It is generally accepted that the person who smuggled out from Korea the first copy of the Korean Independence Declaration (together with its translation) was V. S. McClatchy, who was at some point the director of the Associated Press, and was in 1919 part-owner with his brother of the Sacramento Bee newspaper. In testimony to the US Congress in 1921 he said that the original of the Declaration was "brought out from Seoul on March 6 (1919) in my money belt." McClatchy (with his wife) was in Seoul on March 1 1919 and witnessed first-hand the events of the day. On page 89 of United States Congressional Serial Set, Volume 7932 he insists: "So far as I know, the first accurate translation of that document (the Declaration of Independence) was brought out by myself and offered to the Japan Advertiser at Tokyo for publication and to the Associated Press. The (Japanese) Government forbade its publication." The complete translation in question was published on the front page of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (later renamed the Honolulu Advertiser) dated March 28, 1919, together with other articles about the March 1 events and their aftermath, largely based on interviews with McClatchy ("McClatchy sees Koreans clubbed as revolt opens") immediately after he arrived in Honolulu by boat from Japan. The only unresolved question is who made the translation? The texts published soon afterwards in other US newspapers are identical with this.
Some online sources stress that McClatchy already in 1915 was virulently hostile to Japan and organized resistance to Japanese immigration to the United States. This is usually presented as an indication of his nationalistic racism, being presented from a Japanese viewpoint. The introdcution to the page on "The Japanese Problem" of which the following text is an extract, we read:
"The epithet of "racial discrimination" has been used in modern times by many to describe the articles you will read here. Keep in mind, however, that in the early 1900's, the usage of "racial" referred more specifically to nationality rather than ethnicity. In other words, the concern then was that a foreign nation was gradually supplanting parts of our nation. Accusations of racism and bigotry are groundless. In the words of McClatchy himself: "I view the Japanese themselves without prejudice, and do not even suggest that there is involved in the present problem any question of racial inferiority." He further makes "a frank admission that the Japanese are so much our superiors in certain admirable qualities, such as economy, industry, and discipline." Personal rights were never infringed. The laws on immigration and land ownership were developed, therefore, in a just and reciprocal manner, "in effect the same measures which [Japan] enforces against the Chinese and Koreans, who are, too, of the yellow race, and for precisely similar reasons."
In any event, McClatsky happened to be in Seoul with his wife on March 1, 1919, and saw at first hand the street demonstrations of that day as well as the violence with which the Japanese responded. He left Seoul almost immediately after, took the train to Busan, a boat to Japan, passed through Tokyo then took ship for Honolulu.
Some years later, in testimony to Congress, we find a lengthy description and celebration of the events of March 1919. The following text contains the important parts of a statement made before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in connection with the subject of Japanese immigration by V. S. McClatchy, publisher of the Sacramento Bee, at hearings held by the committee in Sacramento, Calif., on July 13 and 14, 1920. In the Introductory section we find:
KOREA'S
PLIGHT.
The estimate of the Korean situation, in a special article made before reliable information could be secured as to repressive measures adopted by the Japanese, has been fully confirmed by news since given to the world. I have myself received a mass of testimony and a large number of photographs bearing witness to the terrible atrocities committed upon the persons of the defenseless Koreans -- men, women, and children -- apparently with the same object which the Germans had in committing atrocities in Belgium, to subordinate by terror a subject people.
The copy of the Korean manifesto or declaration of independence, brought out from Seoul on March 6 in my money belt, is the daddy of all the copies which have since been given to the world, and now rests in the archives of the president of the provisional Korean republic -- Dr. Syngman Rhee, at Washington.
Later we read:
ARTICLE
VII. THE KOREAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT.
A REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE BY A NATION OF 20,000,000 PEOPLE -- THE GERMAN-LIKE REPRESSIVE MEASURES OF JAPAN -- SHE AIMS TO DEPRIVE THE KOREANS OF LANGUAGE, RECORDED HISTORY, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY.
A REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE BY A NATION OF 20,000,000 PEOPLE -- THE GERMAN-LIKE REPRESSIVE MEASURES OF JAPAN -- SHE AIMS TO DEPRIVE THE KOREANS OF LANGUAGE, RECORDED HISTORY, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY.
No man may know, until under exceptional advantages he has investigated the facts on the ground, how the march of events in the Far East has been concealed from western eyes for years past by a thick veil, devised partly by Japanese cunning, and owing its effectiveness largely to the world's absorption in other matters. Material aid, too, was had from inadequate and congested cable facilities, which did not transmit ordinary business or personal messages -- no matter how pressing -- across the ocean in less than 10 to 14 days. War put the wireless in Government hands, barring private messages and news service, and made excuse for a censorship which has been used to the limit; so that, even since the armistice, we see things through that veil in such indistinct or distorted fashion that we know really nothing, and what we think we know we must some day unlearn.
So it is that the western world has not learned yet the genesis, the meaning, and the real facts concerning the Korean independence demonstration commencing on March 1 -- perhaps the most wonderful instance of national self-control and organized passive resistance for accomplishment of an ideal that the world has ever known. It is too early to prophesy, but it seems not unlikely that this Korean demonstration ultimately will have an effect on the Japanese policy and the future history of the Far East which a revolution could not have accomplished.
SUPPRESSING
THE FACTS.
Japan attempted, and I think unwisely, to suppress the facts as to this demonstration and permitted the publication in the Japanese vernacular papers of expurgated, exaggerated, and colored accounts calculated to prejudice the world as to the motives and the acts of the Koreans.
For instance, every effort was made to suppress and prevent outside knowledge of the original proclamation published all over Korea at the opening of the demonstration -- a temperate, dignified, eloquent statement which declined to deal in recrimination, which blamed the Koreans themselves, partly, for their troubles, but which insisted that they were entitled to national existence, of which they had been forcibly and unfairly deprived. It suggested that Japan, in restoring Korean independence, would do more toward regaining confidence of the world and insuring permanent peace in the Far East than could be done in any other way.
Every effort was made to prevent copies of this document getting out of Korea. Houses and individuals were searched; even while I was in Seoul two Americans connected with the Y. M. C. A. were arrested and searched in the belief they had copies of the document.
HOW
THE PROCLAMATION CAME OUT.
So far as I know, the first accurate translation of that document was brought out by myself and offered to the Japan Advertiser at Tokyo for publication and to the Associated Press. The Government forbade its publication. And, so far as I can learn, the first copy to reach the United States is that which I brought to San Francisco and which was given out by the Associated Press there.
In Honolulu I was informed that the newspapers there could not receive reliable accounts of the Korean trouble through letters from their Tokyo correspondents sent by special messengers because no steamer passenger from the Orient was permitted to land on the Honolulu dock carrying letters for delivery or mailing unless such letters were turned over to postal officials, by whom they would be submitted to censorship.
It is within my own knowledge that fellow passengers on the Shinyo Maru who had with them correspondence concerning the Korean troubles for delivery to Honolulu newspapers were asked to surrender them to the customs and post-office officials at the gate, and when they refused, were ordered to take them back to the ship and threatened with $1,000 fine if they attempted to deliver the letters. In my own case I was not permitted to carry off the Honolulu dock for mailing a letter plainly addressed to the American minister at Peking, but, at order of the customs official, turned it over, with a nickel for postage, to the uniformed postal employee at his side.
HOW
THE FACTS WERE LEARNED.
With Mrs. McClatchy I was in Seoul, the capital of Korea, for two days and a half during the demonstration and secured a fair knowledge of the matter through intercourse with a number of Americans and Europeans long resident in Korea, thoroughly familiar with the situation and enjoying the confidence of Koreans, and, in several cases, eyewitnesses of leading incidents.
During these two days and a half we were permitted to go about freely in our rickshaws through the crowded streets taking snap pictures; but we attempted no conversation with Koreans, lest we get them into trouble. We were early warned that we were being followed by two detectives in plain clothes who made inquiries wherever we stopped as to our business and conversation, and particularly as to whether we talked to Koreans.
We traveled by rail through the length of Korea from Antung to Seoul and from Seoul to the southern end of the peninsula at Fusan, a journey of two daylights, and met on the train a number of Americans, long resident in the country, some of them Californians, and even Sacramentans, interested or employed in the American quartz-mining and gold-dredging operations below Seoul. The first half of this journey was made on March 3, the second on March 6.
From sources in Japan after our arrival there I learned more. And this, then, is the story of the Korean independence demonstration as I understand it.
GATHERING
FOR THE EMPEROR'S FUNERAL.
On Monday, March 3 [1919], the funeral of the former Korean Emperor Yi was to take place. Yi was not entitled to particular consideration at the hands of his people, and up to the time of his death did not enjoy their affection. But his death transformed him into a national hero, for it was reported, and generally believed by the Koreans, that he had committed suicide in order to force a postponement for three years, under Korean custom, of the marriage of young Prince Yi, a boy, to a Japanese princess. The prince, nominally a guest of the Japanese nation, is really a prisoner in his palace, permitted no intercourse with the Koreans, and never leaving the palace grounds unless in charge of Japanese guards. The marriage was dictated by Japan as one means of sinking Korean nationalism and aiding in assimilation of her people, and was correspondingly resented by the Koreans.
And so the worthless old emperor suddenly became a hero to his former subject, 20,000,000 people, a captive nation under Japan's iron rule. They desire to give him burial according to the ancient Korean rites, but this was refused them by the military government which rules Korea, and arrangements for a great Japanese military funeral with Shinto ceremonies went on apace.
From all parts of the Korean Peninsula the Koreans flocked to Seoul, the capital, for 10 days preceding the funeral, coming at the rate of 5,000 a day. Even on Monday, March 3, as we traveled by train down the peninsula we saw almost a steady procession of white-robed and curiously hatted Koreans walking on the highway toward the nearest railway station that they might take train for the capital. There had never been before in the history of the country such a crowd in Seoul.
A
WELL-TIMED DEMONSTRATION.
Suddenly, on the Saturday preceding the funeral, March 1, at 2 o'clock p. m., without warning or hint to the foreign population and without suspicion evidently on the part of the Japanese rulers, there was inaugurated in every large city of Korea on behalf of its 20,000,000 subject people, a peaceful demonstration and demand for national independence. This demonstration continued in various forms throughout the Korean Peninsula up to the date of our departure from Yokohama on March 17. Since that time the veil which conceals or distorts happenings in the Far East has dropped for us, as it has for all westerners.
In Seoul the demonstration consisted of a reading of the proclamation in a public park; of the rushing of many thousands of the white-robed Koreans down the wide main street shouting "Mansei," the Korean equivalent of the Japanese "Banzai"; of exhortation to students of the various schools to join in the demonstration and to maintain a peaceful agitation until they secured national freedom; of an attempt to enter the palace gates and present a petition to the young Prince Yi, etc.
The police and gendarmes could not stop the crowd at first, but soldiers were called out, and clubbed muskets and swords were used effectively, over 150 prisoners being taken to jail that afternoon, some of them rather severely injured.
Somewhat similar demonstrations were made on Monday and on Wednesday, but they did not last long, the Japanese being prepared and several hundred demonstrators being made prisoners, among them some girl students. The demonstrations in other cities took on similar character.
WONDERFUL
NATIONAL PASSIVE RESISTANCE.
There was more or less severity attached to the arrest of the Koreans. Eyewitnesses have told me of girl students being set upon by Japanese coolies with clubs and stamped upon, and being marched off by the gendarmes and tied together in couples by their thumbs. Up to the time we left Seoul, March 6, firearms had not been used by the Japanese in that city as far as I could learn, and while there were numerous injuries from clubs, clubbed muskets, and swords, no Koreans had been killed.
The astonishing thing about the demonstration was that under the terms of the proclamation and exhortation of the leaders no injury was done to property, and no violence attempted by the Koreans, even in retaliation for what seemed unnecessary brutality on the part of the gendarmes and soldiers in making arrests. This is the more astonishing when the temperamental character of the Koreans is had in mind, and their inclination to frenzy in mob formation, which in the early days of the Hermit Kingdom caused the death of several missionaries, who were torn to pieces by Korean hands and teeth.
The vernacular press of Japan during the first week of the demonstration was filled with accounts from special correspondents, declaring that in Seoul and elsewhere throughout the peninsula the Koreans had attacked, injured, and even killed gendarmes, police, and soldiers, and injured property.
Up to the morning of March 6, when we left Seoul, I am confident no such thing occurred in that city; and I have reason to believe it did not occur elsewhere. The most conclusive evidence on this point is the interview published in the Japan Advertiser by the Japanese minister of communications, Noda, who, with other high officials of the Government, went to Seoul to attend the funeral of former Emperor Yi. Noda did not leave Seoul until March 5, and his interview, published on his return to Tokyo, declared that the Koreans had not committed acts of violence or injured property, either in Seoul or anywhere else in Korea.
FURTHER
ORGANIZED EFFORTS.
On the morning on which we left Seoul, five days after the demonstrations commenced, there appeared on posts and walls a second proclamation from the Korean leaders, though unsigned, in which the people were congratulated on the manner in which they testified to Japan and to the world their desire to be free, and on the self-control and forbearance with which they had endured injury and arrest. They were reminded that as Koreans they must stand up for the sacred cause to the last man, and they were cautioned again to do no violence and no injury to property. "He who does this," the proclamation said, "is an enemy to his country, and will most seriously injure the cause." A free translation of the document was given me while waiting for the train, by a missionary who had seen a copy of it.
It is not unlikely that in country districts the Koreans later may have been incited to retaliation by the methods of their rulers. The vernacular press of Japan for a few days gave increased circumstantial accounts of death or injury to single members of local gendarmerie, coupled usually with the significant statement in each case, that "casualties" among the Koreans amounted to 40, or 60, as the case might be. According to these accounts the Japanese in the outside districts were, in instances, using firearms. The Koreans could secure no weapons unless clubs or stones. But these accounts had practically ceased when we sailed for California.
Meanwhile the Koreans had carried on the policy of passive resistance by closing up all the schools -- the Korean children having ceased to attend, and by ceasing work in various public utility and manufacturing enterprises.
"PRELIMINARY
EXAMINATIONS."
The Government had made arrests of about 4,000 agitators, and the trials of these Koreans, it was officially declared, would be commenced toward the end of March, after the "examinations" had been completed. Preliminary examinations preceding trial at the time of the Korean conspiracy cases some years ago meant inquiry by torture, under which the helpless victim confessed to anything with which he was charged. In those conspiracy cases 106 prisoners thus confessed full guilt and were sentenced on trial by punishment accordingly. The world having received an inkling of the facts, and the American and British minister, it is whispered, having suggested to the Japanese Government the propriety of further investigation, a second trial was ordered, and 98 of the 106 were adjudged innocent and discharged. Among them was one who was in prison at the time the offense with which he was charged was committed. I met in Korea Americans who had seen the scars inflicted by torture on some of these Koreans.
Some apprehend that the prominent leaders of the independence demonstration will be similarly induced during the "examinations" to make confession as to their pernicious activities and what was behind them. But it is doubtful if Japan, with her past experience, and with the eyes of the world upon her now, will resort to torture. There is a growing sentiment in Japan against the despotic rule of the military in Japanese colonies, and that sentiment is quite sensitive to the world's opinion.
THE
CHUNDOKYO.
The original proclamation was signed by 33 prominent Koreans, religious leaders and teachers, carefully selected so as to represent the Chundokyo, the Buddhists, and the three Christian religions most prominent in Korea -- the Methodist Episcopal, the Presbyterian, and the Catholic. It was intended thus to demonstrate to the world that the movement for independence was not factional. These leaders were, of course, at once arrested.
The first signature to the proclamation was that of the head of the Chundokyo; and here again the Japanese rulers received a distinct shock, for on the Chundokyo and on its head they had confidently relied for effective assistance in so subjugating the Koreans that there would be no trace left of their nationality in the coming generations.
The Chundokyo is a cult whose teachings are said to be a combination of Buddhism and Taoism and ancestral worship and Korean superstition. The cult was encouraged by the Japanese on the theory, it is said, that it would stop the spread of Christianity, whose teachings, with the flavor of democracy which accompanied them, were believed to be bad for the political digestion of the Koreans. Once the cult had supplanted Christianity it could be made to serve the purpose of the Japanese by eliminating from its teachings those features which reminded the Koreans of their wonderful history as a nation, and it would thus assist in their racial absorption by the Japanese.
However this may be, it is certain that the Chundokyo and its leader were playing the Japanese game, apparently, for years by inducing the Koreans to submit quietly to Japanese rule; that the Japanese encouraged its growth -- it is said to have now about 3,000,000 members; and that, notwithstanding the Japanese espionage system and the spies who were doubtless located in various branches of the cult, Korean intrigue was a match for Japanese intrigue, and a nation kept the secret until the time was ripe.
A
KOREAN MANIFESTO IN JAPAN.
In Japan a number of Korean students shortly before issued a proclamation for Korean independence, which was in effect a declaration of war. These students were arrested, tried, and convicted, and are already serving terms in prison. That situation was easy to handle. The Korean national movement under leadership of the Chundokyo will prove a more difficult problem for Japan.
A
MOVEMENT IN WORLD DEMOCRACY.
As to the inception of this Korean movement there is of course much of which I know nothing. I have reason to believe, however, that it was inspired in a way by the war and its assumed influence in making the world safe for democracy; by a mistaken belief on the part of the Koreans that the principle of self-determination of peoples, as enunciated by President Wilson, and as made the basis for certain decisions of the Paris peace conference, could be applied at this time to Korea; and that it was only necessary for Korea to declare her wish to be free, and Japan would be compelled to give her independence. I know personally some of the Koreans had that idea, and it would explain in part their carefully planned demonstration, indicating unanimity of sentiment, and their determined abstention from violence or retaliation, in order that the world might not be prejudiced.
The forcing of the young Prince Yi into a Japanese marriage, the belief that the old Emperor killed himself to frustrate that plan, the refusal to allow him burial by Korean rites -- all these doubtless helped to fan the sentiment of the impressionable people into flame and make it easy to set the stage for the demonstration.
Then Japan has steadily made enemies of the Koreans, when she might have made friends. After another year, for instance, they will not be permitted to learn their own language in the schools -- they must use Japanese exclusively. At present they are taught both languages. In countless other ways, following the German system of treating a conquered people, the Japanese have outraged the pride and sentiment of the Koreans when the action would not seem necessary for the maintenance of Japanese sovereignty.
Koreans are gradually being deprived of all offices, even the patriarchal heads of villages being supplanted by Japanese with an increase of salary. It is made impracticable for Koreans to attend the high school. A Korean rickshaw man in Seoul is not permitted to earn his living in that occupation unless he discards his national costume and adopts the Japanese. And I myself saw Japanese railroad officials and civilians treat inoffensive Korean passengers like dogs.
WHAT
JAPAN HAS DONE FOR KOREA.
The Koreans impress most observers who have studied them as a kindly people who could be readily assimilated by the Japanese, if, after the first forcible acts of repression, military methods and control had given way to civil government; if Korean superstition had been wiped out by education, but their language and their pride of race respected, and ambition created in them by conferring public positions on some of those who qualified for it.
It is claimed, with truth, that Japan has done many excellent things for development of Korea and improvement of sanitary and other conditions; and some insist that the Korean people as individuals are in a better way to progress under Japanese rule, rough and unkind and unfair as it is, than would have been possible as an independent nation under the misrule of their emperors and the grafting official class.
The Korean woman, who was a slave, subject to the pleasure of her master, her husband, to work as he ordered, and to be discarded when he wished, has now certain rights, and may secure a divorce on proper showing. Under the old system, the Korean man or woman, because of official graft and social conditions, had every incentive to develop into a bully or a coward, and withal a liar and a thief. The Japanese rule, notwithstanding the iron hand of the conqueror, is helping to improve some of these conditions. And this, notwithstanding that the Koreans, who claim they were originally free from venereal disease, and who had no prostitutes, have been introduced to the one by the Chinese, while the Japanese have forced on them the Yoshiwara system, under which a woman may be sold or pledged to a brothel keeper for five years, though she may claim cancellation of the contract by appeal to court.
The Japanese have built a good railroad running the entire length of Korea; are pushing forward the construction of excellent highways; have done remarkably good work in forestation of the barren hills; have made property and life safe; have inaugurated compulsory education -- and even a common-grade course for everyone is better than ignorance for the multitude. But they have wiped out any semblance of liberty; and liberty, with all peoples, is now the first consideration.
The Korean pays for all these improvements, and for the profit of his conqueror, in very high taxes; but he knows what those taxes are, and though they may amount to as much as 40 per cent, they still do not handicap him as did the confiscation which faced the old Korean who was found by an envious official to be acquiring a surplus.
HOW
JAPAN FACES THE PROBLEM.
One of the interesting phases of the situation is the manner in which Japan faces the problem. Quite evidently she is nonplussed by the passive resistance of 20,000,000 people who offer no possible excuse, according to the world's standards, for acts of brutal repression, and who simply ask in a dignified and temperate declaration or petition for the exercise of that self-determination which their good friend, "Mister Weel-son," has assured them is the right of every people.
The stories of the vernacular press of Japan that acts of violence were committed from the start by the agitators were frankly and publicly denied by two of Japan's high administrative officials. The efforts to make ill will by declaring that American missionaries had instigated the movement have been defeated by the result of an official Japanese investigation, which acquits those accused even of knowledge of the matter.
Apparently the Japanese administration can not save its face by making outside agencies responsible. A few Japanese journalists and publicists who hold that the government of Japanese colonies by military authorities is a mistake certain to make trouble for Japan, have not failed to take advantage of this situation.
In the Japanese Parliament the administration has been asked some very pointed questions looking to the merit of military repression in securing results in Korea and elsewhere and indicating a desire, if not an intention, on the part of some to call for an investigation and to demand that civil commissions instead of military governors shall hereafter control Korea and other outside tributary territory.
From statements made to me by Japanese of standing, I gather that the Korean movement has made such an impression on thinking Japanese that something will be done, probably. Not immediately, of course -- the administration must save its face; and it would not do to yield to a demand of this land from a subject people and thus acknowledge a blunder; but later, and gradually, when the action need not occasion international comments. Of course, independence will not be granted. If anything is done, it will be in the way of reforms in governing the Koreans and in an attempt to make them feel less a subject people.
If I read aright between the lines of certain published statements, an effort will be made to have the Koreans modify their declaration or petition and ask rather for reform in government and some voice in public affairs in place of the independence upon which they have set their hearts.
This Korean declaration, with the comment it causes, is only one of many evidences of a change that is taking place in Japan, which may before long treat its military rulers to a disagreeable surprise.