Sugihara Tetsujo (杉原鐡城)

Tetsujo SUGIHARA (1870? to ?) was known as 'the future prime minister' in Hiroshima Prefecture in the Meiji period. He visited many people and swore them that he would be a prime minister in the future, and people laughed and welcomed him by calling him 'a minister' instead of his real name.

Sugihara liked to write poetry, and he wrote about his ambition to be the prime minister. He printed out his poems of one year and distributed them to his supporters, which he made money from by collecting the annual membership fee of less than 1 yen from them as 'tax'.

Sugimoto had met a real prime minister, Hirobumi ITO. When Ito climbed Mt. Misen (Hiroshima Prefecture) of Ituskushima on the way back from Korea during the period of Japan's rule, Sugihara gave him a collection of his poems "Toukaku Shiko" and Ito didn't know what to say.

[Original Japanese]