conspirators were not placed on trial. The prisoners urged that they should
be allowed to call them and others as witnesses, and they were eager to
come. The request was refused. Under Japanese law, the judges have an
absolute right to decide what witnesses shall, or shall not be called. The
prosecuting counsel denied the charge of torture, and declared that all of
the men had been physically examined and not one of them had even a sign of
having been subjected to such ill-treatment Thereupon prisoners rose up and
asked to be allowed to show the marks still on them. "I was bound up for
about a month and subjected to torture," said one. "I have still marks of
it upon my body." But when he asked permission to display the marks to the
Court, "the Court," according to the newspaper reports, "sternly refused to
allow this to be done."
The trial closed on August 30th, and judgment was delivered on September
21st. Six prisoners, including Yun Chi-ho and Yang Ki-tak, were sentenced
to ten years' penal servitude; eighteen to seven years' penal servitude;
forty to six years; forty-two to five years; and seventeen discharged.
The trial was widely reported, and there was a wave of indignation,
particularly in America. The case was brought before the Court of Appeal,
and Judge Suzuki, who heard the appeal, was given orders by the
Government-General that he was to act in conciliatory fashion. The whole
atmosphere of the Court of Appeal was different. There was no bullying, no
browbeating. The prisoners were listened to indulgently, and were allowed
considerable latitude in developing their defence. Let me add that both in
the first and in subsequent trials, prominent Japanese counsel appeared for
the prisoners, and defended them in a manner in accordance with the best
traditions of the law.
The prisoners were now permitted in the Appeal Court to relate in detail
how their "confessions" had been extracted from them by torture. Here are
some typical passages from the evidence.
Chi Sang-chu was a Presbyterian, and a clerk by calling. He denied that he
was guilty.
"All my confession was made under torture. I did not make these statements
of my own accord. The police said they must know what information they
wanted. They stripped me naked, tied my hands behind my back, and hung me
up in a doorway, removing the bench on which I stood. They swung me, making
me bump against a door, like a crane dancing. When I lost consciousness, I
was taken down and given water, and tortured again when I came to.
"A policeman covered my mouth with my hand, and poured water into my nose.
Again my thumbs were tied behind my back, one arm over and one under, and I
was hung up by the cord tying them. A lighted cigarette was pressed against
my body, and I was struck in my private parts. Thus I was tortured for
three or four days. One evening, just after the meal, I was hung up again,
and was told that I would be released if I confessed, but if not I would be
tortured till I died. They were determined to make me say whatever they
wanted. Leaving me hanging, the policemen went to sleep, and I fainted from
the torture of hanging there.
"When I came to, I found myself lying on the floor, the police giving me
water. They showed me a paper, which they said was the order of release for
Yi Keun-tak and O Hak-su, who had confessed. If I wanted to be set at
liberty I must do the same. Then they beat me again. I saw the paper and
managed with difficulty to read it. It was to the effect that they did
confess and promised never to do such things again.
"I was then introduced to Yi Keun-tak, who, they said, had confessed and
been acquitted, and they urged me to follow Yi's example. I urged them to
treat me as they had treated Yi. They told me what to confess, but as I had
never heard of such things I refused, and they said they had better kill
me.
"They resumed their tortures, and after two or three months, being unable
to bear it any longer, I confessed all that is required."
Paik Yong-sok, a milk seller and a Presbyterian, with eleven in his family,
said he had been a Christian for fifteen years and had determined only to
follow the teachings of the Bible; he had never thought of assassination or
considered establishing the independence of the country. Having to support
a family of eleven, he had no time for such things.
He had made the confession recited by the Court, but it was under
compulsion and false. "For a number of days I was tortured twice by day and
twice by night. I was blindfolded, hung up, beaten. Often I fainted, being
unable to breathe. I thought I was dying and asked the police to shoot me,
so intolerable were my tortures. Driven beyond the bounds of endurance by
hunger, thirst and pain, I said I would say whatever they wanted.
"The police told me that I was of no account among the twenty million
Koreans, and they could kill or acquit me as they pleased.... Meanwhile
five or six police dropped in and said, 'Have you repented? Did you take
part in the assassination plots?' It was too much for me to say 'Yes' to
this question, so I replied 'No.' Immediately they slapped my cheeks,
stripped me, struck, beat and tormented me. It is quite beyond my power to
describe the difficulty of enduring such pain."
The man paused and pointed to a Japanese, Watanabe by name, sitting behind
the judges, "That interpreter knows all about it," he said, "He was one of
the men who struck me." Watanabe was pointed out by other prisoners as a
man who had been prominent in tormenting them.
Im Do-myong, a barber and a Presbyterian, also fell into the hands of
experts at the game.
"At the police headquarters, I was hung up, beaten with an iron rod and
tortured twice a day. Then I was taken into the presence of superiors, the
interpreter (pointing out Watanabe, who was sitting: behind the judges)
being present, and tortured again.
"My thumbs were tied together at my back, the right arm being put back over
the shoulder and the left arm turned up from underneath. Then I was hung up
by the cord that bound my thumbs. The agony was unendurable. I fainted, was
taken down, was given torture, and when I came to was tortured again."
By the Court: "It would be impossible to hang you by your thumbs."
Prisoner: "My great toes scarcely touched the ground. Under such
circumstances I was told to say the same thing at the Public Procurator's
Office, and as I feared that I should be tortured there, too, I said 'Yes'
to all questions."
Some variety was introduced into the treatment of Cho Tok-chan, a
Presbyterian pastor, at Chong-ju.
"The police asked me how many men took part in the attempt at Sun-chon,
saying that as I was a pastor I must know all about it. They hung, beat and
struck me, saying that I had taken part in the plot and was a member of the
New People's Society. At last I fainted, and afterwards was unable to eat
for a number of days.
"A policeman in uniform, with one stripe, twisted my fingers with a wire,
so that they were badly swollen for a long time after. Then a man with two
white stripes tortured me, declaring that I had taken part in the Sun-chon
affair. I said that I was too busy with Christmas preparations to go
anywhere, on which the policeman severely twisted my fingers with an iron
rod."
Again came one of the dramatic pauses, while the prisoner pointed out a
Japanese official sitting behind the judges, Tanaka by name. "The man who
interpreted at that time is sitting behind you," he declared. "He knows it
very well."
They extracted his confession. But it was some time before he had been able
to sign it; his fingers were hurt too severely.
It was necessary, after the police examination, for prisoners to repeat
their stories or confirm them before the procurator. This might originally
have been intended as a protection for the prisoners. In Korea police and
procurators worked together. However, steps were taken to prevent any
retraction at that point.
"When I was taken to the Public Procurator's Office," continued the
Presbyterian pastor, "I did not know the nature of the place, and being put
in a separate room, I feared that it might be an even more dreadful place
than the police headquarters. Generally, when examined at the police
headquarters, my hands were free, but here I was brought up for
cross-examination with my hands and arms pinioned very firmly, so I thought
it must be a harder place. Moreover, an official pulled me very hard by the
cords which bound my hands, which gave me excruciating pain, seeing how
they had already been treated by the police."
The next prisoner, Yi Mong-yong, a Presbyterian money lender, also pointed
out the proud Tanaka. He had been describing how the police kicked and
struck him to make him say what they wanted. "One of them is behind you
now," said he to the judges, pointing to Tanaka.
Some of the prisoners broke down while giving their evidence. Unimas
described how he had been hung, beaten, stripped and tortured by the
police, and again tortured in the office of the Public Procurator. "Having
got so far," the reports continue, "the prisoner began to weep and make a
loud outcry, saying that he had a mother who was eighty years old at home.
With this pitiful scene, the hearing ended for the day."
Yi Tai-kyong was a teacher. The police reminded him that the murderer of
Prince Ito was a Christian; he was a Christian, therefore--
"They hung, beat and otherwise tormented me, until I was compelled to
acknowledge all the false fabrication about the plot. The following day I
was again taken into Mr. Yamana's room and again tortured with an iron rod
from the stove and other things, until I had acknowledged all the false
statements.
"When asked what was the party's signal, I remained silent, as I knew
nothing about it. But I was tortured again, and said, 'the church bell,'
that being the only thing I could think of at the time."
"I confessed to the whole prosecution story, but only as the result of
torture, to which I was submitted nine times, fainting on two occasions,
and being tortured again on revival," said Pak Chou-hyong. "I made my false
confession under a threat that I and my whole family would be killed. I
reiterated it at the Public Procurator's Office, where I was conducted by
two policemen, one of them a man with a gold tooth, who boxed my ears so
hard that I still feel the pain, and who told me not to vary my story.
"Fearing that my whole family would be tortured, I agreed. But when I
arrived before the Public Procurator, I forgot what I had been taught to
say, and wept, asking the officials to read what I had to confess. This
they did, and I said, 'Yes, yes.'"
Choi Che-kiu, a petty trader, repudiated his confession of having gone with
a party to Sun-chon.
"Had such a large party attempted to go to the station," he said, "they
must infallibly have been arrested on the first day. Were I guilty I would
be ready to die at once. The whole story was invented by officials, and I
was obliged to acquiesce in it by severe torture. One night I was taken to
Nanzan hill by two policemen, suspended from a pine tree and a sharp sword
put to my throat. Thinking I was going to be killed, I consented to say
'Yes' to any question put to me."
"No force can make you tell such a story as this, unless you consent
voluntarily," interposed the Court.
"You may well say that," replied the prisoner, grimly. "But with the blade
of a sword in my face and a lighted cigarette pressed against my body, I
preferred acquiescence in a story, which they told me that Kim Syong had
already confessed, to death."
The prisoner paused, and the Judge looked at him with his head on one side.
Suddenly the prisoner burst into a passion of weeping, with loud,
incoherent cries.
In the previous trial one of the prisoners, Kim Ik-kyo, was asked why he
admitted all the facts at his preliminary examination. "If the police were
to go down Chong-no (one of the busiest streets in Seoul)," he replied,
"and indiscriminately arrest a number of passers-by, and then examine them
by putting them to torture, I am sure they would soon confess to having
taken part in a plot."
The same thing was put in another way by a prisoner, Kim Eung-pong. He
related a long story of torture by binding, hanging, beating and burning,
continued for fifteen days, during which he was often threatened with
death. Then he was taken to the "supreme enquiry" office of the police
headquarters, where he was stripped naked and beaten with an iron bar from
the stove. This office, he understood, had control and power of life or
death over the whole peninsula, so he was compelled to confess all that
they wanted. "I even would have said that I killed my father, if they put
it to me," he added.
Hear the tale of An Sei-whan. As An was called up in the Appeal Court, a
wave of pity passed over the white men there, for An was a miserable
object, pale and emaciated. He was a consumptive and afflicted with other
ills. He had been in the Christian Hospital at Pyeng-yang most of the
winter, and had nearly died there. He had been walking a little for a few
days, when he was arrested at the hospital in April. He had been vomiting
blood.
"In this condition I was taken to the police headquarters and tortured. My
thumbs were hung together and I was hung up, with my toes barely touching
the ground. I was taken down nearly dead, and made to stand for hours under
a chest nearly as high as my chest. Next day, when I was put under the
shelf again my hair was fastened to the board, and my left leg doubled at
the knee and tied. Blood came up from my lung, but fearful of the police I
swallowed it. Now, I think it would have been better if I had vomited it.
Then they might have had pity on me; but I did not think so then.
"Again I was hung up by the thumbs, clear of the floor this time. At the
end of five minutes I was nearly dead. I asked if it would do to assent to
their questions, and they took me down and took me before some superiors.
When I said anything unsatisfactory I was beaten, and in this way learned
what was wanted. I had no wish to deny or admit anything, only to escape
further pain."
He asked that some of the missionaries who knew him might be called, to
show that he was too ill to take part in any conspiracy.
One old man, Yi Chang-sik, a Presbyterian for sixteen years, had refused
even under the torture to confess, and had tried to escape by suicide. "I
thought that I had better commit suicide than be killed by their cruel
tortures," he said. "They asked me if I had joined the conspiracy at the
suggestion of Mr. McCune. I would not consent to this, so they tortured me
harder. I was nearly naked, and so cold water was poured upon me. I was
also beaten. Sometimes I would be tortured till the early hours of the
morning.
"I longed for death to deliver me. Thanks to heaven, I found a knife one
night in my room. The warder was not very careful with me. I took it
secretly, intending to cut my throat--but my hand had become too weak. So I
stuck it erect in the floor, and tried to cut my throat that way. Alas! At
this moment the warder surprised me. When I had endured torture for over
forty days, I asked them to make me guilty or innocent as quickly as
possible. When I was taken to the Public Procurator's, I had pains in my
ears, body and limbs. I could not stand the torture and wanted to die."
"Having got so far," wrote a spectator, "the old man broke down and began
to weep, crying louder and louder. He said something as he wept, but the
interpreter could not make out what it was. The Court evidently pitied him
and told him to stand down. He withdrew, sobbing."
A Presbyterian student from Sun-chon, Cha Heui-syon, was arrested and kept
for four months in the gendarmes office, becoming very weak. Then he was
taken to the police headquarters.
"First I was hung up by my thumbs, then my hands and legs were tied, and I
was made to crouch under a shelf about as high as my chest, which was
intensely painful, as I could neither sit nor stand. Something was put in
my mouth. I vomited blood, yet I was beaten. I was stood up on a bench and
tied up so that when it was removed, I was left hanging. The interpreter
who has often been in this court (Watanabe) tortured me. My arms stiffened
so that I could not stretch them. As I hung I was beaten with bamboos three
or four feet long and with an iron rod, which on one occasion made the hand
of the official who was wielding it bleed."
At last he gave in. He was too weak to speak. They took him down and
massaged his arms, which were useless. He could only nod now to the
statements that they put to him. Later on they took him to the Public
Procurator. Here he attempted to deny his confession. "The Public
Procurator was very angry," he said. "He struck the table, getting up and
sitting down again. He jerked the cord by which my hands were tied, hurting
me very severely."
The case of Baron Yun Chi-ho excited special interest. The Baron being a
noble of high family, the police used more care in extracting his
confession. He was examined day after day for ten days, the same questions
being asked and denied day after day. One day when his nerves were in
shreds, they tortured another prisoner in front of his eyes, and the
examiner told him that if he would not confess, he was likely to share the
same fate. They told him that the others had confessed and been punished; a
hundred men had admitted the facts. He did not know then that the charge
against him was conspiracy to murder. He determined to make a false
confession, to escape torture. He was worn out with the ceaseless
questioning, and he was afraid.
The rehearing in the Court of Appeal lasted fifty-one days. In the last
days many of the prisoners were allowed to speak for themselves. They made
a very favourable impression. Judgment was delivered on March 20th. The
original judgment was quashed in every case, and the cases reconsidered.
Ninety-nine of the prisoners were found not guilty. Baron Yun Chi-ho, Yang
Ki-tak and four others were convicted. Five of them were sentenced to six
years' penal servitude, and one to five years. Two other appeals were made,
but the only result was to increase the sentence of the sixth man to six
years. Three of the men finally convicted had been members of the staff of
the _Dai Han Mai Il Shinpo_. The Japanese do not forget or forgive readily.
They had an old score to pay against the staff of that paper.
I have never yet met a man, English, American or Japanese, acquainted with
the case, or who followed the circumstances, who believed that there had
been any plot at all. The whole thing, from first to last, was entirely a
police-created charge. The Japanese authorities showed later that they
themselves did not believe it. On the coronation of the Japanese Emperor,
in February, 1915, the six prisoners were released as a sign of "Imperial
clemency." Baron Yun Chi-ho was appointed Secretary of the Y.M.C.A, at
Seoul on his release, and Count Terauchi (whom he was supposed to have
plotted to murder) thereupon gave a liberal subscription to the Y. funds.
There was one sequel to the case. The Secretary of the Korean Y.M.C.A., Mr.
Gillett, having satisfied himself of the innocence of Baron Yun and his
associates, while the trial was pending, sent a letter to prominent people
abroad, telling the facts. The letter, by the indiscretion of one man who
received it, was published in newspapers. The Japanese authorities, in
consequence, succeeded in driving Mr. Gillett out of Korea. Before driving
him out, they tried to get him to come over on their side. Mr. Komatsu,
Director of the Bureau for Foreign Affairs, asked him and Mr. Gerdine, the
President, to call on him. "The Government has met the demands of the
missionary body and released ninety-nine out of the hundred and five
prisoners who stood trial at the Appeal Court," said Mr. Komatsu. "It is to
be expected that the missionary body will in return do something to put the
Government in a strong and favourable light before the people of Japan."
Mr. Komatsu added that Judge Suzuki's action was in reality the action of
the Government-General, a quaint illustration of the independence of the
judiciary in Korea.
The Administration made a feeble attempt to deny the tortures. Its argument
was that since torture was forbidden by law, it could not take place. Let
we quote the official statement:
"A word should be added in reference to the absurd rumours spread abroad
concerning it (the conspiracy case) such as that the measures taken by the
authorities aimed at 'wiping out the Christian movement in Korea,' since
the majority of the accused were Christian converts, and that most of the
accused made 'false confessions against their will,' as they were subject
to 'unendurable ill-treatment or torture.' As if such imputations could be
sustained for one minute, when the modern regime ruling Japan is
considered!... As to torture, several provisions of the Korean criminal
code indirectly recognized it, but the law was revised and those provisions
were rescinded when the former Korean law courts were reformed, by
appointing to them Japanese judicial staffs, in August, 1908.... According
to the new criminal law (judges, procurators or police) officials are
liable, if they treat accused prisoners with violence or torture, to penal
servitude or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years. In
reply to the memorial presented to the Governor-General by certain
missionaries in Korea, in January, 1912, he said, 'I assure you that the
entire examination of the suspected persons or witnesses is being conducted
in strict compliance with the provisions of the law, and the slightest
divergence from the lawful process will under no circumstances be
permitted.' How then could any one imagine that it was possible for
officials under him to act under any other way than in accordance with the
provisions of the law."
Unfortunately for the noble indignation of the writer, the torture left its
marks, and many men are living as I write still bearing them. Others only
escaped from the hell of the Japanese prison in Seoul to die. They were so
broken that they never recovered.
XIV
THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT
The people of Korea never assented to the annexation of their country. The
Japanese control of means of communication prevented their protests from
being fully known by the outside world.
It was explained that the movement against the Japanese was due to the work
of Koreans living outside of the land and to foreign agitators. The
Japanese blamed the missionaries. They blamed foreign publicists. I
understand that I was and am esteemed a special malignant. They never
thought to blame themselves. As a matter of fact, missionaries and the rest
of us had nothing to do with it. The real origin of the movement was among
the people themselves, and it was fostered, not by outsiders, but by the
iron and unjust rule of Japan.
At the same time, the Koreans living in freedom were naturally concerned
over conditions at home. The large Korean communities in Manchuria and
Siberia, estimated to number in all two millions, the flourishing colony in
the United States and Hawaii, the Koreans in Mexico and China heard with
indignation of what was happening. Young students and political prisoners
released after torture, who escaped to America, fanned the flame to white
heat. The Koreans living outside Korea formed a National Association, with
headquarters in San Francisco, under the Presidency of Dr. David Lee, which
in 1919 claimed a million and a half adherents.
The steps taken by the Japanese to suppress and prevent discontent often
created and fostered it. This was specially illustrated in the schools. The
new educational system, with its constant inculcation of loyalty to the
Mikado, made even the little girls violently Nationalist. School children
were spied upon for incipient treason as though the lisping of childish
lips might overthrow the throne. The speeches of boys and girls in junior
schools, at their school exercises, were carefully noted, and the child who
said anything that might be construed by the Censor as "dangerous thought"
would be arrested, examined and punished.
The effect of this was what might have been expected. "They compel us to
learn Japanese," said one little miss, sagely. "That does not matter. We
are now able to understand what they say. They cannot understand what we
say. All the better for us when the hour comes." On Independence Day the
children, particularly in the Government schools, were found to be banded
together and organized against Japan. They had no fear in expressing their
views and sought martyrdom. Some of them won it.