Philip Jaisohn

Seo Jae-pil (; January 7, 1864 – January 5, 1951), better known by his English name Philip Jaisohn, was a Korean American politician, physician, and Korean independence activist. He was the first Korean to become a naturalized citizen of the United States. He also founded the Tongnip sinmun, the first Korean newspaper written entirely in Hangul.

Jaisohn was one of the organizers of the failed Kapsin Coup in 1884. He was thus convicted for treason and sought refuge in the United States where he became a citizen and earned a medical doctorate. Upon returning to Korea in 1895, Jaisohn was offered a position as a chief advisor of the Joseon government. He declined, choosing to focus on reform movements where he advocated for democracy, Korean independence and self reliance from foreign intervention, numerous civil rights and universal suffrage. Jaisohn was forced to return to the United States in 1898, from where he participated in the First Korean Congress and advocated for the March First Movement and U.S. Government support for Korean independence. Jaisohn became a chief advisor to the United States Army Military Government in Korea after World War II and was elected as an interim representative in South Korea in the 1946 legislative election.

He died in 1951 shortly after returning to the United States during the Korean War. His remains were reinterred at the Seoul National Cemetery in 1994.

Jaisohn was an admirer of American-style liberalism and republicanism. He was also reform-minded, and sought to revise Confucianist culture and institutions in Korea.

Biography

Early years

Jaisohn was born on January 7, 1864, in Boseong County, Jeolla Province, Joseon. He was born into the . He was appointed to Joryeon-guk Sagwanjang () shortly after.

In December 1884, Jaisohn, following Kim Okkyun, was involved in the Kapsin Coup, a radical attempt to overturn the old regime and establish equality among people. Jaisohn and Kim Okkyun, Pak Yŏnghyo, Yun Chi-ho, Hong Yeong-shik, and others had planned a coup for seven months, from July to December 1884. He was appointed the Vice-Minister of Defense. The coup was defeated in three days, as China intervened by sending military troops.

As a result, his older half-brother, Seo Jae-hyeong, and younger brother, Seo Jae-chang, were killed. His biological father, Seo Gwang-hyo, and biological mother, Lady Yi of the Seongju Yi clan, were executed under a guilt-by-association system. His second wife, Lady Kim of the Gwangsan Kim clan, was sold into slavery, but committed suicide. His 3-year-old son had also died in 1885. Convicted of treason, Soh Jaipil lost half of his family and had to flee Korea to save his life.

His only remaining family was his older brother, older sister, younger brother, and younger sister, along with his eldest daughter and her husband. However, his older brother soon committed suicide by poisoning on September 5, 1888.

The majority of the 1884 revolutionaries fled to Japan. Unlike them, Jaisohn moved to the United States. He saw Japan as essentially a conduit for Western knowledge and ideas, but preferred to deal with what he saw as the source itself. They had two daughters, Stephanie and Muriel.

Tongnip sinmun

In 1894, Japan defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War, which had occurred on the Korean Peninsula. The Korean cabinet was filled with reformists. Along with these political changes, the treason of the Kapsin Coup was pardoned, enabling Jaisohn's return in 1895. In December 1895, he went to Incheon. The Joseon government wanted to appoint him as the Foreign Secretary, but he refused to take the position. In Korea, he endeavored to politically educate people. Jaisohn published the Tongnip sinmun (also called The Independent) to transform the Korean population into an informed citizenry. He was the first to print his newspaper entirely in Hangul to extend readership to lower classes and women.

Sowing the ideals of independence and democracy

thumb|198x198px|[[Independence Gate]]

In the 1896 to 1898 civil rights movement and suffrage movements, Jaisohn's goal was to ensure that Korea could drift away from the Chinese sphere of influence without falling too heavily under the influence of Russia or Japan. He was also behind the construction of the Independence Gate, which was initially meant to symbolize Korea's independence from foreign interventionism. At this time he also ended the policy of Yeongeunmun (영은문;迎恩門). Yeongeunmun was the Korean policy of welcoming the Qing Manchu envoys (Yeongeunmun roughly translates from Korean to English as "Welcome with kindness gate").

In 1898, conservatives accused Jaisohn and the Club of seeking to replace the monarchy with a republic, and the Korean government requested Jaisohn to return to the US. After his return, the Korean government ordered the club to disband and arrested 17 leaders, including Syngman Rhee.

Clerk and Company manage

In April to August 1898, he accompanied an army to the Spanish–American War. In 1899 he found employment as clerk for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1904, worked with Harold Deemer, who was a year younger, to create the "Deemer and Jaisohn shop". It was a stationery and printing industry store. In 1915, the shop became called the Philip Jaisohn Company, and specialized in the printing industry.

Independence movements

In the United States, Jaisohn conducted medical research at the University of Pennsylvania and later became a successful printer in Philadelphia. When he heard the news of the March First Movement (1919), a nationwide protest against Japanese rule in Korea, Jaisohn convened the First Korean Congress, which was held in Philadelphia for three days on April 14 to 16, 1919. After the Congress, Jaisohn devoted his energies and private property to the freedom of Korea.

He organized the League of Friends of Korea in 21 cities with the help of Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia on Rittenhouse Square and established the "Korean Information Bureau." He published a political journal called Korea Review to inform the American public of the situation in Korea, and to persuade the U.S. government to support the freedom of Koreans.

In the 1920s, Jaisohn, who had just turned 60, returned to research and spent his 60s and 70s working as a specialist doctor and micro-biologist, as well as occasionally publishing in peer-review academic journals.

External links

Soh Jaipil Memorial Association