UK journalist Bethell established newspapers in 1904

The title page of the Korea Daily News, published on Aug. 9, 1904. The publication was founded by Ernest T. Bethell, left, with the help of Korean nationalists, including Yang Ki-taik, on July 18. He died in 1909. The Koreans later erected a monument in his honor next to his grave at Yanghwajin Foreigners’ Cemetery near the Han River. / Korea Times File

By Robert Neff
Korea Times Columnist

This is the 18th in a 60-part series featuring 60 major events in Korea's modern history from 1884 till now. The project is part of the 60th anniversary of The Korea Times, which falls on Nov. 1.

Ernest T. Bethell has been described as one of Korea's truest and staunchest friends, and perhaps the most famous of early Western journalists in Korea, but he didn't start out that way.

Born in England in 1872, Bethell moved to Japan in 1888 and went to work for his uncle. After several years of hard work, he was able to amass enough money to start his own business of exporting curios and rugs.

Although his initial efforts were successful, by late 1903 he found himself in financial difficulties after making some bad investments.

He craved a new beginning and the impending Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 provided him with his opportunity.

In the months leading up to the war, major newspapers from around the world sent their reporters to Japan in anticipation of the outbreak of hostilities.

Most of these men had little experience in the Far East and very few of them were able to speak Japanese. Bethell had only a high school education, and except for some journalistic dabbling in the local newspapers, he had no formal journalistic skills.

He was, however, proficient in Japanese and very personable. He and another Englishman, Thomas Cowen, were hired by the British newspaper, the Daily Chronicle, and promptly sent to Korea to act as the Chronicle's ``special correspondents.''

It was a short-lived assignment. After only a couple of months, they were both dismissed; the paper claimed that the news it received from the Japanese representative in London was superior to the material it was obtaining from them. Bethell insisted that he was dismissed for another reason.

``My instructions from the Chronicle were that the policy of the paper was pro-Japanese and I was told that my correspondence would have to fit in with that policy.''

Bethell was not willing to give up his dream of being a newspaperman. He met with a group of young Korean nationalists who took an interest in him and may have aided him in obtaining the services of a printer and, perhaps more importantly, some initial financial support to establish a newspaper with Cowen tentatively known as the Korea Times. They printed the first sample copy on June 29, 1904.

From the very beginning, Bethell was betrayed. Unknown to Bethell, Cowen was pro-Japanese and informed the Japanese authorities that they were getting ready ``to start a paper here (in Seoul) called the Korea Times, with a lot of support from the Korean Court, the policy to be Korea for the Koreans and the anti-Japanese.''

He warned that as there was no press law in Korea. A paper controlled by a pro-Korean, anti-Japanese foreigner could write anything with impunity, and the Korean papers could quote from it without any risk.

Shortly after the inauguration of the Korea Times and the Daehan Maeil Sinbo on July 18, 1904, Cowen quit and returned to Japan. It was at this point that Bethell changed its name to the Korea Daily News.

There is some question as to how the initial papers were financed. We know that Emperor Gojong helped finance Bethell through Antoinette Sontag, the proprietress of the Sontag Hotel -- the headquarters for the pro-Russian party in Seoul.

It was also speculated that Bethell was subsidized by the Russians ``to paint everything Japanese in the worst possible light.'' Bethell later denied that the Russians had supported him.

He did, however, admit he had been promised support by the Koreans but did not name Emperor Gojong.

Whatever financial support he received was not enough and in March 1905, the papers were suspended when Bethell went to Japan to buy a printer and possibly raise some money.

Printing resumed in August and almost immediately raised the ire of the Japanese government -- especially the Korean language Daehan Maeil Sinbo.

The papers exposed each Japanese transgression not only to the West but to the Korean population as well.

Bethell and his newspapers quickly became enemies in the eyes of the Japanese government and had to be stopped by whatever means were necessary. According to a contemporary, Fred A. McKenzie:

``The Japanese were making his life as uncomfortable as they possibly could, and were doing everything to obstruct his work. His mail was constantly tampered with; his servants were threatened or arrested on various excuses, and his household was subjected to the closest espionage. He displayed surprising tenacity, and held on month after month without showing any sign of yielding.''

Bethell was also attacked by Japanese-owned Korean newspapers. One paper claimed that it was a ``great folly'' for Koreans to trust the Korea Daily News and those who did were likened to ``Chinese opium-smokers.''

Bethell was described as ``an Englishman, with deep-set eyes and white nose, with white face and yellow hair'' and was accused of ``taking advantage of the ignorance of the Koreans'' in order to secure a large circulation for his newspaper.

It asked its readers if it was ``wise for Korean people to give their confidence to men of another race'' and insisted that Koreans should ``trust men of their own color.''

It further declared: ``Asia for the Asiatics and Europe for the Europeans is the law of nature.''

Bethell was tried twice by a British consular court in Seoul for sedition and violation of public order.

The first trial, in October 1907, found him guilty and he was ordered to pay a 300-pound bond as a guarantee of his good behavior.

In an effort to avoid further prosecution, he transferred control of the newspapers to his assistant editor, Arthur Marnham, and continued his attacks upon the Japanese government.

The second trial took place on June 15, 1908 and he, found guilty, was sentenced to be imprisoned at the British gaol in Shanghai for three weeks.

After serving his term, Bethell returned to Seoul and, much to the Japanese government's chagrin, resumed publication of the Korea Daily News.

He stubbornly continued to attack the Japanese residency-general, believing that public sentiment amongst the Westerners in Korea favored him and despised the British representative.

The Washington Post half-jokingly noted that ``nothing but a lunge through the curtain of his rickshaw some dark night can stop him.''

But it wasn't the blade of an assassin that killed him -- it was his lifestyle. Like many stereotypical journalists, Bethell chain-smoked and was a heavy drinker -- he was especially partial to strong brandy.

The stress associated with his trials, imprisonment and ongoing investigation proved too much for his weak heart.

On April 30, 1909, Bethell was informed by his doctors that there was nothing they could do and that his death was imminent. The North China Herald reported:

``Mr. Bethell sent for his friends and conversed with them in the most cheerful manner, thus keeping up to the end the characteristic courage which marked his strenuous journalistic career.''

Marnham echoed this sentiment when he described Bethell as a life-long fighter and one of Korea's truest and staunchest friends.

Surrounded by his family and friends, Bethell died at 1:30 a.m., the following day.

On May 2, Bethell's funeral, ``the biggest foreign function of the kind ever seen in Korea,'' was held.

Hundreds of Koreans joined the procession transporting his body to his final resting place at Yanghwajin Foreigners' Cemetery near the Han River.

The Koreans later erected a monument in his honor next to his grave, its epitaph defiantly anti-Japanese in nature.

It was Bethell's wish for his newspapers to continue printing but shortly after his death, Marnham suspended production of the Korea Daily News; only the Daehan Maeil Sinbo was printed under the supervision of Yang Ki-taik, the Korean editor.

Marnham, unwilling or unable to endure the threat of Japanese persecution and encouraged to do so by the British consul-general in Seoul, sold the newspaper to the Japanese government for about 7,000 yen.

The sale of the newspaper was kept relatively secret until after Japan's annexation of Korea when the paper's name was changed to the Maeil Sinbo on Aug. 30, 1910.

The paper that had once defied the Japanese government's steps to colonize Korea was now nothing more than a propaganda tool for the very government it had opposed.

Allegedly, the Japanese, not satisfied with the irony of Bethell's newspaper being used to support Japan's domination of Korea, erased the anti-Japanese epitaph on his monument.

But they could not erase the respect both Koreans and foreigners still hold for him.

In April 1964, the original epitaph was restored through the efforts of Korean journalists.

The lounge at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club is named in his honor.

His grave at Yanghwajin is often covered with cut flowers -- evidence of the strong respect and gratitude of the Korean people for his sacrifices.