Ito

e'to, Marquis, a Japanese statesman. He was born in 1840. His father was a military noble. The son was educated at Nagasaki, studying both English and German. Prince Ito is one of a small band of men who created modern Japan. In 1861-3 he studied in England. In 1870 he visited the United States to study our coinage system. On his return to Japan he established a modern mint at Osaka. He took an active part in building a railway from Tokio to Yokohama,--the first in Japan. Having served with distinction on the board of public works he was transferred to the bureau of the interior. He visited various countries in Europe and America, investigating systems of education and of manufactures and cultivating friendly relations with the nations of the west.

Ito had a constructive mind. He wrote the constitution of Japan. He watched the progress of events in Manchuria, and, like Bismarck in Germany, made ready for a struggle with the Russian bear. The victory that Japan gained on land and sea was due largely to the foresight of Ito. After the Russian War Ito undertook the government of Korea. The Koreans made several attempts to take him and were finally successful. He was assassinated in 1909.

Ito was a man of short stature,--not over five feet three in height,--but the most of his height was body. He was vigorous and untiring--a determined person with strong features and a well formed head. In some respects he is one of the most remarkable characters in history. Without doubt he is the greatest man that Japan has produced in historic times. He led one of the most conservative nations in the world to abolish an arbitrary monarchy and accept a modern constitution and a modern parliamentary government. He raised a nation of little military repute to the leadership of Asia, and made his country a power to be reckoned with in future international agreements. Senator Beveridge, of Indiana, said:

The assassination of Marquis Ito is a greater blow to Japan than the loss of half a dozen important battles would have been. He was easily the foremost statesman of the mikado's empire,--indeed, the greatest constructive mind in the orient. One may go further and still be within the limits of conservative opinion in saying that by the test of achievement Hirobumi Ito was the greatest man of his time in any country. For he achieved the apparently impossible task of taking an ancient people, with an inheritance of thousands of years of autocratic government, customs, and ideas, and changing that people into a modern nation. He transformed that government into a constitutional and parliamentary system, and revolutionized the customs and habits of thought of ages into modern ways and scientific ideas. It was a good deal more difficult performance than if some genius were to take Turkey and make Turkey more modern and progressive than the United States in the space of a single lifetime. Ito did all this almost single-handed, or rather, single-handed. For, while he had the loyal and able co-operation of other extraordinary minds and characters, Ito's was the planning brain and has been for more than thirty years.