrived from the head office in Osaka ordering him to leave London and enter Russia before the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese peace treaty, along with a telegraphic transfer of 10,000 yen for funds. When he consulted Minister Hayashi, he was warned, "If you have two lives, then go ahead," but the minister introduced him to the Minister in Berlin, and he waited in Germany for an opportunity to enter. Soon the peace treaty was concluded, but a major railway strike broke out in Russia, making entry impossible. This gave him a four-month reprieve to receive intensive Russian language training from the Russian wife of a Japanese legation official who was also waiting. He was a man blessed with luck and money at every turn.

In December of the same year, he arrived in Saint Petersburg, becoming the first to enter Russia ahead of the Japanese legation staff preparing to reopen. While boarding at the home of a widow of a Russian naval officer who died in the Battle of Tsushima, he "concocted" political articles as the only Japanese reporter, using London newspapers as a reference and adding local reporting. He humbled himself by saying he was an "unauthorized" correspondent, as the situation did not allow for live reporting. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his seven-month stay, feeling the scale of the "great power" through soldiers who spoke cheerfully of their life as prisoners in Japan. He even managed an interview with Tolstoy for a travel story. When he returned to London in August 1906, a notice of a salary increase from 40 yen to 130 yen was waiting for him.

Takaishi's heroic tales continued. In June of the following year, he went on assignment to the International Peace Conference in The Hague. The content was dry, and Takaishi was again the only Japanese reporter on site, but it was here that the so-called Hague Secret Envoy Incident occurred. Korea, which had been stripped of its diplomatic rights by Japan through the Second Japan-Korea Convention, sent secret envoys carrying a personal letter from the Korean Emperor asserting its invalidity, plotting to recover diplomatic rights at the conference. Takaishi caught wind of their presence and discovered the envoys. He was the only Japanese person to succeed in meeting them and telegraphed the news to Japan. As Takaishi himself said, this became "the catalyst for the international tragedy of the annexation of Korea."

In this way, as a fledgling reporter, Takaishi was able to operate across Europe without any prior foundation, gaining the courage to interact with world leaders and a perspective to view Japan from a global scale. He returned to Japan in May 1909, after seven years away. Even then, he had exhausted his 1,000 yen return travel funds before leaving and had to have more sent. How free-spirited he was.

Takaishi soon became the head of the Foreign News Department. In cooperation with his close friend Shintaro Okumura (a Keio University alumni and biological son of Masamoto Okudaira, the Lord of the Nakatsu Domain), who was the head of the Domestic News Department, he worked hard to enhance the paper and expand the business. Above all, Takaishi's achievement was raising the reputation of Daimai through international news.

He also took command on the front lines at the Paris Peace Conference in 1918. At this time, frustrated that the plenipotentiary group's telegrams were prioritized and the newspaper's telegrams took over two weeks, he developed a communication route via Sydney. He outmaneuvered not only other companies but even the communications of the plenipotentiary group.

Takaishi rose rapidly, becoming editor-in-chief in 1922 at the age of 44, followed by managing editor and then executive director.

However, in March 1928, Takaishi finally stumbled. He incurred the displeasure of President Motoyama, was removed from editing, and was ordered to travel through Europe and America. Excessive golf is cited as one reason. But in his typical fashion, Takaishi did not stay down; he watched the Amsterdam Olympics and then drew attention by writing about his meetings with the Pope, Italian Prime Minister Mussolini, and Clemenceau.

When President Motoyama died in 1932, an internal conflict known as the "Kido Incident" occurred, causing temporary chaos within the company. Ultimately, in December 1936, Okumura became president and Takaishi became editor-in-chief of equal rank (becoming chairman in 1938). The position of Daimai, which had been fiercely chasing the leading Osaka Asahi Shimbun, became unshakable.

In 1937, at the request of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, he traveled to the United States as a "National Envoy" to gain American understanding of the Sino-Japanese War. Crossing the American continent three times, he explained Japan's position through lectures and reports, interacting on equal terms with big names in the American press and Hu Shih, the Republic of China's envoy to the U.S. It goes without saying that he spent lavishly, holding cocktail parties in various locations.

Thereafter, he entered the era of war, taking responsibility for speech without freedom and witnessing the end. With the defeat in 1945, Okumura resigned, followed by Takaishi, and he subsequently left the public stage due to the purge of public officials.

After the purge was lifted, his field of activity was mainly in sports, particularly work related to the Olympics. The anecdote of the Sapporo bid cited at the beginning is easily understood when one knows Takaishi's career as a renowned international reporter.

In 1965, he caught a cold while golfing, which developed into pneumonia. On February 25, 1967, he finally passed away at the age of 88.

Yoshitsugu Shikakura (Executive Director of Daimai, later President of TBS), who knew him well, spoke with affection: "There is no one as happy as him. He believes that everything in the universe—the shining sun, the falling rain, the blowing wind—exists solely to make him happy. It's an incredibly audacious story." Yoshimi Uchikawa, famous for media studies, described him as: "It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that if you put a suit on the word 'dandy,' it would become Mr. Takaishi, but he was that much of a sophisticated gentleman with not a hint of affectation." The memorial volume compiled to mourn his death is titled "Takaishi-san."