Introduction
While American Protestant missionaries in the Tokyo-Yokohama area assisted Mary C. Leavitt in starting her organizing tour in Japan, the vital help for her efforts in expanding WCTU activism came from progressive Japanese men. Among them was Yoshiharu Iwamoto, the managing editor of Jogaku zasshi [Woman's Learning Magazine], who decided to sponsor a public meeting for Leavitt to give a lecture. A notice published in Jogaku zasshi indicated that Leavitt's lecture was open to the public but only to women. It also announced that Leavitt had prepared another message to Japanese women in writing so that it would be translated into Japanese and be published in Iwamoto's magazine. In restricting the meeting's audience to women, Iwamoto presumably deferred to the local American missionary circle, whose female members were reluctant to break the convention that kept them from publicly addressing both men and women. Obviously Leavitt was aware of the conservative pressure in the circle and its restricting effect on Japanese women (see Document 10). That is the reason why Leavitt prepared the separate written message to Japanese women (see Documents 8A and 8B).
Japanese-language original
[p. 278]
Our company is deeply impressed by Mrs. Leavitt, a woman who travels the world to give temperance speeches and whose enthusiasm and sincerity has made the audience repent their behaviors. Thus, we asked her to speak at the public speech meeting for woman's learning at three o'clock in the afternoon the day after tomorrow on July 17 at Koseikan [Kosei Hall] in Kobiki-cho. The audience is limited to women. We asked Miss Kashi Shimada of Ferris Seminary in Yokohama to serve as an interpreter. We hope to show that one of our sisters is qualified to perform the task and let all of you listen to various necessary teachings. We would like to have as much attendance as possible.
By the way, Mrs. Leavitt kept the promise she had made, about which we had reported in the previous issue, and contributed an article, "Nihon no shimai ni tsugu [A Message for My Japanese Sisters]." The article will be translated and published in future issues of [this magazine].