The History of Korea (vol. 2 of 2)

by Homer B. Hulbert

(5) All sources of revenue and methods of raising taxes shall be placed under the control of the Finance Department, no other department or officer or corporation being allowed to interfere therewith; and the annual estimates and balances shall be made public.

(6) The existing laws and regulations shall be enforced without fear or favor.

It will be seen that several of these measures strike directly at powers which have been held for centuries by the King himself and it cannot be supposed that His Majesty would listen willingly to the voice of the common people when they demanded such far-reaching innovations. The whole thing was utterly distasteful to him, but the united voice of the people is a serious matter. In such a country as Korea the clearly announced statement of the common people as to their wishes carries with it the implication that they have come to the point where they are ready to make trouble if their demands are not complied with. The intensity of the popular feeling was shown in the general closing of shops and in the attendance even of women upon the mass meetings. The reactionists were seriously startled by these demonstrations, and it became necessary to temporize. These demands were not such as would involve any immediate changes; they all looked to the future. So it was an easy matter simply to comply with the demands and wait for the public feeling to subside. On the last day of September His Majesty ordered the carrying out of these six propositions.

The trouble was that the conservatives felt that they had not sufficient physical power to oppose a popular uprising. The temporary concession was made with no idea of real compliance, and was immediately followed by measures for securing a counter demonstration. The instrument selected for this purpose was the old-time Peddlar’s Guild. This was a defunct institution, but the name survived, and the conservatives used it to bring together a large number of men who were ready for any sort of work that would mean pay. These were organized into a company whose duty it was to run counter to all popular demonstrations like those which had just been made. No sooner was this hireling band organized than His Majesty, in pursuance of the hint dropped some months before by the President of the Independence Club, ordered the disbanding of the Club. From this time on the Independence Club was no longer recognized by the Government and was an illegal institution, by the very terms of the unfortunate admission of its President that the Emperor could at any time disband it by Imperial decree. Mr. Yun Chi-ho had by this time come to see that the Club was running to dangerous extremes and was likely to cause serious harm; and he and others worked with all their power to curb the excitement and secure rational action on the part of the members of the Club. But the time when such counsels could prevail had already passed. The Club knew that the principles it advocated were correct and it was angry at the stubborn opposition that it met. It was ready to go to any lengths to secure its ends. Passion took the place of judgment and the overthrow of the opposition loomed larger in its view than the accomplishment of its rational ambitions.

“GREAT ROCK”—TA-BA-WI GOLD-BEARING QUARTZ.

Instead of dispersing in compliance with the Imperial order the assembled Independents went in a body to the Police Headquarters and asked to be arrested. This is a peculiarly Korean mode of procedure, the idea being that if put on trial they would be able to shame their adversaries; and incidentally it embarrassed the administration[administration], for the prisons would not suffice to hold the multitude that clamored for incarceration. The crowd was altogether too large and too determined for the Peddlers to attack and another concession had to be made. The Independents, for it can no longer be called the Independent Club, offered to disperse on condition that they be guaranteed freedom of speech. The demand was immediately complied with; anything to disperse that angry crowd which under proper leadership might at any moment do more than make verbal demands. So on the next day an Imperial decree granted the right of free speech. This concession, likewise, was followed by a hurried muster of all the peddlars and their more complete organization. Backed by official aid and Imperial sanction they were prepared to come to blows with the people who should assemble for the purpose of making further demands upon the Emperor.

Shortly before this the Emperor had consented to the proposition that the Independence Club should choose by ballot from their own number twenty-five men who should sit in the Privy Council. This council had for a time exercised some influence during the earlier months of Dr. Jaisohn’s residence in Seoul but it had lost all power and had become a limbo to which were politely relegated those whom the government did not care to use and yet was unwilling to dismiss. The edict of the Emperor disbanding the Club would be supposed to countermand this order for election, but the Independents themselves did not so view it, and the day set for the election was November 5th. The conservatives now deemed themselves strong enough to try conclusions with the outlawed Club and before daylight of November 5th seventeen of the leading men of the Independence Club were arrested and lodged in jail, Mr. Yun, the president, narrowly escaped arrest. It was afterwards ascertained that the plan of the captors was to kill the president of the Club before he could receive aid from the enraged people.

When morning came and the arrest became known the city hummed like a bee-hive. A surging crowd was massed in front of the Supreme Court demanding loudly the release of the prisoners who had been accused, so the anonymous placards announced, of conspiring to establish a republic! Again the popular feeling was too strong for the courage of the peddlar thugs and they remained in the back-ground. The agitation continued all that day and the next, and the next, until the authorities were either frightened into submission or, deeming that they had shown the Independents a glimpse of what they might expect, released the arrested men. But the Independents, so far from being cowed, hailed this as a vindication of their policy and attempted to follow up the defeat of the conservatives by demanding the arrest and punishment of the people who had played the trick upon the Club. As these men were very prominent officials and had the ear of the Emperor it was not possible to obtain the redress demanded. So the month of November wore away in a ferment of excitement. Popular meetings were frequent but the crowd had not the determination to come to conclusions with the government. The conservatives saw this and with utmost nicety gauged the resisting power of the malcontents. The offensive tactics of the latter were confined merely to free speech and the conservatives determined to see what they would do when on the defensive. Accordingly on the morning of November 21st a band of ruffians, the so-called peddlars, attacked the people who had gathered as usual to discuss the stirring questions of the times. Weapons were used and a number of people were injured. The Independents had never contemplated the use of force, and this brutal assault aroused the ire of the whole people, most of whom had not as yet taken sides. Serious hand to hand fights occurred in various parts of the city and the peddlars, conscious that even their most murderous attacks would be condoned in high places, attempted to whip the people into something like quietude.

On the 26th of November in the midst of this chaotic state of things the Emperor granted a great general audience outside the great gate of the palace. The Independence Club was there in force, and foreign representatives and a large number of other foreign residents. It was a little Runnymede but with a different ending. Yun Chi-ho was naturally the spokesman of the Independence party. He made a manly and temperate statement of the position of his constituents. He denounced the armed attacks of the peddlars upon people who intended no violence but only desired the fulfillment of solemnly made pledges. He called to account those who imputed to the Independence Club traitorous designs. He urged that the legal existence of the Club should be again established by Imperial decree and that the six measures so definitely and distinctly promised by His Majesty should be carried out. There was no possible argument to oppose to these requests and the Emperor promised to shape the policy of the government in line with these suggestions. Again it was mere promise, made to tide over an actual and present difficulty. The Independence people should have recognized this. The Emperor was surrounded by men inimical to the reform program, they had the police and the army back of them as well as the peddlars. The Independence party had not a single prominent representative in any really responsible and influential government office. They simply had right and the precarious voice of Korean popular feeling behind them. What was necessary was a campaign of education. The program advocated was one that could be carried out only under a government whose personnel was at least approximately up to the standard of that program. This could be claimed of only two or three members of the Independence Club. Having secured this public promise of His Majesty the club should have waited patiently to see what would happen and if the promises were not kept they should have waited and worked for a time when public sentiment among the leading men would compel reform. But as Mr. Yun himself confesses, “The popular meetings had gone beyond the control of the Independence[Independence] Club and in the face of strong advice to the contrary[contrary] they were resumed on December 6th and their language became careless and impudent. On the sixteenth of December the Privy Council recommended the recall of Pak Yong-hyo from Japan. The popular meeting had the imprudence to endorse this action. The more conservative portion of the people revolted against the very mention of the name. Suspicion was excited that the popular agitations had been started in the interests of Pak Yong-hyo and they instantly lost the sympathy of the people.” The enemies of the liberal party had probably used this argument to its fullest extent, and when it was seen that the Independence movement had at last been deprived of its strongest support, the popular voice, its enemies came down upon it with cruel force. In spite of voluble promises to the contrary large numbers of the reform party were arrested and thrown into prison; not, to be sure, on the change of being members of this party, but on trumped-up charges of various kinds, especially, that of being accessory to the plan of bringing back Pak Yong-hyo. And thus came to an end a political party whose aims were of the highest character, whose methods were entirely peaceable but whose principles were so far in advance of the times that from the very first there was no human probability of success. But, as Mr. Yun Chi-ho said, though the party dies the principles which it held will live and eventually succeed.