Durham White Stevens (February 1, 1851 – March 25, 1908) was an American diplomat and later an employee of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working for the Japanese colonial office in Korea, the Resident-General.
Stevens' assassination took place at the same time as numerous other pro-Korean demonstrations, largely as a reaction to the 1905 treaty that established Korea as a colony of Japan.
[7] He enthusiastically accepted his new position, in part due to his fondness for learning new languages; he had previously studied Latin, Greek, French, and German.
In the winter of 1884–85 he accompanied Count Inoue Kaoru to Korea to assist in negotiations related to the murder of several Japanese citizens on Korean soil; for services rendered on that occasion, Emperor Meiji awarded him the Third Class of the Order of the Rising Sun.
[11] Soon after the start of hostilities in the First Sino-Japanese War, Stevens published an article in the North American Review, in which he sought to justify the war by asserting that the "dry rot of Chinese conservatism" blocked Korea's development, and that a reduction of Chinese influence in Korea and a corresponding increase in Japanese power would result in social and commercial reform.
[14] Later that year, he issued a statement that Japan would welcome legislation restricting the entry of Japanese immigrants into the United States, and that they were also in favor of stopping movement to Hawaii, "provided it can be done in a manner that would not be offensive to Japan or that would not affect her dignity"; he stated that the Japanese government hoped to induce potential emigrants to settle in Korea or northeast China instead.
Stevens returned to the United States in March 1908 to visit his family in Washington, D.C., and vacation with his sisters at a cottage they owned in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
These statements provoked the ire of two local associations of Koreans, the Daedong Bogukhoe and the Independence Club, who held a joint meeting in which they agreed that something had to be done about Stevens.
Their leader, a man by the name of Earl Lee who was described as fluent in English, asked him if he had indeed made the statements attributed to him in the newspaper, and whether "Japanese were not killing off the Koreans".
"[18] The following day, Jang In-hwan and Jeon Myeong-un, both Korean immigrants to the United States, approached Stevens at the Port of San Francisco as he prepared to catch a ferry to make a rail connection in Oakland and attacked him.
In newspaper interviews after the attack, both Jeon and Jang offered no apology for the assassination, describing Stevens as a "traitor to Korea" and stating that "thousands of people have been killed through his plans".
[20] One bullet had penetrated Stevens's lung, while another lodged in his groin; however, surgeons at the St. Francis Hospital initially expected that he would be able to make a recovery, and on the day of the attack he was apparently in good enough health to issue a statement to the press that the assault was "evidently the work of a small band of student agitators in and about San Francisco, who resent the fact that the Japanese have a protectorate over Korea and believe that I am to some extent responsible for this condition of affairs in their country".