ARTICLE VI Korea-Crushed and Humiliated; HAD traveled all day from Kyoto to Shimonaseki and to seemed to have traversed the entire extent of Japan. The matchless mountain-Fujyama-perfectly symmetrical kept well in view at close range for hours, and then the train skirted the shores of the renowned Inland Sea, displaying as its particular gem the sacred island of Myajima. These are Japan's glories. All railroads are narrow-gauge, and glide like serpents across valleys and through tunnels. It is a toyland of surprising things. From Shimonaseki, the most southerly extremity, I crossed to Korea, and saw the clustered islands behind which the Japanese fleet in Nineteen Hundred and Four waited for the Russian Armada, then on its way through the straits to Vladivostock, and destroyed it. It is always a rough crossing, on account of the conflicting currents, but has not seemed to serve as a "watery wall," like Britain's barrier, for Korea. Then all day we traveled in perfectly-equipped Pullmans over a broad-gauge from Fusan to Soeul, the capital of Korea, the "Hermit Kingdom," there to be courteously met at 10:00 P. M. by Japanese gentlemen from the "Friendly Society." I wondered when the bureau for the prevention of prying closed its door for the night! The Korean people are of good stature, but their headdress is a fair target for innocent mirth, and, indeed, would indicate on their part the absence of a fine sense of proportion. A diminutive stovepipe hat of no utility sits on their heads like the budding flower of Western civilization! But, whatever its destiny might have been, it has stopped growing! The people wear long flowing white robes everywhere and at every task, and I am told it is the mourning they express, inconsolable, for the loss of their Emperor as well as their independence. It is a pathetic picture of helpless devotion and abused confidence. It will take many generations to make them forget, and I do not believe their masters, the Japanese, know the art of ingratiation. Here is an ancient land, Eighty-seven Thousand square miles of surface and Eighteen Million people, taken by Japan, which has established a military despotism. So far as relieving her own congested population is concerned, it is a failure. The crown lands were taken by Japan, and the Korean tenant farmers, who used to pay 20% rent to the Emperor annually, now are displaced by Japanese, and have gone farther north as pioneers in Manchuria. The country is reduced to subjection. I am told that the civil organization, in an administrative sense, possibly has been improved. The missionaries, who have an income of one and a half millions annually, have lost their standing with the people and bitterly complain. It seems that under the monarchy they could get favors from the throne through the American Legation, by which individuals would be protected against the rapacity of dishonest officials. The Japanese cut this off, and the attitude of the people toward the missionaries has been altered. Recently there have been demonstrations for independence, and Japan finds that it has been unable to popularize its rule, and is resorting to repressive measures. The peasant farmers, as long as they are not molested, keep functioning, and the intellectuals-mostly, but not allfeebly demand freedom from the Japanese yoke. It seems to me the Japanese are firmly entrenched. They say the Japanese coolie fears to go to Korea, because, retaliating for the massacre of 1919, when thousands of Koreans were butchered, there is a secret society that condemns them to death. Korea, I fear, is a weak spot in Japan's armor. Japan's original policy towards Korea, which she coveted, was "silent penetration" for ten years; then open assumption of sovereignty and coerced cession in 1910. Since then, about Two Hundred Thousand Japanese, all told, or only two per cent of the entire population, have come to Korea, although urged and aided by their gov ernment. Americans were once in great favor at the court of Korea. A commission visited the United States in President Cleveland's day and negotiated a treaty whereby the United States promised to protect Korean sovereignty. In the crisis Roosevelt refused to acknowledge the obliga tion. He was deeply impressed by Japan's success in her wars, and, because America was unprepared, avoided foreign complications. China had a claim on Korea as suzerain, and that gave a faint color to the spoils theory of successful war. Soeul is beautifully situated, not unlike Florence, in a depression between hills. It has, however, nothing to distinguish it. The social life among Americans and English is very delightful, and they gladly reside in the ancient city, whose climate is particularly salubrious. Americans built the first railroads, street car systems and electric plants, but they were all politely taken over by the Japanese on low but agreed valuation. Americans are now mining under concessions from the old Korean government, and paying royalties to Japan. The principal mineral is gold. I was entertained at a native feast by a group consisting of an American miner, a Standard Oil Company agent, the Associated Press representative, an English insurance agent, and the American Consul, and their ladies-a little club that fills in that far land the craving for home and country. We went to a tea-house, shed our shoes, squatted on the floor and took up our chopsticks. The hospitable hosts cooked the meal in pots over charcoal braziers. It consisted mainly of rice, bits of tender beef, onions and other vegetables, all simmering before one's eyes, and it proved a delicious and wholesome chow. Time after time, the tickled palate, with a new interest in the cuisine of the East, would demand more. The dish, which won a triumph, is called "Tsukiyaki"-rare because no one probably can call for it! These Americans are enjoying Japanese protection in their business, and at dinner the ranking Japanese official of Korea familiarly participated in the feast. He was a bland, agreeable servant of the Mikado. Why did he come? To promote silence. Before I left Soeul, a strange man whispered in my ear one day in the street for me to get the truth of Korea from a certain person whom I shall not mention, and the In learned of the despotism under which the native people live, and the horrors of the massacre of Nineteen Hundred and Eleven. On the surface everything appears serene, but the depths and pits of patriotic resentment in the human heart are profound, and sooner or later, so ineradicable is love of country, there will be an explosion, when Japan is in distress and exposed, which will shake the foundation of things, just as the French overlords were obliterated in Santo Domingo during the great revolution. The missionaries, suffering loss of influence long established by kindly offices, dislike the Japanese, a sentiment which, I frankly declare, from conversations in many lands, is almost universal. That is because when they come as foes, they are selfish and ruthless, and, when as friends, they are regarded as insincere. They do not fit into the frank honesty of Western civilization. The cultured and ancient peoples, like the Koreans and Chinese, regard them as upstarts, and are humiliated by their mastery. By a policy of inertia-just sticking to the soilnative races there will, I believe, absorb the unwelcome immigrants, who ultimately will lose their identity, notwithstanding all that imperialistic Nippon can do. There is a general agreement among persons resident |