No. 472.
Mr. Boker to Mr. Fish.
Constantinople, August 20, 1872. Received September 11.)
Sir: I have the honor to say, in reply to dispatch No. 33, from the Department of State, relating to the inhuman persecutions of the He [Page 679] brews in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, that yesterday I had an interview with the Turkish minister of foreign affairs, in which I represented to him the sentiments of the Government of the United States, and presented hi in with a copy of the dispatch just mentioned. In reply to my inquiries the minister said that the prejudice against the Hebrews was confined to the people of Roumania, and that it was in no way shared or countenanced by the Roumanian government nor by the Sublime Porte. The present minister of foreign affairs, Safvet Pacha, holds a temporary appointment, which he will resign on the arrival of Djemil Pacha, in favor of the latter.* * * * *
Finding that I could neither receive nor impart knowledge in this quarter, I applied to the mustichar, or under-secretary, of the former government. By him I was assured that on the first remonstrance made by the great powers of Europe regarding the persecutions of the Hebrews in Roumania, strong representations had been made by the Ottoman’ to the Roumanian government, and that all which the former could do had already been done to prevent a recurrence of these disgraceful popular outbreaks.
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It therefore seems a little unjust to charge the sins of Roumania against Turkey, in which the latter feels that she has no more moral responsibility than for the social enormities committed in our Territory of Utah. It is said here that the anti-Hebrew riots in Moldavia and Wallachia were fomented by intrigue, in order to prove to Europe that there could be no safety for person or property in the principalities, save under a strong government, into whose waiting paternal arms it is hoped that this fair country will one day drop by the well-recognized law of national gravitation.
When Mr. Costaforo, the Roumanian minister of foreign affairs, was in Constantinople on business relating to the persecution of the Hebrews in his country, in an interview which I had with him, he assured me that the government sincerely desired to protect all classes of its subjects, and that it would be its effort to prevent hereafter a recurrence of any kind of riots in the principalities. Mr. Costaforo is now out of office, but I have received the same assurances lately from Prince Ghyka, the Roumanian diplomatic agent in Constantinople.
As for the past persecutions, bad as they really were, their violence has been greatly exaggerated by ex-pa rte statements. I have read, through the courtesy of the British embassador, a report just made by the British vice-consul at Bucharest, Mr. St. John, a judicious gentleman, in which he bears testimony as to the exaggerated character of the early reports. For example, as a correction of what was then reported as matter of fact, Mr. St. John says that it now appears, from incontestable evidence, that during the whole of the anti-Hebrew riots no Hebrew was killed and no Hebrew woman was violated. To prove that Mr. St. John is an impartial witness, he says, on the other side of the question, that although the Hebrews were found with the church property, said to have been stolen by them, in their possession, and although they confessed the theft, they were persuaded to make that avowal by torture—a facility toward unreserved communication still in use with the Roumanian courts, to their shame be it said, in the face of the nineteenth century. I am happy to be able in some degree to mitigate the tragical character of the first reports which were made concerning the persecutions, and all true friends of the Hebrews will rejoice that their sufferings were not so great as they appeared to be to excited spectators of the scenes. Only prejudiced partisans, who desire the Roumanian [Page 680] government to receive more than just odium for its censurable weakness, would have the facts otherwise.
About the season of Easter anti-Hebrew riots are looked for, as a matter of course, throughout the Turkish empire. It is a relic of the superstition, commemorated in our ancient ballad of Thomas o’ Reading,” that at Easter the Hebrews have a custom of immolating a living Christian child. The consequence is that if any Christian should disappear about that period—and the latitude is very great as to the time, and the Christianity of the supposed sufferer—a riot against the Hebrews is the inevitable consequence. This year there were such riots in the islands of the Sea of Marmora, in Smyrna, and in various parts of Russia.
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I have, &c.,