Suehiro Tetcho, given name Yujiro, was a politician, novelist, journalist, and proponent of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement. Born of samurai lineage in what is now Ehime Prefecture, he graduated from the local samurai school and became a teacher in 1869. Thereafter, he moved to Tokyo and worked for the Ministry of Finance for six years before going into the newspaper business. He was imprisoned twice for challenging the existing free press laws and was instrumental in forming the first national political party. He wrote a political, proto-science fiction novel Setchubai (Plum Blossoms in the Snow, 1886), and in 1890 he was elected in the first national election, but was later ousted because he left the Liberal Party. Suehiro died in 1896 of tongue cancer and is buried in Ehime.
See also MEIJI RESTORATION.
Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. J. Scott Miller. 2009.