How LSU changed Saipan

The first part of Japan’s time on the Marianas was about sugar, not war.

As all island nations, Japan is a densely populated place with finite arable land. Even more than the Dutch, their culture has been focused on squeezing efficiency from limited resources long before kaizen and The Toyota Way. This made them well-suited to develop the set of small islands they acquired a century ago. By the time the League of Nations ratified their claim to the land, the Japanese had been working to develop their island acquisitions for almost a decade.

As James H. Hallas wrote in 2019 in Saipan: The battle that doomed Japan in World War II:

As the administrative seat, Saipan became Japan’s most important holding in the Marianas. Over the next twenty years [after WWI], the Japanese accomplished more on Saipan than the proselytizing Spanish had in three centuries. The key to their success was a decision to focus on sugar cane production as a major industry.

The wet, hot climate was conducive to the long growing season needed for sugar cane cultivation. The Japanese had the benefit of learning from prior powers; sugar was the primary product in tropical colonies of England, France, Spain, and the Dutch in the Caribbean¹ for hundreds of years. But cultivation of sugar is also labor-intensive. Even after the subjugation of native populations, the European powers could not have made their plantations operate without the importation of enslaved people from Africa. Though slave-labor of the conquered and captured was to become key to 20th century wartime Japanese imperial operations, they never had something akin to the centuries-long traffic in humans for labor by European empires.

There were only around 3,500 Chamorro and Carolinians on Saipan when the Japanese started their large-scale conversion of the land to sugar-cane production, far too few to operate what they hoped to build. During the time between the wars, Japan encouraged emigration to its colonies with free land, tax exemptions, and subsidies for farming equipment, transportation, and housing. This not only served to develop the newly-acquired resource-rich colonies, but also provided a population relief valve on the crowded home islands. By 1935, the population of Saipan was around 12,000, with three quarters being Japanese immigrants.

The architect of the sugar production on island was Haruji Matsue, the son of a samurai who was sent by the government in 1903 to Louisiana State University to study sugar-cane production.

Here is a digression that will take longer than a footnote. The LSU I am familiar with from of my East Texas upbringing is not exactly among the American institutions of higher learning where I would expect a world power to send a wunderkind for technical knowledge to modernize an industry. I also knew that “tora” is the Japanese word for “tiger” based (I guess) on having looked up what “Tora! Tora! Tora!” meant. I also thought about the term Asian Tigers, referring to the rapidly developing economies in Pacific Asia. However, after brainstorming wordplay for Matsue using LSU’s slogan “Geaux Tigers,” I learned during my fact-checking that LSU didn’t adopt the Tiger as a mascot until 1936 and that the Asian Tigers are only Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea, not Japan. Given my personal interests and professional obligations, I have to always check my propensity for apophenia.

Matsue arrived on Saipan in 1922 with the backing of investors from the home islands. By 1925, the sugar industry was clearing a profit. By 1928, it was exporting 1,200 tons of sugar a day during the harvest.

In 1926, Matsue opened an alcohol factory. Sugar-producing places always have regional boozes, primarily rums. He also shipped Saipan-made “Genuine Old Scotch Whiskey” for sale back in Japan.²

Much of the equipment and infrastructure was converted into fortifications and war operations and was destroyed during the Battle of Saipan. However, remnants of Matsue’s industrial improvements for exporting, importing, processing, and transporting sugar around the island can still be found. Sugar King Road is nearby. A pier still extends into the sea that was used as a landmark for the US Marines when they invaded in 1944. Last night, during a night hike with friends, we came across narrow-gauge rail left over from the long-abandoned sugar cane line.

1. Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Martinique, Curacao, etc.

2. Since I learned this, it has become a mission to track down a bottle. It was the Holy Roman Empire of booze - neither genuine, old, scotch, or whiskey.