March 15, 1919

Mr. Kim, the unrecognized delegate from Korea, came in today to say good-by. He is naturally very depressed and he has not had even a word from his fellow delegate, and my old friend, General Pak, who apparently is still marooned in the waste places of Siberia.

I did my best to send him off with a word of cheer. While I have the lowest possible opinion of the Yangbans, the official and gentry class of his country, the peasants (and there are nearly twenty million of them) are fine, honest people. They hate the Japanese with what I hold to be a holy hatred, and some day they may strike a blow for liberty and come into their own again. It will not be much, as from what I saw on my last visit, in 1916, the Japanese have stripped the country of everything valuable.

Evidently Kim was comforted by the thought I gave him that unlike our present Peace Conference the field of the League Assembly when it is convened next fall will embrace all the troubled areas of the world. Then the Koreans will have their day in court.

“What a strange world it is,” said Kim. “When the Japanese pilgrim, Kobo Daishi, came to us from his volcanic islands hundreds of years ago we gladly opened to him the wisdom of the ages. We taught him the Kingly Way of Life which we had followed for forty centuries. Enlightened he went home and he taught his barbarians how to read and to write. To this day they do him homage at the sanctuary of Koyasan, but it is only lip service. Today these scamps and scalawags, these pirates and landgrabbers, are here and they are accepted as representing a great power while we are excluded from the World Congress. How can anyone in his senses imagine that these swashbucklers will help to make the world safe for democracy?” I did not attempt to answer that one, but I did what I could, perhaps more than the facts of the situation warrant.

“You will have your day in court; the world does not remain static. Do you recall the old Chinese proverb, ‘Fullness comes before waning?’”

“I do, I do,” he said, “and also that ‘waning precedes fullness,’” and with a quick step and an eager eye Mr. Kim went on his way.