Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 16

He had learned many things while in exile, and was now keen on reform and education. Many of his old Tong-hak friends rallied around him, and the Chon-do Kyo soon numbered considerably over a million members.

Son realized after a time that the j.a.panese were not the friends but the enemies of his people. He made no violent protestations. He still maintained seemingly good relations with them. But his organization was put to work. His agents went over the country. Each adherent was called on to give three spoonfuls of rice a day. Close on a million dollars was acc.u.mulated. Most of this was afterwards seized by the j.a.panese.

The Chon-do Kyo and the native Christian leaders came together. The Christian pastors had up to now kept their people in check. But the burden was becoming intolerable. They gave the missionaries no inkling of what was brewing. They did not wish to get them in trouble. Their real grief was that their action would, they knew, make it harder for the Churches.

Two remarkable characters took the lead among the Christians, Pastor Kil and Yi Sang-jai. Pastor Kil of Pyeng-yang was one of the oldest and most famous Christians in Korea. He had become a leader in the early days, facing death for his faith. A man of powerful brain, of fine character and with the qualities of real leadership, he was looked up to by the people as British Nonconformists a generation ago regarded Charles Spurgeon. In recent years Kil had become almost blind, but continued his work.

I have already described in an earlier chapter how Yi Sang-jai, once Secretary to the Legation at Washington, became a Christian while thrown into prison for his political views. He was now a Y.M.C.A. leader, but he was held in universal veneration by all men--Christian and non-Christian alike--as a saint, as a man who walked with G.o.d and communed with Him.

When things seemed rapidly ripening, President Wilson made his famous declaration of the rights of weaker nations. One sentence went round among the Koreans, and its effect was electrical.

"What is the task that this League of Nations is to do?

"IT IS TO PROVIDE FOR THE FREEDOM OF SMALL NATIONS, TO PREVENT THE DOMINATION OF SMALL NATIONS BY BIG ONES."

Here was the clarion call to Korea. Here was hope! Here was the promise of freedom, given by the head of the nation they had all learned to love. If any outsider was responsible for the uprising of the Korean people, that outsider was Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America.

"Now is the time to act," said the people. For a start, they resolved to send delegates to present their case to the Paris Conference. Three leaders in America were chosen but were refused pa.s.sports. Finally another young leader, Mr. Kiusic Kimm, succeeded in landing in France. Perhaps it would not be wise to say, at this time, how he managed to get there. He soon found that his mission was in vain. The Paris Conference would not receive him. President Wilson's declaration was not to be put into full effect.

The people resolved, by open and orderly demonstration, to support their delegate in France. There were some who would have started a violent revolution. The Christians would have none of it "Let us have no violence,"

said they. "Let us appeal to the conscience of j.a.pan and of the world."

There were no const.i.tutional means for them to employ to make their case heard. But if ever there was an effort at peaceful const.i.tutional change, this was it. Instructions were sent out, surely the most extraordinary instructions ever issued under similar circ.u.mstances:--

"Whatever you do DO NOT INSULT THE j.a.pANESE DO NOT THROW STONES DO NOT HIT WITH YOUR FISTS.

For these are the acts of barbarians."

It was unnecessary to tell the people not to shoot, for the j.a.panese had long since taken all their weapons away, even their ancient sporting blunderbusses.

A favourable moment was approaching. The old Korean Emperor lay dead. One rumour was that he had committed suicide to avoid signing a doc.u.ment drawn up by the j.a.panese for presentation to the Peace Conference, saying that he was well satisfied with the present Government of his country. Another report, still more generally believed, was that he had committed suicide to prevent the marriage of his son, Prince Kon, to the j.a.panese Princess Nashinoto. The engagement of this young Prince to a Korean girl had been broken off when the j.a.panese acquired control of the Imperial House. Royal romances always appeal to the crowd. The heart of the people turned to the old Emperor again. Men, women and children put on straw shoes, signs of national mourning, and a hundred thousand people flocked to Seoul to witness the funeral ceremonies.

The funeral was to take place on March 4th. By now the j.a.panese suspected something to be afoot. The astonishing thing is that the Koreans had been able to keep it from them so long. A network of organizations had been created all over the country. The j.a.panese hurried their preparations to prevent popular demonstrations on the day of the funeral. The leaders learned of this, and outwitted the police by a simple device. They resolved to make their demonstration not on Tuesday, March 4th, but on the previous Sat.u.r.day.

Gatherings were arranged for all over the country. A Declaration of Independence was drawn up in advance and delivered to the different centres. Here it was mimeographed, and girls and boys organized themselves to ensure its distribution. Meetings, processions and demonstrations in all the big cities were planned.

Thirty-three men chose martyrdom. They were to be the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. They knew that at the best this must mean heavy punishment for them, and at the worst might well mean death. They had no delusions. Pastor Kil's son had died from the effects of j.a.panese torture, Yang Chun-paik and Yi Seung-hun, two of the signers, had been victims in the Conspiracy case. The first two names on the list of signers were Son Pyung-hi, leader of the Chon-do Kyo, and Pastor Kil.

On the morning of March 1st the group of thirty-two met at the PaG.o.da Restaurant at Seoul. Pastor Kil was the only absentee; he had been temporarily delayed on his journey from Pyeng-yang.

Some prominent j.a.panese had been invited to eat with the Koreans. After the meal, the Declaration was produced before their guests and read. It was despatched to the Governor-General. Then the signers rang up the Central Police Station, informed the shocked officials of what they had done, and added that they would wait in the restaurant until the police van came to arrest them.

The automobile prison van, with them inside, had to make its way to the police station through dense crowds, cheering and shouting, "Mansei!

Mansei! Mansei!" It was the old national battle cry, "May Korea live ten thousand years." Old flags had been brought out, old Korean flags, with the red and blue germ on the white ground, and were being widely waved.

"Mansei!" Not only Seoul but the whole country had in a few minutes broken out in open demonstration. A new kind of revolt had begun.

Pastor Kil, arriving late, hurried to the police station to take his place with his comrades.

The Declaration of Independence is a doc.u.ment impossible to summarize, if one is to do full justice to it. It is written in the lofty tone of the ancient prophets. It was something more than the aspiration of the Korean people. It was the cry of the New Asia, struggling to find its way out of oppression and mediaeval militarism into the promised land of liberty and peace.

THE PROCLAMATION OF KOREAN INDEPENDENCE

"We herewith proclaim the independence of Korea and the liberty of the Korean people. We tell it to the world in witness of the equality of all nations and we pa.s.s it on to our posterity as their inherent right.

"We make this proclamation, having back of us 5,000 years of history, and 20,000,000 of a united loyal people. We take this step to insure to our children for all time to come, personal liberty in accord with the awakening consciousness of this new era. This is the clear leading of G.o.d, the moving principle of the present age, the whole human race's just claim. It is something that cannot be stamped out, or stifled, or gagged, or suppressed by any means.

"Victims of an older age, when brute force and the spirit of plunder ruled, we have come after these long thousands of years to experience the agony of ten years of foreign oppression, with every loss to the right to live, every restriction of the freedom of thought, every damage done to the dignity of life, every opportunity lost for a share in the intelligent advance of the age in which we live.

"a.s.suredly, if the defects of the past are to be rectified, if the agony of the present is to be unloosed, if the future oppression is to be avoided, if thought is to be set free, if right of action is to be given a place, if we are to attain to any way of progress, if we are to deliver our children from the painful, shameful heritage, if we are to leave blessing and happiness intact for those who succeed us, the first of all necessary things is the clear-cut independence of our people.

What cannot our twenty millions do, every man with sword in heart, in this day when human nature and conscience are making a stand for truth and right? What barrier can we not break, what purpose can we not accomplish?

"We have no desire to accuse j.a.pan of breaking many solemn treaties since 1636, nor to single out specially the teachers in the schools or government officials who treat the heritage of our ancestors as a colony of their own, and our people and their civilization as a nation of savages, finding delight only in beating us down and bringing us under their heel.

"We have no wish to find special fault with j.a.pan's lack of fairness or her contempt of our civilization and the principles on which her state rests; we, who have greater cause to reprimand ourselves, need not spend precious time in finding fault with others; neither need we, who require so urgently to build for the future, spend useless hours over what is past and gone. Our urgent need to-day is the setting up of this house of ours and not a discussion of who has broken it down, or what has caused its ruin. Our work is to clear the future of defects in accord with the earnest dictates of conscience. Let us not be filled with bitterness or resentment over past agonies or past occasions for anger.

"Our part is to influence the j.a.panese government, dominated as it is by the old idea of brute force which thinks to run counter to reason and universal law, so that it will change, act honestly and in accord with the principles of right and truth.

"The result of annexation, brought about without any conference with the Korean people, is that the j.a.panese, indifferent to us, use every kind of partiality for their own, and by a false set of figures show a profit and loss account between us two peoples most untrue, digging a trench of everlasting resentment deeper and deeper the farther they go.

"Ought not the way of enlightened courage to be to correct the evils of the past by ways that are sincere, and by true sympathy and friendly feeling make a new world in which the two peoples will be equally blessed?

"To bind by force twenty millions of resentful Koreans will mean not only loss of peace forever for this part of the Far East, but also will increase the evergrowing suspicion of four hundred millions of Chinese--upon whom depends the danger or safety of the Far East--besides strengthening the hatred of j.a.pan. From this all the rest of the East will suffer. To-day Korean independence will mean not only daily life and happiness for us, but also it would mean j.a.pan's departure from an evil way and exaltation to the place of true protector of the East, so that China, too, even in her dreams, would put all fear of j.a.pan aside. This thought comes from no minor resentment, but from a large hope for the future welfare and blessing of mankind.

"A new era wakes before our eyes, the old world of force is gone, and the new world of righteousness and truth is here. Out of the experience and travail of the old world arises this light on life's affairs. The insects stifled by the foe and snow of winter awake at this same time with the breezes of spring and the soft light of the sun upon them.

"It is the day of the restoration of all things on the full tide of which we set forth, without delay or fear. We desire a full measure of satisfaction in the way of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and an opportunity to develop what is in us for the glory of our people.

"We awake now from the old world with its darkened conditions in full determination and one heart and one mind, with right on our side, along with the forces of nature, to a new life. May all the ancestors to the thousands and ten thousand generations aid us from within and all the force of the world aid us from without, and let the day we take hold be the day of our attainment. In this hope we go forward.

THREE ITEMS OF AGREEMENT

"1. This work of ours is in behalf of truth, religion and life, undertaken at the request of our people, in order to make known their desire for liberty. Let no violence be done to any one.

"2. Let those who follow us, every man, all the time, every hour, show forth with gladness this same mind.

"3. Let all things be done decently and in order, so that our behaviour to the very end may be honourable and upright."

The 4252nd year of the Kingdom of Korea 3d Month.

Representatives of the people.

The signatures attached to the doc.u.ment are:

Son Pyung-hi, Kil Sun Chu, Yi Pil Chu, Paik Yong Sung, Kim Won Kyu, Kim Pyung Cho, Kim Chang Choon, Kwon Dong Chin, Kwon Byung Duk, Na Yong Whan, Na In Hup, Yang Chun Paik, Yang Han Mook, Lew Yer Dai, Yi Kop Sung, Yi Mung Yong, Yi Seung Hoon, Yi Chong Hoon, Yi Chong Il, Lim Yei Whan, Pak Choon Seung, Pak Hi Do, Pak Tong Wan, Sin Hong Sik, Sin Suk Ku, Oh Sei Chang, Oh Wha Young, Chung Choon Su, Choi Sung Mo, Choi In, Han Yong Woon, Hong Byung Ki, Hong Ki Cho.

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