“A great man does not come along very often,” Katsu Kaishu said some thirty years after the Meiji Restoration. “It usually takes about a hundred years. And for a truly great man it will take two or three hundred years. But there are no great men now. All we have are narrow-minded little men whose only concern is to be recognized and praised by people now. They think that just because they’ve been decorated . . or have received . . . some kind of a title, and because snobs make such a big fuss over them, they’re the greatest man in Japan.” (Hikawa Seiwa (Katsu Kaishu Zenshu 21) Tokyo: Kodansha, 1973, pp. 47-48)

Kaishu’s words are particularly poignant now, when Americans are about to choose between two of the worst candidates in history for president of the United States. And Kaishu knew whereof he spoke, having had close relations with some of the greatest men in his country’s history. Among Kaishu’s “truly great men” was Sakamoto Ryoma. (Samurai Revolution, p. 571, note 4)