Editing March First Movement (section)

=== Rebuttals from foreigners ===
In March, thirty foreign missionaries in Korea met and planned how they could draw international attention to Japan's acts in Korea; they reportedly adopted the slogan "No Neutrality for Brutality".<ref name="CVJ2" /> Schofield and other foreign missionaries documented the protests and shared information with the international press.<ref name="CVJ2" /><ref name="VanVolkenburg 2021">{{Cite web |last=VanVolkenburg |first=Matt |date=2021-04-20 |title=[Korea Encounters] Frank Schofield, 'a most dangerous man' and an 'eternal Korean' |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/05/177_307037.html |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=[[The Korea Times]] |language=en |archive-date=May 2, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240502202636/https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/05/177_307037.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In August, Schofield traveled to Japan on behalf of the missionaries in Korea. He conducted a range of activities to publicize what he had seen. He met with Prime Minister [[Hara Takashi]] and other prominent Japanese politicians and asked them to take action to stop the violent suppression of the protests. He gave a public lecture to hundreds of foreign missionaries in Japan, in which he strongly criticized colonial policies.<ref name="Ministry Schofield" /> The missionaries published a number of articles and rebuttals in Korea, Japan, and abroad about the protest.<ref name="CVJ2" /><ref name="YNA 2019 5" /> For example, a report in the colonial government–backed English-language ''[[The Seoul Press]]'' claimed prison conditions were like those of a health resort;<ref name="YNA 2019 5" /> Schofield published a rebuttal that ridiculed the claim and described in detail the methods of torture employed by the Japanese. In retaliation for his acts, Japan pressured him into leaving Korea in 1920.<ref name="CVJ2" />

American journalist [[Valentine S. McClatchy]], publisher of ''[[The Sacramento Bee]]'', was in Seoul and witnessed Gojong's funeral and much of the early protests. He described Japanese investigators following him and searching his house in an apparent effort to stop him from leaking information about the protests. McClatchy would eventually leave Korea on March 17, but made a point of traveling around the peninsula and documenting what he saw before his departure. Upon his return, he dedicated the front page of the ''Bee''<nowiki/>'s April 6 issue to the protests, and criticized Japan for manipulating information on the event.<ref name="YNA 2019 5" />
[[File:Homer Bezaleel Hulbert.jpg|thumb|181x181px|American Korean independence activist [[Homer Hulbert]].]]
American missionary [[Homer Hulbert]], who had previously served as a personal envoy of the Korean monarch Gojong, published articles and gave speeches on the Korean situation to large audiences in the U.S. On one occasion, he gave a speech to 1,200 people in Ohio. On March 1, 1921, he gave a speech to 1,300 people in New York City.{{Sfn|Palmer|2020|pp=205–206}}{{Efn|Palmer argues that much of this audience was likely non-Korean, as there were around 100 Koreans in New York at the time.{{sfn|Palmer|2020|pp=205–206}}}}

A number of churches argued that Japan should alter its policies in Korea, although they did not openly advocate for Korea's independence.{{Sfn|Palmer|2020|pp=206–207}} The Commission on Relations with the Orient of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ conducted a three-month investigation of the protests and published a 125-page report that concured with Korean reporting.{{Sfn|Palmer|2020|pp=206–207}} The [[Presbyterian Church in Canada]] compiled and published a report with its evidence of the protests' suppression. One of its foreign mission board secretaries wrote, "Mails and cables are censored and the World is kept in ignorance whilst Japan is posing as a civilized nation".<ref name="CVJ2" />