Korean efforts in the summer of 1907 to seek recognition at the Hague Convention faced impossible headwinds. One of these obstacles included the desire to ensure that the conference reflected well on President Theordore Roosevelt’s legacy vis-à-vis the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5).^[1] Another obstacle lay in convincing the international powers that Korea had been forced into submission, and had not willingly signed its existence away in the Eulsa Treaty of 1905 – thus remaining a nation-state deserving of recognition instead of a protectorate. In addition, the forced abdication of the Korean Emperor Gojong on July 18 by the Japanese Resident-General Ito Hirobumi, after the latter learned of Gojong’s envoys at The Hague, made that task nearly insurmountable given that the Japanese controlled the international press narrative related to events occurring in Korea. For the remainder of the conference, which ended in October, critics of recognition simply pointed out that there was no longer a Korean emperor residing in Seoul. Capping off the failure at the convention was the sudden death of envoy Yi Tjoune mid-July, and a desire by the remaining envoys to return to the U.S. to make a final appeal to the U.S. President. The Washington Post believed that the post-conference mission to appeal to Roosevelt was likewise “foredoomed to failure” – offering a sobering if not sarcastically frank assessment of the actual circumstances surrounding the entire Korean effort: “Korea’s Emperor appears to have labored under the grotesque impression that the Hague conference was called in the interest of international peace. His despairing wail was shut off unceremoniously… Japan wanted to know why Korea was so treacherous as to demand justice from The Hague tribunal. The Emperor retorted that the treaty giving Japan control of Korea was extorted by force and was invalid. Japan’s reply was a neat bit of repartee – the dethronement of the Emperor.”^[2]

Right: Illustration shows a sickly looking dove in a birdcage fashioned from rifles and swords, with "Powder" kegs at the ends of its perch which is labeled "Peace Conference", and is topped with the flags of "England, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Russia, Spain, [and] U.S." Illus. in: Puck, v. 61, no. 1578 (1907 May 29), cover. Copyright 1907 by Keppler & Schwarzmann. Publisher: J. Ottmann Lith. Co., Puck Bldg., N.Y. Source: Library of Congress.

Indeed, the Japanese controlled the press narrative by using the appearance of the envoys at the Hague conference to paint the Korean emperor as a dangerous instigator. The day following the July 18 abdication, reports from Tokyo indicated “the public is breathing easier for the sake of both countries, now  that the arch intriguer has been completely disarmed.” The reports labeling Gojong as an “arch-intriguer” were accompanied by Japanese expressions of “sympathy” for the emperor while lamenting the subsequent violence in Seoul directed at Japanese citizens and soldiers stationed there. The Japanese-approved dispatches simultaneously blaming and pitying Gojong were widely printed in U.S. newspapers.^[3] Nonetheless, the surprise abdication, which became a brief “topic of conversation among the delegates” did nothing to alter the predetermined consensus among the western powers. The Chicago Tribune noted a “majority” of the delegates were still “inclined to the belief that even if the emperor had been dethroned it should be considered an indispensable measure to give the Japanese a free hand in establishing a modern system for developing the resources of Corea.”^[4]  

Accompanying the reports implicating Gojong was an effort to distance Ito Hirobumi from his machinations in Gojong’s dethronement. “Speculation is rife among foreigners here [in Seoul] as to the origins of the idea of pressing abdication” of the emperor, the Los Angeles Times reported. The L.A. Times July 20 article indicated the dispatch came from Seoul the previous day, but the July 20 report of a similar article from the New York Times indicated the source was “Tokio” – the Japanese capital. Added to the New York Times article was additional information: “Speculation is rife among foreigners here [in Tokyo] as to the origins of the idea of pressing the abdication of the Emperor of Korea. It is definitely known that Marquis Ito was only a silent spectator of the event”. What the cursory comparison of the two articles indicates is that reporting of events was being changed as dispatches were cabled to the U.S. via Japan – which had been added to the trans-Pacific telegraph cable the previous year. The Boston Globe reported July 20 from Tokyo that “the change in government was caused by the initiative of the Korean government, in which Japan had no concern whatever, and that it cannot be considered a final solution to the Hague incident.” Regardless, the information consumed by Americans regarding ongoing events in both the Hague and Korea was far from favorable for Koreans.^[5]   

Adding to the frustrations of pro-Korean American missionary Homer B. Hulbert and the envoys were additional reports from Europe indicating that Korea had no support on that continent. For example, the sub-headline from the London dispatch reprinted in the Salt Lake City Herald read: “Emperor Friendless: No Government Interested in Fate of Hermit Kingdom.” The following day, the Baltimore Sun rereported London’s position that Korea had “no friends in France” or among the British press: “Scarcely a word of sympathy is uttered by the morning papers for the deposed Emperor of Korea, who is regarded as having brought his fate upon himself by futile intriguing against the Japanese, and, as the Daily Graphic humorously remarks, by ‘having taken the Hague conference too seriously.’”^[6]  

The Lancaster Intelligencer of Pennsylvania was among the few publications that discerned events from the Korea point of view. “Japan has driven the Korean emperor off his throne, because he sent a delegation to The Hague tribunal to complain to it of Japan’s purpose to swallow Korea.” The Intelligencer noted that there was “plenty of individual sympathy among the delegates, but not one who would officially stand up against the Japanese highway robbery.” More importantly, the small newspaper called out the hypocrisy of a conference officially dedicated to ensuring international peace. “The world looks on their proceedings without certainly any profound appreciation of their effectiveness in securing that just dealing among nations which it is theoretically their mission to promote.” Because the conference did not even formally address the Japanese seizure of Korea, to the Lancaster Intelligencer, the Hague conference appeared more as a “comic opera” than a concerted effort to prevent conflict:

Left: Hague Convention, 1907. Source: In the Public domain.

[Peace] can be more readily secured by letting Japan swallow Korea; which is what Japan is evidently going to do, whatever The Hague conference thinks or says about it; so the conference prudently determines to say nothing, although this necessarily involves the position upon its part that one nation may swallow a weaker nation, at its pleasure…Remembering the long and murderous intrigue of Japan in Korea there is a refreshing calmness and effrontery about the Tokio comment which is now offered upon the abdication of the Korean emperor. They feel much sympathy for him, they say, but they believe that both countries will breath easily now that the arch intriguer has been removed. An “arch intriguer,” who has been for forty years the object of Japanese intrigue…^[7]

The majority of the reporting on events in U.S. newspapers surrounding the Korean envoys and Gojong’s dethronement reflected negatively on Korea. As the Lancaster Intelligencer articulated, there was no consensus that the 1907 conference was a success. Nevertheless, negative assessments of the conference said almost nothing of Korea – as criticisms were cast on other aspects of the convention’s deliberations such as “the failure of the conference to have established a permanent court of arbitration”. The headline from the September 23 issue of the Baltimore Sun noted that “Peace [was] a Long Way Off: Conference at the Hague Considered a Failure”. According to the editors of the Maryland newspaper, the Europeans called it a “fiasco” – while adding that “the second International Peace Conference has been, and will be, at its conclusion barren of results leading to permanent measures of the benefit to the peace of the world.” For the most part, however, Korean affairs surrounding the conference were deftly relegated to footnote status.^[8]  

Paul Samuel Reinsch, a student of the renown American historian Frederick Jackson Turner, published his own views on the “failures and successes” of the conference. Reinsch quoted conference president Aleksandr Nelidov’s closing address: “M. Nelidoff said, ‘The delegates were not sent to the Hague to find ideal solutions of the various problems discussed, but to carry out the instructions received from their government, in the interest of their respective countries.’” Nelidov’s perspective was far from the idealistic descriptions often used to describe the conference, and Reinsch summed up the proceedings by concurring that “the dominant point of view as yet is not that of internationalism, of the common interests of humanity, but of the national policies”. Notably,  Reinsch did not factor in the rejection of the Korean envoys in his critical analysis.^[9]   

Reinsch, who would later go on to become the United States Minister to China (1913–19) under President Woodrow Wilson, mimicked Theodore Roosevelt’s admiration of the Japanese in a 1911 publication, Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East. “The achievements of nationalism in Japan are having their effect,” he wrote, “and though Japan may lately have alienated sympathy through her forward policy in Manchuria, the energy revealed in her national life remains a model to the rest of Asia.” Riensch’s work outlining East Asian affairs was published one year after Japan formally annexed Korea, but unlike James B. Scott’s work on the Hague Conventions, there was not a single reference to that nation – as that kingdom had long been seen by the international powers as a stepping stone for Japan in its larger goal of incorporating Manchuria into its nascent East Asian empire. In that complicated geopolitical equation, Korea did not have an independent role: “But in the end,” Riensch wrote, “the military success of Japan in Manchuria was somewhat too great not to fill the Chinese themselves with misgivings as to their own political safety. These fears have been accentuated through the manner in which the Japanese have maintained their foothold in Manchuria, through the treaties between Japan and various European powers by which they mutually guarantee their interests”.^[10]

Right: Korea's Independence activist Homer Bezaleel Hulbert. Source: Wikimedia. 

The geography between Japan and Manchuria – which was and remains Korea and the Korean peninsula – was simply erased from history. That effort had been ongoing even prior to the Russo-Japanese War, but was confirmed when Japan came out of that conflict victorious – receiving the praise of powerful onlookers in the West personified by Roosevelt and tacitly accepted by those on the opposite end of the political spectrum such as William Jennings Bryan, Reinsch, and by extension – President Wilson himself. By the time of the second Hague Conference of 1907 was convened, the international powers had long decided to turn their backs on Korea. In other words, efforts by western advocates such as Hulbert and the Korean envoys sent by Gojong were already foredoomed to failure.^[11]     

The Hague Peace Conference of 1907 marks a turning point for both the Americans and Koreans in relation to Japan and the international community. Diplomatically the relations are inversed. From the American perspective, the conference represents the height of pro-Japanese sentiment in the United States epitomized by Theodore Roosevelt’s beliefs and actions regarding the usurpation of Japanese control over Korea’s state affairs following the Russo-Japanese War, Taft-Katsura Agreement (1905), and Eulsa (Unwilling) Treaty in 1905. For the Koreans, the 1907 conference was a low point regarding their efforts to achieve recognition of their sovereignty from the international community after becoming a Japanese protectorate in 1905. From this perspective, the year 1907 was a nadir in U.S.-Korean relations. Despite the efforts of pro-Korean missionaries living and working in Korea, the American political establishment – and the entire international delegation at the Hague Convention of 1907 – refused to acknowledge that state’s independence.

While some independent voices within the American press establishment recognized aspects of the dichotomy regarding Korea and American annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines (1898), news publications were indifferent to Korea’s plight and positive towards the Japanese. Adding to the difficulties facing pro-Korean efforts during this period was the Japanese ability to control the narrative of events as news came out of Seoul and East Asia. The Koreans had their own allies, such as Homer B. Hulbert, James S. Gale, and Frederick A. McKenzie, but the Japanese had the admiration of – and geopolitical leverage over – more powerful figures such as Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Even tenacious political opponents such as William Jennings Bryan did nothing to further the Korean cause. Had there been some overwhelming financial incentive to support the Korean position – which is what Hulbert later pivoted to when he realized the moral argument against the destruction of Korea was not successfully persuading Americans – advocates of Korea would still have faced an uphill battle in seeking recognition at the international table. In other words, although the fight for freedom would continue into the twentieth century, for the immediate future after 1907, Korea was essentially reduced to a historical footnote.[12]

[1] The Baltimore Sun, June 16, 1907. “A Triumph for Roosevelt”; The Hartford Courant, October 5, 1907. “Hague Conference to Honor President.”

[2] The Washington Post, July 28, 1907. “Our Duty Towards Korea.” The Baltimore Sun, August 2, 1907. “Koreans Appeal to the U.S.” “Prince Yi said today that Yi Tjomi died of a broken heart on July 16 when he learned that Korea would not be permitted to appear before the councils of nations.” Yi Tjoune’s (이준) sudden death at the Hague is still shrouded in mystery. See: Yi Tae-Jin, “Treaties Leading to the Annexation of Korea: What Are the Problems?”, 14. “When Gojong secretly dispatched three special delegates to the 2nd Hague Peace Conference in June of 1907, Ito used this opportunity to force Gojong to abdicate. Gojong opposed this, but the Japanese government held an abdication ceremony on July 20… Following this, Ito Hirobumi and Korean Prime Minister Yi Wan-yong signed the Japan–Korea Agreement on July 24, 1907. This treaty was intended to transfer authority over domestic affairs to the resident-general of Korea.”

[3] Los Angeles Express, July 19, 1907. “Sympathy Expressed for Korean Monarch”; The Evening Mail, Stockton, CA, July 19, 1907. “Japan is sorry but satisfied”; The Indianapolis News, July 19, 1907. “Arch Intriguer Disarmed”; The Washington Post, July 20, 1907; “Rioting in Korea”; The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1907.  

[4] Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1907.

[5] Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1907; The New York Times, July 20, 1907; The Boston Globe, July 20, 1907. The NY Times article from Tokyo put the blame on “Premier” Saionji Kinmochi, “who was supported by the [Korean] Ministers of Agriculture and Justice…” The first trans-Pacific cable providing telegraph service linking the mainland U.S. (and Canada, Australia) to Hawaii was completed in 1902. In 1903, Hawaii was linked to Guam and the Philippines. Japan was connected to the system in 1906. 

[6] Salt Lake City Herald, July 20, 1097; The Baltimore Sun, July 21, 1907. The British firmly supported Japan following the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902. See: Phillips Payson O’Brien (ed.), The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922 (New York and London: Routledge Curzon, 2004).

[7] Lancaster Intelligencer, (Penn.) July 24, 1907. “Justice and the Peace”

[8] Baltimore Sun, September 23, 1907.

[9] Paul S. Reinsch, “Failures and Successes at the Second Hague Conference,” The American Political Science Review 2, no. 2 (Feb. 1908), 216.

[10] Paul S. Reinsch, Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 42, 210–11. See: Paul S. Reinsch, World Politics At the End of the Nineteenth Century: As Influenced by the Oriental Situation (London: The Macmillan Company, 1904). In Reinsch’s 1904 work “Korea” (or “Corea”) is rarely mentioned.

[11] Minneapolis Journal, March 4, 1906. “With William J. Bryan in ‘poor little Korea’; many strange things seen in the Hermit Kingdom.”; Timothy L. Savage, “The American Response to the Korean Independence Movement,” Korean Studies 20 (1996), 189. “Wilson’s decision to compromise on Korean self-determination to keep Japan in the League of Nations failed when his own Congress decided not to join.”

[12] James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1909), vol. 1, 67, vol. 2, 180.