have achieved otherwise. By building up an elaborate state cult of Shinto, centering around the person of the emperor and the imperial line, and by indoctrinating school children with fanatical devotion to the emperor and blind faith in all statements said to represent his will, they secured for themselves the unquestioning loyalty and obedience of the people. The business men and bureaucrats who followed the Meiji leaders chose to perpetuate this system, for it seemed to give them, too, an unassailable position of authority as spokesmen for the emperor. Consequently, they permitted the wildest sort of utterances by members of the lunatic fringe of ultra-nationalists and militarists, because they were couched in terms of devotion to the emperor; but they vigorously and ruthlessly suppressed all radical thinkers who challenged the validity of the emperor concept.
In 1925 a law was passed which resulted in a program to stamp out so-called “dangerous thoughts.” Any thought was considered dangerous which questioned the position of the emperor, or was unsympathetic to the system of private property on which capitalism was based. Although anti-capitalist prejudices were perhaps most prevalent in extreme militaristic circles, the business men and bureaucrats were far more afraid of communistic intellectuals, and the victims of this thought purge were largely students of liberal or radical tendencies. The embryo communist group was completely crushed, and many students who had nothing more than vague radical leanings were thrown into prison and forced to recant their “dangerous thoughts.”
The business men and bureaucrats made their fatal