In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

The day but one before our arrival in Seoul another unsuccessful attempt at political murder was made—this time in daylight and upon one of the principal thoroughfares. The object of attack was Mr. Kwon, the Minister of War, who was riding in a jinrikisha surrounded by his official guard. The following account is taken from the Seoul Press of Friday, March 29th:

The Korean Minister of War had a narrow escape on Monday from a daring attempt on his life. The would-be assassins—there were two or probably more—succeeded in getting away from the Japanese policeman in the Korean service, who seems to have had a most desperate struggle with them and some people who came to their assistance (that is, the assistance of the assassins). He, however, succeeded in taking the pistol, which had been fired twice upon the Minister, happily without any effect. One of the accomplices was shortly after arrested by another Japanese policeman in the Korean service in the vicinity of the Minister’s residence. According to a statement made by this prisoner, he belongs to a band of eighteen men from South Korea, who are alleged to have recently entered Seoul for the purpose of assassinating the Cabinet Ministers. These men are further alleged to be the remnants of the so-called “volunteer” insurgents of last year. There seems, however, reason to suspect the truth of this statement; it is not unlikely that motives of a political character have been adduced to cover a crime prompted by personal enmity or rivalry. Such things have constantly occurred in this country in recent years. Rumors are rife as to the true origination of the dastardly attempt on Mr. Kwon’s life, but we do not consider it necessary to take any notice of them; they are mostly of such an extraordinary character that they will certainly be dismissed as utterly inconceivable by anybody not accustomed to the peculiar ways of politics in Seoul.

One remark should be added to complete this public account; and one other to enable the observer to read between the lines. There were Korean body-guards and policemen and citizens at hand; but only one Japanese policeman made any attempt to save the Minister’s life or to arrest the assassins. The rumors rife, so inconceivable to “anybody not accustomed” to the “politics” of Seoul, suggested, as usual, that it would be well not to examine too closely into the plot, lest some one might be uncovered who stood “higher up” in the court circles of Korea.

The third attempt at assassination was limited to the discovery and immediate flight of the intruder as he was trying to climb the wall of the enclosure of acting Prime Minister Pak. But the fourth attempt did not terminate so harmlessly. In brief, the history of this political murder was as follows (its date was April 21st):

On Sunday evening, Mr. Pak Yong-hwa, Director of the Audit Bureau of the Imperial Household Department, was assassinated at his house. On that evening Mr. Pak had nearly a dozen visitors, and while he was conversing with them shortly after ten o’clock, the card of another visitor, not known to him, was brought in. Mr. Pak saw the man in a separate room, and no sooner had he begun to talk with him than another man rushed into the room through a window and stabbed Mr. Pak in the right breast, inflicting a wound four inches deep. Seeing their victim drop mortally wounded, the assassins hurriedly left, discharging a few shots from their revolvers to prevent pursuit. They are said to have been attired in foreign dress, and from their accent it is inferred that they are most probably from Keng-Sang-do.

The unfortunate Minister died from his wound while in the palanquin on the way to the Japanese hospital. Marquis Ito, supposing from the news received by telephone that acting Prime Minister Pak was the victim, started at once for the hospital; but learning, before reaching there, of the real name of the victim, and of his death, he returned to the Residency. The next day H. M. the Emperor caused a chamberlain to pay a visit of condolence to Mr. Pak’s residence; but the city of Seoul and the country of Korea went about its business of intrigue or its work of tilling the fields, as though nothing unusual had happened. The distinction between such events here and in Russia should be borne in mind by one trying to estimate their significance. In Korea there is no immediate tangible interest, affecting life, liberty, or property, for the individual, at stake, to justify violence. Where the real reasons are not thoroughly selfish and corrupt—as indeed in most cases they are—a misguided patriotism, with a large mixture of hypocritical sentimentality, is the motive for the political murders of Korea. The real patriots, if their feeling is intense enough and their courage sufficient, commit suicide; and those of less degree of intensity refuse to accept office under a foreign protectorate!

In general, it had hitherto been only the court officials themselves who much cared as to what persons were selected by the Emperor for the different high offices in Seoul itself. They, too, had been chiefly interested in the more serious question as to who it is of these officials that gets himself assassinated. The peasants and pedlers, who are the travelling merchants in the country districts, care only about the local magistrates and about the bearable amount of their “squeezes.” But under the administration of Marquis Ito assassination of officers whose character and official acts sustain such important relations to the vital interests of both Japan and Korea, cannot now be allowed its traditional impunity. Investigation into the authors and promoters of this plot, therefore, quietly began and was carried as far upward as seemed desirable or necessary. According to the Korean Daily News, the three Koreans—La In-yung, Aw Ki-ho, and Kim In-sik—who on April 1st “went to the Supreme Court in Seoul and gave themselves up, stating that they were the ones who had tried to kill the Minister of War,” “seem to have been actuated by no selfish impulses.” The same paper calls attention to the claim that the plan was to kill all the five Cabinet Ministers “who signed the last treaty with Japan”; and also to the fact that these same men had been to Japan to memorialize the Japanese Emperor with reference to the condition of Korea under the protectorate of the empire whose head was His Majesty himself. This is as far as the paper cared to go at this time in apologizing for the attempt at wholesale murder; but there is no doubt that the attempt itself was not at all displeasing to the court officials of the other party than the one in power or to the people generally.

The truer story is as follows: The searchings of the police after those who attempted the assassination of the Minister of War resulted in picking up a number of them from various quarters. These rascals were cross-questioned and one of them confessed and implicated as back of the plot financially, no less important a personage than the ex-Minister of the Imperial Household, Yi Yong-tai. This is the man who was once prevented by foreign influence, on account of his thoroughly evil reputation, from going to Washington as Minister from Korea. He is known as a past-master in all kinds of craft and corruption, thoroughly untrustworthy; although he had formerly been elevated by the Emperor to the position of Minister of the Interior. Now, it so happened that at the very time of the examination of the assassins, this same gentleman was in an adjoining room where he and those with him could easily hear everything said in answer to the cross-questioning. It is no wonder, then, that Mr. Yi Yong-tai confessed that he himself was indeed one of the band of patriots who had attempted the gallant measure of paying hired assassins to make way with their political rivals—as I have already said, a recognized, legitimate political measure throughout Korean history.