A Scout Is Militant

In northern Korea, a peaceful country, the Russians are now training an army of at least 100,000 (TIME, May 19). In the South, TIME Correspondent Carl Mydans went recently to Suwon, a tidy, grass-roofed village set on a gentle slope south of Seoul, Korea's capital, and there, too, heard marching feet. Mydans wrote:

Centuries ago Suwon was a feudal city of Korea's kings. To keep out the marching feet of warlike neighbors, the kings surrounded it with a massive wall which ran crazily along the crest of the encircling hills. My guides were telling me a dreamy tale of how one king kept his pretty women in a palace over there and his plain women in a palace over on this side. Why he did this I never learned, for just then came a sound that I had learned too well --feet marching in military cadence to a martial song.

We forgot about the kings and their women and their breached and crumbling walls. I was introduced to the Korean National Youth Movement, which wears blue uniforms, and is recruited from husky young men of 18 to 35.

80,000 Marching. "This is the new Boy Scout movement--80,000 members already," explained Dr. Sze Hyong Kang, the school director, as we drove into the vast compound. He sat us down in a little room before a table set with sweet, black coffee.

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he asked. "I studied in Germany, 1930 to 1934. We base our instruction on the German youth movement, because the Germans are the only people who really know how to organize young men."

We watched a squad of "Boy Scouts" (18 to 35 ) marching outside to the sharp military singsong of their officer. The professor looked at them proudly. "Each month 250 boys go through this school. They organize others. We are nonpolitical here and we take in boys from both the left and the right. But of course by graduation time they are unified in their political view." Then, rising, he added forcefully: "It might be said that this is the beginning of the Korean Army, when we have our independence."

"But where are your funds coming from?" I asked him.

"You Americans are paying for it," Professor Kang answered. "The American Military Government in Korea has just given us 5,000,000 yen ($333,000) and equipment and supplies worth much more --automobiles, gasoline, shoes and cots; and we think if we behave ourselves somebody will give us more. We also have an American colonel as adviser to General Li Bum Suk, who heads the Boy Scout movement."

For the 30 Million. Later, in Seoul, Boy Scouts brought us bowls of bitter Korean tea in General Li Bum Suk's second-floor office. Looking alertly at us through his black, tortoise-rimmed glasses, General Li outlined his movement. "We Koreans have behind us 4,000 years of good history. The present situation is confused only because the people have forgotten their heritage. Our nation must have the strength to prevent invasion by another nation and we must build up our youth to this end.

"Our philosophy is 'Korea for the Koreans.' But right now we must have foreign help from those whose aid will benefit Korea."

"And what is it you Boy Scouts offer Korea?" I asked.

"Oh, our membership," said Li dynamically, "could easily be transferred to an army if necessary. Our boys are being taught the right attitude. They can step into any breach."

The new Boy Scouts booklet is printed with funds from the U.S. Military Government. It, too, makes the inevitable bow to nationalism. The booklet states: "A section of this nation is solid in its opposition to the proposed [U.S.-Russian] trusteeship. . . . People who take this stand are real patriots."

On the frontispiece of the same booklet are the words of the song that the Boy Scouts sang as their feet kicked up the dust of the quiet valley outside Suwon:

Within us runs the blood of one direct dynasty

Die and die again, this will still remain the land of our brethren. . .

We alone can save the thirty million.

We alone can save the thirty million.

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