[citation needed] Tsutsumi served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan from May 1953 to December 1954, resigning at the end of the government of Shigeru Yoshida.

Yasujirō Tsutsumi was born on 16 March 1889 in the rural farming village of Yagisho, Shiga Prefecture.

The Tsutsumi family were held in great respect and regard, serving as village elders and headmen.

Since the Meiji Restoration, tremendous change had swept Japan, which was seeing a period of remarkable expansion and industrialisation.

With this money, he married Nishizawa Koto and had a daughter, Shukuko, in 1909, then attended Waseda University investing in rough land and businesses.

In 1917, he purchased 650 acres (2.6 km2) of land for 30,000 yen from a village near the fashionable mountain resort of Karuizawa, and built several vacation houses and cottages.

Around this time, Yasujirō was called upon to handle the financial affairs of one Aoyama Yoshizo, a gentleman of a patrician noble family who had gone bankrupt.

However, it was the third daughter, Misao, whom he coveted, and yet, she refused all his advances until finally, in order to preserve the family honour, she yielded to Yasujirō as a mistress.

He soon turned his attention away from Misao and sought other mistresses, especially one Ishizuka Tsuneko, the daughter of a close friend, with whom he had three sons.

Yasujirō expanded his interests to railways and tramlines, eventually absorbing his competitors into Hakone Resorts Ltd.

In the late thirties, he built an imposing mansion for himself and his family, which eventually became the official state house[vague], and cultivated relationships with Japan's elite, among them General and Prime Minister Tojo.

Yasujirō sent Fumi and Tsuneko to the country to escape the war, remaining in Tokyo with Misao and her children.

Shortly after the surrender, Yasujirō was purged by the Occupation Government under American General Douglas MacArthur.

In May 1953, Yasujirō was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan, and he assigned Hiroji Yamamoto and Seiji to become his secretary.

Meanwhile, Yoshiaki, Yasujirō's son by Tsuneko, took charge of the core group of Seibu, Kokudo Keikaku.