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In 1903, fresh out of college and still living in Cambridge, Ohashi opened a tea business in Boston at 172 Tremont Street. Its organization was certified by the city’s Tax Commission in February 1904 and it must have been an import company. The City Directory of Boston for 1904 gives 52 Central as the location of the H. Ohashi Tea Co. and mentions that Ohashi was managing a sales outlet for tea, coffee, and “oriental art goods” at the Music Hall Arcade. Starting from the inception of modern trade by Japan, tea was an important export product (but not from the Tsushima or Nagoya areas), and green tea from Japan had displaced a large share of the American market that had been satisfied with tea imports from China. Well before 1903 the market (importers, wholesalers, jobbers) had shifted from Boston to New York, but it was still possible for a retail startup like Ohashi’s to be a success. The tea business is a tricky and speculative one; market fluctuations created formidable risk. Further, at this time there were still many tea dealers in Boston, some of them Chinese or China-related, so there was no lack of competitors. Inexperience, or more likely, inability to obtain financing from home (or both) may also have influenced the undertaking, for it failed.

Retrospectively, Ohashi’s obituary, which can be deemed reliable, states that he suffered great financial distress shortly after leaving school, plunging him into “deep poverty” that was relieved only by “casual writing and lecturing.” Thus, his tea business does not appear to have been profitable. That said, it is worth noting that certainly few men of the class of 1903 started a business soon after leaving the college. It is likely that Ohashi was still dependent on financial aid from home, but in 1902, the Japanese economy was far from favorable. In March, the central bank cut the official discount rate, making the first reduction in 20 months. In the spring, the price of silver collapsed, adversely affecting the trade balance, and although in the second half of the year the balance was in the black, sentiment did not recover. The uncertainty of the outlook for the company is likely to have been felt by family finances.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) drew much attention in America and gave Ohashi a degree of prominence and a hot topic to discuss. An effort in 1898 by the two nations to agree on matters regarding Korea turned out unsuccessful. Incursion in Manchuria by Russia, combined with anxiety over the effects of completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway, led Japan to ask China in 1901 to reject Russian demands concerning

Manchuria, to no avail. Two years later, preparations for war began. Jutarô Komura, a statesman who had roomed with Kaneko at Harvard, attempted negotiations with Russia, after which, in 1903, procedures for a wartime central command in Hiroshima were drafted. Japan’s prestige abroad grew, as did recognition of the nation’s military prowess.

Lectures became a source of needed income. In December 1903, Ohashi gave a talk on Japan at the Dorchester Women’s Club in Boston in combination with a violin solo by Tadanosi Togi.¹ His topic is not known, but by this time, many Japanese were anticipating the war. In February 1904, Japan—concerned with her own expansion as well as the threat of Russian expansion in Manchuria and East Asia—declared war on Russia. In May 1904, Ohashi spoke to the congregation of the Highlands Methodist Episcopalian Church in Boston’s Roxbury. In April 1904, he spoke at a Sunday worship meeting of the EveryDay Church in the same city, explaining the reasons for the war. The pastor included Japan in his prayers. The Boston Globe, in reporting this, quoted Ohashi saying (as might have been expected of him), “You notice all the news so far has been good, that is because justice must win, and justice is on the side of Japan.”² Ohashi also told the assemblage that he believed Korea, Manchuria, and China would all become autonomous republics, with Japan as an older sister to them. In November 1904, he gave a similar talk at the Brighthelmstone Club.

As for casual writing after leaving school, the New York Evening Post published a short story by him vividly describing the wartime celebrations and other aspects and activities of a country town in Japan. Titled, “How Japanese Smile at Death,” it was reprinted by the Los Angeles Herald,and as was common practice, probably by other papers.³ A Baptist publication in Boston, The Watchman, published his “The High Honor of Chiuta” in its November issue for 1904. For the popular magazine Leslie’s Weekly, he wrote about bushido, a subject of interest since 1900, when a book by Inazô Nitobe (新渡戸稲造), Bushido: The Soul of Japan, was published.⁴ It garnered considerable attention as a result of the war, while another book in English, The Awakening of Japan by Japanese writer Tenshin, also known as Kakuzô (覚三) Okakura (岡倉天心), signalled a change in the world of great consequences for both America and Japan. For the young man from Japan, great consequences indeed awaited. 

Japan had been concerned over America’s annexation of Hawaii and takeover of the Philippines. Now, Japan’s military initiative, war with China over control of Korea, local racial friction on the American West Coast (and a “white Australia” movement) stemming from racism and increased immigration, and victory over a larger, European, Christian and white nation brought on fear of a “yellow peril” (popularized by Kaiser Wilhelm II as Gelbe Gefahr).

In 1900, Japan was one of the eight-nation force dispatched to China to quell the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion. Japan was the closest nation to China, and arrangements had called for that country to send the same number of troops as America. But Japan sent seven times the number of Americans. Fear of Japan’s becoming a more powerful force in Asia at the expense of American (and other nations’) geopolitical position increased. In 1905, for the first time in history, a major war was monitored by correspondents as well as observers from a number of countries, and there was extensive photographic and motion picture coverage and treatment, besides coverage in print media. Americans in particular were watching closely, as Washington was expansion-minded regarding Asia, and Russia was considered an adversary. Some considered Japan to be fighting Russia as a proxy for the United States—but the US-Japan relationship was being undermined. At this time, increase of American naval power and superiority over Japan was conveyed not only to Americans but to others as well through the operatic remake of a 1900 stage play, Madame Butterfly, which premiere and became a hit during the war.

Aside from the opera, press and magazine coverage of the war (by tightly controlled correspondents who tended to favor the Japanese), films (including some from Thomas Edison’s company), and the Portsmouth Peace Conference mediated by President Theodore Roosevelthelped make many Americans aware of and interested in Japan and the Japanese. Roosevelt, a prodigious reader, perused a nonfiction book about Japan given to him by a Japanese diplomat, the aforementioned Bushido: The Soul of Japan.

An article about Ohashi in the Tacoma Times in March 1904 illustrates the attention being given to Japan at the time.⁵ While it provides some additional information for this life story, much of it is as imaginative as England’s fiction. Ohashi is embellished with the aristocratic status of count and is described as “one of the wealthiest Harvard Japs” in the country. At Harvard, Count Ohashi excelled at rowing and track and took honors in English and economics. The article infers that he left the school in the previous year, that since 1903 has been owner of two “fashionable tea shops,” and that he was operating his company to learn how Americans do business. It says his background is that of an old, noble family and his father is a prominent political figure and “a member of the mikado’s war ministry.” England was not behind the fake news, for he wrote in February 1903, “An impression has gone the rounds that Hydesaburo Ohashi is a nobleman, with the rank of knight. This is hardly correct.”⁶

Intriguingly, mixed in with these true, false, and unsubstantiated statements is the claim that Ohashi was elected president of the “Boston Japanese Club.” The new organization had its origin in a meeting held soon after the war began. That early meeting was held to rally support by Japanese nationals in America for the mother country’s war effort, support that might include the supply of funds if the war became protracted. It was hoped, further, that patriotic groups would also form elsewhere in America. Substantiation of this account of an organization awaits further research.

The history of Tsushima and the large perspective of the nation provide evidence of the situation behind financing young Ohashi in America, and lack of support after his initial business failure. The Owari (尾張) region, including Tsushima, had specialized in cotton production since long ago, and had been Japan’s No. 2 producer of cotton fabric in 1884. Since much earlier than that, the town was more one of commerce than agriculture, providing the basis for enrichment of the Ôhashi family. Being in the hinterland of Nagoya, weavers used yarn from that city. The saori cotton fabric that Ohashi’s forebears dealt in was made as a side business of farmers, and it was of narrow width, whereas imported or factory-made cloth was wide. In addition, although a nearby supply of indigo was available, the quality of the dyeing was not high. In 1885–1886, the imported dye caused a setback for the industry. Moreover, domestic dyed cotton was vulnerable because of the discovery in Germany of a method for synthesizing indigo, and imports of German indigo as well as the dye from other sources, brought farmer production of it to an end. The industry was weak in terms of technology, capital, and production processes; it did not attain the status of a manufacturing industry.

The industry and region suffered great damage from a major earthquake in 1891 that ruined rice paddies and caused much destruction of structures and equipment.⁷ In nearby Bisai (尾西), a textile industry association had been formed in the previous year, but the earthquake destroyed its office. By 1900, cheap yarn imports from India and the United States and mechanized factories started by Japanese big business eliminated the region’s cotton fabric production as farmer-based cottage industry.⁸ The victory that ended the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) over control of Korea brought in more money as reparations more than the war had cost. Victory created exuberance and incited interest in the industry in selling to the Chinese and Korean markets. Overproduction at the turn of the century necessitated cutbacks, and it was not until the end of 1902 that optimism re-emerged. By the time Ohashi was preparing for his adventure in America, the cotton producing industry had made some progress, but there were limitations imposed on Owari in terms of competitiveness and export capacity.

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Notes

1. Correctly, Tadanori Togi, who was a student at Tufts College.
2. Boston Globe, April 25, 1904, 9.
3. Hydesaburo Ohashi, “How the Japanese Smile at Death,” Los Angeles Herald, October 9, 1904, 2. See also a reprint of his contribution to the popular Leslie’s Weekly, “The Bushido,” in Maine’s Ellsworth American, September 6, 1905, p.3.
4. Quoted and paraphrased in the Maryland’s The Frederick Citizen, March 17, 1905, 7; the Bellefort, PA, Democratic Watchman, March 24, 1905 (n.p.); and probably elsewhere.
5. “American Sympathy Is Worth More than Money,” The Tacoma Times, March 29, 1904, 2.
6. “Hydesaburo Ohashi,” Cambridge Chronicle, February 28, 1903, 12.
7. Great damage was also afflicted upon neighboring Gifu Prefecture.
8. Tadashi Tsutsui, “A study of American emigration in Aichi Prefecture (I): Focusing on the Ama and Tsushima district” (sic; published in Japanese). Nagoya Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyu (Nagoya University Graduate School of Humanities) 30, (2001-03), p.15- 24 and Keishi Ohara (ed.), Japanese Trade and Industry in the Meiji-Taisho Era (Tokyo: Ôbunsha, 1957, p. 340-349. For the nation as a whole, overproduction in 1890 hurt the industry for a while. The Indian cotton enabled quality to be improved, and technology was developed to match the improved product. By 1898 domestic yarn dominated over Indian and American cotton. Additional factors included abolition of a 5% import duty on cotton, in 1896, that worked to increase imports. Development of the modern spinning industry (using domestic and imported yarn) was such that the number of spindles in Japan increased by 20% from 1899 to 1903, even while the number of companies in this business declined from 78 to 54. After both the war with China and the one with Russia the national economy suffered from a depression.

 

© 2025 Aaron Cohen