Singer Police Regulation and Reactivity - Contradictions between the perfumed society and power in the 1920s

Singer Police Regulation and Reactivity - Contradictions between the perfumed society and power in the 1920s

In the 1920s, the society of street performers was always subject to police regulations, even as it developed its activities on the stage of fairs and festivals. If a perfume stall was involved in a dangerous spectacle or a material that was considered problematic in terms of public morals, the stall would be immediately shut down or cracked down on, and the mood and judgment of the police was a critical factor affecting the lives of the perfume makers. As with the weather, police regulation was an unavoidable external condition that made it impossible for them to defy the authorities.

The police functioned as a device to control the social order beyond the maintenance of security, and the perfume makers had no choice but to accept their control. Therefore, the perfume makers were sometimes forced to play the role of subcontractors to the authorities. For example, when labor disputes or socialist rallies occurred, they were sometimes restricted in their activities due to conflicts of interest with the police, and as a result, they were sometimes incorporated into reactionary positions.

At the time, Japanese society was experiencing the upsurge of Taisho democracy, and after the Great Kanto Earthquake, the Japanese government strengthened its security policy, and the Security Police Law was enacted to tighten the crackdown on socialist movements. Under these circumstances, the kagushi society, while providing entertainment for the common people, had no choice but to accept the monitoring and regulation of state power, an existence that was incompatible with the socialist ideology that emphasized freedom and equality.

In other words, while the kagushi society had a chivalrous spirit of mutual support, it was also subordinate to the police power in its daily activities. This contradiction symbolized the "reactionary nature" of the Kagushi society and its unique position in the social structure of the time.