Populist Collaborators: The Ilchinhoe and the Japanese Colonization of Korea, 1896–1910

4. Freedom and the New Look: The Culture and Rhetoric of the Ilchinhoe Movement

117 In February 1905, Yi Min-hwa, a major in the Wonju defense army, was called into the military court of Wonju for a face-to-face examination with sixty members of the Ilchinhoe. The major had filed a case against the organization, charging that it had violated Korean imperial authority at one of its assemblies. He had dispatched two divisions of soldiers in civilian clothes to the assembly to observe the proceedings. The soldiers had reported that an Ilchinhoe member had included in his speech to the assembly the statement that “both His Great Imperial Majesty and the Ilchinhoe members are all subjects of the state, and equally possess the right of freedom” (kungnok chisin un ilbaniyo chayukwon to ilbanira). The major later summoned the chair of the Ilchinhoe assembly, the suspected speaker of these words, and asked how he could dare say that the emperor was a subject of the state (kungnok chisin). Because the Ilchinhoe chair acknowledged his “crime,” the major had filed the case in the court with the “proof” (chunggop’yo) that the chair had confessed, along with the sealed testimony of Chang Won-il, a soldier who had attended the meeting. The major wrote that he had correctly followed all the legal procedures for filing this case with the provincial court. To counter this testimony, the Ilchinhoe headquarters in Seoul dispatched a member named Chon Song-hwan to Wonju, where he pleaded that the account of the speech had been mistaken. According to Chon, the chairman had actually told the crowd, “We [the Ilchinhoe members] are also the subjects of His Great Majesty,” but the major had “perverted” this remark, changing it into “His Majesty is also a subject [of the state].” Chon added that the court could not take the 4 FREEDOM AND THE NEW LOOK The Culture and Rhetoric of the Ilchinhoe Movement 118 CHAPTER 4 testimonies of the Wonju defense army as evidence because the Ilchinhoe chair had been surrounded by armed soldiers and forced to confess, and the soldiers had then not been in a position to speak against the case.1 This legal episode reveals that offending the monarch’s sovereignty was criminal in early 1905. Toward the end of the protectorate period, however, the Korea Daily News published an article calling for the “people’s government” (inmin ui chogbu), and the Imperial Gazetteer (Hwangsong sinmun) praised the ideas contained in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract as “profound.” The Korean elite reformers had departed from their commitment to the constitutional monarchy since the late nineteenth century and aspired to a republic. This ideological transition was 1. KD, February 16, 1905. The Ilchinhoe’s counterargument had not been admitted by April 1905, according to the Ilchinhoe’s advertisement in Hwangsong sinmun (Imperial gazetteer, hereafter IG), April 15, 1905. 6. “The British, American, French, German, and Italian correspondents being presented by Mr. Frederick Villiers to the Korean emperor” (1904). The British war artist Frederick Villiers (1851–1922) covered the campaigns of the RussoJapanese War. The Korean emperor Kojong and crown prince Sunjong are shown here meeting other Western correspondents. The emperor, the prince, and the Korean official in attendance wear white robes, probably in mourning for the death of the crown princess (posthumously named the empress Sunmypnghyo). From H. W. Wilson, Japan’s Fight for Freedom, vol. 2 (London: Amalgamated Press, 1905), p. 638. FREEDOM AND THE NEW LOOK 119 signaled in the Ilchinhoe’s Wonju case in 1905, and in both the “fear” and the “audacity” of the Ilchinhoe members in violating the regency of the Korean emperor. The Ilchinhoe initiated this ideological transition by evoking the term min’gwon (the rights of the people) and mobilizing popular actions for it. The Korean print media acknowledged this initiative by nicknaming the Ilchinhoe the “People’s Rights Party” (Minkwondang). The term min’gwon was not the Ilchinhoe ’s invention but had been introduced to the public by the Independent. The Ilchinhoe reclaimed the legacy of the Independence Club, portraying itself as the Club’s “legitimate heir.”2 The Ilchinhoe’s opening manifesto reproduced democratic phrases from essays printed in the Independent. Yet the Ilchinhoe’s rhetoric changed over time as the group adjusted its stated goals to a defense of Japanese domination of Korea. Throughout this “adjustment,” the Ilchinhoe held onto the idea of minkwon and supported Japan’s annexation of Korea by alluding to the fulfillment...