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1919





༡༣༽ཝ ཞ


Copyright, 1919,
by
The Korean National Association


b bl-giten
This volume is dedicated
to the men and women of Korea
who have so heroically given their lives
that Freedom and Liberty may be
the inherent birth-right
of their posterity.
Iloran Yiat, Assoc.
346910





ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of Korea .......
.......... Frontispiece
The Dai Dong River /
........... Opposite page 18
An American Mine Screen
Soldiers Guarding Pagoda Park /
" 30
The Opening Demonstration ,
Japanese Atrocities .......
... " " 59


FOREWORD
In presenting this volume, it is not my purpose to create a
feeling of hostility against the Japanese people. I cannot be-
lieve that the kindly men and women of Japan approve the
unnamable cruelties taking place today in Korea. Where I
have used the term Japan or Japanese in connection with the
Korean situation, I refer not to the Japanese people—the
wives and daughters, husbands and sons of the Flowery
Kingdom—but to that spirit of Military Autocracy which knows
no conscience, no human regard nor tolerance, and crushes
all who oppose it beneath the insatiable wrath of its iron heel.
It is that spirit which, while serving as a soldier in the
United States Army, I took an oath to crush and to which
end the remainder of my life is dedicated.
You who read this volume may feel that the people of
Korea and the Orient have no common tie with the people of
America and Europe, and that therefore we should not con-
cern ourselves with their affairs. It is true that they are of a
different nationality and a different race. But today, above
all nationalities and all races, is a common tie-Justice and
Humanity. And it is in the name of Justice and Humanity
that I present this volume for your consideration, as a plea
for the right of twenty million human beings to enjoy their
personal freedom and liberty.
C. W. KENDALL.
Oakland, California, June 17, 1919.


The world can be at peace only if its life is stable, and
there can be no stability where the will is in rebellion, where
there is not tranquility of spirit and a sense of justice, of
freedom, and of right.-Woodrow Wilson.


GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT
KOREA
Korea is a “buffer” state. In the Orient she occupies a
position analogous to Belgium in Europe. She is one of the
oldest countries in existence. The exact date of her birth as a
nation is unknown, probably about 2,000 B. C. Like Belgium,
she is a country with a separate and distinct language, liter-
ature and customs.
In her early history, she was instrumental in spreading the
Chinese culture from China to Japan. Amongst her most
notable achievements was the early use of movable set type
and the invention of the first iron-clad war vessel.
The country is somewhat the shape of Italy. It is a rich
peninsula, extending out from the mainland of Asia, bounded
on three sides by the sea and on the north by Manchuria
and the Russian Maritime Province. Its 1,700-mile sea coast
is rugged and dotted with many mountainous islands and good
harbors. The largest port is Fusan, one hundred and sixty-
three miles by water from Nagasaki, Japan, and a thriving
commercial city with over a hundred thousand population.
Korea is about twice the size of New York State.
In climate and density of population it is closely akin to
the eastern United States. The principal industries are min-
ing, agriculture and the catching of sea foods! Much of the
mining is in the hands of foreigners. Formerly large con-
cessions were granted to Americans, but of late years, as
the leases expire, they have gradually been taken over by
Japanese. The country is rich in undeveloped natural re-
sources.
Rich, fertile river valleys, together with an abundance
of salt-water fish, make Korea amply able to support its
population of twenty million people. The number of foreign-
ers in the country is constantly on the increase. At the
present time there are over three hundred and fifty thousand
Japanese. The other nationalities represented are, according


10
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
to the census of 1914: 16,882 Chinese, 687 Americans, 230
English, 97 French, 53 Germans and 14 Russians. Prac-
tically all the Americans in the country are either mission-
aries or engaged in mining.
The capital city is Seoul, with a population of close to
three hundred thousand people. For centuries Korea was a
free nation and ruled itself. But in the last few decades, as
the Orient awakened from its slumbering lethargy, the little
nation became the pawn in the struggle for Asiatic su-
premacy.
Like Belgium, Korea is situated between three great
powers, each one ambitious to be the greatest-the Mistress of
the Orient-so that in recent years the country and its people
have been subject to a long succession of invasions. China,
Russia and Japan have each had their turn at claiming a
suzerainty over the country. But the latter, Japan, becoming
more powerful in the Orient than the other two, could not
resist the temptation to prey upon the little, helpless nation
at her mercy, in order to be forever sure of the balance of
power.


THE SEIZURE OF KOREA.
13
talk of traitors. Han Kew Sul was allowed to leave the
room and then was gripped by the Japanese Secretary of the
Legation, thrown into a sideroom, and threatened with death.
Even Marquis Ito went out to him to persuade him. 'Would
you not yield,' the Marquis said, 'if your Emperor com-
manded you?' 'No,' said Han Kew Sul, 'not even then!'
“This was enough. The Marquis at once went to the Em-
peror. 'Han Kew Sul is a traitor,' he said. "He defies you,
and declares that he will not obey your commands.
"Meanwhile the remaining Cabinet Ministers waited in
the Cabinet chamber. Where was their leader, the man who
had urged them all to resist to the death? Minute after min-
ute passed, and still he did not return. Then a whisper went
around that the Japanese had killed him. The harsh voices of
the Japanese grew still more strident. Courtesy and restraint
were thrown off. 'Agree with us and be rich; or oppose us
and perish.'.
"In the early hours of the morning commands were issued
that the seal of State should be brought from the Foreign
Minister's apartment, and a treaty should be signed. Here
another difficulty arose. The custodian of the seal had re-
ceived orders in advance that, even if his master commanded,
the seal was not to be surrendered for any such purpose.
When telephonic orders were sent to him he refused to bring
the seal along, and special messengers had to be dispatched to
take it from him by force.”
In this way Japan negotiated the treaty with Korea. Be-
fore the Emperor's note reached the President of the United
States, she announced to the world that Korea had "volun-
tarily” become a protectorate of the Japanese Government
and that all future diplomatic business would be conducted
through the Japanese Embassy.
Five years later, in 1910, she concluded another treaty with
the new Emperor of Korea, who was known to be mentally
incapacitated from birth, and induced him to sign the country
over completely. It then became a part of the Japanese na-
tion-comprising about one-third of the whole empire.


14
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
Whether or not a single feeble-minded individual possessed
the right to sign over a nation and the lives and future lives
of twenty million people is for the reader to decide. At any
rate, from that time on Korea came under the autocratic ad-
ministration of the Japanese Empire.
!!!!!!!!!!!!
:I


16
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
over the eyes of the Occident in regard to actual conditions
under her autocratic rule.
Administration and “Reforms”
In the administration of Korea, Japan has done some
things, in a material way, for the good of the country, such
as constructing public buildings, introducing improvements in
agriculture and extending the means of communication. But,
as with Germany's administration of Belgium, over and above
these material accomplishments she has introduced all the
Wheinousness of Militarism.
As soon as Korea was annexed Japan began Japanizing
the country. She put the government under military juris-
diction and appointed a Military Governor-General, who was
given virtually all the powers of a Czar. Then, through him,
she began to instigate a series of so-called “reforms".
One of the first of these "reforms" was to go through all
the public archives and private libraries and systematically
collect and burn Korean works of literature and history.
Then she passed laws which completely stamped out all
Korean periodical literature—from local newspapers to scien-
tific journals. The only non-Japanese publications in Korea
today are certain newspapers, published secretly and dis-
tributed from hand to hand like the famous Belgian news-
papers. The type and hand presses are carried from place to
place and the lives of the editors are as thrilling as the
Japanese police can make them.
In addition to destroying the literature of Korea, priceless
art treasures and historical objects have been lost to the
world through needless vandalism.
Another of these "reforms” was an attempt to destroy
the Korean language by making Japanese the official tongue,
not only in public documents, but also in the schools. All text-
books were printed in Japanese under official Japanese super-
vision. The teachers were and are Japanese or Japanese-
speaking Koreans.
Not only have the Japanese forbidden the Koreans to be


JAPANESE AUTOCRATIC RULE.
instructed in their own language, but they have instigated a
series of educational regulations—under the pretext of uni-
fying the educational system and bringing it up to a higher
standard—which limit the amount of education a Korean can
pursue. Religious services and the teaching of geography
are forbidden in all the schools. Japanese history alone is
permitted. All Korean and Western world histories are
forbidden.
Korean scholars are not permitted to leave the country
and go abroad for study, save to Japan. Here the students,
under government supervision, are not allowed to specialize
in such subjects as law, history or economics in the Imperial
University of Tokyo. They are strongly advised to attend
commercial or trade schools and are insidiously discriminated
against in the higher institutions.
Under the guise of “educational reforms”, a systematic
attempt has been made to keep the Korean students in
ignorance of the advantages of democracy and to hold them
down mentally under the heel of Japanese Military Autocracy,
so that the coming generation would be ignorant of the funda-
mentals of a just government and robbed of any possible
leaders.
Economic Oppression
The oppression of Korea has not been confined to lan-
guage and education alone. An economic oppression was in-
augurated which has already brought ruin to thousands of
Korean merchants and landholders. Although, statistically,
the total wealth of the country has increased since Japanese
occupation, the figures are due to the decrease in the buying
value of money. Today the economic status of the Koreans
is worse than it was under the old administration. Since
the seizure of the country, over one million five hundred thou-
sand Koreans have emigrated to China and Siberia, primarily
because they could not stand the economic pressure brought
to bear upon them by their conquerors.
1


THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
Under the old Korean Government before annexation,
the land was divided into four classes :
1. Private lands, owned by private individuals.
2. Royal lands, belonging to the king, but leased in
perpetuity to private individuals, with the right of selling to
another individual without changing the ownership and the
privilege of inheritance.
3. Municipal lands, the titles of which belonged to the
various municipalities, but the practical ownership of which
was in the hands of private individuals.
4. Lands belonging to Buddhist Temples.
Owners of private lands paid taxes to the government;
holders of royal lands paid tribute to the royal household;
the owners of municipal lands paid fees to the respective
municipalities which held the title of the lands, and the lands
belonging to Buddhist Temples were free from taxation. These
temple lands were held in communistic plan amongst the
Buddhists.
One of the first deeds of the Japanese was to survey the
country and confiscate all lands belonging to the royal house-
hold, to the municipalities and to the Buddhist Temples. They
explained this act on the technical ground that since these
lands did not belong to private individuals, they must be
the property of the government. The Korean owners were
dispossessed and driven out without remuneration and the
land was leased or sold to Japanese farmers. In some cases
where Koreans protested against the seizure, they were fast-
ened to crude wooden crosses and shot.
Under the direction of the Japanese Government, the Ori-
ental Colonization Company was organized to promote Japa-
nese colonization of Korea and thus further Japanize the
country. To induce emigrants to invade the peninsula, this
company offered every Japanese settler free transportation
to Korea and provided him with a home and a piece of land,
to be paid for in three or four years. The plan in theory is
identical with Bismarck's idea for Prussianizing Poland.
Another method by which the Japanese gained possession



(UPPER)
THE DAI DONG RIVER NEAR PYENG YANG, WITH BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN
THE FOREGROUND.
(LOWER) A LARGE AMERICAN MINE IN SOUTHERN KOREA.


JAPANESE AUTOCRATIC RULE.
of land was to force the Korean owners to sell at a ridicu-
lously low figure. Rice is the chief agricultural product in
Korea and the water, irrigating the rice fields, runs from one
field to another in succession. The agents for the Oriental
Colonization Company buy the rice patch through which the
water runs to the desired piece of land. Then Japanese agents
or "farmers” cut off the water supply, and the Korean owner,
after vain protests, is finally forced to sell his now worthless
land to the Oriental Colonization Company at their own figure
or remain on it and starve.
| Already one-third of the best land in Korea is in the
hands of the Japanese. I
Religious Oppression
In regard to religious matters: From the very first they
have played a most important part. In 1912—two years after
the annexation-Count Terauchi, the Governor-General, in-
stituted what is known as the “persecution of the Korean
Church”.
Prominent churchmen, leaders in Korean thought
and education, were charged with conspiracy and put
in prison. American missionaries were dragged into
the trial, accused of being connected with a plot to
assassinate the Governor-General. The case attracted
world-wide attention and protest. The Japanese pre-
pared ready-made confessions and after secret tortures,
the prisoners signed these confessions. In open court,
however, under the protection of foreign opinion, the
prisoners denied their confessions and upon investiga-
tion the confessions were found to be absolutely false.
The case was known as the famous “Conspiracy Trial"
and was the first time the civilized world penetrated
beneath the veil of Japanese censorship and propaganda,
and saw with horrified eyes the true conditions in Korea.
The absurdity of some of the charges against Korean
Christians is well illustrated by the case of Pastor Kil
of Ping Yang. He was charged with treason for


20
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
preaching against the evil of cigarette-smoking amongst
boys. The analysis of the charge is a masterpiece for
Jevons' Logic. It is as follows:
Pastor Kil preached against the use of cigarettes.
Cigarette manufacture is a government monopoly.
To speak against their use is to injure a government
institution.
To injure a government institution is to work against
the government.
To work against the government is treason.
Therefore Pastor Kil is guilty of treason.
This is but an example of the working of the Jap-
anese courts in Korea.
Religious gatherings of more than five persons are
required to obtain a permit from the government, and
Christians are compelled to secure a special certificate
permitting them to practice their religion. Such hymns.
as "Onward, Christian Soldiers,” are not permitted to be
sung on the presumption that they stimulate nationalism
amongst the Koreans. Spies and detectives attend every
large church gathering as well as the ordinary Sunday
services.
At the present time, the foreign missionary force
in Korea numbers about three hundred, with the Ameri-
can Presbyterian, Methodist and Catholic churches es- ,
pecially influential. The missionaries are practical, hard-
working men and women and include all creeds-boti
Catholic and Protestant. They have opened hospitals
and schools as well as churches and missions.
The Double Standard
The social, intellectual, moral and economic life of
Korea is divided into two classes: one for Japanese
and one for Koreans.
- From the first, political favoritism and discrimination
were installed. Socially, the Korean is the butt of
Japanese scorn and ridicule and is lorded over and
I


JAPANESE AUTOCRATIC RULE.
23
at a time. This works a severe hardship on the Korean
merchant and gives the Japanese competitor a decided
advantage in all cash transactions.
Another example of the Double Standard is the scale
of wages paid laborers and skilled workmen. A Japanese
common laborer receives over half again as much as a
Korean laborer. The other wages are as follows:
1.54
.......,
Japanese.
Stone 'Mason ...... 1.96 yen per day
Plasterer
Carpenter
1.44 " " "
Bricklayer ......
... 1.40 "
1 "
Blacksmith
1.20 " "
Compositor ....... .80 " " "
Brewer (incl. board). 16.00 “ “ mo.
Koreans.
1.02 yen per day
96
100 " " "
1.00 "
.60 " " "
45 " " "
7.00 " " mo.
The full extent to which the Double Standard has
been practised will probably never be known. As far as
possible, Japan has endeavored to keep it hidden from
the eyes of the world. Like Germany repressed the
truth about her rule, in Belgium, Japanese Autocracy
has issued misleading statements and repeated denials.
The unutterable things they have done; the trickery and
cunning, the secret discrimination, the mockery and
double-dealing-all these have been carefully concealed
from the world and especially from the justice-loving
Americans and Europeans.
Probably no one can ever realize the untold suffering
and heartaches caused by the nine years of Japanese
rule and oppression. The misery and degradation, the
sorrow and death, inflicted by Japanese Military Autoc-
racy in Korea is too terrible and shameful a thing to
dwell upon. The true awfulness of it will never be
known-like the horrors in Armenia, Serbia and the
conquered districts of Belgium and France. !


THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT
· The Independence Movement in Korea is not a
new thing. It began fourteen years ago, just after
Japan had forced the Korean Cabinet to grant her a
suzerainty and had stepped in to rule the people à contre
coeur.
Many of the Korean leaders, seeing the futility of
doing anything at that time to free their people from
the powerful Military Autocracy whose yoke was already
upon their necks, fled to foreign countries. Others who
had tried, in the last desperate moments, to save their
country and had failed were forced to seek safety in
America and China. Gradually these refugees and
patriots came together and organized associations, each
member of which dedicated the remainder of his life
to free the people at home from the hand of Japanese
oppression. These associations were, for the most part,
composed of Korean scholars and graduates from Amer-
ican universities and preparatory schools. They were
not, as charged by the Japanese Government, composed
of rabid radicals, disgruntled politicians, or Bolsheviki.
At the same time, societies with a similar purpose
were organized in Korea in spite of the rigid Japanese
spy system. The largest of these, the Chun Do Kyo,
or "Heaven Worshipers," was encouraged by the Jap-
anese authorities themselves. It was organized as a
religious cult-supposedly opposed to Christianity--
whose teachings were a combination of Buddhism, Tail-
ism, ancestral worship and Korean superstition. In
reality, it was a great political club whose members
numbered over three million patriotic Koreans.
Quietly and with careful deliberation they prepared
for the day when they could strike.
Then along came the European War and President
Wilson's famous statement in his address to the Senate


THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT.
25
in 1917 that “... henceforth inviolable security of
life, of worship, and of industrial and social develop-
ment should be guaranteed to all peoples who have
lived hitherto under the power of governments devoted
to a faith and purpose hostile to their own ..."
The time to strike had come. When the Peace Con-
ference, with its ideals of “self-determination," met in
Paris, it gave to the oppressed Koreans the longed-for
chance to place their problem before the world. So, at
the opening of 1919, these exiled patriots went secretly
to Korea and, in conjunction with the secret societies
there, organized committees to begin the movement for
re-establishing their independence.
Their work was quiet and effective. Their plan was
to begin a “Passive Revolution". No one, not even the
Japanese, was to be harmed. No property was to be
destroyed or injured. No radicalism, no I. W. W.-ism,
no Bolshevism was to be tolerated or associated in any
way with the movement. But a persistent passive agita-
tion was to be instituted and continued until success
attended their object-freedom from Japanese Military
Autocracy.
The Preparations
In the latter part of January, an event occurred
which brought things to a head. The old ex-Emperor Yi
passed away in his palace at Seoul. The circumstances
of his death were very peculiar, which led to a report
getting out among the people that he had committed
suicide in order to prevent the consummation of the
marriage of his son, Prince Kon, to the Japanese Prin-
cess Nashinoto. This wedding had been fixed for about
January 29th-one week after the death of the ex-
Emperor.
The Prince had formerly been engaged to a Korean
girl, but this engagement was forcibly broken off when
the Prince was taken to Japan some years ago. The


THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT.
changed the date to Saturday, March 1st--the day for the
rehearsal of the funeral.
The rehearsal for a Korean funeral is almost as mag-
nificent as the event itself; so the sudden influx of Koreans
into Seoul at the rate of five thousand a day to witness
the rehearsal was nothing extraordinary. In the meantime,
the most prominent representatives of all classes, religions
and sects had drawn up a Declaration of Independence and
signed it. Copies of this, as well as instructions as to what
was expected of the people, were sent to the local leaders
all over Korea through the aid of loyal little schoolgirls
who hid them in their capacious sleeves and trudged from
town to town, bringing the messages of freedom.
It was arranged for passive demonstrations to break out
simultaneously in all the large cities and towns in the pen-
insula; also in Tokio, Shanghai and various other cities in
Japan, China, Manchuria, Russia, the United States and
other countries.
In Seoul itself the people were to divide into groups of
three thousand each-each group under a leader-and to
march to different consulates and government offices, singing
Korean national airs and shouting “Mansai,” which is the
Korean for “Hurrah.” They were not to resist the Japanese
Police. If they were beaten, imprisoned or even killed they
were to take their punishment without complaint, and to do
nothing which would bring reproach upon the name of
Korea or their movement.
The Opening Demonstration
The night before the demonstration was to begin, twenty-
nine of the thirty-three signers of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence gathered in Seoul. After a meeting in which
final arrangements were checked up and the proclamation
read aloud for the first time, they all adjourned to a promi-
nent restaurant for a last dinner together. It was one of the
most singular banquets ever held in the history of any



(UPPER) JAPANESE SOLDIERS GUARDING PAGODA PARK TO PREVENT FURTHIA
DEMONSTRATIONS.
sor
(LOWER) SCENE IN SEOUL ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE PASSIVE DEMONSTRATION.





THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT.
. 31
diately the police called out the military, who, without hesi-
tation, charged the demonstrators with fixed bayonets, ter-
ribly wounding many—women and old people being among
the victims.
Women and children were knocked down with the butts of
rifles. Innocent spectators were beaten and kicked by Japan-
ese civilians and firemen, as well as by policemen and gen-
darmes. Throughout the smaller cities, where there were no
foreigners, the conditions were much worse. In some in-
stances, it is reported, the gendarmes fired upon the mobs
until their ammunition was exhausted.
The Japanese Government promptly began a denial and
suppression of the facts, issuing to the outside world only
what it wished the outside world to know and scrupulously
avoiding any mention of slaughter and massacres. The
trouble was minimized in the official reports into a few
local disturbances, said to have been egged on by misled
leaders.
An attempt was made to force prominent Koreans to sign
a statement, to be forwarded to the Peace Conference in
Paris, stating that the Declaration of Independence and the
movement in general was promulgated by a low class of
people and did not represent the sentiment of Korea.
Japanese officials in America issued statements denying the
atrocities. Some foreigners, who had received favoritism at
the hands of the military autocracy and were pro-Japanese,
bitterly denounced the movement. But beneath the veil of
censorship and denial the passive demonstration continued
and the Japanese police and gendarmes committed acts which
were as far against the laws of humanity and civilization as
the Turkish deeds in Armenia.
Atrocities and Massacres
At the town of Cheam-ni, forty-five miles from Seoul,
the Japanese soldiers arrived and ordered all the male
Christians to gather at the church. When they had as-


THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT.
33
and his body thrust through and dragged off in triumph,
comes in a report from an American missionary in Pyeng
Yang Americans have been arrested and thrown in jail.
An American Presbyterian missionary, Rev. Eli Mowry of
Mansfield, Ohio, has been sentenced to six months in prison
for sheltering five Koreans for two days.
Christians—both men and women-have been taken to
Japanese churches, stripped of their clothing and tied to
crosses and beaten twenty-nine times upon their naked
bodies, according to information in the hands of Dr. David
Lee of San Francisco. Christian churches have been looted
and Bibles destroyed. Little girls have been dragged from
their homes by their hair and tied to telegraph poles by the
same means and publicly flogged. Women have been vio-
lated and beaten with inhuman viciousness. It has been
Belgium over again, save that difference in religion, as well
as nationality, has been seized upon as an excuse for
bestiality.
In the first three months over fifty thousand Koreans have
been killed or wounded. The horror and brutality of some
of the deeds committed are beyond belief. In the name of
crushing the Independence Movement, the military author-
ities have transgressed the laws of all civilization and proved
beyond the shadow of a doubt that Japanese Military Autoc-
racy is no longer fit to be respected by any civilized people.
That the Japanese people should allow such a stain upon their
nation is incredible.


THE NEW REPUBLIC
Before the outbreak of the Independence Movement in
Korea, proper, the Korean students in Tokio, Japan, number-
ing about eight hundred, drew up a petition to present to the
Japanese Emperor and Diet, as well as to the foreign Am-
bassadors and Ministers in Japan, asking for the freedom
and independence of Korea. When they attempted to hand
in the petition they came into conflict with the Japanese
police and an open fight ensued. Over sixty students were
arrested and some given prison terms.
In the United States demonstrations were held by the
Koreans in New York, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu,
Akron, Ohio; Pueblo, Colorado; Yakima, Washington; Su-
perior, Wyoming, and in San Francisco, Sacramento, Stock-
ton, Riverside and Los Angeles, California.
In Philadelphia—the Cradle of American Liberty—a con-
gress of Koreans and sympathetic Americans convened.
Just before it broke up, the delegates adjourned to the
Declaration Room in Independence Hall. Here, after read-
ing the Korean Proclamation of Independence, they ap-
proached the old, cracked Liberty Bell. Amid profound
silence they placed their hands upon it, and, closing their
eyes, prayed for the freedom of Korea and the success of
the new movement. Those who saw them say it was the
most impressive ceremony the City of Philadelphia has ever
witnessed.
Meanwhile, other demonstrations were held in Mexico,
Manila, Shanghai, Pekin, Siberia and Manchuria. In many
of these places proclamations were issued, declaring the inde-
pendence of Korea, and given into the hands of the foreign
embassies. A National Council was called at Nikolskoe. on
the Ussuri River in Siberia, and a provisional government
established, with a temporary capitol in Manchuria.
A cabinet of eight members was formed and a committee
consisting of eighteen members was put in charge of the


STATEMENTS
AND PRESS REPORTS


THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
their condemnation of the system which has ruled Korea
since 1910. This system was learned from the Germans.
While it may have been crushed in Belgium and Europe, it
still exists in Korea and Asia.
"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.
"In Tokio, on March 21, by arrangement of Galen M.
Fisher, National Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. for Japan, I
met a few Japanese and foreigners and discust the Korean
situation. One of the Japanese (a member of the Parlia-
ment, who will be in America in May), told me that the
more the world knows about Japanese misrule in Korea, the
better it will be for Japan, for thus the sooner will the
nation get rid of the militarism which now dominates the
empire.”
A. E. ARMSTRONG, of Toronto, Canada, .
(Assistant Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of
the Presbyterian Church of Canada.)
TO REDUCE KOREANS TO SERFDOM
"It was my opinion when I was in Korea and is my opin-
ion still, that it is Japan's intention that all the Koreans
shall be practically serfs, pursuing only the trades of farm-
ers and artisans, leaving to the Japanese immigrants the
administration of government, the mercantile and banking
trades, and other more profitable callings. In other words,
Korea is being exploited altogether, for the benefit of the
Japanese, with little thought of any obligation to the natives.
"The attitude of the Japanese Government toward Ameril.
can missions, as shown by the unsuccessful attempt to dis-


STATEMENTS AND PRESS REPORTS.
41
credit them in the course of the conspiracy in 1912 and the
limitations put upon the mission schools since, is caused by
a desire to eliminate anything which may interfere with the
complete Japanization of Korea and the confining of the
natives to the status of contented farmers and artisans.”
PROFESSOR T. A. CRANE
(Pittsburg University.)
STATEMENT OF THE JAPANESE CONSTITU-
TIONAL PARTY
Representative Konosuke Moriya, who was dispatched by
the Constitutional or opposition party, to Korea to investi-
gate the disturbances, has reported the insurrection to be
due to the following causes :
Discriminatory treatment given to the Korean subjects,
who are refused equal treatment with Japanese in matters
relating to appointments in government offices and stipends
allowed.
Complicated and impracticable administrative measures,
particularly strict measures for the tax collection, which are
against the old customs and manners of Korea.
Extreme oppression on public speeches. Koreans have no
organs to give utterance to their complaints which do not
reach the ears of the Governor-General.
Forcible adoption of the assimiliation system. It is a great
error and failure of colonial policy to attempt to enforce
upon the Koreans, with a 2,000-year history, the same spirit-
ual and mental training as on the Japanese people.
Spread of the principle of the self-determination of na-
tions, which he describes as the rising tide of the thoughts
of the world's nations and which has deeply implanted itself
in the minds of the Korean people.
(Associated Press Correspondence from Tokio, May 2nd,
1919.)


STATEMENTS AND PRESS REPORTS.
43
would certainly heed this cry of distress from an oppressed
people. But the Japanese are doing all they can to keep the
world from knowing the truth. A report has just come that
in one city, from which letters have been sent, they are mak-
ing it very hard for the missionaries, even hinting at de-
portation, unless they stop telling the truth.
“The following are some of the things that I have actu-
ally seen with my own eyes:
“Small school boys knocked down and cruelly beaten by
Japanese soldiers. This was not a question of arresting
them, but savage, unjustifiable barbarism.
"Soldiers stop and deliberately fire into a crowd com-
posed only of girls and women, who were simply shouting
‘Mansai.'
“A small boy of 1 year shot through the back.
“An unresisting old man of 65 years pounded, kicked
and beaten by several Japanese soldiers until he could not
walk.
"A crowd of about twenty school girls, who were quietly
walking along the public road, not even shouting, chased
by soldiers, beaten with guns, knocked down and so
shamefully treated that it made one's blood boil.
"Japanese firemen chasing boys and girls with long iron
hooks, trying to catch them with them.
“A Korean in a hospital, paralyzed, with his head
crushed in with one of these hooks.
"A man dying, shot through the back.
“One hundred men with torn and bloody clothes, tied
together with ropes, taken to jail.
"An American missionary roughly arrested while stand-
ing in his own yard and looking on, but doing nothing else.
“Women knocked down with guns and kicked into the
ditch.
"These and many other things I have seen with my own
eyes; other foreigners have seen the same and worse. One
can little imagine the reign of terror in all parts of this land.
. . . And the punishments and tortures at the police sta-


THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
tions and jails make a still more awful story. I have seen
men who were beaten on wooden crosses by the Japanese."
EDWARD W. THWING, of Boston, Mass.
(Oriental Secretary of the International Reform Bureau.)
THE MASSACRE AT CHEAM-NI
Details of the massacre at Cheam-ni were obtained by the
Associated Press correspondent who visited that place in
company with Raymond S. Curtice, the American Vice-Con-
sul at Seoul, and Mr. Underwood, an American missionary.
Subsequently, the correspondent again visited the place with
Mr. Royds, the British Consul, and several missionaries, in-
cluding the Rev. Herron Smith, who is in charge of the
work of the Methodist church in Korea. Describing his
visit to Cheam-ni, the Seoul correspondent writes that when
they asked residents of nearby villages why that hamlet had
been burned, they were told that it was because there was a
Christian church and many native Christians in the village.
"When we got to the place, which had been a village of
about forty houses, we found only four or five standing, all
the rest were smoking ruins," he continued. "We found a
body, frightfully burned and twisted, lying in a compound,
and another, either of a young man or woman, just outside
the church compound. Several groups of people were
huddled under little straw shelters on the hillside with a
few of their pitiful belongings about them. They were
mostly women, some old, others young mothers with babies,
but all sunk in the dull apathy of abject misery and despair.
Mr. Underwood, an American missionary, who talked to
them in their own language, brought the story of what hap-
pened.
"The day before we arrived soldiers came to the village
and ordered all the male Christians to gather at the church.
When about thirty were in the church the soldiers opened
fire on them with rifles and then entered the church and
finished them off with swords and bayonets. After this they
IL!!!!!!!iii


THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
Japan, the sovereign of Korea. While engaged in Christian
propaganda work, the American Missionaries run schools,
and diffuse foreign political and social ideas among the half-
civilized people. The principle of liberty is recklessly advo-
cated among them, this having an evil influence upon their
undeveloped minds, which are consequently tainted with
excessively radical ideas.
"The American missionaries include in their number some
some who have no sound judgment and discretion. Such
people confuse the ideas of the Koreans, who are in a
similar mental condition as those Japanese students who are
now making an outcry for democracy, without understand-
ing what this stands for. As a result, some Korean con-
verts to Christianity are so senseless as to have recourse to
radical action.”
"In order to wreak their discontent and bitter feelings,
these Koreans, under the mask of Christianity, I think, have
created the present disturbances. It may safely be de-
clared that missionaries are responsible for the fact that the
advanced ideas of foreign countries have been diffused with-
out modification among the Koreans, whose state of civiliza-
tion is not yet very high, and for the fact that among those
taking part in the disturbances were girl students.”
(Quotation from Mr. Midoru Komatsu, late Director of
Foreign Affairs in the Government-General of Korea,
Published in The Japan Advertiser of March 9th, 1919.)


OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
AND
PROCLAMATIONS
OF THE
PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
FOR THE
NEW REPUBLIC OF KOREA


52
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
The 4252nd Year of the Kingdom of Korea, 3d Month
Representatives of the People.
The signatures attached to the document are:
Son Byung Hi, Kil Sun Chu, Yi Pil Chu, Paik Long Sung,
Kim Won Kyu, Kim Pyung Cho, Kim Chang Choon, Kwon
Dong Chin, Kwon Byung Duk, Na Long 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 I1, 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.


PROTIST
--
-
By the wi.. c:.. II* De 2.
without the comm., . 1a - zar". - :
their independenc., 21. - 21
their demonstrator : *
their faiti. 1 1. mu
tives choses. TOTESION: TUTTE
pletior. this meeter . na
children an: granucure
The FTOVISOR SUNTO
decided oi TR --zoom
claim .
1. TB Dong Y. : .
cipies
2. Ai puwe : ime :
Counci c State .
.
of the ICT sh
moc. TIES. 21' Juve
-
55
ligion: Burer
pubirals" einen


THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
9. The death penalty, corporal punishment and public
prostitution will be abolished.
10. Within one year of the recovery of our land the
National Congress will be convened.
Signed by:
The Provisional Secretary of State,
And the Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
Home Affairs,
Justice.
Finance,
War,
Communications.
In the 1st Year of the Korean Republic, 4th Month.
The following are six principles of government:
1. We proclaim the equality of the people and the State.
2. The lives and property of foreigners shall be re-
spected.
3. All political offenders shall be specially pardoned. .
. 4. We will observe all treaties that shall be made with
foreign powers.
5. We swear to stand by the independence of Korea.
6. Those who disregard the orders of the Provisional
Government will be regarded as enemies of the State.





THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
KOREAN DELEGATION
TO THE PEACE CONFERENCE
IN SESSION AT PARIS:
THE PETITION of the KOREAN
PEOPLE AND NATION for libe-
ration from Japan and for the recon-
stitution of Korea as an independ-
ent state
RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH:
The Korean People have been a nation for more than
4,200 years, with a settled life and culture and with their
country forming one of the historic states of Asia. During
most of these Forty-two Centuries, Korea enjoyed national
independence.
Korean Independence Recognized.
2.—The continued existence of Korea as a separate and
sovereign state was recognized by Japan, the United States,
Great Britain and other foreign Powers in their respective
treaties of peace and commerce concluded with the Korean
Government.
In the Treaty with the United States, signed at Seoul on
May 22, 1882, it was expressly agreed that “if other Powers
deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government the
other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the
case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing
their friendly feelings.”
In the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on April 17, 1895,
Japan insisted on China's definite recognition of the “full


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
61
and complete independence and autonomy of Korea.” And
in the first Anglo-Japanese agreement of alliance, concluded
on January 30, 1902, Japan and Great Britain affirmed and
substantially guaranteed the independence of Korea. Lastly,
in the Treaty of Defensive and Offensive Alliance made
between the Japanese Government and the Korean Govern-
ment in 1904, Japan specifically guaranteed the independence
and integrity of Korea.
Korean Independence as an International Doctrine.
3.—These treaties not only affirmed and confirmed the
separate existence of Korea as a sovereign state, but they
established, it is submitted, Korean independence on the
basis of an international authority and sanction which no
single Power could violate without subjecting its action to
eventual revision by other Powers.
Japan's Violation of Korean Independence.
4.-Such a violation of Korean independence was com-
mitted by Japan when the Japanese Government—by acts of
fraud and force-compelled the conclusion of the Treaty of
August 22, 1910, whereby the then Emperor of Korea pur-
ported to cede “completely and permanently to His Majesty
the Emperor of Japan all rights of sovereignty over the
whole of Korea," with her then population of more than
Fifteen Million Koreans.
The Korean Protest.
5.-Against this extinction of Korean sovereignty and the
incorporation of their country as a province of Japan, the
Korean people and nation have strenuously protested and
do still protest.
6.—This protest is renewed and is strengthened daily,
owing to the methods applied by Japan in the administra-
tion of Korea. In ruthlessness and efficiency these methods


62
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
exceed those practised by Prussia in her eastern provinces,
in Schleswig-Holstein, in Alsace-Lorraine*.
Not only in name but in reality, Japan is determined to
turn Korea into a Japanese province. And she is trying to
do this by a pitiless attempt to extirpate the great roots of
patriotism-love of the soil, language of the people and the
history of the nation-and also to "control” the two means
which might render futile this organized attempt to de-
stroy Korean patriotism, i. e., education and wealth.
Japanese “Control” of Korean Education and Wealth.
7.–Any and every department of modern education cal-
culated, if pursued beyond a certain point, to encourage what
Count Terauchi—the Japanese proconsul who "annexed"
Korea-calls “dangerous thoughts” is either forbidden or
taught in an emasculated sense in the schools of Korea un-
der Government control. And the Korean student is abso-
lutely prohibited from going to Europe or the United States
to seek a modern education, even at his or her expense.
8.—Nearly every wealthy Korean is obliged to have a Jap-
anese overseer at his house, controlling his properties and
*“A rigid spy system is inaugurated (in Korea). Everyone must be
registered and is given a nunter, which is known to the police.
Every time he leaves his village or town he must register at the
police station and state fully the business he intends to transact and
his destination. The policeman phones to this place and if his actions
are in any way at variance with his report he is liable to arrest and
mistreatment. A strict classification is kept on the basis of a man's
education, influence, position, etc. As soon as a man begins to show
ability or qualities of leadership he is put in class 'a', detectives are
set on his trail, and from thenceforth he becomes a marked man,
hounded wherever he goes. Even children are watched or bribed for
information. If a man escapes the country his number is traced, his
family or relatives arrested and perchance tortured until they reveal
his whereabouts. A man is likely to disappear any day and perhaps
not be heard of again. It is a very efficient Prussianism which thus
aims to crush the spirit of a people.
“This policy is cariied out in the educational system by forbidding
the teaching of Korean history or geography : by excluding
all European history or literature, ... by forbidding any Ko.
rean student to go abroad for an education; in fact, by forbidding
them to leave the country; . : : by forbidding them to entertain
or express Korean ideas or aspirations. One student was put in jail
for three months and fined three hundred dollars because he was
caught singing the Korean national anthem.”-From a paper recently
published in the United States by J. E. Moore, an American born in
Korea.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
63
finances. And Koreans with deposits in the banks—which
are all Japanese institutions-cannot withdraw large amounts
at one time without disclosing to the banks the purpose or
purposes for which the money is to be used.
Japan and Christianity.
9.-Every effort is made by the Japanese authorities--par-
ticularly through their police agents—to discourage and ob-
struct Christian missionary work in Korea which is envisaged
as opposed to vital Japanese interests in the peninsula.
Is not the gravest indictment of Japan's work in Korea to
be read in the fact that Christianity is seriously regarded as
a force hostile to the success of the Japanese system of gov-
ernment in the country?
Korea for the Japanese.
10.—The Japanese authorities claim that “reforms" have
been introduced into Korea. But it is well to remember that
most of these reforms, valuable as they are, may be found
in a well-regulated penal colony (“The Korean Conspiracy
Case," New York), and all of them have been effected or
introduced at the expense of the Korean taxpayer in the
interest and for the benefit of the Japanese settler for whom
the Japanese authorties are bent on making Korea an at-
tractive field of colonization.
11.—The Japanese rules and administers Korea in the spirit
and by the methods of a Master-Nation or, more accurately,
a Profiteer-Nation.
Except in the sense that cattle or slaves must be taken
care of if they are to be of any value to their owners, the
welfare of the Korean people is not an aim of government
with Japan.
Japan Against the World.
12.-In addition to these reasons connected directly with
the fate of the Korean people, the vital interests of the
world—especially the Asiatic interests of France and the


68
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
the American and the European press, it must suffice here to
quote the latest from the Tokio correspondent of the London
“Times.” It appeared in the issue of the London paper on
April 17th inst., under the caption “Korea's Rights”: "While
it is recognized that there can be only one outcome of the
disturbances in Korea, the Government's decision to rein-
force the military establishment in the peninsula evokes uni-
versal press comment, the feature of which is the recognition
that it will be inevitable, when opportunity occurs, to replace
the Military Governor by a Civilian Governor. The 'Nichi-
Nichi' attributes the disturbances chiefly to a mistaken con-
ception of the principle of self-determination, also to the
inimical influence of missionaries. The 'Jiji' says it is evi-
dent that many reforms are necessary in Korea. Another
journal dwells on the fact that the Koreans are not an in-
ferior people. * * *
Abrogation of the Treaty of Annexation.
20.—The Korean people submit that the Treaty of Annexa-
tion of August 22, 1910, should be declared Null and Void or
otherwise abrogated by the Peace Conference for the reasons
set forth in this petition and further elaborated in the memo-
randum hereto attached and more especially for the reasons
following:
I.—The said Treaty of annexation was conluded in cir-
'cumstances of Fraud and Force which vitiated its validity as
a legal and international document, even assuming that the
then Emperor of Korea had the right to hand over to “His
Majesty the Emperor of Japan” Fifteen Million Koreans and
a country that had existed as a separate and sovereign state
for more than 4,200 years.
II.—The Korean people and nation have consistently de-
nied the right of the then “puppet” Emperor of Korea to deal
with them in terms of the said Treaty of Annexation. Being
men and not cattle, they hold that their consent is and has
been an essential condition to the validity of the said treaty.
This consent has never been given.


THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
THE CLAIM OF THE KOREAN PEOPLE
AND NATION FOR LIBERATION FROM JAPAN
AND FOR THE RECONSTITUTION OF KOREA
AS AN INDEPENDENT STATE
1.
The Claim of Korea.
The Korean People and Nation hereby petition the Peace
Conference to declare as null and void the Treaty of August
22, 1910 (a), whereby one Korean—the then Emperor of
Korea-purported, under Japanese coercion, to cede "com-
pletely and permanently to His Majesty the Emperor of
Japan all rights of sovereignty over the whole of Korea"
with her then population of over Fifteen Million Koreans.
It is submitted that the present claim deals with a matter
in respect of which the Peace Conference has the right and
authority to take action.
The Conference meets in order to secure a settlement of
the affairs of the member-nations in terms of the principles
set forth in President Wilson's Fourteen Points. The "evi-
dent principle" running through the "whole program” is
defined by the President in his message to Congress on
January 8, 1918, as "the principle of justice to all peoples
and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of
liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong
or weak.”
As one of the Allied and Associated States, Japan has ex-
pressly accepted the Fourteen Points, with their underlying
principle of justice, as the “foundation" of the "structure
of international justice" to be established by the Peace Con-
ference.
Inasmuch as this principle of justice is obviously violated
by the Mikado's continued exercise of “all rights of sover-
eignty over the whole of Korea” without the consent and
(a) See Appendix No. 1.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
against the wishes of the Korean People and Nation, it is at
once the right and the duty of the Peace Conference to
declare the nullification of the aforesaid Treaty of August
22, 1910.
II.
4,200 Years of National Life.
The Korean people were a nation, with a language and a
culture of their own, before Japan ceased to be a land of
warring tribes and unlettered people. Indeed, it is as much
to Korea as to China—the other historic state now under
deadly assault by Japan—that the Japanese owe not a little
of their cultural development and the thoughts and ideals
which have nourished their mind and enabled them to cap-
ture greatness.
The nationhood of the Korean People had lasted for more
than 4,200 years when Japan consummated her work in
Korea by the Treaty of August 22, 1910. And save for an
intervening period when their liberties were assailed the
Koreans lived through these forty-two centuries as an in-
dependent nation, their country forming one of the separate
states of Asia.
III.
The Independence of Korea.
The continued existence of Korea as a separate and
sovereign state was affirmed and recognized by Japan in
the Treaty of Peace and Amity concluded between the
Korean Government and the Japanese Government at Seoul
on February 27, 1876.
The independence of Korea as the “Kingdom of Chosen”
was recognized by the United States of America in the
Treaty of "Peace, Amity, Commerce and Navigation" con-
cluded with the Korean Government on May 22, 1882, which
contained the important clause that "if other Powers deal
unjustly or oppressively with either Government the other


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
79
have cash, and in order to get it he must sell his land.
Land values fell rapidly, and in some instances land was
purchased by the agents of the Bank of Chosen for one-fifth
of its former valuation.”
"More than one-fifth of the richest lands in Korea,” the
article adds, "are in the hands of the Japanese immigrants
who have been sent over through the operation of this
scheme.”
✓
X.
Banning the Korean Language and History.
A systematic attempt is being made to replace the Korean
by the Japanese language. In the schools Korean children
are compelled to salute and greet their own Korean teachers
in the Japanese language; and in the law courts, the judges
are Japanese and the entire proceedings are conducted in
the Japanese language with the result that the Korean liti-
gant generally fails to understand what transpires, the official
interpretation of the trial being always imperfect.
The teaching of Korean history is prohibited. And im-
ſ prisonment, torture, banishment or worse might be the
penalty if some Korean should be tempted to recite to
children of the soil a traditional story or song or some
folklore telling how men fought and died for Korea in
other days.
XI.
“Controlling" Korean Education.
It is Japan's "control" of the education of the Korean
people which strikingly reveals the "egoism” of her policy
in the Peninsula.
Korea has been known as a land of scholars. And just as
some countries may be said, broadly, to specialize in some
particular sphere of learning and culture, so Korea in the
past "specialized” in scholarship. The Italian, for instance,
loves not song and music more than doth the cultured


80
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
Korean love the things of the scholar. He is an artist in
scholarship
But to be a scholar, one must be educated. An educated
Korean, however, is a unit of protest and resistance against
Japanese tyranny in Korea, since education particularly
modern education-breeds thoughts and ideals that deny!
the right of one nation holding another nation in political
serfage.
Therefore, not only is the teaching of Korean history pro-
hibited in Korean schools, but any and every department of
Western learning calculated, if pursued beyond a certain
point, to encourage what Count Terauchi—the Japanese pro-
consul who "annexed” Korea-calls "dangerous thoughts,"
is either forbidden or taught in an emasculated sense.
This policy of a "limited education” explains why the
Korean student is denied free access to the road to higher
learning in arts, sciences, laws, politics, economics and in-
dustries and is also absolutely prohibited from going to
Europe or the United States to seek a Western or modern
education, even at his or her own expense. !
This same policy also explains the forcible suppression of
360 Christian schools and hundreds of other private insti-
tutions in Korea. It further explains the following statistics
published in the report of the Government-General in Korea
for the year ending 1917.
For a population of 16,648,129 Koreans, the Japanese au-
thorities established schools at which only 86,410 Korean
pupils were being taught as follows:
441 Common or Primary Schools...... 81,845 pupils
7 Higher Common Schools ........ 1,791
74 Elementary Schools of Agriculture,
Commerce and Industry ........ 2,029
1 Law School ........ ............
1 Medical School ..
253 "
1 Industrial School
1 School of Agriculture and Forestry: 72 "
totaling 526 schools of all grades, attended by 86,410 pupils.
138
"
282
·


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
Whereas for a Japanese immigrant population of 320,938,
the authorities established 367 special Japanese schools of all
grades, which were attended by 42,467 Japanese pupils as
follows:
342 Primary Schools ....... ........ 37,911 pupils
3 Middle Schools
1,478 "
10 Girls' High Schools (public).......... 1,648 "
7 Commercial Colleges ........
.... 899
1 Colonial School of the Oriental De-
velopment Company
.......
18 "
4 Private Schools, Commercial and
Technical .
513 »
The foregoing facts justify the following statement of
Japan's educational policy in Korea, which has appeared in
the American press and stands uncontradicted: “Under
Japanese rule all national aspirations [in Korea] are opposed
and measures are taken to prevent the development of
patriotism. This is done systematically, in many different
ways. One of the greatest and most effective agencies used
by Japan to this end is the stilling of higher education and
the limitations placed upon the schools. Korean history
cannot be taught and after the student has advanced a little
way he must stop school altogether ..."
XII.
“Controlling” Korean Wealth.
Nearly every wealthy Korean is obliged to have a Japanese
overseer at his house, controlling his properties and finances.
Koreans with deposits in the banks—which are all Japanese
institutions—cannot withdraw large amounts at one time
without disclosing to the banks the purpose or purposes for
which the money is to be used.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
83
XV.
Korea as “One Big Fortress.”
With a gesture of achievement Japan points to the mate-
rial improvements effected by her in Korea. She has built
railroads that extend beyond the frontier and penetrate into
South Manchuria, which is already within the grip of the
Korean railway system. She has constructed highways and
streets and set up imposing inodern buildings for the housing
of the Japanese army of officials “running" the country. And
no doubt the sanitary condition of certain urban centers has
been improved.
About all this work of "improvement and progress” in the
material life of Korea, you can read-every twelvemonth-
in the splendidly illustrated pages of the “Annual Report"
issued by the “Government-General of Chosen (Korea)."
No expense seems to be spared in the preparation and pro-
duction of this annual publication. It is reckoned among the
chief weapons of Japanese propaganda abroad.
But in spite of the "reforms” yearly listed in the "Annual
Report,” the following arraignment of Japan's policy in
Korea continues true and unanswerable. It is from a lead-
ing article in the "Shin Nippon,” a Japanese newspaper,
which had the courage to criticize the Japanese authorities
in connection with the “Korean Conspiracy Case":
“Count Terauchi is trying by every means to crush the
rising of the native Koreans against his administration,
even at the expense of his countrymen's interest in the
peninsula. His press censorship, espionage policy, and
factory legislation were all due to his fear of a rising of
the Koreans. ... The Governor-General's desire is
to make the peninsula one big fortress, and he seems to
regard all those engaged in industrial or commercial
work in Korea as mere camp followers within the walls
of the barracks.”
It is also well to remember that “most of these refornis,


84
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
valuable as they are, may be found in a well-regulated penal
colony" (c) and that all of them have been effected or intro-
duced at the expense of the Korean taxpayer in the interest
and for the benefit of the Japanese Settler for whom the
Japanese authorities desire to make Korea an attractive field
of colonization.
XVI.
Anglo-Saxon Work in Asia.
These are only a few of the ruthless facts featuring the
work of Japan in Korea. In aim and spirit, as well as in
methods, this work differs greatly from the labors of Anglo-
Saxon workers in Asia.
In India and Further India, the Englishman today rules in
the interest of the native. He has committed mistakes, and,
maybe, he still blunders. But he administers these great
regions of Asia as a trust and in the spirit of a trustee.
It is, however, in the Philippines that the work of the
Anglo-Saxon as a trustee-nation is seen in terms unobscured
by what may be called the ambiguities of imperialism. Here,
the American has not been satisfied to work as a trustee for
an indefinite period. He has educated the Filipino not only
to assist but eventually to replace him in the government of
the country.
And late advices from Washington, D. C., indicate that the
American is already viewing the independence of the Philip-
pines as a necessary term of the international settlement
which is to make the world safe for democracy.
XVII.
The Policy of the Prize-Pig.
But in Korea, the Japanese rules and administers the
country in the spirit and by the methods of a Master-Nation
or, more accurate, a Profiteer-Nation.
Except in the sense that cattle or slaves must be taken
(C) “The Korean Conspiracy Case,” by Arthur Judson Brown, New
York.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
85
care if of they are to be of value to their owner, the wel-
fare of the Korean people is not an aim of government with
Japan.
The "improvements” loudly advertised in the annual re-
ports of the Korean Government-General are made either
for the encouragement of Japanese settlers or in the interests
of what may be truly described as the policy of the prize-
pig, i. e., for much the same reason that a breeder fattens.
his pig for a show.
XVIII.
Japan Contra Mundum.
In addition to these reasons connected directly with the
fate of the Korean people, the vital interests of the world--
particularly the Asiatic interests of France as well as the
Asiatic and Pacific interests of Great Britain and the United
States—demand the dis-annexation of Korea and the libera-
tion of her people from Japan.
Reference has already been made to Japan's envisagement
of Christianity in Korea as an inimical force. And it is
possible that the Mikado's advisers bethink themselves of
the anti-Christian policy of Caesarian Rome. But the Caesars
opposed Christianity as a religion and not-as in the case
of Japan today in the belief that it was a moral and in-
tellectual force that challenged the subjection of an entire
nation and its exploitation by the methods of a political
slavery.
In trade and commerce, Japan is gradually eliminating the
Western trader and merchant in Korea and transferring to
the exclusive hands of her own people a business which has
had its origin in the series of treaties of peace and com-
merce concluded between Korea and the Foreign Powers.
In this elimination of Western competition Japan con-
tinues true to that instinct for exclusion which, in the past,
found expression in her rigidly guarded isolation and which
today expresses itself, for instance, in the prohibition of


86
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
tur
foreign ownership of land in Japan and in the attempt to
exclude foreign influence in Far Asia through the application
of a false Monroe Doctrine for the Far East.
XIX.
Japan's Continental Policy.
It is, however, in the far-reaching political aims of Japan
-realizable eventually through her continued annexation
of Korea—that France as well as England and America
must be vitally interested.
The danger to the non-Japanese world, including espe-
cially the three Latin and Anglo-Saxon powers, lies in
Japan's unfettered prosecution of her continental policy.
This policy aims, first, at the seizure of the hegemony of
Asia through the domination and control of the man-power
and the "natural resources” of China-possible only by the
Japanese possession of the continental point d'appui of
Korea—and, next, at the mastery of the Pacific Ocean as the
sole means of forcing an entrance for Japanese Emigrants,
into the rich lands of the Australias and the Pacific seaboar:)
of the United States.
XX.
The Policy in Operation.
The continental policy of Japan has already found its par-
tial expression in the two successful wars waged by Japan
against China in 1894-5 and against Russia in 1904-5 and in
the annexation of Korea on August 22, 1910.
The Japanese possession of Korea renders Chinese sov-
ereignty in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia
impossible. And with the eventual inclusion of these stra-
tegic regions within the territorial framework of Japan's con-
tinental policy, the military or the “pacific" conquest of the
fat lands of China and 400,000,000 Chinese is inevitable.
This is not the language of hypothesis or prophecy. It is
a simple statement of the deliberately expressed intention


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
87
and plan of the Japanese Government as set forth in the
famous set of twenty-one demands which Tokio presented
to Peking on January 18, 1915, and secured in certain treaties
and notes signed by the Chinese Government in compliance
with an ultimatum threatening war (d).
XXI.
The Menace to France.
The eventual domination of China—which the continued
subjugation of Korea will enable Japan to secure—is a spe-
cific menace to France as an Asiatic power.
The subjugation of China to the military will of a war-
organized state like Japan and the necessary entrenchment
of the latter in the Chinese province of Yunnan, which
abounds in tin and dominates the rear of l'Indo-Chine, must
constitute an obviously political and “strategic” menace to the
Asiatic dominions of France. And as the continued pos-
session of these dominions by France is a vital element in
the prestige and glory of the Third Republic as a world-
power, the Quai d'Orsay must, of course, realize the signifi-
cance of a Japanese hegemony in Asia which is based on
the control and direction of Chinese man-power and re-
sources by Japan.
But the menace to France is not a mere "strategic deduc-
tion.” It is a political reality. Indeed, it is one of the three
unavowed aims of Japan; and because it is rooted in re-
vanche, the Japanese menace to France will continue an
actual danger to the Third Republic.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki.
France's war-debt to Japan dates from the revision of the
Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, when the Tokio Government
was forced to agree to the retrocession to China of the
Liaotung peninsula, including the great fortress of Port
(d) The Chinese delegation to the Peace Conference are reported
to be claiming the abrogation of these treaties and notes on the
ground, inter alia, that they subject China to Japanese domination.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
89
dient to explain that his people regard the said intervention
as an "ignominious triple interference” (e). These references
may seem a little meticulous to the French inind; but they
are big with meaning and menace when you know the Jap-
anese mind with its strange, subtle mode of working:
And not the least important consideration in this connec-
tion is the fact that a successful Japanese war with France
might mean the extension of the territorial system of Japan
to l’Indo-Chine which would bring Japan within swifter
striking power of Middle Asia and those islands of the South
Seas, regarded by responsible Japanese publicists as the
“necessary tropical complement” of a Greater Japan, puis-
sant and self-sufficing.
XXII.
The Mastery of the Pacific.
Japan's continental policy menaces the Anglo-Saxon pow-
ers just as much as it does France, if not more so.
Japanese imperialists claim that Japan's yearly surplus
population justifies the demand for territorial extension in-
volved in her continental policy. And it is said that the
"exportable margin" of her population must be sent to
Korea, to South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia
and the historic provinces of China.
While the emigration of this "exportable margin" may
become a serious question in about five more decades if the
"Sexual Law” of the Jungle continues in operation in Japan,
it appears that Japanese propaganda is deliberately exagger-
ating the facts of the case in order to create a belief abroad
that Japanese emigration is at once an economic and politi-
cal necessity that demands immediate relief.
According to Japanese political thought, this “immediate
relief” must be secured through Japanese colonization in
Korea and China and, if possible, through Japanese emi-
gration to Australasia and America.
(e) “Washington Star,” February 20, 1919.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
91
A Policy of World-Conquest.
A bold conception ... a thing of audacity; and, per-
haps, the Anglo-Saxon may envisage it as a dream beyond
man's attempt. But similar schemes of world conquest are
not unknown in history; and the great war has revealed the
harboring of a like scheme by the German mind. And let it
be remembered that the rulers of Japan have organized her
as a war-state after the Prussian type and that her conti-
nental policy, that is, her POLICY OF WORLD-CON-
QUEST, has already found expression:
(a) in two successful wars which have made her the
greatest military power in Asia in much the same way
as Prussia's two wars made her the greatest military
power in Europe;
(b) in the annexation of Korea;
(c) in the gradual substitution of Japanese for Chi-
nese authority in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner
Mongolia;
(d) in the attempt now being made to secure at the
Peace Conference the succession of Japan to German
holdings and privileges in the sacred Chinese province
of Shantung, including Kiaochow;
(e) in the growing subjection of China, with her in-
calculable man-power and resources, to Japanese domi-
nation by and through the same set of methods which
made the annexation of Korea a "political necessity”; and
(f) in the Japanese possession of the “South Sea
Islands north of the Equator," which brings JAPAN
NEARLY TWO THOUSAND MILES CLOSER TO
AUSTRALIA and gives the Japanese Navy a base which
dominates the most strategic and important region of the
Pacific.
XXIII.
The Japanese as the “Eternal Priestess.”
The Korean people and nation finally submit that the


92
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
imposition of Japanese civilization on Korea (f) and its
spread, through Japan's continental policy, in Asia and the
regions of the Pacific are opposed to the interests of the
world and to the moral progress of the human race.
Japanese life is disfigured by its dangerous looseness of
views regarding the relations of the sexes. Impartial foreign
investigators report that, while prostitution infests cities in
the West, the vice infests cities and VILLAGES in Japan.
It is not only the Government official and narikin (nouveau
riche) who are clients of the geisha, but even the village
schoolmaster.
It has been estimated that Japan made, at one time, more
out of her women engaged in prostitution abroad than out
of her export of coal. This estimate was based on the fact
that, when a Japanese sells his daughter for service, he re-
ceives Yen 250 per annum for three years. This sum is the
equivalent of interest at 5% p.a. on a capital sum of 5,000
Yen. And in pre-war days, there were in Irkutsk 110 Jap-
anese houses of ill fame; and the Japanese as an "ETER-
NAL PRIESTESS” was to be found in large nuinbers in
every city in Eastern Siberia-in Habarovsk, Blagovest-
chensk, Vladivostok.
Today, a moderate estimate fixes the number of Japanese
prostitutes in Manchuria at 10,000. It is calculated that the
consular fees paid by these women cover the entire cost of
the Japanese civil administration in the province, each having
to pay a monthly sum of (Mexican) $3 to her consul.
The Japanese prostitute is also to be found in every treaty
(f) “Shortly after annexation the Japanese Government permitted
Japanese agents to travel through the country selling morphia and
developing the inorphine habit among the Koreans. Then came pros-
titutes. Today there are thousands of prostitutes brought over from
Japan, who are inoculating Korean society with those terrible evils of
social vice for which Japan as a face is almost proverbial. There are
the public baths which the Japanese have instituted, where bathing is
promiscuous. To Korean modesty and Korean standards of virtue this
is a serious menace and will have on the growing generation far.
reaching consequences. Between prostitution, public baths and
gambling old Korean ideals stand in great peril."-From a recent
pamphlet on the Korean Question by J. E. Moore, an American born
in Korea.


THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
93
port in China, in Saigon and other places in l'Indo-Chine,
in Bangkok and elsewhere in Siam, in Singapore—where one
report states "there are streets of them”-in Penang and
then on to India. Here the note of a British observer may
be textually quoted: “Streets of Japanese prostitutes in
Bombay and Kurrachee. Industry is thriving. They are
only waiting the opportunity to push their way into Meso-
potamia and challenge competition with the Armenians."
She also flourishes in Borneo, Madagascar, Zanzibar, South
Africa; and at one time the "monopoly of recognized prosti-
tution round the coast of Australia was in the hands of the
Japanese."
“From Yunnan City to Urga.”
A concluding note must be added. It is a quotation from
a striking article which appeared in a recent issue of the
"North China Daily News,” the leading British paper in the
Far East. The facts disclosed in the article have com-
pelled the Japanese Government through the Japanese Em-
bassy in London to promise remedial action:
"Everywhere Japanese prostitution, the systematic exten-
sion of which from Yunnan City to Urga is such an inspir-
ing evidence of our Asiatic allies, goes hand in hand with
the sale of morphia.
"Morphia, no longer purchasable in Europe, is manu-
factured now in well-equipped laboratories in Japan and
in Formosa. During recent years the bulk of the Persian
opium coming into the market has been purchased by
Japan for conversion into morphia, for Persian opium
yields a larger percentage of morphia than Indian opium.
Opium grown in Korea, the cultivation of which it is
interesting to note followed immediately upon the closing
of the opium shops in Shantung (by the Chinese authori-
ties)— Japanese officials providing the seeds—is an ever-
expanding source of the supply of morphia, and, it may
be added, of opium required by the (Japanese) adminis-
tration of Formosa.”





APPENDICES


"THE KOREAN CONSPIRACY CASE.”
97
No. 1.
THE ANNEXATION OF KOREA
The following treaty was signed at Seoul on August 22,
1910:
S.M. l'Empereur du Japon et S.M. l'Empereur de Corée,
en vue des relations spéciales et étroites entre leurs pays
respectifs, désirant augmenter le bien-être commun des deux
nations et assurer la paix permanente en Extrême-Orient, et
étant convaincues que ces buts pourront être le mieux at-
teints par l'annexion de la Corée à l'empire du Japon ont
résolu de conclure un traité de cette annexion et ont nommé
à cet effet pour leurs plénipotentiaries, savoir :
S.M. l'Empereur du Japon,
Le Vicomte Masakata Térauchi, son Résident général, et
S.M. l'Empereur de Corée,
Yen Wan Yong, son Ministre-président d'État,
Lesquels, par suite des conférences et délibérations mutu-
elles, sont convenus des articles suivants :
ARTICLE PREMIER.-S.M. l'Empereur de Corée fait la ces-
sion complète et permanente à S.M. l'Empereur du Japon de
tours les droits de la souveraineté sur la totalité de la Corée.
Art. 2.-S.M. l'Empereur du Japon accepte la cession men-
tionnée dans l'article précédent et consent a l'annexion com-
pléte de la Corée à l'empire du Japon.
Art. 3.-S.M. l'Empereur du Japon accordera á LL. MM.
l'Empereur et l'ex-Empereur et à S.A. le prince héritier de
Corée et à leurs épouses et héritiers, des titres dignités et
honneurs qui sont appropriés à leurs rangs respectifs, et des
dons annuels seront faits pour maintenir ces titres, dignités
et honneurs.
Art. 4.-S.M. l'Empereur du Japon accordera aussi des
honneurs et traitements appropriés aux membres de la
maison impériale de Corée et à leurs héritiers autres que
ceux mentionnés dans l'article précédent; et des fonds néces-
saires, pour maintenir ces honneurs et traitements leurs
seront octroyés.


98
THE TRUTH ABOUT KOREA.
Art. 5.—S.M. l'Empereur du Japon conférera la prairie et
des dons pécuniaires à ceux des Coréens qui, à cause de
services méritoires, sont considérés dignes de ces recon-
naissances spéciales.
Art. 6.--Par suite de l'annexion ci-dessus mentionnée, le
gouvernement du Japon prend le gouvernement et l'adminis-
tration de la Corée et s'engage à accorder l'entière protec-
tion aux personnes et propriétés des Coréens qui obéissent
aux lois en vigueur en Corée et à accroître le bien-être de
tous ces Coréens.
Art. 7.—Le gouvernement du Japon, en tant que les
circonstances le premettent, emploiera dans les services pub-
lics du Japon en Corée, ceux des Coréens qui acceptent le
nouveau régime loyalement et de bonne foi et y sont dûment
qualifiés.
Art. 8.-Le présent traité ayant été approuvé par S.M.
l'Empereur du Japon et par S.M. l'Empereur de Corée,
produira son effet à partir du jour de sa promulgation.
En foi de quoi, etc.
No. 2.
“THE KOREAN CONSPIRACY CASE”
The following extracts are from a pamphlet entitled “The
Korean Conspiracy Case," issued in New York on Novem-
ber 20, 1912, as the “outcome of a conference of representa-
tives of all the missionary organizations of the United States
... conducting work in Korea with several eminent
laymen ... connected with these organizations and
whose counsel was sought because their international repu-
tation and their detachment from the missionary interests
immediately involved fitted them to give dispassionate ad-
vice.”
:
**
*
*
The interest of the civilized world has been aroused by
the difficulties that have developed in Korea and which


“THE KOREAN CONSPIRACY CASE.”
101
1912, before the District Court of Seoul.... It is
deeply to be regretted that the trial proved to be of such a
character as to strengthen the grave fears regarding the
methods of the Japanese. The methods of procedure impress
a Western mind as peculiar. The lawyers for the defense
were not permitted to confer with their clients until shortly
before the public trial, months after the prosecution had
prepared its case with freest secret access to the prisoners.
When their lawyers were given permission to see them, the
conversations were in the presence of a scowling police so
that the sorely beset men could imagine what their jailers
would do to them afterwards if anything was said that did
not please them. The enormous voluminous records of the
case were not made accessible to the counsel for the defense
until it was too late to give them proper study or to verify
the allegations of facts. In court, all questions were asked
and witnesses examined through and at the option of the
presiding Judge. The jury system has not reached Japan,
and the whole course of trial showed that the judges had
made up their minds before the trial and that they were in
effect judges, jury and prosecuting attorneys combined.
. . . As the trial proceeded the hostile and unprejudicial
attitude of the court became more and more apparent. In-
numerable questions by the judges were clearly intended to
be traps for the men whom they were trying. When one
of the pastors was tripped in a slight verbal inaccuracy, the
presiding judge loudly called him “a lying Jesus doctrine
pastor” and peremptorily dismissed him. At this the whole
court laughed heartily. . . .
Finally, the perversion of justice became so gross that on
July 17th, the counsel for the defense boldly refused to pro-
ceed and announced that they “felt it proper to state their
opinion that the trial was not being conducted in a regular
manner and in accordance with Art. 41 in the Code of Crim-
inal Procedure, for the honour of the Imperial Judiciary
and with a view to the full defense of the accused," and
they therefore applied for the unseating of the Chief Judge