Homer Bezaleel Hulbert

“ The difficulty which besets the country is the lack of general education, and no genuine improvement can be looked for until the people are educated up to it. For this reason a number of foreigners joined themselves into the Educational Association of Korea, their aim being to provide suitable textbooks for Korean schools and to help in other ways toward the solution of the great question. About the same time the Minister of Education presented the government with a recommendation that the graduates of the government schools be given the preference in the distribution of public offices. ”

“ The Japanese look upon the Koreans as lawful game, and the latter, having no proper tribunals where they can obtain redress, do not dare to retaliate. If they complain at Korean courts, the magistrate lifts hands of horror and asks how in the world he is to get anything out of the Japanese, and if he applies to a Japanese court he is usually turned away without a hearing. ”

“ As the year advanced, the Japanese kept at work gathering in the material resources of the country. Fishing rights along the whole coast were demanded and given. No one who knows what Japanese fishermen are like will doubt for a moment that the Koreans will be driven from the fishing grounds. Then the coast-trading and riparian rights were seized, looking toward a complete absorption of the large coastwise and river traffic. Korean methods are slower and more cumbersome, and herein lies Japan's excuse for driving Koreans from the business. ”

“ The whole Japanese army is made up of men of the upper middle class. No man of the lower classes can stand in the ranks of that army. It is generally known that the relative social grade of the Japanese soldier is much higher than in any other country. These are men who have imbibed the old Samurai spirit and who in just that proportion hold themselves above the lower classes. It is for this reason that such a remarkable change came over the face of affairs in Korea after the Japanese armies had passed and the thousands of adventurers and self-seekers followed in its train. ”

“ The most elementary laws of human right and justice have been daily and hourly trampled under foot. Hardly an effort has been made to carry out any reform that would better the condition of the Korean people.
Mark the action of the man who controlled the finances of the country, a Japanese. The country was flooded with counterfeit nickels, made largely by Japanese in Osaka, and brought over to Korea by the millions. The Korean currency fell to a ruinous discount, and Japanese merchants were suffering severely because of the rapid fluctuations of exchange. ”

“ Americans of every class had been telling Korea for a quarter of a century that the American flag stood for fairness and honesty, that we had no purely selfish interests to subserve, but stood for right, whether that right was accompanied by might or not ”

“ The Japanese headmen of the working gangs go into the villages all along the way, and at the point of the revolver or sword compel Koreans by the hundreds to go and work at one-third of a day's wage. They have the option of making a money payment in lieu of work, but they have to pay, for each day that they get off, twice what they would have received. In this way one township handed over some twenty thousand dollars of blackmail, and for part of it they had to pay twelve per cent a month to money-lenders! ”

“ No sane person can deny that he had sufficient reason to fear. The strongest man in the Cabinet was the Prime Minister, Han Kyu-sul, and it was evident that only by segregating him and handling the Cabinet without him could the desired result be accomplished. When, therefore, the Prime Minister retired to the apartment where the Emperor was, supposably with the intention of conferring with him, he was followed by Japanese armed officials and detained in a side room. ”

“ When future historians, looking back across the years, shall view with dispassionate eyes the contemptuous attitude and the precipitate action of the American government in this case which involves the very life of the Korean nation, they will scarcely be able to so word the facts as to bring added glory to the annals of the American people. ”

“ The first clause of the treaty of 1883 between Korea and the United States says that if either of the contracting parties is injured by a third party the other shall interfere with her good offices to effect an amicable settlement. ”

“ She replied that she would die first. How it ended the writer has never heard. A Korean boatman attempted to go under the bridge at Pyengyang while it was under construction. This was forbidden, but there was no proper sign to indicate the fact. The Japanese railway coolies threw him out of his boat. He clung to some timbers in the water, but the Japanese beat his hands with railroad bolts until his fingers were broken, and he fell off and drowned. Two days later the murdered man's father, having secured the body, brought it to the Japanese Consul and demanded justice. ”