In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

On Tuesday evening over 250 rioters marched down on Neung-chon district, broke down the telegraph poles, and attacked the people. The matter was reported to the police and many were despatched to the scene of the outbreak. The rioters, however, had dispersed before they could be arrested.

We hope it is not true, as the Koreans report, that the Governor of Chung-ju has eaten the money which the Emperor gave for the relief of the sufferers from the flood there last autumn. He is said to have gone even further than this and compelled these destitute people to give their time for nothing to public works. This is worth looking into.

An armed band of robbers made a raid on the road-repairing bureau at Chin-nampo the other day and carried away considerable property. In the struggle the Japanese engineer and two Korean officers were severely wounded.

It is time that serious steps were taken to put down the brigandage that prevails in the country. No one’s property appears to be safe, for we now learn that the Dongak Sa monastery in Kong Chu district has been rushed by robbers and pillaged of everything that was at all valuable.

It must not be supposed that these instances of disturbance in the provinces are rare and selected from a long period of time. Indeed, fully one-half as many instances, illustrative of the condition of things prevalent in the country districts of Korea as have been given above, might have been taken from single issues of this morning paper. So true is this that its daily column headed “Local News and Comment,” called out an ironical article from the Japanese semi-official paper, the Seoul Press, entitled “Speak Well of Your Friends.” In this article was the assertion: “A digest of its issues (i. e., of the Korean Daily News) for one month, as far as they relate to the Koreans, would indicate that outside Seoul every third Korean was a bandit, while in Seoul every other man was either a traitor or corrupt. This hardly appears to be the way to establish a good reputation for the Koreans.” One needs, however, to know only a little as to the proper reading between the lines, in order to discover that the real reason why there was a dearth of good news, of importance enough to print, in this anti-Japanese paper was this: almost all such items would have accrued to the credit of the Japanese Administration. Such items would, therefore, bring into too strong contrast, to suit these foreign friends of Korea, the traditional ways and results of the Korean Government and the already manifest effects of the reforms that were being carried through by the Resident-General and his Japanese and Korean helpers.

The news from the country, as given by the pro-Japanese press did not differ from that given by this anti-Japanese paper from which extracts have already been made. The former, however, dwelt much more upon the changes for the better which were being accomplished, chiefly at Seoul, but also in other cities and even in the country districts. The following extracts, selected from a number of similar items, will show this statement to be true. Says the Seoul Press:

A report received in the Police Adviser’s Office here on Monday night states that a body of rioters assaulted and set on fire seven buildings of the District officials of Ko-syöng, South Kyöng-sang-do. The officials have all taken refuge in Chin-nampo, and two leaders of the rioters were arrested. The rioters, however, show no signs of dispersing. All foreigners and the police are said to be safe, but there were some casualties on the side of the rioters. According to a later report received here from Vice-Resident Wada at Masan, the rioters assembled numbered some 1,500. Grievances in connection with taxation were the immediate cause of the trouble. On the night of the 6th instant the mob stormed the office of the District Magistrate and destroyed the jail, liberating all prisoners within. In addition, they burned down seven buildings of the district officials, and some people were seriously injured. Police Inspector Nakagawa’s men, in conjunction with the twenty troops told off from Chin-nampo, succeeded in arresting three rebel leaders. The District Magistrate escaped, and all the Japanese are safe. The disturbance has not yet been suppressed.

Still another item from the Seoul Press narrates a similar experience:

Disquietude of a somewhat serious nature is reported from Kim-hai, under the Fusan Residency. About six o’clock in the morning of the 14th inst., the Residency of Fusan received a message from Kim-hai to the effect that a number of Koreans were threatening to storm the District Office on account of some grievance connected with taxation. Several policemen were at once despatched to the scene of trouble, where they found a crowd of natives actively rioting. The latter broke open the prison, set all its inmates free and, far from yielding to the advice of the policemen to disperse, offered obstinate resistance. The policemen found the odds hopelessly great, and decided to ask for re-enforcements. About this time there arrived a force of our gendarmes who hastened to the disturbed scene on receipt of the news that Mr. Lyang Hong-muk, the Magistrate of Kim-hai District, had been taken prisoner by the rioters, and that our police force from Kui-po, having attempted to recover the Magistrate, were suffering from the violence of the furious mob. The mob, however, successfully checked the advance of the gendarmes for some time by the free use of cudgels and other weapons. In the meantime, Mr. Lyang was carried away by the mob and his whereabouts is still unknown. Police re-enforcements subsequently arrived, and ordered the rioters to go home, but in vain. It is stated that the situation is assuming a more serious aspect. A joint force of our gendarmes and policemen was despatched from Fusan early on the morning of the 15th inst. Reports conflict about the number of rioters, but it is believed that they are some 400.

All this, and similar experiences, as well as the history of the Korean people for two thousand years, raises the serious question of the possibility of a truly national redemption. Both before and during my visit to Seoul I was given to understand by foreign residents, Japanese and European, that the case of the nation is hopeless; their whole social and political system is decadent; they are an effete race, destined to give way before the invasion of members from any more vigorous race. But Marquis Ito evidently entertained no such view. It was the Korean nation which he desired to rescue and to lift up—whether with, or without, the consent and assistance of their Emperor and his court. Of the same opinion with the Marquis were the missionaries. Many of these were extravagant in their praises of the native characteristics of their converts, and not only sincerely attached to them, but also confident of their capacity for educational advancement and moral and social reform. To be sure, when asked more particularly as to what were the precise traits of character which encouraged these hopes and elicited this affection, and when reminded how almost universal had been the confessions, recent and still going on among the native Christians, of long-continued indulgence in the vices of lying, dishonesty, and impurity, there was no altogether satisfactory answer to be given. The grounds for praise were usually exhausted when the amiable and affectionate nature of the Korean had been duly emphasized. To increase my distrust of the view held by the missionaries, were the facts gained in conversation with others who had been witnesses to the actions of the excited Korean populace; who had seen Korean officials that had offended this populace, or had been the object of some trumped-up charge circulated by their political rivals and enemies, beaten, jumped upon, smashed, torn limb from limb by their “gentle” and “amiable” fellow-countrymen. Nor were these things done in remote country-places, but in Seoul itself, near the Great Bell in the neighborhood of Song-do. I had also heard from the lips of Mr. Morris, manager of the Seoul Electric Railway, the story of how, at three o’clock in the morning of the night of May 27, 1900, he had been called out of bed and, accompanied by an escort of Japanese soldiers, taken to the prison near the Little West Gate to view the bodies of An Kyun Soo and Kwan Yung Chin. These were reformers who had been cajoled through promises of fair treatment by the smiling Emperor and his officials to return from exile in Japan; whereupon they had been foully murdered. Was one to share the “shivery feeling” with which Mr. Morris passed between the rows of instruments of torture to view the red marks of the cord with which these patriots had been strangled; or was one to trust the estimate of their Christian teachers regarding the mild and lovable disposition of the native Koreans? There was also the glimpse into the smouldering fires of hatred and cruelty, mingled with cowardice and hypocrisy, which I had myself had during the visit to Pyeng-yang. And there were the unceasing daily items of both the pro- and the anti-Japanese papers, to which reference has already been made. Finally, there was the fact that these characteristics of the Korean populace were historical, and were chiefly in evidence among themselves, in their relations toward their own countrymen rather than directed toward foreigners, even including the Japanese. Out of this confusion of witnesses there slowly emerged the conclusion that the mixture of good and bad needed itself to be historically explained; therefore, neither the denunciations of the one party nor the praises of the other could afford to the observer the sufficient reasons for a just judgment of the native character. It is, indeed, on the whole, just now rather more despicable than that of any other people whom I have come to know. But it is not necessarily beyond redemption. At any rate, here is another question which needs illumining in the whiter and broader light of history.