t. On the opening day and
afterwards--until the Japanese drove some of the people to fury--there was
no violence. The Japanese, scattered all over the country, were uninjured;
the Japanese shops were left alone; when the police attacked, elders
ordered the people to submit and to offer no resistance. The weak things
had set themselves up to confound the strong.

At first, the Japanese authorities were so completely taken by surprise
that they did not know what to do. Then the word was passed round that the
movement was to be suppressed by relentless severity. And so Japan lost her
last chance of winning the people of Korea and of wiping out the
accentuated ill-will of centuries.

The first plan of the Japanese was to attack every gathering of people and
disperse it, and to arrest every person who took part in the demonstrations
or was supposed to have a hand in them. Japanese civilians were armed with
clubs and swords and given _carte blanche_ to attack any Korean they
suspected of being a demonstrator. They interpreted these instructions
freely. Firemen were sent out with poles with the big firemen's hooks at
the end. A single pull with one of these hooks meant death or horrible
mutilation for any person they struck.

The police used their swords freely. What I mean by "freely" can best be
shown by one incident A little gathering of men started shouting "Mansei"
in a street in Seoul. The police came after them, and they vanished. One
man--it is not clear whether he called "Mansei" or was an accidental
spectator--was pushed in the deep gutter by the roadside as the
demonstrators rushed away. As he struggled out the police came up. There
was no question of the man resisting or not resisting. He was unarmed and
alone. They cut off his ears, cut them off level with his cheek, they slit
up his fingers, they hacked his body, and then they left him for dead. He
was carried off by some horrified spectators, and died a few hours later. A
photograph of his body lies before me as I write. I showed the photograph
one evening to two or three men in New York City. Next day I met the men
again. "We had nightmare all night long, because of that picture," they
told me.

In Seoul, when the thirty-three leaders were arrested, a demonstration was
held in the Park and the Declaration read there. Then the crowd made an
orderly demonstration in the streets, waving flags and hats, shouting
"Mansei," parading in front of the Consulates and