The illustration is from the cover of the special September 18, 1905 issue of a magazine titled (in English) The Japanese Graphic (and titled in Japanese “Tokyo Sōjō Gahō” [東京騒擾画報]). The Japanese Graphic, like other illustrated publications popular in this era in the West, featured photographs, drawings, and relatively brief articles on a wide range of topics of current interest. This issue focused exclusively on the massive riots which broke out in Tokyo and other Japanese cities in the aftermath of, and in protest against, the peace treaty which concluded the Russo-Japanese War. The riot broke out when police banned a rally at Hibiya Park in central Tokyo on September 5, 1905, called to protest the terms of the treaty (concluded in Portsmouth New Hampshire through the mediation of Theodore Roosevelt). This incident touches on themes of longstanding and continuing interest to me, and I believe continuing relevance to the present: imperialism, nationalism, democracy, social protest. In particular, the riot expressed support for the perhaps contradictory goal of “imperial democracy.” Rioters in their actions and words on the one hand called on political elites to respect “the will of the people” and on the other hand demanded that their leaders insure that the blood and treasure spent in the recent war be rewarded with new spoils of empire. I have written on this incident Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan and in the article “The Crowd and Politics in Tokyo” Past and Present (November 1988).