Labor Day
On March 10, twenty thousand union members from the Gyeongin district, affiliated with the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, marched through the streets of Seoul.
Labor Day had once fallen on the first of May. It had been moved to March 10 on Syngman Rhee's orders.
The date was the same as Labor Day in the communist countries, and so he had ordered it changed. The Federation took His Excellency's command to heart. Beginning in 1959, it observed the first Labor Day on March 10, the anniversary of its own founding.
The workers in the procession carried placards as they marched.
The mood, though, was nothing like the grim union marches of a later age. A farmers' percussion band had been brought along, and people danced; others laughed their way down the street in outlandish costume, turning the route into a masquerade. There were no cries of struggle or of winning demands. It was a procession with the air of a festival.
From company headquarters, Lee Ki-jo looked down on that long column. He knew they were no true union. The Federation moved as Syngman Rhee wished. It sent the unions under it into stage-managed demonstrations and issued statements declaring its support for the Liberal Party and for Rhee. Because it was that sort of organization, Rhee was in the habit of sending messages of congratulation and admonition to its national conventions.
He might have looked like a leader well disposed toward labor, but behind the scenes he actively dissolved any union that would not obey him. In 1959 alone he broke up some ninety of them. A union, as he saw it, ought to be moderate, and it ought to do its duty as an anti-communist body. The Federation was no different from the Anti-Communist Youth Corps or the Anti-Communist Artists' Corps: nothing more than a praetorian organization for keeping Rhee in power.
Ki-jo was alone in the president's office, looking down, when Sung Dae-ik flung the door open and came in. He had a bucket of water in one hand, and the moment he saw Ki-jo he started.
"I'm sorry, sir. I thought you weren't coming in today..."
"It's all right. What brings you to the office on the Labor Day holiday?"
"I remembered I'd forgotten to water the orchids."
Dae-ik glanced at the orchid by the window and looked startled. Ki-jo smiled faintly.
"I watered it this morning."
"I'm sorry, sir. I should have looked after it myself..."
"It's fine. Go home and rest."
"Yes, sir. But... aren't you resting?"
Dae-ik asked it while taking in how neatly Ki-jo was dressed.
"I have someone to meet in Hannam-dong today."
"Ah. I see."
Dae-ik stood beside him at the window, watching the union column, and then said, "We're lucky Cheongsan doesn't have a union." He was smiling broadly.
The Federation had sent people to Cheongsan's workplaces to urge the workers to organize and affiliate, but the employees had refused. An eight-hour day was already settled practice, and a minimum livelihood was guaranteed, so there was no particular need to join. Anyone who wanted extra income could apply for overtime and work it whenever they pleased.
"They say that if they joined the Federation they'd only pick up a lot of bothersome chores, and they don't want that. Government rallies, Liberal Party functions—you'd be hauled all over the place. Nobody would enjoy it."
At that, Ki-jo cautioned him.
"Even so, if our Cheongsan people ever want to form a union, don't stand in their way."
"Yes, sir."
Dae-ik answered with confidence. He knew they would not form one even if they were told to. At bottom there was no antagonism between the workers and the company in Cheongsan's workplaces. Everyone took pride in being Cheongsan people and lived together like a single household. When an executive from headquarters visited a site, the workers treated him with respect and with familiarity at once. If there was something to suggest from the floor, they suggested it freely, and headquarters had settled into the habit of accepting a great deal of what they heard.
"Have a good trip, sir. I'll be heading out."
"Yes. Rest well."
Dae-ik left the office with the bucket and a rag.
Ki-jo waited until the tail of the Labor Day procession had cleared Sejong-ro, then went down. He drove the jeep to Hannam-dong and pressed the bell of his own house, into which the new minister had moved.
Koo Yong-seo, who had taken office as Minister of Commerce and Industry the previous August, was using Ki-jo's house in Hannam-dong as an official residence, following an unofficial custom of the ministry. That August had been a frantic season. Encephalitis was spreading, and Ki-jo was in the thick of building the Yeongdeungpo Logistics Hub; the new minister, for his part, had a crowded calendar after taking office, with the economic climate turning worse. Both of them busy, they had put off a proper greeting until now, when they had at last set a day and agreed to meet.
When the door opened, Ki-jo looked first at the maid who had opened it. She was not the girl he knew. The one who had thanked him, saying she enjoyed Seoul Ttoksuni, seemed to have gone with the previous minister.
"Hello. My name is Lee Ki-jo. I have an appointment with the Minister."
He greeted the young maid as politely as he would have greeted an adult. She looked as if she doubted her own ears—a grown man using honorifics to her—then bobbed her head and answered.
"Hello, sir. I was told to expect you. Please come in."
Ki-jo followed the new maid into the living room and found Minister Koo Yong-seo seated there with Chang Key-young.
"Do come in, President Lee."
Minister Koo welcomed him warmly.
"Surprised to find me here, aren't you?"
Chang grinned as he said it.
"Ah, yes. I didn't expect you to be here."
Ki-jo put on a look of surprise. In truth he was not surprised in the least. He already knew how Minister Koo Yong-seo and Chang Key-young, the joint proprietor, stood with each other. Koo had been the first Governor of the Bank of Korea, and Chang its Deputy Governor. Both had taken up their posts at the Bank, established in June 1950 just before the Korean War, and together they had brought order to the chaos of wartime finance. Perhaps because they had come through hardship side by side, they seemed easy with each other despite a considerable difference in age.
Chang, addressing as Governor a man seventeen years his senior, poured his words out without ceremony.
"Governor, the Commerce Ministers have been helping themselves to this house, and that's why President Lee is living in some little place in Jongno, isn't it? Make up your mind and move out. Then the ministers who come after you won't go treating someone else's house as free lodging either."
"Was that how it was? I had no idea. The previous minister, Kim Il-hwan, told me I could simply live here, so I came."
"You see? That's the Rhee government for you. Ministers making free with other people's private property whenever they please."
It was pure Chang Key-young, the same man who had talked back and defied even Park Chung-hee in Park's days as prime minister. When Chang pressed him, Koo looked abashed.
"Now, now, young Chang! Mind your tongue, even among ourselves. If this reaches the wrong ears, there'll be the devil to pay..."
"The devil's already been paid. There's a thick rumor that Kim Il-hwan, the previous minister who used this house, will be dismissed any day now."
"Kim Il-hwan? And where did you hear that?"
"Governor, have you forgotten I run a newspaper? The reporters scrape in high-grade information every day. They're saying Choi In-gyu will be the next Minister of Home Affairs."
Chang was telling the truth. Kim Il-hwan, the former Minister of Commerce and Industry, had been appointed Minister of Home Affairs the previous August, but he was not to last out a year; Choi In-gyu was slated to replace him.
"Choi In-gyu...?"
The two of them were busy talking to each other with Ki-jo sitting right there. That suited him. He had nothing in particular to discuss with the Minister of Commerce and Industry.
"But that man Choi In-gyu—didn't he enter the cabinet as Minister of Transportation the moment he became a National Assemblyman last year? And now he's to be Minister of Home Affairs? He's moving awfully fast."
"It's all because of the election."
"The election?"
"Yes. Greenhorns compete in loyalty without a second thought. They've sat a novice like that down in Home Affairs so that, come next year's election, he'll rig it without flinching."
Chang's words were caustic. Even Koo seemed to find them a burden. He stole a glance at Ki-jo and cleared his throat.
"Ahem. You. Don't come to my house for the time being. At this rate I'll be the one in trouble."
"Governor, what's the matter? Are you frightened? Everyone knows this. Why so solemn? Ha ha ha..."
Chang laughed, thick-skinned and easy. Koo answered as if admonishing a junior.
"Young Chang. Watch that mouth a little. You were just as wild in your deputy-governor days, and I don't see that you've changed at all..."
"Governor, if it hadn't been for me, what would have become of inflation during the war? If I hadn't told His Excellency Syngman Rhee to stop printing money—that the country would go under at this rate—we might not have gone communist, but prices would have ruined us all the same."
"Enough! Will you watch your mouth! I take your meaning. But His Excellency is not the man he was then. If what you just said reaches his ears, what do you suppose becomes of your newspaper?"
Watching the two of them bicker, Ki-jo could see plainly how close they were. So long as Chang stood on such intimate terms with the man, there seemed no need to worry over Koo Yong-seo. Even if trouble arose with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, he would likely be able to settle it through Chang.
When Ki-jo kept silent, Minister Koo turned to him.
"Here I've invited the owner of the house and then done all the talking among ourselves. Forgive me."
"Not at all, Minister. Please don't take President Chang's words to heart. Use the house at your ease."
"Ha. I didn't know the circumstances of this house in any detail. I only wanted to thank you, President Lee. If you'll name a rent, I'll pay it."
"There's no need, Minister. The more ministers who use this house, the better known the housing estate I built becomes. The authorities look after it more carefully as well. Your simply living here is a gain for me. I can't take rent."
At that, Koo laughed aloud. Chang let out a short snort and shook his head.
"Then allow me to give you a gift in return, President Lee."
Koo shot a look at Chang and added, for him as well, "I'll give you one too."
"What are you giving us?"
Chang asked.
"Come to Chungju on the nineteenth of March. The completion ceremony for the Chungju Fertilizer Plant is to be held."
"Well... now that's quite a gift. But I won't be going."
Chang was lukewarm.
"Why not? His Excellency the President will be there, and a great many leading figures of the state, and foreign guests besides. Wouldn't it be good to attend on such an occasion and widen your connections?"
While Koo was still flustered, Ki-jo stepped in.
"I will certainly attend, Minister. Thank you."
Unlike Chang, Ki-jo was grateful, and Koo smiled as he answered.
"Then at least you must come, President Lee. The largest fertilizer plant in the country is going up, and young Chang has a crooked streak in him, so there you are."
He took a light dig at Chang.
"Ah, that's exactly why I'm not going, Governor. Too many people who smell of something rotten."
"You... when are you going to mend that crooked temper? You're already forty-four, and you still haven't grown up..."
"I never will. If I grew up, my conscience would rot..."
Koo met the eyes of Chang, who was wearing a sullen look, and burst out laughing. They had been comrades against inflation through the war, and a great deal of feeling seemed to have piled up between them, the sour and the sweet together.
Koo turned to Ki-jo.
"President Lee Ki-jo. Then let it be just the two of us. I'll see you in Chungju on March 19."
"Yes. It was a place I had very much wanted to see. Thank you for the invitation."
"Truly?"
"Of course, Minister."
"Hearing you say so puts my mind more at ease. Thank you."
Koo smiled brightly. Ki-jo could only smile brightly in return.
He had a project in mind, the largest he had ever planned: the building of a fertilizer plant. He had been carrying that plan in his thoughts alone, and now the Minister of Commerce and Industry was personally inviting him to the completion ceremony of a fertilizer plant. It felt like a sign that the thing was meant to go well.