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FOREWORD

At the outset, I want to say that my motive in presenting this volume was not for war but for peace. In this respect I have been often misunderstood. Some of my friends ask me now and then, while discussing Oriental problems, "Do you want the United States to go to war with Japan?" No. On the contrary, I wanted the United States to avert conflict with Japan by checking her, before it was too late. That is what I want to tell in this book.

I am a pacifist, in the general sense of the word, by temperament and religion. I was raised in a Confucian family and educated in a Confucian school. Confucius placed war beyond the pale of civilization, for the rule of force is the rule of barbarians.

Korea enjoyed a high standard of Oriental civilization for more than four thousand years. Peace was the guiding principle of the nation in philosophy, politics, and poetry, and it was the household word in its everyday life. The very name of the nation, given by its founder, Tan Kun, in 2317 B.C. and renewed by the ensuing dynasty, Ki Cha, 1122 B.C., was the Land of the Morning Calm (Peace). Instead of saying among themselves, "How do you do?" "Good-bye," etc., the Koreans say, "Are you in peace?" "Go in peace," "Peace be with you," etc. Born and raised in that atmosphere, I was naturally a man of peace.

But with the advent of Western civilization came the Western idea of military conquest and superior modern weapons of war. Japan, as an apt pupil of the West, soon equipped herself with the modern instruments and Western military mentality. When she was fully ready, she came, bowed, and asked for our good will by saying, "Please make friends with us, as we are your next-door neighbor. All the nations of the world throw their doors wide open to one another. They have international law and also international treaties to protect all nations, weak as well as strong. Please do not suspect, but trust, us."

The conservative Korean government, having a childlike faith in the treaties, by which all the leading powers promised to protect them in time of need, opened everything to the Japanese without preparing for national defense. It was in 1895, soon after the close of the first Sino-Japanese war, that I came to realize the danger and undertook to inform the nation of the imminent menace to our independent existence. I started the first daily newspaper in Korea, through the columns of which I did all I could to cause our people to know what the Japanese and the Russians, the two rival forces, were trying to do. In co-operation with many patriotic leaders, we succeeded in arousing a sufficient number of people to join with us in inaugurating a national defense program.

Unfortunately for Korea, the government was unable to understand the situation and tried to suppress the nationalist movement. After a long struggle between the conservative party and the nationalist party, the former succeeded in crushing the latter, and, consequently, I soon found myself, together with many others, landed in jail, where I spent nearly seven years.

When the Russo-Japanese war broke out in 1904, the nationalist party got into power temporarily, and they let me out of the prison. As I walked out of the old iron gate of Kamoksu, the Seoul prison, the Russian influence in the Korean court had crumbled. The Japanese, who won the moral support of the Western nations by posing as champions of the independence of Korea, were already tightening their death grip on the very life of that country, their ally. The new Korean government tried to send me as a special envoy to the United States for the purpose of asking the United States to "use its good offices" against Japan. But, to its dismay, the Korean government discovered that the Japanese had already closed every possible loophole and no direct appeal for help could be sent to the outside world. The Japanese, who had been known up to that time as friends of the Korean nationalist party, were closely watching me in every move I made. I managed to leave Korea hurriedly for America in early November, 1904. The Japanese did not know that I had brought with me several important diplomatic communications from Prince Min and General Hahn. That is, however, another story, for which I have no place here.

I make this personal reference in order to show that I was in a position to see from behind the scenes what was carefully kept from the gaze of the outside world. No clairvoyance or far-sighted statesmanship was required to foretell what was to come. In fact, every educated Japanese knew then, as they know now, what to expect, and when. The difference was that they would not tell.

Naturally, I attempted to tell many things to the American people. I soon discovered that the mass of the people in this country in 1905 were just as unaware of the situation as the Koreans had been ten years before. I discovered also that there were eminent Americans who were highly enlightened on the subject and were equally anxious to disseminate the facts to their fellow citizens, but they could do nothing because public sentiment was so overwhelmingly pro-Japanese that no one would believe that these unfavorable statements about Japan could be true. Consequently, our warnings were but voices in the wilderness.

To refer to Korea again. If the Koreans had seen Japan in 1894 as they saw her in 1592, the year of Hideyoshi's unsuccessful invasion of Korea, they could have saved their country and themselves from the plight in which they find themselves today. On the other hand, if the American people had seen Japan in 1894 and 1904 as they see her today, they would have looked askance at Japan's annexation of Korea, and would have tried to meet Japanese expansion of sea power, which now offers a powerful threat on the other side of the Pacific.

These painful experiences are reviewed here in the hope of warning the United States to watch Japan. Therefore, I believe all Americans should know what they are now confronting. They should know that the things which they could have averted years ago by saying a few simple words or showing a firm attitude at the right time cannot be averted so easily now. This problem must be settled, and the sooner it is settled the better.

Postponement is not a settlement. The forest fire will not extinguish itself. It is drawing nearer day by day. Years ago you heard but faint whispers of impending trouble. It was so far away. It seemed as if it might be on Mars, or some other planet. Later on, you saw columns of smoke rising at a distance, or perhaps a glow of the flames reflected on the clouds, or, at times, even heard the roaring or crackling of burning trees. Yet it was still far enough away to cause you no worry or alarm. Now that is all changed. You already begin to feel the heat. It is coming too close for your comfort. You must move from your own home or your own business because it is dangerous for you to ignore it longer. You must give up the international settlements in the Orient. You must lose your business investments, mission stations, universities, hospitals, and any and all other institutions that are yours. You must not carry on war games in the Pacific, because the Japanese say that the Pacific is their "back yard." You do not know what to do with the Philippine Islands, because the Japanese may want them. You must not fortify or even talk about fortifying any of your island outposts, because the Japanese will object. And that is not all. Even in your own homeland, you must not enact any law to regulate the influx of their nationals, because they say it is an insult to their race. And when they deliberately bomb and sink your ships, you must not criticize them, because they are a proud and sensitive race and their feelings may be hurt. These are some of the things which have actually been happening. Can you still believe the forest fire is far away? Can you still say “Let the Koreans, the Manchurians, and the Chinese fight their own fight; it is none of our business"?

In this book I will endeavor to answer these perplexing questions. The answers will be found, perhaps, not in what I say, but rather in the events which have actually taken place. With this in view, we will not interest ourselves in the Sino-Japanese conflict as a whole, but only in a certain phase of the conflict that affects foreigners in general and Americans in particular.

As the ever advancing, irresistible war machine moves along, it leaves in its wake the wreckage of civilization and humanity. It keeps on moving to more and greater destruction. A terrified world stands aghast and asks, "Why and what does all this mean? Why are they doing all this?" It means just this: the Mikado in the East and the Fascists and Nazis in the West are bent on conquering the world. As they have great mechanized armies, they believe they are destined to rule the world.