# Post WWII Japanese judge starved because he was too honest to buy food on the black market. UL? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 16, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170 "2010-02-16T04:45:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/1 "2010-02-16T04:45:08Z")
I was flipping through one of my old economics textbooks looking for something else, when I happened on an anecdote that made my urban legend sense perk up. The authors explain that while authorities can set maximum legal prices for goods (e.g., food), they can’t guarantee adequate supply of those goods at artificially low prices. No argument here. But they go on to say, > [@](#): > > An extreme case occurred in Japan under American occupation in 1945-46. Extraordinary honesty and professional pride induced a Tokyo judge to limit his food to what he or his family could buy at controlled prices. He soon died of starvation or acute malnutrition. > > Source: _Microeconomics_ by Bronfenbrenner, Sichel, and Gardner, 3d edition (1990), p. 444 The clear implication is that the judge had the money to buy food on the black market but refrained from doing so. Of course, like all good urban legends, there’s nothing inherently impossible about the story so sure it _could_ have happened that way. I’m wondering if it really did happen and if so what the name of the judge was. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/2 "2010-02-16T05:09:14Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > I’m wondering if it really did happen and if so what the name of the judge was. [Yamaguchi Yoshitada](http://books.google.com/books?q=yamaguchi+yoshitada&btnG=Search+Books) ETA: they did make one mistake, however. Yamaguchi died in late 1947, not “1945-46”. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/3 "2010-02-16T06:46:44Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > [Yamaguchi Yoshitada](http://books.google.com/books?q=yamaguchi+yoshitada&btnG=Search+Books) > > ETA: they did make one mistake, however. Yamaguchi died in late 1947, not “1945-46”. There is little support for the story. [http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p\_mla\_apa\_research\_citation/3/0/3/4/4/pages303444/p303444-6.php](http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/0/3/4/4/pages303444/p303444-6.php) “In Japan, just after the WWII, rice was distributed by rationing system but the amount was not enough to survive. It is said that most of the people went for buying illegal rice from black market out of the rationing system and managed to survive. There was a story of one judge whose name was YAMAGUCHI Yoshitada a judge of Tokyo district court, refused to eat such kind of rice therefore destroyed his physical condition and consequently died of malnutrition in that situation.” ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/4 "2010-02-16T07:33:44Z")
> [@](#): > > The two most sensational examples of this [death due to refusal to engage in the black market] in the early postwar years were the deaths of Tokyo Higher School teacher Kameo Hideshiro in October 1945 and Tokyo District Court Judge Yamaguchi Yoshitada in November 1947, both of whom chose to eschew the black market and subsist on official rations alone in protest of the government’s handling of the food crisis. In his diary, penned shortly before his death, Yamaguchi vowed to “fight the black market and die of starvation.” “My life,” he wrote, “is a march toward certain death.” The stories of the deaths of these two men was [sic] carried by every major newspaper in the country. Owen Griffith, “Need, Greed, and Protest in Japan’s Black Market, 1938-1949,” _Journal of Social History_, vol. 35, no. 4 (Summer 2002), p. 858. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/5 "2010-02-16T09:48:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > There is little support for the story. Cite? [Picture of contemporary news article on his death](http://doraku.asahi.com/earth/showa/090512_02.html) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/6 "2010-02-16T14:21:40Z")
Other hunger strikers have died by refusing food in support of the principles they were espousing, so the story doesn’t seem inherently unbelievable to me. **DrDeth** , there seem to be multiple-sourced stories about this judge, with contemporary photographs and other source material. In what way do you believe these are deficient? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/7 "2010-02-16T15:01:47Z")
Ah, I didn’t get that it was a protest against government policies. I’d assumed it was simple stubbornness. :smack: It makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks, folks. ---
**Author:** ![DJ\_Motorbike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@DJ\_Motorbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DJ_Motorbike)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/8 "2010-02-16T15:42:28Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Ah, I didn’t get that it was a protest against government policies. I’d assumed it was simple stubbornness. :smack: It makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks, folks. Yamaguchi was not protesting the goverment. [This](http://books.google.com/books?id=9rdzPhsw0u8C&pg=PA306&dq=yamaguchi+yoshitada&cd=6#v=onepage&q=yamaguchi%20yoshitada&f=false) passage suggests that he was a judge assigned to punish black market criminals. He was living up to principal. He didn’t feel he should be contributing to the black market since it was his job to enforce the law. All government officials should be expected to live up to the standards they place on those they govern. He was a highly ethical man, and it is a sad story. His wife also died of malnutrition according to one cite. **Bricker** , I don’t think when **DrDeth** said “there is little support for the story” I think what he meant was “there does seem to be some support for the story” rather than “there is thin evidence that such a thing occurred” I may be wrong though. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/9 "2010-02-17T03:36:59Z")
What I meant is that the support for the story seems to be always quoting the same source. I can’t read cckerberos cite. However, my Dad was part of the post war Administration in Okinawa and the rations for the civilians were higher than what they were given during the last year of the war by the Japanese. Things were very bad during the first few months of the occupation due to the fact the Allies had no idea how bad things were. Thousands starved during that period- but if course many hundreds of 1000s starved during the war. > **[Allied Occupation of Japan](https://books.google.com/books?id=Ba5hXsfeyhMC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=Allied%2Boccupation%2Bof%2Bjapan%2Brations&source=bl&ots=zyWUx7HPzH&sig=UAmy72JZ37BqO5P6SB2iCF5mUEE&hl=en&ei=MGB7S5evF5SwsgOQp9jLCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result)** > > Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the American-led Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-52), The Allied Occupation of Japan is a sweeping history of the revolutionary reforms that transformed Japan and the remarkable men and... **mhendo** cite about Kameo Hideshiro who died in October 1945 seems to be hardly the fault of the Allied Occupation forces, coming as it did less than 2 full months after the surrender and after two years of starvation conditions in Japan. wiki "_MacArthur’s first priority was to set up a food distribution network; following the collapse of the ruling government and the wholesale destruction of most major cities, virtually everyone was starving. Even with these measures, millions of people were still on the brink of starvation for several years after the surrender.[9] As expressed by Kawai Kazuo, “Democracy cannot be taught to a starving people,”[10] and while the US government encouraged democratic reform in Japan, it also sent billions of dollars in aid.[11] Initially the US government provided emergency food relief through GARIOA funds. In fiscal year 1946 this aid amounted to US$92 million, which were in the form of loans. From April 1946, in the guise of LARA, private relief organizations were also permitted to provide relief. Once the food network was in place, at a cost of up to US$1 million[citation needed] per day…"_ In some areas of Asia, people were dying at the rate of 100000 a month. > **[Judi Slot Online Gacor dengan Bonus Jackpot Terbesar No 1](http://www.ralphmag.org)** > > Situs judi online yang bisa anda mainkan menggunakan 1 ID saja dengan minmal deposit dan withdraw hanya 25 rb Rupiah untuk pendaftaran baru _During the war, civilians were dying throughout Japan at a rate of about 200,000 per month. The submarine blockade and the United States Army Air Forces’s mining operation, Operation Starvation, had effectively cut off Japan’s imports._ [http://socyberty.com/history/the-justification-of-bombing-japan-during-wwii/](http://socyberty.com/history/the-justification-of-bombing-japan-during-wwii/) So, the fact that the Japanese were dying from starvation at the rate of hundreds of thousands per month at the end shows great doubt cast about the causes of the starvation of those just after the surrender. Deaths from long term malnutrition can occurs quite some time later. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-wwii-japanese-judge-starved-because-he-was-too-honest-to-buy-food-on-the-black-market-ul/529170/10 "2010-02-17T04:18:47Z")
I read **mhendo** ’s cite as blaming the Japanese government for the death rather than SCAP. There is no shortage of contemporary sources for the death, but unfortunately they’re all in Japanese. I’m not sure how to convince you. Many of the books use John Dower’s _Embracing Defeat_ as a source because it was a massively influential study of the Occupation that won the Pulitzer Prize. However, the search results also include _MITI and the Japanese Miracle_, a classic study published more than a decade before Dower’s book. So that, at least, makes two highly reputable English sources.