Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 4

"In the course of a year the influence of this club was very great and the members thought it was the most marvellous inst.i.tution that was ever brought to Korea. The most remarkable thing I noticed was the quick and intelligent manner in which the Korean young men grasped and mastered the intricacies of Parliamentary rule. I often noticed that some Korean raised a question of the point of order in their procedure which was well taken, worthy of expert Parliamentarians of the Western countries.

"The increasing influence of the Independence Club was feared not only by the Korean officials but by some of the foreign representatives, such as Russia and j.a.pan, both of whom did not relish the idea of creating public opinion among the Korean people. The members of the Independence Club did not have any official status, but they enjoyed the privilege of free speech during the meeting of this club, and they did not hesitate to criticize their own officials, as well as those of the foreign nations who tried to put through certain schemes in Korea for the benefit of their selfish interests. In the course of a year and a half the opposition to this club developed in a marked degree not among the people, but among a few government officials and certain members of the foreign legations.

"The first time in Korean history that democracy made its power felt in the government was at the time Russia brought to Korea a large number of army officers to drill the Korean troops. When this question was brought up in the Independence Club debate, and the scheme was thoroughly discussed pro and con by those who took part in the debate, it was the consensus of opinion that the turning over of the Military Department to a foreign power was suicidal policy and they decided to persuade the government to stop this scheme. The next day some 10,000 or more members of the club a.s.sembled in front of the palace, and pet.i.tioned the Emperor to cancel the agreement of engaging the Russian military officers as they thought it was a dangerous procedure. The Emperor sent a messenger out several times to persuade them to disperse and explain to the people that there was no danger in engaging the Russians as military instructors. But the people did not disperse, nor did they accept the Emperor's explanation. They quietly but firmly refused to move from the palace gates unless the contract with Russia was cancelled.

"When the Russian Minister heard of this demonstration against the contract he wrote a very threatening letter to the Korean government to the effect that the Korean government must disperse the people, by force if necessary, and stop any talk imputing selfish motives on the part of the Russian government. If this was not stopped, the Russian government would withdraw all the officers from Korea at once, and Korea would have to stand the consequences. This communication was shown to the people with the explanation that if they insisted upon cancelling this contract dire consequences would result to Korea. But the people told the government they would stand the consequences, whatever they would be, but would not have Russian officers control their military establishment. The Korean government finally asked the Russian Minister to withdraw their military officers and offered to pay any damage on account of the cancellation of the contract. This was done, and the will of the people was triumphant.

"But this event made opposition to the Independence Club stronger than ever, and the government organized an opposing organization, known as the PEDLARS' GUILD, which was composed of all the pedlars of the country, to counteract the influence this club wielded in the country. In May, 1898, I left Korea for the United States."

Dr. Jaisohn, as a naturalized American citizen, was immune from arrest by the Korean Government, and the worst that could happen to him was dismissal. Another young man who now came to the front in the Independence movement could claim no such immunity. Syngman Rhee, son of a good family, training in Confucian scholarship to win a literary degree and official position, heard with contempt and dislike the tales told by his friends of foreign teachers and foreign religion. His parents were pious Buddhists and Confucians, and he followed their faith. Finding, however, that if he hoped to make good in official life he must know English, he joined the Pai Chai mission school, in Seoul, under Dr. Appenzeller. He became a member of the Independence Club, and issued a daily paper to support his cause. Young, fiery, enthusiastic, he soon came to occupy a prominent place in the organization.

The Independents were determined to have genuine reform, and the ma.s.s of the people were still behind them. The Conservatives, who opposed them, now controlled practically all official actions. The Independence Club started a popular agitation, and for months Seoul was in a ferment. Great meetings of the people continued day after day, the shops closing that all might attend. Even the women stirred from their retirement, and held meetings of their own to plead for change. To counteract this movement, the Conservative party revived and called to its aid an old secret society, the Pedlars' Guild, which had in the past been a useful agent for reaction. The Cabinet promised fair things, and various nominal reforms were outlined.

The Independents' demands were, in the main, the absence of foreign control, care in granting foreign concessions, public trial of important offenders, honesty in State finance, and justice for all. In the end, another demand was added to these--that a popular representative tribunal should be elected.

When the Pedlars' Guild had organized its forces, the King commanded the disbandment of the Independence Club. The Independents retorted by going _en bloc_ to the police headquarters, and asking to be arrested. Early in November, 1898, seventeen of the Independent leaders were thrown into prison, and would have been put to death but for public clamour. The people rose and held a series of such angry demonstrations that, at the end of five days, the leaders were released.

The Government now, to quiet the people, gave a.s.surances that genuine reforms would be inst.i.tuted. When the mobs settled down, reform was again shelved. On one occasion, when the citizens of Seoul crowded into the main thoroughfare to renew their demands, the police were ordered to attack them with swords and destroy them. They refused to obey, and threw off their badges, saying that the cause of the people was their cause. The soldiers under foreign officers, however, had no hesitation in carrying out the Imperial commands. As a next move, many thousands of men, acting on an old national custom, went to the front of the palace and sat there in silence day and night for fourteen days. In Korea this is the most impressive of all ways of demonstrating the wrath of the nation, and it greatly embarra.s.sed the Court.

The Pedlars' Guild was a.s.sembled in another part of the city, to make a counter demonstration. Early in the morning, when the Independents were numerically at their weakest, the Pedlars attacked them and drove them off.

On attempting to return they found the way barred by police. Fight after fight occurred during the next few days between the popular party and the Conservatives, and then, to bring peace, the Emperor promised his people a general audience in front of the palace. The meeting took place amid every surrounding that could lend it solemnity. The foreign representatives and the heads of the Government were in attendance. The Emperor, who stood on a specially built platform, received the leaders of the Independents, and listened to their statement of their case. They asked that the monarch should keep some of his old promises to maintain the national integrity and do justice. The Emperor, in reply, presented them with a formal doc.u.ment, in which he agreed to their main demands.

The crowd, triumphant, dispersed. The organization of the reformers slackened, for they thought that victory was won. Then the Conservative party landed some of its heaviest blows. The reformers were accused of desiring to establish a republic. Dissension was created in their ranks by the promotion of a scheme to recall Pak Yung-hio. Some of the more extreme Independents indulged in wild talk, and gave excuse for official repression. Large numbers of reform leaders were arrested on various pretexts. Meetings were dispersed at the point of the bayonet, and the reform movement was broken. The Emperor did not realize that he had, in the hour that he consented to crush the reformers, p.r.o.nounced the doom of his own Imperial house, and handed his land over to an alien people.

Dr. Jaisohn maintains that foreign influence was mainly responsible for the destruction of the Independence Club. Certain Powers did not wish Korea to be strong. He adds:

"The pa.s.sing of the Independence Club was one of the most unfortunate things in the history of Korea, but there is one consolation to be derived from it, and that is, the seed of democracy was sown in Korea through this movement, and that the leaders of the present Independence Movement in Korea are mostly members of the old Independence Club, who somehow escaped with their lives from the wholesale persecution that followed the collapse of the Independence Club. Six out of the eight cabinet members elected by the people this year, (1919) were the former active members of the Independence Club."

Among the Independents arrested was Syngman Rhee. The foreign community, which in a sense stood sponsor for the more moderate of the Independents, brought influence to bear, and it was understood that in a few days the leaders would be released. Some of them were. But Rhee and a companion broke out before release, in order to stir up a revolt against the Government By a misunderstanding their friends were not on the spot to help them, and they were at once recaptured.

Rhee was now exposed to the full fury of the Emperor's wrath. He was thrown into the innermost prison, and for seven months lay one of a line of men fastened to the ground, their heads held down by heavy cangues, their feet in stocks and their hands fastened by chains so that the wrists were level with the forehead. Occasionally he was taken out to be tormented, in ancient fashion. He expected death, and rejoiced when one night he was told that he was to be executed. His death was already announced in the newspapers. But when the guard came they took, not Rhee, but the man fastened down next to him, to whom Rhee had smuggled a farewell message to be given to his father after his death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Lying there, the mind of the young reformer went back to the messages he had heard at the mission school He turned to the Christians' G.o.d, and his first prayer was typical of the man, "O G.o.d, save my country and save my soul." To him, the dark and foetid cell became as the palace of G.o.d, for here G.o.d spoke to his soul and he found peace.

He made friends with his guards. One of them smuggled a little Testament in to him. From the faint light of the tiny window, he read pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage, one of the under-jailers holding the book for him--since with his bound hands he could not hold it himself--and another waiting to give warning of the approach of the chief guard. Man after man in that little cell found G.o.d, and the jailer himself was converted.

After seven months of the h.e.l.l of the inner cell, Rhee was shifted to roomier quarters, where he was allowed more freedom, still, however, carrying chains around his neck and body. He organized a church in the prison, made up of his own converts. Then he obtained text-books and started a school. He did not in the least relax his own principles. He secretly wrote a book on the spirit of Independence during his imprisonment His old missionary friends sought him out and did what they could for him.

Rhee met plenty of his old friends, for the Conservatives were in the saddle now, and were arresting and imprisoning Progressives at every opportunity. Among the newcomers was a famous old Korean statesman, Yi Sang-jai, who had formerly been First Secretary to the Korean Legation at Washington. Yi incurred the Emperor's displeasure and was thrown into prison. He entered it strongly anti-Christian; before two years were over he had become a leader of the Christian band. In due course Yi was released and became Secretary of the Emperor's Cabinet. He carried his Christianity out with him, and later on, when he left office, became Religious Work leader of the Seoul Y.M.C.A. Yi was one of the most loved and honoured men in Korea. Every one who knew him spoke of him in terms of confidence and praise.

Syngman Rhee was not released from prison until 1904. He then went to America, graduated at the George Washington University, took M.A. at Harvard, and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton. He returned to Seoul as an official of the Y.M.C.A., but finding it impossible to settle down under the j.a.panese regime, went to Honolulu, where he became princ.i.p.al of the Korean School. A few years later he was chosen first President of the Republic of Korea.

When Russia leased the Liaotung Peninsula from China, after having prevented j.a.pan from retaining it, she threw Korea as a sop to j.a.pan. A treaty was signed by which both nations recognized the independence of Korea, but Russia definitely recognized the supreme nature of the j.a.panese enterprises and interests there, and promised not to impede the development of j.a.pan's commercial and industrial Korean policy. The Russian military instructors and financial adviser were withdrawn from Seoul.

The Emperor of Korea was still in the hands of the reactionaries. His Prime Minister and favourite was Yi Yung-ik, the one-time coolie who had rescued the Queen, and was now the man at the right hand of the throne.

After a time Russia repented of her generosity. She sought to regain control in Korea. She sent M. Pavloff, an astute and charming statesman, to Seoul, and a series of intrigues began. Yi Yung-ik sided with the Russians.

The end was war.

One personal recollection of these last days before the war remains stamped on my memory. I was in Seoul and had been invited to an interview with Yi Yung-ik. Squatted on the ground in his apartment we discussed matters. I urged on him the necessity of reform, if Korea was to save herself from extinction. Yi quickly retorted that Korea was safe, for her independence was guaranteed by America and Europe.

"Don't you understand," I urged, "that treaties not backed by power are useless. If you wish the treaties to be respected, you must live up to them. You must reform or perish."

"It does not matter what the other nations are doing," declared the Minister. "We have this day sent out a statement that we are neutral and asking for our neutrality to be respected."

"Why should they protect you, if you do not protect yourself?" I asked.

"We have the promise of America. She will be our friend whatever happens,"

the Minister insisted.

From that position he would not budge.

Three days later, the Russian ships, the _Variag_ and the _Korietz_, lay sunken wrecks in Chemulpo Harbour, broken by the guns of the j.a.panese fleet, and the j.a.panese soldiers had seized the Korean Emperor's palace. M.

Hayashi, the j.a.panese Minister, was dictating the terms he must accept.

Korea's independence was over, in deed if not in name, and j.a.pan was at last about to realize her centuries' old ambition to have Korea for her own.

V

THE NEW ERA

j.a.pan was now in a position to enforce obedience. Russia could no longer interfere; England would not. A new treaty between j.a.pan and Korea, drawn up in advance, was signed--the Emperor being ordered to a.s.sent without hesitation or alteration--and j.a.pan began her work as the open protector of Korea. The Korean Government was to place full confidence in j.a.pan and follow her lead; while j.a.pan pledged herself "in a spirit of firm friendship, to secure the safety and repose" of the Imperial Korean House, and definitely guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of the country. j.a.pan was to be given every facility for military operations during the war.

The j.a.panese at first behaved with great moderation. Officials who had been hostile to them were not only left unpunished, but were, some of them, employed in the j.a.panese service. The troops marching northwards maintained rigid discipline and treated the people well. Food that was taken was purchased at fair prices, and the thousands of labourers who were pressed into the army service as carriers were rewarded with a liberality and prompt.i.tude that left them surprised. Mr. Hayashi did everything that he could to rea.s.sure the Korean Emperor, and repeatedly told him that j.a.pan desired nothing but the good of Korea and the strengthening of the Korean nation. The Marquis Ito was soon afterwards sent on a special mission from the Mikado, and he repeated and emphasized the declarations of friendship and help.

All this was not without effect upon the Korean mind. The people of the north had learnt to dislike the Russians, because of their lack of discipline and want of restraint. They had been alienated in particular by occasional interference with Korean women by the Russian soldiers. I travelled largely throughout the northern regions in the early days of the war, and everywhere I heard from the people during the first few weeks nothing but expressions of friendship to the j.a.panese. The coolies and farmers were friendly because they hoped that j.a.pan would modify the oppression of the native magistrates. A section of better-cla.s.s people, especially those who had received some foreign training, were sympathetic, because they credited j.a.pan's promises and had been convinced by old experience that no far-reaching reforms could come to their land without foreign aid.

As victory followed victory, however, the att.i.tude of the j.a.panese grew less kindly. A large number of petty tradesmen followed the army, and these showed none of the restraint of the military. They travelled about, sword in hand, taking what they wished and doing as they pleased. Then the army cut down the rate of pay for coolies, and, from being overpaid, the native labourers were forced to toil for half their ordinary earnings. The military, too, gradually began to acquire a more domineering air.

In Seoul itself a definite line of policy was being pursued. The Korean Government had employed a number of foreign advisers. These were steadily eliminated; some of them were paid up for the full time of their engagements and sent off, and others were told that their agreements would not be renewed. Numerous j.a.panese advisers were brought in, and, step by step, the administration was j.a.panized. This process was hastened by a supplementary agreement concluded in August, when the Korean Emperor practically handed the control of administrative functions over to the j.a.panese. He agreed to engage a j.a.panese financial adviser, to reform the currency, to reduce his army, to adopt j.a.panese military and educational methods, and eventually to trust the foreign relations to j.a.pan. One of the first results of this new agreement was that Mr. (now Baron) Megata was given control of the Korean finances. He quickly brought extensive and, on the whole, admirable changes into the currency. Under the old methods, Korean money was among the worst in the world. The famous gibe of a British Consul in an official report, that the Korean coins might be divided into good, good counterfeits, bad counterfeits, and counterfeits so bad that they can only be pa.s.sed off in the dark, was by no means an effort of imagination. In the days before the war it was necessary, when one received any sum of money, to employ an expert to count over the coins, and put aside the worst counterfeits. The old nickels were so c.u.mbersome that a very few pounds' worth of them formed a heavy load for a pony. Mr. Megata changed all this, and put the currency on a sound basis, naturally not without some temporary trouble, but certainly with permanent benefit to the country.

The next great step in the j.a.panese advance was the acquirement of the entire Korean postal and telegraph system. This was taken over, despite Korean protests. More and more j.a.panese gendarmes were brought in and established themselves everywhere. They started to control all political activity. Men who protested against j.a.panese action were arrested and imprisoned, or driven abroad. A notorious pro-j.a.panese society, the II Chin Hoi, was fostered by every possible means, members receiving for a time direct payments through j.a.panese sources. The payment at one period was 50 sen (1s.) a day. Notices were posted in Seoul that no one could organize a political society unless the j.a.panese headquarters consented, and no one could hold a meeting for discussing affairs without permission, and without having it guarded by j.a.panese police. All letters and circulars issued by political societies were first to be submitted to the headquarters. Those who offended made themselves punishable by martial law.

Gradually the hand of j.a.pan became heavier and heavier. Little aggravating changes were made. The j.a.panese military authorities decreed that j.a.panese time should be used for all public work, and they changed the names of the towns from Korean to j.a.panese. Martial law was now enforced with the utmost rigidity. Scores of thousands of j.a.panese coolies poured into the country, and spread abroad, acting in a most oppressive way. These coolies, who had been kept strictly under discipline in their own land, here found themselves masters of a weaker people. The Korean magistrates could not punish them, and the few j.a.panese residents, scattered in the provinces, would not. The coolies were poor, uneducated, strong, and with the inherited brutal traditions of generations of their ancestors who had looked upon force and strength as supreme right. They went through the country like a plague. If they wanted a thing they took it If they fancied a house, they turned the resident out.

They beat, they outraged, they murdered in a way and on a scale of which it is difficult for any white man to speak with moderation. Koreans were flogged to death for offences that did not deserve a sixpenny fine. They were shot for mere awkwardness. Men were dispossessed of their homes by every form of guile and trickery. It was my lot to hear from Koreans themselves and from white men living in the districts, hundreds upon hundreds of incidents of this time, all to the same effect. The outrages were allowed to pa.s.s unpunished and unheeded. The Korean who approached the office of a j.a.panese resident to complain was thrown out, as a rule, by the underlings.

One act on the part of the j.a.panese surprised most of those who knew them best. In j.a.pan itself opium-smoking is prohibited under the heaviest penalties, and elaborate precautions are taken to shut opium in any of its forms out of the country. Strict anti-opium laws were also enforced in Korea under the old administration. The j.a.panese, however, now permitted numbers of their people to travel through the interior of Korea selling morphia to the natives. In the northwest in particular this caused quite a wave of morphia-mania.

The j.a.panese had evidently set themselves to acquire possession of as much Korean land as possible. The military authorities staked out large portions of the finest sites in the country, the river-lands near Seoul, the lands around Pyeng-yang, great districts to the north, and fine strips all along the railway. Hundreds of thousands of acres were thus acquired. A nominal sum was paid as compensation to the Korean Government--a sum that did not amount to one-twentieth part of the real value of the land. The people who were turned out received, in many cases, nothing at all, and, in others, one-tenth to one-twentieth of the fair value. The land was seized by the military, nominally for purposes of war. Within a few months large parts of it were being resold to j.a.panese builders and shopkeepers, and j.a.panese settlements were growing up on them. This theft of land beggared thousands of formerly prosperous people.

The j.a.panese Minister pushed forward, in the early days of the war, a scheme of land appropriation that would have handed two-thirds of Korea over at a blow to a j.a.panese concessionaire, a Mr. Nagamori, had it gone through. Under this proposal all the waste lands of Korea, which included all unworked mineral lands, were to be given to Mr. Nagamori nominally for fifty years, but really on a perpetual lease, without any payment or compensation, and with freedom from taxation for some time. Mr. Nagamori was simply a cloak for the j.a.panese Government in this matter. The comprehensive nature of the request stirred even the foreign representatives in Seoul to action. For the moment the j.a.panese had to abandon the scheme. The same scheme under another name was carried out later when the j.a.panese obtained fuller control.

It may be asked why the Korean people did not make vigorous protests against the appropriation of their land. They did all they could, as can be seen by the "Five Rivers" case. One part of the j.a.panese policy was to force loans upon the Korean Government. On one occasion it was proposed that j.a.pan should lend Korea 2,000,000 yen. The residents in a prosperous district near Seoul, the "Five Rivers," informed the Emperor that if he wanted money, they would raise it and so save them the necessity of borrowing from foreigners. Soon afterwards these people were all served with notice to quit, as their land was wanted by the j.a.panese military authorities. The district contained, it was said, about 15,000 houses. The inhabitants protested and a large number of them went to Seoul, demanding to see the Minister for Home Affairs. They were met by a j.a.panese policeman, who was soon reenforced by about twenty others, who refused to allow them to pa.s.s. A free fight followed. Many of the Koreans were wounded, some of them severely, and finally, in spite of stubborn resistance, they were driven back. Later, a mixed force of j.a.panese police and soldiers went down to their district and drove them from their villages.

The j.a.panese brought over among their many advisers, one foreigner--an American, Mr. Stevens--who had for some time served in the j.a.panese Foreign Office. Mr. Stevens was nominally in the employment of the Korean Government, but really he was a more thoroughgoing servant of j.a.pan than many j.a.panese themselves. Two foreigners, whose positions seemed fairly established, were greatly in the way of the new rulers. One was Dr. Allen, the American Minister at Seoul. Dr. Allen had shown himself to be an independent and impartial representative of his country. He was friendly to the j.a.panese, but did not think it necessary to shut his eyes to the darker sides of their administration. This led to his downfall. He took opportunity, on one or two occasions, to tell his Government some unpalatable truths. The j.a.panese came to know it. They suggested indirectly that he was not _persona grata_ to them. He was summarily and somewhat discourteously recalled, his successor, Mr. E.V. Morgan, arriving at Seoul with authorization to replace him. The next victim was Mr. McLeavy Brown, the Chief Commissioner of Customs. Mr. Brown had done his utmost to work with the j.a.panese, but there were conflicts of authority between him and Mr. Megata. Negotiations were entered into with the British authorities, and Mr. Brown had to go. He was too loyal and self-sacrificing to dispute the ruling, and submitted in silence.