Flash-lights From The Seven Seas Part 9

All day I have been on the streets of Peking listening to groups of students discussing the all absorbing-question of the Boycott. I have not understood the characters printed on their banners, but I have understood the light in Young China's eyes. I can understand that language and that light, for it is the language and the light of freedom, justice, liberty! I am an American. I understand that light when I see it; and I know also; that it is a light that can never be snuffed out. It is a light that prison walls cannot hide and that the brute hand of the invader cannot dim.

"And what are they protesting against?" is the question asked.

Primarily against the j.a.panese control of Shantung. Secondarily, against a type of civilization which j.a.pan represents; a civilization that uses the weapons of frightfulness to accomplish its ends; a civilization that steals a nation like Korea, compelling the abdication of a weak Emperor at the point of the bayonet; and then using the avowed method of extermination to deplete a subjected nation. The whole Orient knows j.a.pan and knows the methods that j.a.pan has used and is using in conquered territory. It is a continuous and continual policy of extermination, frightfulness, and a.s.similation. This is the underlying cause of the hatred of the whole Orient and the Far and Near East against j.a.pan; and this is the fundamental reason for the Students'

Boycott of j.a.panese goods in China.

One might devote an entire book to narrations of frightful cruelties perpetrated by j.a.panese on Koreans, Siberians and Formosans; but that would not be so strong as the setting forth of the underlying ethical reasons for this universal hatred in which j.a.pan is held.

However it might be quite honest and fair for this writer to set down here several acts of frightfulness that came under his own personal observation merely as casual ill.u.s.trations of that which is going on all the time.

One day I was walking with a missionary's wife through the streets of Seoul. There was an excavation being made and a little railroad track was being run along this excavation. A Korean boy had been set to guard this track to keep folks from getting hurt when the dump car came down its steep grade. He had been ordered by his j.a.panese employers to stop all pa.s.sage when the signal was given.

We were walking along when this Korean stopped an ordinary j.a.panese civilian. He was of the low-browed type; mentally deficient I should say; but quite the average type that is used by j.a.pan to settle these conquered countries.

The Korean held up his hands in warning.

The j.a.panese stooped over, picked up a stone as large as a cabbage head and, with only a s.p.a.ce of two feet between himself and the Korean, threw it with all his force against the cheek of the Korean and smashed his jaw in, tearing his ear off, breaking his jaw bone, and lacerating his face fearfully. It was one of the most inhuman things that I have ever seen done.

The missionary woman said to the Korean when the j.a.p ran; "Why do you not report this to the j.a.panese police?"

"It would do no good. They would give no justice to me, and I would be hounded to my death for reporting it."

One evening with a friend I had been speaking in Pyeng Yang. It was midnight one Sunday and we were waiting for a train down to Seoul. As we stood on the platform waiting; a north-bound train came in. It stopped.

As it stopped several j.a.panese train boys got off of the train. An old white-haired Korean gentleman, about seventy-five years of age, stood on the platform waiting for the train. He was intelligent looking; poised; and well-dressed in the usual immaculately white robes.

A fifteen-year old j.a.panese train boy, seeing him standing there, deliberately ran out of his way, lowered his shoulders like a football charger and ran squarely into the old man, knocking him down to the platform and ran on with a laugh and some muttered j.a.panese words.

The dignified Korean gentleman got up, brushed the dirt from his clothes; did not even deign to glance at the offending boy; and walked on as if nothing had happened.

This scene ill.u.s.trates two things: First, the superiority of the Korean mind and character to that of the j.a.panese. This is one of the causes of the extreme frightfulness pursued by the j.a.panese. They instinctively feel the superiority of their captives. It is not the first time in history that a lesser nation has conquered a superior people.

This superiority in soul-stuff that the Korean has over that of the j.a.panese is recognized immediately by all Europeans and Americans who become, even in the least bit, familiar with the two peoples. The sympathy of Christian civilizations is with the Koreans immediately.

The other thing that this simple scene ill.u.s.trates, is the spirit of ruthless cruelty and frightfulness that is bred in the very soul of the youth of j.a.pan toward the Koreans. Even the train boys can do a thing like that without fear of punishment.

The first day that we were in Seoul, the capital city of Korea, Pat McConnell and myself were walking down the main street of this interesting city toward the depot. Parallel with us marched a squad of j.a.panese soldiers. In front of them, going the same direction, was a poor Korean workman pus.h.i.+ng a small cart that looked like our American wheelbarrow.

The j.a.panese soldiers were in formation and marching in the middle of a wide street. But deliberately; evidently with orders from their officer in charge; they edged over to that side of the street where the Korean was walking and pushed him into the curb stone, kicking his barrow as they pa.s.sed, although this meant a useless swerving of, at least, fifteen feet out of their course to do so. It was a case of deliberate brutality.

"Korea is a land of trails and terraces," said a prominent missionary in that fair spot to me one day as we were riding from Fusan to Seoul.

"And terror," added another traveler from America. "It is a land of trails, terraces, and terror!"

One day a friend of mine was begging Baron Saito, the present Governor-General of Korea, to stop the cruelties of the j.a.panese gendarmes in villages in northern Korea. The Baron asked for the names of those who had given the missionary his information about the cruelties and he refused to give them.

"Why should you not give them?" asked Baron Saito.

"Because they would be killed for complaining," said the missionary.

Then he told Governor-General Saito how he had once complained to the police department when a father and son were cruelly beaten in prison.

"Give me their names," said the gendarme.

"I will if you will give me a promise that they will be protected."

"No! I cannot do that! The gendarmes are very revengeful!"

I know personally of a Korean preacher who has done no greater crime than to attend a meeting at a dinner given for released Korean prisoners. He was arrested and kept in jail for three days, just for attending that dinner.

Another preacher with whom I talked was suspected of collecting money eight months after the March Independence Movement. When he heard that the j.a.panese police were coming for him he fled. This angered the police. They appeared the next morning at three o'clock at his home.

There were only the mother and a twelve-year-old daughter left. First the gendarmes burst in the frail doors with the b.u.t.ts of their rifles, and then from three o'clock in the morning until daylight, they beat and tortured those two helpless Christian Korean women; kicking them all over the house until they were unconscious. These two Korean women were in bed for two weeks because of that night's experience and were not able to walk for a much longer period than that.

And these women were educated, cultured women. They had committed no crime. It was simply because they did not know where the father was.

Later the father and son were arrested. They were beaten cruelly in the process of arrest although they offered no resistance. The son later said to me, "I could stand it to be beaten myself and even to see my father beaten but the unbearably cruel thing was to know that they had beaten my innocent mother and sister when no man was there to protect them."

I cite this instance because it happened eight months after the Independence Movement, and three months after the so-called reform Government of Baron Saito had been in effect and after the j.a.panese Press had said to the world that all cruelties had ceased.

A case of frightfulness that was called to my attention; which seemed to me to be the very essence of cruelty was that of the moral terrorizing of an educated Korean Pastor, whom the police merely suspected of having had something to do with the Independence Movement. They had no direct evidence but submitted him to months of moral terrorizing which was the worst I have ever heard of.

For months at a stretch they would suddenly appear outside of his home and thrust their bayonets through his doors. Then they would go away without saying a word. He had absolutely no redress. If he had complained, he would have been thrown into prison.

One of the most reliable missionaries that I met in Korea told me of how one morning the policemen came to a church in northern Korea during the hour of service. They broke eighty windows, arrested fourteen men, smashed the little organ with their gun b.u.t.ts, smashed a beautiful lamp, tore up the mat seats from the floors, and burned them in front of the church.

At the funeral service of another young Korean preacher, Pak Suk Han in Pyeng Yang, hundreds of j.a.panese soldiers appeared with drawn bayonets just to terrorize the people. The church was full of j.a.panese officers with drawn swords.

"What would have happened if somebody in a fit of patriotism had shouted 'Mansei'?" I asked.

"We would have been killed instantly!" said the missionary soberly. "I was afraid of that!"

A prominent, educated and English-speaking Korean official, told me that in a conversation with a high j.a.panese official that that particular j.a.panese had said "Our plan will be to a.s.similate the Korean people!"

"But that will be impossible. There are twenty million of us. You will find that a hard thing to do!" said this Korean.

The j.a.panese official smiled and said significantly, "We know the way!"

The Korean knew what that meant. It meant extermination; extermination in every way possible. It meant extermination by introducing prost.i.tution in Korea. This has been done. Korea never had any legalized prost.i.tution. Korea never knew what the Red Light Section meant. j.a.pan's first move was to introduce that. She sent her diseased women to Korea.

She made prost.i.tution ridiculously cheap; fifty sen; which is twenty-five cents in American money.

"Why?"

It is one of her ways of a.s.similation which means extermination and she has already shot venereal disease rates up to an alarming state in Korea.

Her next step in frightfulness was to introduce opium. j.a.panese Agents raise thousands of acres of Opium in Korea and sell it. This is another one of her steps in the process of a.s.similation or extermination.

j.a.pan has stolen from poor Koreans their rice lands and their coal beds.

The process is for a j.a.panese company to buy the water sources of the rice paddies below and then refuse to let the Koreans have water for his rice fields. This is another step in frightfulness that will finally exterminate the Korean if it keeps up long enough.