益田孝とタウンゼンド・ハリス

益田のスピーチ'Memories of Seventy Years Ago'を中心にして

抄録

On December 19, 1936, an unveiling ceremony of a monument was held at Zempukuji, which is a temple in Tokyo and is the site of the first American Legation in Japan. The monument, which remains now, is that of Townsend Harris, the first American ambassador. The dedication of the monument was sponsored by the America-Japan Society, but the man who executed it was Takashi Masuda, the founder of the Mitsui Bussan and Co..
Why did he execute the building of this monument? It was because, if I borrow Ambassador Grew's words, he was perhaps the last surviving link between Townsend Harris and the present.
It was at the age of thirteen when Takashi Masuda first saw Harris at Zempukuji. In order to learn English he went there on foot every day. His English teacher was Onojiro Tateishi stationed there as an interpreter. Soon afterward getting a job at the Foreign Office of the Shogunate, he was ordered to work in a small temple by the side of Zempukuji, and was allowed to live there.
As he was a messenger boy for the Shogunate officials attached to the American Legation, he did not come into direct contact with Harris. But he had many opportunities to observe him at a distance.
Masuda said in his address on the unveiling ceremony of the Townsend Harris Memorial, “The distinguished appearance of Townsend Harris holding his position with characteristic firmness and serenity amid incendiarisms and assassinations inspired a boy of thirteen with a naive but intense admiration akin to hero-worship.”
He had since then cherished the sense of such great respect for Harris that he was ready to make a speech entitled “Memories of Seventy Years Ago”, when he was asked to address at the memorial meeting for Harris held under the auspices of Phi Beta Kappa in Japan. This speech of his was recorded in a booklet entitled 'An American Shrine in Tokyo, Memorial Meeting for Town-send Harris held at Zempukuji.'