The Japanese politician and statesman Kei Hara (1856-1921) was the first commoner and the first professional politician to become prime minister of Japan, initiating the trend toward responsible party government that ended in 1932.

Born to a high-ranking samurai family in the Morioka fief in Iwate province, Hara was given the personal name of Kenjiro, later changed to Satoshi (written with a character read also as Takashi or Kei). The Tokugawa shogunate fell when Hara was 11, and since the Morioka had supported it, Hara's promised future in the feudal system seemed bleak.

Determined to succeed despite this bad luck, Hara made his way to Tokyo in 1872. He first entered a French Catholic seminary, where he was baptized, and later a law school, from which he was expelled for student activism. At 24 he joined the newspaper Hochi but left it when it was taken over by supporters of Toshimichi Okuma...