The funeral was to take place on March 4th.  By now the Japanese suspected something to be afoot.  The astonishing thing is that the Koreans had been able to keep it from them so long.  A network of organizations had been created all over the country.  The Japanese hurried their preparations to prevent popular demonstrations on the day of the funeral.  The leaders learned of this, and outwitted the police by a simple device.  They resolved to make their demonstration not on Tuesday, March 4th, but on the previous Saturday.

Gatherings were arranged for all over the country.  A Declaration of Independence was drawn up in advance and delivered to the different centres.  Here it was mimeographed, and girls and boys organized themselves to ensure its distribution.  Meetings, processions and demonstrations in all the big cities were planned.

Thirty-three men chose martyrdom.  They were to be the original signers of the Declaration of Independence.  They knew that at the best this must mean heavy punishment for them, and at the worst might well mean death.  They had no delusions.  Pastor Kil’s son had died from the effects of Japanese torture, Yang Chun-paik and Yi Seung-hun, two of the signers, had been victims in the Conspiracy case.  The first two names on the list of signers were Son Pyung-hi, leader of the Chon-do Kyo, and Pastor Kil.

On the morning of March 1st the group of thirty-two met at the Pagoda Restaurant at Seoul.  Pastor Kil was the only absentee; he had been temporarily delayed on his journey from Pyeng-yang.

Some prominent Japanese had been invited to eat with the Koreans.  After the meal, the Declaration was produced before their guests and read.  It was despatched to the Governor-General.  Then the signers rang up the Central Police Station, informed the shocked officials of what they had done, and added that they would wait in the restaurant until the police van came to arrest them.

The automobile prison van, with them inside, had to make its way to the police station through dense crowds, cheering and shouting, “Mansei!  Mansei!  Mansei!” It was the old national battle cry, “May Korea live ten thousand years.”  Old flags had been brought out, old Korean flags, with the red and blue germ on the white ground, and were being widely waved.  “Mansei!” Not only Seoul but the whole country had in a few minutes broken out in open demonstration.  A new kind of revolt had begun.

Pastor Kil, arriving late, hurried to the police station to take his place with his comrades.

The Declaration of Independence is a document impossible to summarize, if one is to do full justice to it.  It is written in the lofty tone of the ancient prophets.  It was something more than the aspiration of the Korean people.  It was the cry of the New Asia, struggling to find its way out of oppression and mediaeval militarism into the promised land of liberty and peace.

THE PROCLAMATION OF KOREAN INDEPENDENCE