ABSTRACT
From the beginning of 1938 until the end of the war Kato Shidzue lived first for her beloved Kato Kanju's release from jail and for the war to end. In quiet moments at home she read a variety of Western and Japanese thinkers, novelists and poets. In March, 1939, Shidzue learned that yet another friend, her colleague in the birth control movement, Dr. Oota Takeo, had been arrested secretly in the fall of 1938. His crime had been sympathizing with the anti-war movement, as the "popular front" was labeled. After December, 1937, when public commentary opposed to government policy was impossible, Shidzue continued to criticize her government privately. Shidzue followed Japan's military actions in China carefully through regular reading of foreign newspapers. A reading of Japan's Feet of Clay, Freda Utley's diatribe against Japan's economic and military policies, further prejudiced Shidzue in favor of Western interpretations of her nation's imperialist policies.
