To the editor:

Victory Day, is celebrated in Rhode Island on the second Wednesday of August. It marks the surrender of Japan, ending World War II. To celebrate termination of humanity’s greatest conflict would seem unobjectionable, but in popular culture it was transformed into V-J Day, singling out Japan as the principal architect of this global war.

Rhode Island is now the only American state that observes Victory Day as a formal holiday, although the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and South Korea observe it on Aug. 15, the day Emperor Hirohito broadcasted Japan’s surrender.

This brief discussion of Victory Day serves as a prelude to outlining a more amicable relationship between Rhode Island and Japan, our current friend and ally (as are Germany and Italy the other leading Axis powers in World War II).

Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, the Newport-born younger brother of Oliver Hazard Perry, was a career naval officer who gained the rank of commodore in 1840. By that time, he had also earned the title “Father of the Steam Navy” for his efforts to introduce steam power into American naval vessels.

Perry’s great achievement, however, was diplomatic in nature. In 1853, and 1854, his black-hulled ships visited Japan and pressured that nation into accepting the Convention of Kanagawa, a consular treaty with the Empire giving the United States access to the ports of Hakodate and Shimoda and opening that feudal nation to Western influence.

By the turn of the twentieth century Japan had shed its feudal system and became not only modernized and industrialized but also aggressive towards its neighbors. The United States, after winning the Spanish-American War of 1898, took the Philippines from Spain and then imposed an American protectorate over the island nation. In retrospect, the American grip on the Philippines was a mistake and became a serious source of friction with Japan.

In 1924, the United States enacted a comprehensive and discriminatory immigration law. Intended mainly to restrict migrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, it also contained a provision preventing Japanese from immigrating to America. Modeled on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, this race-based rule caused further tension between the U.S. and Japan in the years prior to Pearl Harbor.

To Rhode Island’s credit, its U.S. Senator, Le Baron Colt, was the chief opponent of Japanese exclusion. Although he was the chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Immigration, Colt voted against the Japanese ban. When he died a few months after the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, his Bristol family received several letters of praise and condolence from Japanese and Italian diplomats which my brother Bill and I found in a scrapbook that we gave to Linden Place Mansion, Colt’s former home.

By the 1980s, the international landscape had dramatically changed. Japan, our World War II enemy, was now our friend and two of our major World War II allies, China and Russia, were adversaries. So much for the folly of war!

Again Rhode Island took an important step to restore the original Japanese-American friendship. In 1983 Newporters, to honor their native son Matthew Perry, formed a Japan-America Society, a private, non-profit organization to develop educational, cultural, and business programs to strengthen American-Japan relations and promote international goodwill.

Led for the past several years by attorney Spencer Viner and supported by the Naval War College and several local donors including the Toray Corporation, and the Heritage Harbor Foundation, the society is holding its 40th Annual Black Ships Festival in Bristol, longtime home of the Perry family.

The event, featuring a multitude of Japanese exhibits and activities, will be held on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 11 and 12 at Bristol’s Rockwell and Independence Parks, followed by a Gala Banquet on Saturday evening at Newport’s Ochre Court Mansion and a Sunday observance at the grave of Commodore Perry in Newport’s Island Cemetery.

These events are a most appropriate prelude to Rhode Island’s unique Victory Day observance because our state shares with Japan a unique history.

Dr. Patrick T. Conley
President
Heritage Harbor Foundation
Historian Laureate of Rhode Island