ABSTRACT
Inoue Kaoru, a founding father of the Meiji state, then tried and failed to form a government; the task ultimately fell to Katsura Taro of the Yamagata faction, who became prime minister in June. The Friends of Constitutional Government Party had difficulty working against the Katsura Cabinet. The ascendancy of Yamagata was the chief distinguishing characteristic of the Meiji oligarchs in the period following the Russo-Japanese War. Hara Takashi became president of the Friends of Constitutional Government Party in 1914 after Saionji's resignation the previous year and became the first prime minister serving in the Lower House after the Terauchi Masatake Saionji's Cabinet fell in 1918. The alliance between Katsura and Saionji was severed in late 1912, sparking a major Political Crisis. Although the party had suffered a great blow from the election of the Okuma Cabinet, it worked to overcome the situation by becoming close to Yamagata.
