Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 23

Then you can extend practical support to the victims of this outbreak of cruelty. There could be no more effective rebuke than for the Churches of the English-speaking nations to say to their fellow Christians of Korea, "We are standing by you. We cannot share your bodily sufferings, but we will try to show our sympathy in other ways. We will rebuild some of your churches that have been burned down; we will support the widows or orphans of Christians who have been unjustly slain, or will help to support the families of those now imprisoned for their faith and for freedom. We will show, by deeds, not words, that Christian brotherhood is a reality and not a sham."

In doing so, you will supply an example that will not be forgotten so long as Asia endures. Men say--and say rightly--that Korea is the key-land of Northeastern Asia, so far as domination of that part of the lands of the Pacific is concerned. Korea is still more the key-land of Asia for Western civilization and Christian ideals. Let Christianity be throttled here, and it will have received a set-back in Asia from which it will take generations to recover.

"The Koreans are a degenerate people, not fit for self-government," says the man whose mind has been poisoned by subtle j.a.panese propaganda. Korea has only been a very few years in contact with Western civilization, but it has already indicated that this charge is a lie. Its old Government was corrupt, and deserved to fall. But its people, wherever they have had a chance, have demonstrated their capacity. In Manchuria hundreds of thousands of them, mostly fled from j.a.panese oppression, are industrious and prosperous farmers. In the Hawaiian Islands, there are five thousand Koreans, mainly labourers, and their families, working on the sugar plantations. They have built twenty-eight schools for their children, and raise among themselves $20 a head a year for the education of their children; they have sixteen churches; they bought $80,000 worth of Liberty bonds during the war, and subscribed liberally to the Red Cross. Some of these Hawaiian Koreans--210 in all--volunteered to serve in the war. A large number of Manchurian Koreans--their total has been placed as high as thirty thousand--joined the Russian forces, fought under General Lin, and later, in conjunction with the Czecho-Slovak prisoners, fought the rearmed German prisoners and the Bolsheviks.

In America the Koreans who were fortunate enough to escape have brought the culture of rice into California, and are a prosperous community there.

Young Koreans have won prominent place in American colleges and in American business. One big business in Philadelphia was created and is conducted by a Korean. Give these people a chance, and they soon show what they can do.

A word with the statesmen.

j.a.pan is a young country, so far as Western civilization is concerned. She is the youngest of the Great Powers. She desires the good will of the world, and is willing to do much to win it. Be frank with her. You owe it to her to deal faithfully with her.

When you ask me if I would risk a war over Korea, I answer this: Firm action to-day might provoke conflict, but the risk is very small. Act weakly now, however, and you make a great war in the Far East almost certain within a generation. The main burden of the Western nations in such a war will be borne by America.

To the j.a.panese themselves, I venture to repeat words that I wrote over eleven years ago. They are even more true now than when they were written:

"The future of j.a.pan, the future of the East, and, to some extent, the future of the world, lies in the answer to the question whether the militarists or the party of peaceful expansion gain the upper hand in the immediate future (in j.a.pan). If the one, then we shall have harsher rule in Korea, steadily increasing aggression in Manchuria, growing interference with China, and, in the end, a t.i.tanic conflict, the end of which none can see. Under the other, j.a.pan will enter into an inheritance, wider, more glorious and more a.s.sured than any Asiatic Power has attained for many centuries.... j.a.pan has it in her to be, not the Mistress of the East, reigning, sword in hand, over subject races--for that she can never permanently be--but the bringer of peace to, and the teacher of, the East.

Will she choose the n.o.bler end?"