incapacity to rule another people. The two were at once arrested, and with
them various male members of their families. Kim was so ill that he could
not be immediately moved, so a guard was placed over his house. All were
brought to trial at Seoul in July. With Viscount Kim were Kim Ki-ju, his
grandson, and Kim Yu-mon. With Viscount Li was his relative Li Ken-tai. The
charge against them was, of violating the Peace Preservation Act. Ki-ju
aggravated his position by trying to defend himself. The Japanese press
reported that he was reported to "have assumed a very hostile attitude to
the bench enunciating this theory and that in defence of his cause." This
statement is the best condemnation of the trial. Where a prisoner is deemed
to add to his guilt by attempting to defend himself, justice has
disappeared.
Viscount Kim was sentenced to two years' penal servitude, and Viscount Li
to eighteen months, both sentences being stayed for three years. Kim Ki-ju,
Kim Yu-mon and Li Ken-tai were sentenced to hard labour for eighteen
months, twelve months and six months respectively. The sentence reflected
disgrace on the Government that instituted the prosecution and decreed the
punishment.
The white people of Seoul were horrified by the Japanese treatment of badly
wounded men who flocked to the Severance Hospital for aid. Some of these,
almost fatally wounded, were put to bed. The Japanese police came and
demanded that they should be delivered up to them. The doctors pointed out
that it probably would be fatal to move them. The police persisted, and
finally carried off three men. It was reported that one man they took off
in this fashion was flogged to death.
Reports were beginning to come in from other parts. There had been
demonstrations throughout the north, right up to Wiju, on the Manchurian
border. At Song-chon, it was reported, thirty had been killed, a number
wounded, and three hundred arrested Pyeng-yang had been the centre of a
particularly impressive movement, which had been sternly repressed. From
the east coast, away at Hameung, there came similar tidings. The Japanese
stated that things were quiet in the south until Wednesday, when there was
an outbreak at Kun-san, led by the pupils of a Christian school. The
Japanese at once seized on the participation of the Christians, the press
declaring that the American missionaries were at the bottom of it. A
deliberate attempt was made to stir up the Japanese population against the
Americans. Numbers of houses of American missionaries and leaders of
philanthropic work were searched. Several of them were called to the police
offices and examined; some were stopped in the streets and searched. Unable
to find any evidence against the missionaries, the Japanese turned on the
Korean Christians. Soon nearly every Korean Christian pastor in Seoul was
in jail; and news came from many parts of the burning of churches, the
arrest of leading Christians, and the flogging of their congregations. The
Japanese authorities, on pressure from the American consular officials,
issued statements that the missionaries had nothing to do with the
uprising, but in practice they acted as though the rising were essentially
a Christian movement.
In the country people were stopped by soldiers when walking along the
roads, and asked, "Are you Christians?" If they answered, "Yes," they were
beaten; if "No," they were allowed to go. The local gendarmes told the
people in many villages that Christianity was to be wiped out and all
Christians shot. "Christians are being arrested wholesale and beaten simply
because they are Christians," came the reports from many parts.
Soon dreadful stories came from the prisons, not only in Seoul, but in many
other parts. Men who had been released after investigation, as innocent,
told of the tortures inflicted on them in the police offices, and showed
their jellied and blackened flesh in proof. Some were even inconsiderate
enough to die a few days after release, and on examination their bodies and
heads were found horribly damaged. The treatment may be summed up in a
paragraph from a statement by the Rev. A.E. Armstrong, of the Board of
Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, who was on a visit
to Korea at the time:
"The tortures which the Koreans suffer at the hands of the police
and gendarmes are identical with those employed in the famous
conspiracy trials. I read affidavits, now on their way to the
United States and British Governments, which made one's blood
boil, so frightful were the means used in trying to extort
confessions from prisoners. And many of these had no part in the
demonstrations, but were simply onlookers."
Within a fortnight, the arrests numbered thousands in Seoul alone. Every
man, particularly every student, suspected of participation was jailed. But
it was evident that the authorities had not secured the leaders, or else
that the leaders had arranged a system by which there were men always ready
to step into the place of those who were taken. The official organ, the
_Seoul Press_, would come out with an announcement that the agitation had
now died down; two or three days later there would be another great
demonstration in the streets. The hundred thousand visitors who had come to
Seoul for the funeral returned home to start agitations in their own
districts. The authorities were particularly annoyed at their inability to
discover the editors and publishers of the secret paper of the protest, the
_Independence News_, which appeared in mimeographed form. To prevent its
publication the authorities took control of mimeograph paper, and seized
every mimeograph machine they could find. Time after time it was stated
that the editors of the paper had been secured; the announcement was barely
published before fresh editions would mysteriously appear in Seoul and in
the provinces.
Despite every effort to minimize it, news of the happenings gradually crept
out and were published abroad. Mr. I. Yamagata, the Director-General of
Administration, was called to Tokyo for a conference with the Government.
Much was hoped by many friends of Japan in America from this. It was
believed that the Liberal Premier of Japan, the Hon. T. Hara, would
promptly declare himself against the cruelties that had been employed.
Unfortunately these hopes were disappointed. While speaking reassuringly to
foreign enquirers, Mr. Hara and his Government officially determined on
still harsher measures.
Mr. Yamagata's own statement, issued on his return, announced that after
conference with the Premier, an audience with the Emperor and conferences
with the Cabinet "decision was reached in favour of taking drastic measures
by despatching more troops to the peninsula."
"In the first stage of the trouble, the Government-General was in
favour of mild measures (!), and it was hoped to quell the
agitation by peaceful methods," Mr. Yamagata continued. "It is to
be regretted, however, that the agitation has gradually spread to
all parts of the peninsula, while the nature of the disturbance
has become malignant, and it was to cope with this situation that
the Government was obliged to resort to force. In spite of this,
the trouble has not only continued, but has become so
uncontrollable and wide-spread that the police and military force
hitherto in use has been found insufficient, necessitating the
despatch of more troops and gendarmes from the mother country....
Should they (the agitators) continue the present trouble, it
would be necessary to show them the full power of the military
force. It is earnestly to be hoped that the trouble will be
settled peacefully, before the troops are obliged to use their
bayonets."
Count Hasegawa, the Governor-General, had already issued various
proclamations, telling the people of the Imperial benevolence of Japan,
warning them that the watchword "self-determination of races" was utterly
irrevelant to Japan, and warning them of the relentless punishment that
would fall on those who committed offences against the peace. Here is one
of the proclamations. It may be taken as typical of all:
"When the State funeral of the late Prince Yi was on the point of
being held, I issued an instruction that the people should help
one another to mourn his loss in a quiet and respectful manner
and avoid any rash act or disorder. Alas! I was deeply chagrined
to see that, instigated by certain refractory men, people started
a riot in Seoul and other places. Rumour was recently circulated
that at the recent Peace Conference in Paris and other places,
the independence of Chosen was recognized by foreign Powers, but
the rumour is absolutely groundless. It need hardly be stated
that the sovereignty of the Japanese Empire is irrevocably
established in the past, and will never be broken in the future.
During the ten years since annexation, the Imperial benevolence
has gradually reached all parts of the country, and it is now
recognized throughout the world that the country has made a
marked advancement in the securing of safety to life, and
property, and the development of education and industry. Those
who are trying to mislead the people by disseminating such a
rumour as cited know their own purpose, but it is certain that
the day of repentance will come to all who, discarding their
studies or vocations, take part in the mad movement. Immediate
awakening is urgently required.
"The mother country and Chosen, now merging in one body, makes a
State. Its population and strength were found adequate enough to
enter upon a League with the Powers and conduct to the promotion
of world peace and enlightenment, while at the same time the
Empire is going faithfully to discharge its duty as an Ally by
saving its neighbour from difficulty. This is the moment of time
when the bonds of unity between the Japanese and Koreans are to
be more firmly tightened and nothing will be left undone to
fulfill the mission of the Empire and to establish its prestige
on the globe. It is evident that the two peoples, which have ever
been in inseparably close relations from of old, have lately been
even more closely connected. The recent episodes are by no means
due to any antipathy between the two peoples. It will be most
unwise credulously to swallow the utterances of those refractory
people who, resident always abroad, are not well informed upon
the real conditions in the peninsula, but, nevertheless, are
attempting to mislead their brethren by spreading wild fictions
and thus disturbing the peace of the Empire, only to bring on
themselves the derision of the Powers for their indulgence in
unbridled imagination in seizing upon the watchword
'self-determination of races' which is utterly irrelevant to
Chosen, and in committing themselves to thoughtless act and
language. The Government are now doing their utmost to put an end
to such unruly behaviour and will relentlessly punish anybody
daring to commit offences against the peace. The present
excitement will soon cease to exist, but it is to be hoped that
the people on their part will do their share in restoring quiet
by rightly guarding their wards and neighbours so as to save them
from any offence committing a severe penalty."[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted from the _Seoul Press_.]
The new era of relentless severity began by the enactment of various fresh
laws. The regulations for Koreans going from or coming into their country
were made more rigid. The Regulations Concerning Visitors and Residents had
already been revised in mid-March. Under these, any person who, even as a
non-commercial act, allowed a foreigner to stay in his or her house for a
night or more must hereafter at once report the fact to the police or
gendarmes. A fresh ordinance against agitators was published in the
_Official Gazette_. It provided that anybody interfering or attempting to
interfere in the preservation of peace and order with a view to bringing
about political change would be punished by penal servitude or imprisonment
for a period not exceeding ten years. The ordinance would apply to offences
committed by subjects of the Empire committed outside its domains, and it
was specially emphasized in the explanations of the new law given out that
it would apply to foreigners as well as Japanese or Koreans.
The Government-General introduced a new principle, generally regarded by
jurists of all lands as unjust and indefensible. They made the law
retroactive. People who were found guilty of this offence, their acts being
committed before the new law came into force, were to be sentenced under
it, and not under the much milder old law. This was done.
The Koreans were quickly to learn what the new military regime meant. One
of the first examples was at Cheamni, a village some miles from Suigen, on
the Seoul-Fusan Railway. Various rumours reached Seoul that this place had
been destroyed, and a party of Americans, including Mr. Curtice of the
Consulate, Mr. Underwood, son of the famous missionary pioneer, and himself
a missionary and a correspondent of the Japan _Advertiser_, went to
investigate. After considerable enquiry they reached a place which had been
a village of forty houses. They found only four or five standing. All the
rest were smoking ruins.
"We passed along the path," wrote the correspondent of the Japan
_Advertiser_, "which ran along the front of the village lengthwise, and in
about the middle we came on a compound surrounded by burnt poplars, which
was filled with glowing ashes. It was here that we found a body frightfully
burned and twisted, either of a young man or a woman. This place we found
later was the Christian church, and on coming down from another direction
on our return I found a second body, evidently that of a man, also badly
burned, lying just outside the church compound. The odour of burned flesh
in the vicinity of the church was sickening.
"We proceeded to the end of the village and climbed the hill, where we
found several groups of people huddled under little straw shelters, with a
few of their pitiful belongings about them. They were mostly women, some
old, others young mothers with babes at breast, but all sunk in the dull
apathy of abject misery and despair.
"Talking to them in their own language and with sympathy, Mr. Underwood
soon won the confidence of several and got the story of what happened from
different groups, and in every case these stories tallied in the essential
facts. The day before we arrived, soldiers came to the village, some time
in the early afternoon, and ordered all the male Christians to gather in
the church. When they had so gathered, to a number estimated to be thirty
by our informers, the soldiers opened fire on them with rifles and then
proceeded into the church and finished them off with sword and bayonets.
After this they set fire to the church, but as the direction of the wind
and the central position of the church prevented the upper houses catching,
soldiers fired these houses individually, and after a time left.
"As we passed down the ruined village, returning to our rikishas, we came
on the last house of the village, which was standing intact, and entered in
conversation with the owner, a very old man. He attributed the safety of
his house to its being slightly removed, and to a vagary of the wind. He
was alive because he was not a Christian and had not been called into the
church. The details of his story of the occurrence tallied exactly with the
others, as to what had happened."
One example will serve to show what was going on now all over the country.
The following letter was written by a cultured American holding a
responsible position in Korea:
"Had the authorities handled this matter in a different way, this
letter would never have been written. We are not out here to mix
in politics, and so long as it remained a purely political
problem, we had no desire to say anything on one side or the
other. But the appeal of the Koreans has been met in such a way
that it has been taken out of the realm of mere politics and has
become a question of humanity. When it comes to weakness and
helplessness being pitted against inhumanity, there can be no
such thing as neutrality.
"I have seen personal friends of mine among the Koreans, educated
men, middle-aged men, who up to that time had no part in the
demonstrations, parts of whose bodies had been beaten to a pulp
under police orders.
"A few hundred yards from where I am writing, the beating goes
on, day after day. The victims are tied down on a frame and
beaten on the naked body with rods till they become unconscious.
Then cold water is poured on them until they revive, when the
process is repeated. It is sometimes repeated many times.
Reliable information comes to me that in some cases arms and legs
have been broken.
"Men, women and children are shot down or bayonetted. The
Christian church is specially chosen as an object of fury, and to
the Christians is meted out special severity....
"A few miles from here, a band of soldiers entered a village and
ordered the men to leave, the women to remain behind. But the men
were afraid to leave their women, and sent the women away first.
For this the men were beaten.
"A short distance from this village, this band is reported to
have met a Korean woman riding in a rickshaw. She was violated by
four of the soldiers and left unconscious. A Korean reported the
doings of this band of soldiers to the military commander of the
district in which it occurred and the commander ordered him to be
beaten for reporting it.
"Word comes to me to-day from another province of a woman who was
stripped and strung up by the thumbs for six hours in an effort
to get her to tell the whereabouts of her husband. She probably
did not know.
"The woes of Belgium under German domination have filled our ears
for the past four years, and rightly so. The Belgian Government
has recently announced that during the more than four years that
the Germans held the country, six thousand civilians were put to
death by the Germans. Here in this land it is probably safe to
say that two thousand men, women and children, empty handed and
helpless, have been put to death in seven weeks. You may draw
your own conclusions!
"As for the Koreans, they are a marvel to us all. Even those of
us who have known them for many years, and have believed them to
be capable of great things, were surprised. Their self-restraint,
their fortitude, their endurance and their heroism have seldom
been surpassed. As an American I have been accustomed to hear, as
a boy, of the 'spirit of 76,' but I have seen it out here, and it
was under a yellow skin. More than one foreigner is saying, these
days, 'I am proud of the Koreans.'"
There were exciting scenes in Sun-chon. This city is one of the great
centres of Christianity in Korea, and its people, hardy and independent
northerners, have for long been suspected by the Japanese. Large numbers of
leaders of the church and students at the missionary academy had been
arrested, confined for a very long period and ill-treated at the time of
the Conspiracy trial. They were all found to be innocent later, on the
retrial at the Appeal Court. This had not tended to promote harmonious
relations between the two peoples.
Various notices and appeals were circulated among the people. Many of them,
issued by the leaders, strongly urged the people to avoid insulting
behaviour, insulting language or violence towards the Japanese.
"Pray morning, noon and night, and fast on Sundays" was the notice to the
Christians. Other appeals ran:
"Think, dear Korean brothers!
"What place have we or our children? Where can we speak? What has
become of our land?
"Fellow countrymen, we are of one blood. Can we be indifferent?
At this time, how can you Japanese show such ill feeling and such
treachery? How can you injure us with guns and swords? How can
your violence be so deep?
"Koreans, if in the past for small things we have suffered
injuries, how much more shall we suffer to-day? Even though your
flesh be torn from you, little by little, you can stand it! Think
of the past. Think of the future! We stand together for those who
are dying for Korea.
"We have been held in bondage. If we do not become free at this
time, we shall never be able to gain freedom. Brethren, it can be
done! It is possible! Do not be discouraged! Give up your
business for the moment and shout for Korea. Injury to life and
property are of consequence, but right and liberty are far more
important. Until the news of the Peace Conference is received, do
not cease. We are not wood and stones, but flesh and blood. Can
we not speak out? Why go back and become discouraged? Do not fear
death! Even though I die, my children and grandchildren shall
enjoy the blessings of liberty. Mansei! Mansei! Mansei!"
Mr. D.V. Hudson, of the Southern Presbyterian University at Shanghai,
brought the records of many outrages back with him on his return to
America. From them I take the following:
"At Maingsang, South Pyeng-yang Province, the following incident
took place on March 3rd. When the uprising first broke out there
were no Japanese gendarmes in the village, but Koreans only. The
people there were mostly Chun-do Kyo followers, so no Christians
were involved in the trouble. These Chun-do Kyo people gathered
on the appointed day for the Korean Independence celebration, and
held the usual speeches and shouting of 'Mansei.' The Korean
gendarmes did not want to or dared not interfere, so that day was
spent by the people as they pleased.
"A few days later Japanese soldiers arrived to investigate and to
put down the uprising. They found the people meeting again,
ostensibly to honour one of their teachers. The soldiers
immediately interfered, seized the leader of the meeting and led
him away to the gendarme station. He was badly treated in the
affray and the people were badly incensed. So they followed the
soldiers to the station, hoping to effect the release of their
leader. The soldiers tried to drive them away. Some left but
others remained.
"The police station was surrounded by a stone wall, with but one
gate to the enclosure. The soldiers permitted those who insisted
on following to enter, and, when they had entered, closed the
door; then the soldiers deliberately set to work, shooting them
down in cold blood. Only three of the fifty-six escaped death."
Let me give one other statement by a newspaper man. I might go on with tale
after tale of brutality and fill another volume. Mr. William R. Giles is a
Far Eastern correspondent well known for the sanity of his views and his
careful statements of facts. He represents the Chicago _Daily News_ at
Peking. He visited Korea shortly after the uprising, specially to learn the
truth. He remained there many weeks. Here is his deliberate verdict:
"Pekin, June 14th.--After nearly three months of travelling in
Korea, in which time I journeyed from the north to the extreme
south, I find that the charges of misgovernment, torture and
useless slaughter by the Japanese to be substantially correct.
"In the country districts I heard stories of useless murder and
crimes against women. A number of the latter cases were brought
to my notice. One of the victims was a patient in a missionary
hospital.
"In a valley about fifty miles from Fusan, the Japanese soldiery
closed up a horseshoe-shaped valley surrounded by high hills, and
then shot down the villagers who attempted to escape by climbing
the steep slopes. I was informed that more than 100 persons were
killed in this affray.
"In Taku, a large city midway between Seoul and Fusan, hundreds
of cases of torture occurred, and many of the victims of
ill-treatment were in the hospitals. In Seoul, the capital,
strings of prisoners were seen daily being taken to jails which
were already crowded.