Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 1

Korea's Fight for Freedom.

by F.A. McKenzie.

Preface

The peaceful uprising of the people of Korea against j.a.pan in the spring of 1919 came as a world surprise. Here was a nation that had been ticketed and docketed by world statesmen as degenerate and cowardly, revealing heroism of a very high order.

The soldier facing the enemy in the open is inspired by the atmosphere of war, and knows that he has at least a fighting chance against his foe. The Koreans took their stand--their women and children by their side--without weapons and without means of defense. They pledged themselves ahead to show no violence. They had all too good reason to antic.i.p.ate that their lot would be the same as that of others who had preceded them--torture as ingenious and varied as Torquemada and his familiars ever practiced.

They were not disappointed. They were called on to endure all that they had antic.i.p.ated, in good measure, pressed down and running over. When they were dragged to prison, others stepped into their place. When these were taken, still others were ready to succeed them. And more are even now waiting to join in the dreadful procession, if the protests of the civilized world do not induce j.a.pan to call a halt.

It seems evident that either the world made a mistake in its first estimate of Korean character, or these people have experienced a new birth. Which is the right explanation? Maybe both.

To understand what has happened, and what, as I write, is still happening, one has to go back for a few years. When j.a.pan, in face of her repeated pledges, annexed Korea, her statesmen adopted an avowed policy of a.s.similation. They attempted to turn the people of Korea into j.a.panese--an inferior brand of j.a.panese, a serf race, speaking the language and following the customs of their overlords, and serving them.

To accomplish this better, the Koreans were isolated, not allowed to mix freely with the outer world, and deprived of liberty of speech, person and press. The j.a.panese brought certain material reforms. They forgot to supply one thing--justice. Men of progressive ideas were seized and imprisoned in such numbers that a new series of prisons had to be built. In six years the total of prisoners convicted or awaiting trial doubled. The rule of the big stick was inst.i.tuted, and the j.a.panese police were given the right to flog without trial any Korean they pleased. The bamboo was employed on scores of thousands of people each year, employed so vigorously as to leave a train of cripples and corpses behind. The old tyranny of the yang-ban was replaced by a more terrible, because more scientifically cruel, tyranny of an uncontrolled police.

The j.a.panese struck an unexpected strain of hardness in the Korean character. They found, underneath the surface apathy, a spirit as determined as their own. They succeeded, not in a.s.similating the people, but in reviving their sense of nationality.

Before j.a.pan acquired the country, large numbers of Koreans had adopted Christianity. Under the influence of the teachers from America, they became clean in person, they brought their women out from the "anpang" (zenana) into the light of day, and they absorbed Western ideas and ideals. The mission schools taught modern history, with its tales of the heroes and heroines of liberty, women like Joan of Arc, men like Hampden and George Washington. And the missionaries circulated and taught the Bible--the most dynamic and disturbing book in the world. When a people saturated in the Bible comes into touch with tyranny, either one of two things happens, the people are exterminated or tyranny ceases.

The j.a.panese realized their danger. They tried, in vain, to bring the Churches under j.a.panese control. They confiscated or forbade missionary textbooks, subst.i.tuting their own. Failing to win the support of the Christians, they inst.i.tuted a widespread persecution of the Christian leaders of the north. Many were arrested and tortured on charges which the j.a.panese Courts themselves afterwards found to be false. The Koreans endured until they could endure no more. Not the Christians alone, but men of all faiths and all cla.s.ses acted as one. The story of their great protest, of what led up to it, and the way in which it was met, is told in this book.

To the outsider, one of the most repulsive features of the j.a.panese method of government of Korea is the wholesale torture of untried prisoners, particularly political prisoners. Were this torture an isolated occurrence, I would not mention it. There are always occasional men who, invested with authority and not properly controlled, abuse their position. But here torture is employed in many centres and on thousands of people. The Imperial j.a.panese Government, while enacting paper regulations against the employment of torture, in effect condones it. When details of the inhuman treatment of Christian Korean prisoners have been given in open court, and the victims have been found innocent, the higher authorities have taken no steps to bring the torturers to justice.

The forms of torture freely employed include, among others:--

1. The stripping, beating, kicking, flogging, and outraging of schoolgirls and young women.

2. Flogging schoolboys to death.

3. Burning--the burning of young girls by pressing lighted cigarettes against their tender parts, and the burning of men, women and children by searing their bodies with hot irons.

4. Stringing men up by their thumbs, beating them with bamboos and iron rods until unconscious, restoring them and repeating the process, sometimes several times in one day, sometimes until death.

5. Contraction--tying men up in such fashion as to cause intense suffering.

6. Confinement for long periods under torturing conditions, as, _e.g._, where men and women are packed so tightly in a room that they cannot lie or sit down for days at a stretch.

In the latter chapters of this book I supply details of many cases where such methods have been employed. Where it can safely be done, I give full names and places. In many instances this is impossible, for it would expose the victims to further ill treatment. Sworn statements have been made before the American Consular authorities covering many of the worst events that followed the 1919 uprising. These are now, I understand, with the State Department at Washington. It is to be hoped that in due course they will be published in full.

When my book, "The Tragedy of Korea," was published in 1908, it seemed a thankless and hopeless task to plead for a stricken and forsaken nation.

The book, however, aroused a wide-spread and growing interest. It has been more widely quoted and discussed in 1919 than in any previous year. Lawyers have argued over it in open court; statesmen have debated parts of it in secret conferences, Senates and Parliaments. At a famous political trial, one question was put to the prisoner, "Have you read the 'Tragedy of Korea'?" It has been translated into Chinese.

At first I was accused of exaggeration and worse. Subsequent events have amply borne out my statements and warnings. The book has been for a long time out of print, and even second-hand copies have been difficult to obtain. I was strongly urged to publish a new edition, bringing my narrative up to date, but I found that it would be better to write a new book, including in it, however, some of the most debated pa.s.sages and chapters of the old. This I have done.

Some critics have sought to charge me with being "anti-j.a.panese." No man has written more appreciatively of certain phases of j.a.panese character and accomplishments than myself. My personal relations with the j.a.panese, more especially with the j.a.panese Army, left me with no sense of personal grievance but with many pleasant and cordial memories. My j.a.panese friends were good enough to say, in the old days, that these agreeable recollections were mutual.

I have long been convinced, however, that the policy of Imperial expansion adopted by j.a.pan, and the means employed in advancing it, are a grave menace to her own permanent well-being and to the future peace of the world. I am further convinced that the militarist party really controls j.a.panese policy, and that temporary modifications which have been recently announced do not imply any essential change of national plans and ambitions. If to believe and to proclaim this is "anti-j.a.panese," then I plead guilty to the charge. I share my guilt with many loyal and patriotic j.a.panese subjects, who see, as I see, the perils ahead.

In this book I describe the struggle of an ancient people towards liberty.

I tell of a Mongol nation, roughly awakened from its long sleep, under conditions of tragic terror, that has seized hold of and is clinging fast to, things vital to civilization as we see it, freedom and free faith, the honour of their women, the development of their own souls.

I plead for Freedom and Justice. Will the world hear?

F.A. McKENZIE.

I

OPENING THE OYSTER

Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Korea refused all intercourse with foreign nations. Peaceful ships that approached its uncharted and unlit sh.o.r.es were fired upon. Its only land approach, from the north, was bounded by an almost inaccessible mountain and forest region, and by a devastated "No Man's Land," infested by bandits and river pirates. When outside Governments made friendly approaches, and offered to show Korea the wonders of modern civilization, they received the haughty reply that Korea was quite satisfied with its own civilization, which had endured for four thousand years.

Even Korea, however, could not keep the world entirely in the dark about it. Chinese sources told something of its history. Its people were the descendants of Ki-tzse, a famous Chinese sage and statesman who, eleven hundred years before Christ, moved with his tribesmen over the river Yalu because he would not recognize or submit to a new dynasty that had usurped power in China. His followers doubtless absorbed and were influenced by still older settlers in Korea. The result was a people with strong national characteristics, different and distinct from the Chinese on the one side and the j.a.panese on the other.

We knew that, as Korea obtained much of its early knowledge from China, so it gave the younger nation of j.a.pan its learning and industries. Its people reached a high stage of culture, and all records indicate that in the days when the early Briton painted himself with woad and when Rome was at her prime, Korea was a powerful, orderly and civilized kingdom. Unhappily it was placed as a buffer between two states, China, ready to absorb it, and j.a.pan, keen to conquer its people as a preliminary to triumph over China.

In the course of centuries, it became an inbred tradition with the j.a.panese that they must seize Korea. Hideyoshi, the famous j.a.panese Regent, made a tremendous effort in 1582. Three hundred thousand troops swept over Korea, capturing city after city, and driving the Korean forces to the north.

Korea appealed to China for aid, and after terrible fighting, the j.a.panese were driven back. They left a Korea in ruins, carrying off everything they could, and destroying all they could not carry off. They kidnapped, among others, the skilled workmen of Korea, and made them remain in j.a.pan and carry on their industries there.

Hideyoshi's invasion is of more than historic interest Korea has never recovered the damage then done. The j.a.panese desire for Korea, thwarted for the moment, smouldered, waiting for the moment to burst afresh into flame.

The memories of their terrible sufferings at the hands of the j.a.panese ground into the Koreans a hatred of their neighbour, handed down undiminished from generation to generation, to this day.

Korea might have recovered, but for another and even more serious handicap.

A new dynasty, the House of Yi, succeeded to the Korean throne over five centuries ago, and established a rule fatal to all progress. The King was everything, and the nation lived solely for him. No man was allowed to become too rich or powerful. There must be no great n.o.bles to come together and oppose these kings as the Norman Barons fought and checked the Norman Kings of England.

No man was allowed to build a house beyond a certain size, save the King.

The only way to wealth or power was by enlisting in the King's service. The King's governors were free to plunder as they would, and even the village magistrate, representing the King, could freely work his will on those under him. The King had his eyes everywhere. His spies were all over the land. Let yang-ban (official or n.o.ble) however high show unhealthy ambition or seek to conceal anything from the royal knowledge and he would be called to Court and broken in an hour, and would count himself fortunate if he escaped with his life.

The Korean people are eminently pacific. Up to a point, they endure hard thing's uncomplainingly. It would have been better for them had they not suffered wrongs so tamely. The Yi method of government killed ambition--except for the King's service--killed enterprise and killed progress. The aim of the business man and the farmer was to escape notice and live quietly.

Foreigners attempted, time after time, to make their way into the country.

French Catholic priests, as far back as the end of the eighteenth century, smuggled themselves in. Despite torture and death, they kept on, until the great persecution of 1866 wiped them and their converts out. This persecution arose because of fear of foreign aggression.

A Russian war vessel appeared off Broughton's Bay, demanding on behalf of Russians the right of commerce. The King at this time was a minor, adopted by the late King. His father, the Tai Won Kun, or Regent, ruled in his stead. He was a man of great force of character and no scruples. He slew in wholesale fashion those who dared oppose him. He had the idea that the Christians favoured the coming of the foreigner and so he turned his wrath on them. The native Catholics were wiped out, under every possible circ.u.mstance of brutality, and with them perished a number of French Catholic priests. By one of those contradictions which are constantly happening in real life, the crew of an American steamer, the _Surprise_, who were wrecked off the coast of Whang-hai that year were treated with all possible honour and consideration, and were returned home, through Manchuria, officials conducting them and the people coming out to greet them as they travelled through the land.

The French Minister at Peking determined on revenge for the death of the priests. A strong expedition was sent to the Han River, and attacked the forts on the Kangwha Island. The Korean troops met them bravely, and although the French obtained a temporary success, thanks to their modern weapons, they were in the end forced to retire.

An American ship, the _General Sherman_, set out for Korea in 1866, sailing from Tientsin for the purpose, it was rumoured, of plundering the royal tombs at Pyeng-yang. It entered the Tai-tong River, where it was ordered to stop. A fight opened between it and the Koreans, the latter in their dragon cloud armour, supposed to be impervious to bullets, sending their fire arrows against the invaders. The captain, not knowing the soundings of the river, ran his ship ash.o.r.e. The Koreans sent fire boats drifting down the river towards the American ship. One of them set the _General Sherman_ in flames. Those of the crew who were not burned on the spot were soon slaughtered by the triumphant Korean soldiers. A more disreputable expedition, headed by a German Jew, Ernest Oppert and an American called Jenkins, left Shanghai in the following year, with a strong fighting crew of Chinese and Malays, and with a French missionary priest, M. Feron, as guide. They landed, and actually succeeded in reaching the royal tombs near the capital. Their shovels were useless, however, to remove the immense stones over the graves. A heavy fog enabled them to carry on their work for a time undisturbed. Soon an angry crowd gathered, and they had to return to their ship, the _China_. They were fortunate to escape before the Korean troops came up. The American consular authorities in Shanghai placed Jenkins on trial, but there was not enough evidence to convict him.

The killing of the crew of the _General Sherman_ brought the American Government into action. Captain Shufeldt, commander of the _Wachusset_, was ordered to go to Korea and obtain redress. He reached the mouth of the Han River, and sent a message to the King, asking an explanation of the matter.

He had to retire, owing to weather conditions, before the reply arrived.