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2 : The Twilight of Independence

BY THE mid-1890’s, Korea’s chances of maintaining her independence were precarious. She turned from one of her neighbors to another, but each provided protection only in exchange for sovereignty-eroding concessions. It was now Russia’s turn to surround the king with its own advisors, and to obtain from the court long-term leases on railroads and mines. The king turned again to the American minister for support, but U.S. interest in Korean independence would be fifty years in coming.

The murder of the queen had heightened the king’s fears for his personal safety, and turned him into a virtual recluse. Into the void created by the absence of royal leadership, however, stepped a representative of Korea’s increasingly nationalistic middle class.

So Jae-pil, known by his anglicized name Philip Jaisohn, had made common cause during the early 1880’s with the Japan-oriented Korean “progressives” who, led by Kim Ok-kun, attempted to induce the Korean court to follow Japan’s example in Westernization. In 1884, however, an unsuccessful coup discredited both theJapanese and the Korean progressives and forced Jaisohn to flee to the United States.

In America, Jaisohn earned his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University, the first Korean to do so. He returned to Korea in 1895, however, hoping that the king’s escape from the Japanese would provide an opportunity for the reform and strengthening of the monarchy. He joined the staff at Paichai School, which soon became a focal point of Korean nationalism. In 1896 he formed the Independence Club, with Syngman Rhee as one of his lieutenants.

The alleged purpose of the club was “to discuss matters concerning official improvements, customs, laws, religion, and various pertinent affairs in modern lands.”¹ In practice, Jaisohn sought to Americanize the Korean government by making it responsive to public opinion. But before tackling the task of creating public opinion, the Independence Club sought to bolster the independence of the feeble monarchy. To the king they petitioned:

“We, Your Majesty’s humble servants, desire to state that two important factors constitute an independent and sovereign state, namely: first, it must not lean upon another nation nor tolerate foreign intervention in the national administration; secondly, it must help itself by adopting a wise policy and enforcing justice throughout the realm. The power of establishing these two great principles has been invested to Your Gracious Majesty by Heaven above. Whenever this power is destroyed there is no sovereignty. . . .

“Recently we, your humble servants, have observed that the condition of the nation is on the verge of destruction; great disappointment and constant discontent prevail in the heart of every citizen. The reason for this state of affairs is the giving away of the authority of administering the national finance . . . [and] the military departments. . . . Even the power of appointing and dismissing government officials has been taken from our own authorities.

“The only way to maintain order and achieve improvement in national life is to enforce just laws and apply proper rules and regulations to all institutions of the government. But of late the authorities disregard both the old and the new laws and the rules and regulations have become worthless dead letters. Under such circumstances how can we expect other nations to consider us capable of self government? . . .

“Alas! . . . The consequence is that the most powerful neighbors have been treating us as if we are nobody, and even Your Majesty’s position has become perilous.”²

3. Syngman Rhee (left rear) with a group of classmates and professors at Harvard University in 1908. This was the year in which Rhee was granted a master’s degree for his studies in international relations and in which conditions in Korea influenced him to the decision to continue his education abroad. (Pacific Stars and Stripes Photo)

Although the king regarded it with distrust, the Independence Club increased in influence. When, in March 1898, the czar demanded virtual control of the government on penalty of withdrawing his advisors, the club was among the first to urge the king to call Russia’s bluff. When the timid king complied, and the Russians indeed withdrew, Korea seemed ready for reforms which Jaisohn hoped would strengthen its prestige abroad. The king hired Jaisohn as a special advisor and appointed a forward-looking new cabinet which included considerable representation from the Independence Club. But the reformists’ ascendancy was short-lived. The king’s reactionary advisors fed him tales of plots against the monarchy, and in May the king paid Jaisohn for the balance of his contract and dismissed him. On November 5 the king ordered the Independence Club disbanded and its members arrested.

The members of the club scattered, many seeking sanctuary in foreign compounds. Syngman Rhee found refuge in the American Methodist Hospital near South Gate, and remained there even after the king had promised American Minister Horace Allen that no harm would come to the independence leaders. As one of the Independence Club’s leading agitators, Rhee had little confidence in the king’s word.

One day, however, restless in his confinement, Rhee asked a member of the hospital staff, Dr. Harry C. Sherman, if he might accompany him on his rounds. The doctor assented, but scarcely had the two left the compound when Rhee was spotted, seized by court detectives, and thrown into jail.

In a country where torture has long been an accepted means of police interrogation, Rhee was fortunate in having missionary protectors. His American friends made regular visits to his prison to be sure that he was not being tortured. Minister Allen, a onetime missionary himself, protested the persecution of the Independence Club as being in violation of the king’s word.

With such outside aid Rhee’s release might well have been secured through pressure on the court. In the course of a visit, however, one of Rhee’s colleagues rashly passed him a pistol. An escape plan was arranged whereby Rhee and two others would force their way out of prison and then seek the protection of a pro-independence crowd outside the prison. Brandishing the pistol, the three made good their escape, but because of confusion in the timing no crowd was in the square, and only one of the three was able to make his way to a foreign compound and avoid recapture.³

When Rhee was returned to prison, it was the beginning of seven years’ incarceration—years which would see the death of the Independence Club, the further deterioration of the monarchy, and a supplanting of Russian influence in Korea by the ubiquitous Japanese. To Rhee personally, his prison years would mean an end to his early marriage, which had been arranged by his parents and consummated in 1896.^* But his term in prison would also go far in hardening his resolve to continue to work for Korean independence.

For the first seven months of his prison term Rhee received standard Korean treatment at the hands of his jailors. Hours of physical torture alternated with periods of dampness and filth in prison isolation. According to his biographer, two sticks would be placed between Rhee’s legs; his legs were then bound tightly together and the sticks twisted. Sharp pieces of bamboo were tied between his fingers and his hand tightened until flesh sheared from the bone. For hours at a time he was clamped into stocks, with a 20-pound canque of wood around his neck so that he could neither sit nor stand.⁴ Nonetheless Rhee took everything his tormenters could offer, and when he became president of South Korea these and some additional refinements would be used on his own political opponents.

When Rhee was finally brought to trial, he might well have received a death sentence. Several factors, however, worked in his favor: the circumstances of his original apprehension, which prompted Rhee’s missionary friends to maintain that his being with Dr. Sherman implied immunity from arrest; Minister Allen’s known partiality for the Independence Club, which he freely expressed to the king, with whom he was a favorite; and finally the fact that it was not Rhee but Choe Chong-sik, who had been apprehended with him at the time of the escape, who was most wanted by the royal court. At the trial Choe was sentenced to death, Rhee to life imprisonment.

Rhee’s incarceration coincided with an ominous new trend in Korea’s international affairs. Japan, quick to take advantage of Russia’s embarrassment when the Yi king asked for the withdrawal of Russian advisors, concluded with Russia the Nishi-Rosen agreement pledging each to consult the other with respect to the appointment of advisors to the Korean government. More importantly, Russia pledged not to hinder Japan’s expanding commercial interests in Korea. Mutual acknowledgment of Korea’s “entire independence” suggested that Japan was prepared to try new tactics in connection with the country.

The years leading to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 were marked by accelerated economic imperialism by the Japanese. After Japan had been twice thwarted in attempts to seize control by force, Tokyo’s use of the velvet glove proved effective in the end. In July 1898, Japan gained concessions to build one railroad from Seoul to Pusan and another from Seoul to Inchon. In August, Minister Allen reported that strategic property near the treaty ports had been largely bought up by the Japanese, and that many Japanese citizens were residing in the interior of Korea in violation of agreements limiting foreigners to the treaty ports.⁵

Russia’s attempts to check the Japanese met with little success. By 1903, however, tensions arising from conflicting timber claims along the Yalu River had brought Russo-Japanese relations near the breaking point. Militarists in Japan called for war, and the following year brought the conflict which established a Japanese protectorate over the Hermit Kingdom.

By the time of his trial Rhee’s darkest hour had passed. In addition to his life sentence he was to have received one hundred blows with a bamboo rod. But the judge left the chamber, and the guard was friendly. Rhee was spared.

In prison Rhee once again benefited from the attention of American missionaries, who brought him food and reading matter. Both the warden and his assistant befriended him, and the hard labor which was to have been part of the sentence was quickly forgotten. For Rhee, as for many another revolutionary, prison proved to be a period of activity and dedication.

Considering the favors Rhee had received from American Methodists in Korea, it is scarcely surprising that prison brought about his conversion to that faith. In 1904, he wrote of his earlier belief:

“It must be remembered that the great ambition which led me to the [Paichai] school was to learn English, and English only. This ambition I quickly achieved, but I soon discovered I was learning something of far greater importance than the English language. I was imbibing ideas of political equality and liberty. . . .

“Then I began to understand that political changes do not come by themselves and are not only a question of laws and regulations. There must also come deep and abiding changes within the hearts and minds of the people—and particularly in the ruling class. I began to listen a little bit to the morning services in the chapel and when I listened I heard that Jesus was more than a symbol of salvation in afterlife. He was also a Great Teacher who brought a gospel of brotherly love and service. I began to have more respect for these foreign religious teachings and in my own private mind I began to consider that maybe Jesus deserved to rank somewhere near Confucius. But further than this I could not or would not go.”⁶

Thus prison completed a conversion already underway. Although Rhee’s later life has underscored the contradiction between Rhee the Christian minister-teacher and Rhee the political leader, he was to be closely associated with various forms of Christian activity for much of his career. As with everything else, however, his religious work took a back seat to a lifetime of agitation for Korea.

As Rhee’s prison lot improved, he was able to resume his political writing. Editorials for the revived Maiyil Sinmun were smuggled from the prison and printed anonymously, but the background of their authorship soon became known. They were read by Lady Um, consort to the King and sometime supporter of reform movements in Korea, who encouraged the warden to be lenient to Rhee and his associates. By the traditional Korean means of having a friend in court, Rhee’s lot was eased, and he was encouraged to pursue his writing further.

When Rhee turned to composing a book to propagate Korean independence, he found a small but enthusiastic audience. The corruption and weakness of the Korean court were recognized by progressive Koreans, but the dissolution of the Independence Club had left them dispirited and without leadership. The absence of progressives such as Philip Jaisohn, in America, and Kim Ok-kun, in Shanghai, tended to enhance the popularity of hitherto secondary leaders such as Rhee.

The resulting literary effort, The Spirit of Independence, was largely a collection of political essays and admonitions, with chapters dealing with subjects as diverse as astronomy, “stubborn” China, America’s Declaration of Independence, and the “foundations of true loyalty.” Rhee has acknowledged: “I wrote . . . with very few reference materials, and . . . addressed it in very simple terms to the Korean people, most of whom are uneducated and without any earlier knowledge of the Western world” Although Rhee’s own formal Western education was limited to his two years at Paichai, it is significant that even in his twenties he found himself preaching the gospel of independence to people willing to listen. He wrote:

“If your own heart is without patriotism, your heart is your enemy. You must struggle against your own feelings if they urge you to forgo the struggle for the common cause. Let us examine our hearts now, at this moment. If you find within yourself any single thought of abandoning the welfare of your country, tear it out. Do not wait for others to lead or to do what must be done, but arouse yourself. . . .

“As I have indicated before, to live in this nation is comparable to being a passenger on a ship in a cruel sea. How can you be so indifferent as not to be concerned with the affairs of your own nation, but to insist they are the business of high officials? . . .

“The relationship between you and your nation may seem so remote that you have little reason to love it or to make efforts to save it. Therefore, two enemies must be guarded against: first, the people who try to destroy the nation; and second, those who sit passively by, being without any hope or sense of responsibility.”⁷

Thus Rhee appears not to have been pressing a specific program of reform, but rather to have been attempting to awaken his countrymen to the peril from abroad. The Spirit of Independence has had none of the impact abroad of other prison-inspired volumes, but in Korea, where independence was itself a new concept to a people long used to Chinese suzerainty, the work was not without significance despite its small distribution.

There were other independence leaders in Seoul Prison besides Rhee, and several would be associated with Rhee at various times after their release. Lee Chung-hyuk would accompany him to the United States in 1904 to plead Korea’s cause in America. Park Young-man would become a rival of his among American-oriented Koreans in Hawaii. Hugh Cynn, a boyhood friend of Rhee’s, would oppose him for the South Korean presidency in 1952.

The beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 stirred hopes among the prisoners that a political amnesty would follow Korea’s declaration of neutrality, but court reactionaries were not anxious to be troubled again by rabble-rousing young reformers. Some persons in government circles interpreted the United States—Korean friendship treaty of 1882 as guaranteeing American protection against aggression. Minister Allen had indeed assured the king as late as 1900 that “the treaty powers would assist Korea in time of distress, by their good offices, and recalled to his mind the fact that in 1894, at the time of the Sino-Japanese War, when he had asked the good offices of the United States, he had not asked in vain.”⁸ To the Koreans, accustomed to their earlier Confucian relationship with China, no “big brother” would allow niceties concerning the definition of good offices to prevent him from aiding “little brother.”

Even prior to the end of the Sino-Japanese War, Japan had all but assimilated the Hermit Kingdom. A protocol was signed pledging Korea to accept Japanese “improvements in administration.” This entering wedge was followed with demands for the abolition of Korea’s department of posts and telegraphs, for the placing of Japanese police in every province, for the recall of Korean legations abroad, and finally for indemnity for every Japanese killed by Koreans in the ten years before. When a declaration of amnesty brought Rhee’s release on August 9, 1904, his country was a Japanese protectorate in all but name.

One cannot help wondering if Rhee’s lifelong hatred of the Japanese does not stem in part from his realization of how skillfully they had made use of Korea’s fledgling independence movement to neutralize Russia and accomplish their own ends. But his time in prison had not tempered his zeal for Korean independence. Upon his release, Rhee contracted two progressive ministers of the court, Prince Min Yong-hwan and General Hahn Kyu-sul. He found both concerned over Japanese encroachments and anxious to make a personal appeal to the United States. With the emperor virtually immobilized by Japanese surveillance (the Yi king had assumed the imperial title in 1897 for reasons of prestige), there seemed little possibility of the appointment of an official delegation. It was therefore determined that Rhee would go to Washington, accompanied by his erstwhile prison colleague, Lee Chung-hyuk. Theirs would be one of several fruitless missions.

When Rhee left for America in November 1904, he left behind him much of his Korean heritage. His mother had died prior to his imprisonment, and his gradual Westernization had contributed to his estrangement from his Korean wife. Upon his departure he adopted the anglicized name of Syngman Rhee, never to revert to the Korean Lee Sung-man. Yet if his thinking was to be greatly influenced by the West, his lifelong goal had already been determined by the political struggles of his youth—by independence demonstrators waving banners in the streets of Seoul.

* Robert T. Oliver, Syngman Rhee: The Man behind the Myth (New York, 1954), pp. 52-53. According to Oliver, Rhee’s first wife was somewhat older than he but was “distinguished by unusual strength of intellect and character.” Oliver acknowledges that her fate is “uncertain” but states that she bore him a son who died in Philadelphia in 1908 after being sent to America to study. It has been periodically rumored that Rhee’s first wife is still alive, pensioned off in a province of southern Korea.