The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-30
Will American Christians
Take UpCause of Baron Yur
CONTINUED from Previous Page)

East Complement to the West, created
a profound impression and was widely
commented upon. Again at Asheville, at
Washington and other cities he proved
himself a peer.
During his short campaign of about
three months he secured subscriptions for
his school amounting to about $4,000.
The Decision
Rev. ]. L. Gerdne, missionary in Corea,
under the board of missions of the Meth
odist Episcopal church, south, has very
recently written most interesting ac-
count of the decision of the Corean su-
preme court, which affirmed the decision
of the five lower courts.
Mr.. Gerdne writes
"While the original records of the case
are in Japanese we are fortunate in hav-
ing the proceedings published in two Eng
lish volumes comprising 377 pages of news
paper type. This report was made by
English speaking Japanese, who attended
the trial as correspondents for the Japan
ese Chronicle, daily newspaper owned
and edited by Britishers. Other independ-
ent reports were made by three expert
enced missionaries from Japan who were
in personal attendance upon the trial.
Furthermore, missionaries in Corea have
been in constant attendance upon all
public hearings. We have, therefore, a
com plete record and one whose reliability
carnot be successfully assailed The
writer was in attendance upon all the
proceedings until his departure from
Corea on May 49, 1918. and has received
and read the reports of the hearings sub
sequent to that date
In view of the fact that distinguished
and trusted member of our church stands
convicted of plotting and instigating mur
der, our people will wish to know specific
ally what is the alleged basis for the
judgment. Such statement will be of
I 80, 4-,+A r.4N tEA 1a-
quilted 116 OF those who were originally
put on trial. Most of these men had,
under torture administered by police ex
amners, made confessions of guilt, but
these confessions were repudiated in open
court. and the court held them to be an
insufficient basis for conviction. We shall
see whether or not there is any sub
stantial basis for a different judgment in
the case of Yum and his five associates.
Three Hearings
There were three hearings of the case
In courts which had power to call and
examine witnesses. No witness testified
on any of these trials to any word or act
casting even a suspicion upon Mr.. Yum.
No writing or other document was intro
duced to connect him with any crime.
1t must be borne in mind that, under
Japanese procedure, prior to any pub
| lie trial and before a prisoner can be
| represented by counsel he Is subject to
! secret examination by the police, and
| what purports to be a record of such ex-
| animation is reduced to writing and pre-
| sented as evidence against the accused.
The judge presiding at the public hear
| ing is required to examine the prisoner
! in open court, but he may accept the
police record of the testimony of wit
nesses examined by them without calling
them into court If he sees fit.
"The evidence on which Baron Yum
/ hos iq. Il nf
secret examination of defendant, Yum
Cho Ho; CD record of secret exam
ination of witness, Kang Moo So; (3)
record of secret examination of wit
ness, vi Chi Keun.
"The record of the secret examina-
tion of Mr.. Yum is inconsistent in it
self. In the main 1T consists of a de-
nal of any knowledge of the alleged
plot but toward the end of the rec
ord there appears a full admission of
participation In three certain meet
| ings, when such a plot was discussed
and agreed upon. On the public triaIs
| he denied the truth of the alleged ad-
mission and explained why he agreed
to make the admission in the first in
stance. This explanation included sew
eral reasons, any one of which would
in law be sufficient to invalidate the
confession. l will only quote one from
| the report of the Japan Chronicle,
WHICH,, III TO Satisfying the le-
gal question of annulling the confes
sion also satisfies the ethical question
that may be raised by some:
"T was strictly examined for about
| 20 days, with the result that I be-
came almost beside myself. At the end
of that time they tied cords around my
| arms and began to torture me. Mr..
| Watanable, the interpreter, advised me
to confess to the crime lest 1 should
be tortured, a fear that became acute
when / saw and heard that others were
so treated. Fearing that If l were tor
tured l might say things at random,
dragging many other innocent people
into trouble, l thought it best to ac-
cede to whatever they urged upon me,
and confessed accordingly
"It is difficult to conceive how it
can be contended that anything re-
mains in Yun's examination on which
to base a Judgment of guilt.
"Kang Moon Su was a steward in
the employ of Mr. Sun. He was ar
rested, examined by the police, exiled
to the island of Juelport and the rec
ord of his examination submitted as
| evidence in court. According to this
record he was present and participated
in the formation of the plot. No rea-
son is suggested as to why he was
not indicted and prosecuted with the
others. 1t is rumored and generally
believed that he was so crippled as n
result of the torture administered to
force his confession that he could not
be produced in court, and the police
/ had to resort to the eXpedient of send
4 ing him into exile. AS it is the police
record concludes with this suggestive
statement: AT this point the defendant
began to pound the table, stamp the
| floor, climb to the platform and cried
out, Kill me. punish me any way
you live
"He caused such a disturbance that he
could not be examined. In spite of the
suspicion that would naturally attach to
| such a record, made doubly so by the
| rejection of over 100 confessions that had
been obtained by torture the court has
refused the repeated requests of Yum S
counsel to have Kang brought into court
| for re-examinatiop, and makes this rec
ord a basis for conviction.
Other Testimonials
"The other Witness VI Chi Keun, ac-
! cording to the police record testified that
Yum. with the other five, met at his
masters house on three certain dates,
which he named. He remembered the
| dates because the first was his son S
birthday. the second his own birthday,
| and on the third day he was sick and
! stayed at home all day On the hear
ing in the appeal court the Judge agreed
to have this man subpoenaed as a wit
ness. Before the summons could ba
served he and his entire family disap-
peared and while the only reasonable
theory is that he was spirited away by
| the police. they reported that he could
not be found. 1t was proved by the CEN
| sus record that neither his own nor his
| sons birthday came on the day he had