Korea Appeals for Our Help
To the New York Herald Tribune:
Korea is rapidly returning to the
news pages of the American press.
It is for these reasons that additional facts about this ancient race
of people and their unhappy fate as
vassals of Japan may be of interest
now to the readers of your paper.
American contact with Korea began in the last half of the nineteenth century—first with gunboats
and bombardment by our forces,
later more amicably when we per-
"suaded the King and government to
end the Hermit Kingdom's - isolation and establish diplomatic rela-j
tions with us. A treaty was drawn!
one section of which read: "If other j
powers deal unjustly or oppressively!
with either government, the other |
will exert their good offices, on be-1
ing informed of the case, to bring!
about an amicable arrangement,!
thus showing their friendly feelings.*' I
This treaty of mutual assistance was |
ratified by the United States Senate \
in 1883. Thereafter, on at least one1
occasion, it was successfully invoked
by the Koreans.
In 1905, however, the picture was
different. A verbal executive agreement entered into with Japan during the administration of "ttieodore
Roosevelt saw the "justice of the
establishment by Japanese troops of
a suzerainty over Korea." Nothing
was said of our treaty with Korea,
and nothing, of course, was told the
United States Senate, a participant
in the making or ratification of that
treaty. Indeed, nothing was publicly known of the agreement until
it was discovered among the unpublished papers of Theodore Roosevelt
by Tyler Dennet in 1924.
Japan, triumphant over Russia in
the 1904 war, already had an army
in Korea. It was a simple matter
to disarm the small Korean Army,
assume control of the country, and
formally annex it on Aug. 29, 1910.
To the many Americans who have
sought,   likeN the   undersigned,   to
bring to the attention of their ffrl*
low countrymen the injustice, the
indignity and the indefensible inhumanity which we visited upon
the helpless Koreans, we feel that
now is the time to right this wrong,
Indeed, the day of Pearl Harba*
was the day it could and should
have  been righted.
The Koreans number more Chris*
tians proportionately than an5
other Asiatic race, and they had a
civilization boasting solar observatories, movable type, an encyclopedis
of more than one hundred volumes
the magnetic compass, an alphabcl
and other evidences of great culture
at a time when all was quiet along
the Potomac save the swish of au
Indian's canoe.
President Roosevelt, Governoi
Dewey and the United States Senati
alike possess a great opportunity U
restore mankind's faith in tin
pledged word of a nation. Thej
have at hand a great service to perform for all small nations. It waj
Pere Hyacinthe who said, in Fotri
Dame, Paris, many years ago: "Tin
little states! They are the radiatinj
centers of the most splendid civili*
zation from the days of ancient
Greece. .... They are constituted by the hand of God, and 3
trust He will not suffer them to hi
removed. He has placed them be«
tween the great states as a negation
of universal empire, a pacific obsta.
ele to the shocks of their power and
the plots of their ambition."
Korea is a little state—not muclj
larger than Minnesota; its popula/
tion is small in comparison wit!
those of its giant neighbors. An it ii
still looks to the people of the Unitec
States to correct what Koreans art
kind enough to refer to as an in
justice, but which history may hav
another word for.
JAY JEROME WILLIAMS,
A trustee of the Korean-American Council.
Washington, D. C* Aug. 31, 19&