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保護と奉仕 hogo to hōshi To Serve and Protect

保護と奉仕 (hogo to hōshi), protection and service, renders the Los Angeles police motto, to protect and to serve, chosen in 1955. The Japanese pair is older, and in the 1930s historians used it for the two halves of the feudal bond. This study follows it from lord and vassal to a Japanese police journal of 1953, two years before the Los Angeles contest.

Japanese Scroll of To Serve and Protect (hogo to hōshi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
To Serve and Protect保護と奉仕hogo to hōshi

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

保護と奉仕, protection and service, renders to protect and to serve, the motto of the Los Angeles Police Department, chosen in a contest in the department's magazine in 1955 and put on its patrol cars in 1963; the English words were already police words, in both orders. The Japanese pair is in print from 1922, and in the 1930s the historians of Japanese law used it for the two halves of the feudal bond, the lord's protection and the vassal's service, which the warrior age itself called 御恩 and 奉公. In 1953 a Japanese police journal spoke of the people receiving the police's 保護と奉仕, two years before the Los Angeles contest. Japanese renderings of the American motto in the 1970s and 1990s put service first, 奉仕と保護.

Overview

The sense. Two nouns joined by と, protection and service, in the motto's own order: protect first, serve second.

The words. 保護 hogo is to shield something from danger, threat or harm (外からの危険・脅威・破壊などからかばい守ること), and in police Japanese also to take someone into protective custody, as a lost child is [1]; the older reading was hōgo. 奉仕 hōshi first meant to serve a god or a buddha, an emperor, a lord or a teacher with reverence (神仏・天子・主君・師などにつつしんでつかえること), cited from 936; the sense of selfless work for the nation, society or others is cited first from a dictionary of 1922 [2]. と to joins them.

The text in English. To protect and to serve is the Los Angeles order, and the Japanese keeps it. Both orders were in American police prose before the contest: a California police journal of 1930 speaks of the citizens whom the police are pledged and paid to serve and protect [3], and a Milwaukee police text quoted in 1940 tells officers that their function in the community is to protect and to serve [4].

The historical record

1922 to 1939. The feudal bond. The oldest page in the National Diet Library's full-text index for the pair is 室伏高信's 『霊の王国』 of 1922, on inheritance: 世襲貴族は權利とともに義務を、保護と奉仕とを、代々に傳へたのである, the hereditary nobility handed down, with its rights, its duties, protection and service, from generation to generation [5]. A translation of Lafargue on the evolution of property (1929) puts the feudal relation in the same words: 領民は領主に奉仕する代りに、また領主から保護を受けた, the people served the lord and in return received his protection [6]. In 1932 中田薫, lecturing on the history of Japanese public law, wrote of the warriors that 彼等ノ主従関係ハ保護ト奉仕トノ相互的義務カラ成リ、當時ノ語ヲ以テスレバ御恩ト奉公トノ相対的関係デアル, their bond of lord and retainer consisted of mutual duties of protection and service; in the language of the time, the reciprocal relation of 御恩 and 奉公, the lord's favor and the retainer's service [7]. The historians who followed wrote the same pair for the same bond: 牧健二 in 1935 [8]; 広瀬哲士 in 1938, of feudalism in France, 弱者と强者との間に結ばれた保護と奉仕との主從の契約, a contract of lord and man, of protection and service, struck between the weak and the strong [9]; 中村吉治 in 1939 [10]. The reverse order, 奉仕と保護, carries the same sense in a history of Western social movements of 1922 [11].

1934. A church helper's Christmas. A book of anecdotes of Japanese Christendom, 『天使の手記』, opens on a village church's Christmas: 農村の或る小さな教會の祝賀會へ、私は保護と奉仕の任務を帶びて出張したのである, I went out to the Christmas celebration of a small country church, charged with the duty of protection and service [12]. The duty, told on the next page, was turning the draft away from the children sitting under the windows, sending off a band of small boys who had come to make trouble, and having the candle in the lavatory lantern set upright before it caught fire. The 1934 copy is a second printing, its preface signed only by the editor; the NDL's record for the enlarged printing of 1935 names 松野菊太郎.

1930, 1940 and 1955. To protect and to serve. In December 1930 a San Francisco police journal, on the gangs of Chicago and New York, asked for the loyal support of the citizens whom they are pledged and paid to serve and protect [3]. In the pulp magazine Ace G-Man Stories of January 1940, a column of tips from the F.B.I. quotes material used by the Milwaukee Police Department: Remembering this and aware of your function in the community—to protect and to serve—you will readily understand the importance of COURTESY [4]. The Los Angeles Police Department's own page tells its motto's story: a contest in the department's BEAT magazine in February 1955 for a police-academy motto, won by Officer Joseph S. Dorobek with To Protect and to Serve; adoption by the academy, then the department, and on 4 November 1963 a City Council ordinance placing it on the patrol cars beside the city seal [13].

1953 onward. The Japanese police. In April 1953 the journal 『警察研究』 wrote of 警察の保護と奉仕を受け、警察の経費を負担する人民大衆, the people, who receive the police's protection and service and bear its cost, as the source of a new idea of the police [14]. When the American motto itself was rendered, the order turned: in 1974 the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's staff magazine 『自警』 described a yellow car with 「奉仕と保護」 on its front door, in a passage whose excerpt does not name the city [15], and the 1991 translation of David Bayley's book on Japanese policing renders a police motto as 「奉仕と保護」 [16]. The Japanese Wikipedia gives the Los Angeles motto as 保護と奉仕 [17].

What is not a source. The 1934 page is the pair in ordinary use, not the motto. The feudal pair is the historians' term, not a word of the warrior age, and 中田 says so: the age's own words were 御恩 and 奉公.

A reading

The pair came into print as the two sides of a bargain: the lord protects, the man serves, and each owes the other. The motto gives both halves to one party, the police, and the Japanese of 1953 had already done the same. The scroll keeps the Los Angeles order and the one subject, and 奉仕 keeps the older reverence of serving something above oneself, which the English serve can carry or not.

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 保護, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典. https://kotobank.jp/word/保護-629689
  2. 奉仕, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典. https://kotobank.jp/word/奉仕-627585
  3. Police and Peace Officers' Journal of the State of California, December 1930, p. 31, "Uncle Sam and the Cops". https://archive.org/details/policepeaceoffic19301931sanf/page/n76
  4. Ace G-Man Stories 6(3), January–February 1940, p. 71, "Tips from the F.B.I.". https://archive.org/details/AceGManStoriesV06n0319400102ATLPMUrf/page/n72
  5. 室伏高信, 霊の王国, 改造社, 1922, p. 205, scan 109. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968634/1/109
  6. ラファルグ, 財産進化論, 改造文庫, 改造社, 1929, scan 5, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175481/1/5
  7. 中田薫 (lectures), 日本公法法制史, 啓明社, 1932, p. 178, scan 98. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1886436/1/98
  8. 牧健二, 日本封建制度成立史, 弘文堂書房, 1935, scan 171, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1269360/1/171
  9. 広瀬哲士, 概観フランス史, 白水社, 1938, p. 40, scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1227904/1/25
  10. 中村吉治, 日本封建制再編成史, 三笠書房, 1939, scan 105, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1687136/1/105
  11. 石川三四郎, 西洋社会運動史, 大鐙閣, 1922, scan 33, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968619/1/33
  12. 天使の手記：日本基督教界の落穂拾ひ, second printing, 報恩会, 1934, p. 1, scan 7 (p. 2, scan 8). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1035744/1/7
  13. Los Angeles Police Department, "LAPD Motto". https://www.lapdonline.org/lapd-motto/
  14. 警察研究, 良書普及会, April 1953, scan 14, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2245307/1/14
  15. 自警, 警視庁警務部教養課 ed., 自警会, February 1974, scan 76, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2706831/1/76
  16. デイビッド・H・ベイリー, 新・ニッポンの警察, サイマル出版会, 1991, scan 155, excerpt only. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12674303/1/155
  17. ロサンゼルス市警察, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ロサンゼルス市警察

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations of the grouped history this was split from; the LAPD page and the 1934 leaf checked at their addresses with web search on; none contradicted; the Lab corpus count beyond the checker. The s289 amendment has not been checked by an outside model

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 保護と奉仕 (hogo to hōshi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/hogo-to-hoshi.