Evening Edition · 100 Years Ago Today

September 8, 1926 (Wednesday), Gyeongseong

🕙 10:10 PM KST (1:10 PM UTC) – As you wind down your day, reflect on a century of history

Hook Opening

Good evening. Tonight we return to a courtroom in colonial Seoul, then called Gyeongseong, on Wednesday, September 8, 1926. Since dawn, a crowd had gathered outside the Gyeongseong District Court in the Jeong-dong district. Two weeks earlier, a single newspaper column had triggered an arrest. Today, a prosecutor would ask for eight months in prison over it.

Korea Under Colonial Rule

At today’s hearing, the prosecutor demanded an eight-month prison sentence for Choi Won-sun, a reporter at the Dong-A Ilbo, and a six-month term for Kim Chul-jung, the paper’s editor and publisher. The case traced back to August 22, when Choi’s piece in the paper’s front-page column “Hoengseol-suseol” (“Rambling Talk”) was read as a veiled criticism of Government-General rule. Choi was charged under the colonial Security Act; Kim, who had allowed the column to run, was charged under the Newspaper Law. Choi Won-sun was no ordinary journalist. Three years earlier in Tokyo, he had secretly mimeographed and distributed the February 8th Declaration of Independence. Back in Korea, he revived the journalists’ association Mumyeonghoe and, in April of the previous year, had proposed convening the first All-Korea Journalists’ Congress. Witnesses in the gallery said he received the prosecutor’s demand with a composed expression.

East Asia in Turmoil

This press trial unfolded in the long shadow of the June Tenth Movement. Eleven students indicted on June 25 for leading that uprising still awaited their verdict as of this date — a trial that would not open until November 2. While a journalist was being sentenced for a single column and student demonstrators sat as unconvicted detainees for months, the Government-General was putting the finishing touches on its new headquarters on the old Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds, with a dedication ceremony already set for October 1. That same summer, Gwanghwamun — the palace’s historic front gate — was being dismantled and relocated to make way for the new building.

The World Stage

On this same day, in Geneva, Germany was formally admitted to the League of Nations and granted a permanent seat on its Council — a former wartime enemy’s return to the community of nations, eight years after its defeat. In China, Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition forces had captured Hanyang and Hankou on September 6 and 7 and now had Wuchang under siege, part of a campaign to unify China under Nationalist rule. Across the Pacific, in the Philippines, Governor-General Leonard Wood had declared he would exercise sole control over the Board of Control, provoking sharp protest from Filipino leaders including Manuel Quezon.

Colonial Parallels

Colonial Korea and the colonial Philippines, though oceans apart, were fighting variations of the same fight that same week. In Manila, elected Filipino leaders were resisting an American governor-general’s attempt to concentrate executive power in his own hands. In Gyeongseong, a Korean journalist was standing trial simply for writing a column the colonial government disliked. Both were disputes over who gets to speak, and who gets to decide, under foreign rule. Ireland had won its independence four years earlier, and India’s own long struggle against British rule was building toward the mass civil disobedience campaigns of the following decade — proof that colonial subjects across the globe were converging, however unevenly, on the same demand for self-determination.

Person of the Day

Choi Won-sun was already a marked man before this trial. Born in 1876 in Gwangju, he had been part of the network of Korean students in Tokyo who produced and secretly circulated the February 8th Declaration of Independence in 1919, one of the sparks that helped ignite the March First Movement weeks later. After returning to Korea, he built a career in journalism at the Dong-A Ilbo, working to organize fellow reporters through the Mumyeonghoe association and helping convene Korea’s first nationwide congress of working journalists in 1925. His prison sentence in this case would later be reduced on appeal, and he would go on to serve as an acting editor-in-chief before retiring to Gwangju for his health — but on this particular Wednesday, none of that was yet decided.

Understanding Daily Life

Outside the courthouse, newsboys worked the Jeong-dong crowd harder than usual, and an extra edition carrying news of the trial sold out within minutes. At the Dong-A Ilbo’s offices on Gwanghwamun-tong, the newsroom reportedly sat in heavy silence. Not far away, construction crews kept working on the Government-General’s new headquarters on the grounds of Gyeongbokgung, while the dismantled gate of Gwanghwamun waited nearby for its new site. A handful of students lingered outside the court’s fence after school let out, trading whispers about how the case might end. By dusk, the street had returned to its ordinary noise.

Century Mirror

Category	1926	2025
Press control	Censorship under the Newspaper Law and Security Act; articles cut, papers suspended, writers jailed	Press freedom guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution; prior censorship banned
Grounds for prosecution	A single column criticizing the colonial government	Limited to specific cases such as defamation or false information
Students’ political voice	Months held as unconvicted detainees for shouting for independence	Protected under freedom of assembly and speech

One hundred years ago today, a single column cost a journalist a demand for eight months in prison. Today, no one goes to jail simply for what a newspaper prints. That freedom, the crowd outside the Jeong-dong courthouse reminds us, was never free to begin with.

Tomorrow’s Preview

Choi Won-sun’s sentence would be cut by more than half on appeal three months later — but that story hasn’t happened yet. Tomorrow evening at 10:10, another day in colonial Gyeongseong awaits.

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