Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1892
Mr. Newberry to Mr. Foster.
Constantinople, October 19, 1892. (Received November 10.)
Sir: I inclose herewith, for your information, copy of a letter from Mr. Dwight to me, also copy of a letter from Mr. W. W. Mead to Mr. Dwight, giving in detail the facts of an interference with Mr. Mead by the Turkish authorities of Hajin. When I called upon the grand vizier in regard to the matter he showed no hesitancy in expressing his opinion that where we had no consul Turkish authorities had the undoubted right to search the persons and property of anyone, and to seize any book, papers, etc., they saw fit, and at any time and place. I have sent no note to the Porte on this matter, feeling it would be better to obtain your views in this and other like cases.
I have, etc.,
Chargé d’Affaires ad interim.
Mr. Mead to Mr. Dwight.
Dear Mr. Dwight: Before you receive this letter you will doubtless have been informed from our own or from the British legation of the trouble we got into with the government on our arrival here Saturday, October 4. Mrs. Coning desired me to be on hand at the opening of the school yesterday, fearing that the government would interfere with the opening of the school, as it is reported they had often said or intended that they would do.
At the same time it was necessary for me to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Martin, formerly of the St. Paul’s Institute, in Tarsus, to Hajin, to which they have been designated to work under the American Board.
There being no pack horses in Adana at this season at any reasonable price, I had ordered twenty animals two weeks before to come from Hajin and be on hand in Adana to take them and all their goods. There were nineteen loads in all, including all their furniture, books, etc., and my own load of food for the road, bed, and clothing.
As our loads entered Hajin they were seized by a zaptiye and taken to the serai yard and unloaded, the whole nineteen loads. We had been in the house (Mrs. C’s) only five or ten minutes when word came of the seizure. I hastened to the Serai and went directly to the Kaimakan vekil and asked the reason for the seizure. He said he was under orders to examine everything that came into the city. I asked him to show me the order. He said he was under no obligation to show it and declined to do so. I protested against the seizure, that he had no right to detain or search our boxes; that I was an American subject, and that the things in my boxes I had had ever since I came into the vilayet four years ago. I informed him that Mr. Margin was a British subject, had been living two years in the vilayet, and was coming to Hajin to live and had a right to bring his furniture, clothing, and books without being searched, particularly as all boxes coming into the country have to pass through the custom-house, where they are examined. He asked if all our things had the stamp—damgha—of the government on them showing that they had been inspected and approved. 1 said that no such official stamp was necessary, inasmuch as it had never before been asked for or even mentioned. He insisted that [Page 602] it was necessary and that he would have to search everything. I told him that if he wanted to arouse the American and British governments against him, and wished to subject himself and the government to the disgrace that would surely follow such indignities to American and English subjects, to bouyour; and he bouyoured. My boxes were brought in and opened, and every article in each was examined. The pockets of clothing were ransacked for any scrap of writing or of printed paper, my Bibles, hymn-books, note books, accounts, copy of estimates for 1893, letters, private and others. I had three letters for natives in Hajin, and I was compelled to empty my pockets, and all the personal letters in them were taken away from me. Afterwards my Bibles, hymn-book, and note-book were given back. Everything else was kept and are still in their hands. Oh, yes; my passport was handed back after examining. They demanded a teskéré, but I insisted that none was needed for traveling within the vilayet. I then went home for lunch.
Mr. Martin in the meantime was at the mission house. After lunch we both went down, and after a few unavailing protests stood by to watch them opening the boxes and ransacking everything. Every book, letter, and newspaper, pamphlet, and magazine was taken and thrown down on the floor of an abominably dirty room, helter-skelter. Newspapers used to wrap around articles to keep them clean or from being scratched or lost were taken off and put with the other things to be examined and read later. Everything in the way of correspondence was taken—letter-press, copybooks, and the private letters of Mr. and Mrs. Martin, dating back for years, were all thrown into the pile. Mr. Martin took up one package of letters from the pile and asked if that might not be permitted to pass, explaining that they were his wife’s letters to him before their marriage. “No; there might be something in them!”
Finally, we thought it best not to open any more boxes containing books so far as could be helped; but inasmuch as nearly every box contained some few books, letters, magazines, or papers, they insisted on tumbling everything over whether anything was found or not. Of course there was a crowd around the box all the time. The boxes filled wholly, or nearly so, with books were left in their hands unopened until they should write to Sis or to Adana for orders, or until we (as we hoped) should get a telegram to the legations, especially the British legation, which would lead to their instant release and so possibly escape being opened at all, for it is not to be conceived that many would not be lost and others shamefully handled, for they handle books about as gently as they would a bar of pig iron.
In one box they came upon a Remington typewriter. They opened their eyes at that, had it taken up to the room of the vekil (who by the way is mal mudiri here), and then gathered around and had it opened. Mr. Martin put in a piece of paper and struck off a couple of lines of letters at random. They examined it with surprise, made notes on the paper, wrote the English name, called it a hand writing press, which I lost no time in denying. This typewriter they also kept as a dangerous thing. It was told us that from remarks made by some of them that they expected to find powder and weapons in the boxes. And many things go to show that they had been informed from Adana of the suspicious character of the boxes and ordered to make examination.
Mr. Martin’s servant was asked for his teskéré. He had none, but produced a Noufous Kyaghada, in which it appeared that he was a Kharpootlu. He was imprisoned, and by furnishing security we were able to get him out for the night. The next morning the servant went down to see about it, according to orders, when they again put him in the prison, where he remained all day. As soon as we heard of it we went down with Pastor Sarkis Devirian and were working over the case all the afternoon. But in the end we were told that there was no use trying because they were going to send him to Kharpoot. We demanded them to give the reason. They refused to say why they were sending him, but said they had their reasons. But while talking with them everything indicated that his only offense in their eyes was in his being from Kharpoot, that they were under orders to send all Karpootlus back to their home to prevent their escape to America, and they showed the pastor an order to that effect. Being a Kharpootlu is a crime, imish. A muleteer from that place who had for years plied between Kharpoot and Adana was arrested as he was entering Adana a day or two ago (I am now writing in Mersine, October 8). He was taken from his loads and carried back to Kharpoot, his animals being left in Adana. A similar case occurred one month ago. Any one from Kharpoot must be on his way to America, and is therefore a criminal.
There was some hope that the servant might be released the next morning, either through the influence of the kadua or by the giving of money, for Mr. Martin in a strange place can not afford to be without a servant.
But how long must we be subjected to these things? I hope our chargé d’affaires there will see that a severe chastisement is meted out. Mr. Martin demands damages for injuries to his things.
I have seen Mr. Keun, our consular agent, and Mr. Christmann, the British vice consul, and they will act in concert and demand of vali that the boxes and other [Page 603] things he given up without futher examination. The authorities in Hajin wrote to Adana for a man to come who could read English. There is a set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, among his books, and he fears for these.
I fear particularly lest this and Dr. Pettibone’s matter in Adana shall not he visited with penalties sufficiently heavy, and that we shall have to suffer from time to time such things.
I wish the dismissal of the mudir, of the mearif, in Adana, and the chief of police could he instantly deposed, for it is quite likely that they are to blame for the recent outrage in Hajin. The mal mudiri and the muiazim (sometimes they call him yuz-bachi) in Hajin ought to be made to smart for it. The condition of the people in Hajin is truly pitiable, owing to the abominable misrule of the government there.
Please stir the embassies up to act unitedly to get a stirging tekder for these offenders.
With kind remembrances, etc.,
Mr. Dwight to Mr. Newberry.
Dear Sir: You will remember that in the month of August of the present year the entry of Turkish officials without warrant into the American mission house at Adana and the seizure by them of books and papers which were the personal property of American citizens of respectability and good moral character was the subject of a request on my part to yourself. I then pointed out that the violation of treaties involved in this infraction of domicile appeared to me to call for strong remonstrances and the punishment of the officials who had taken the liberty to thus attack the security of American citizens residing in Turkey.
I regret to say that the authorities of the same province of Adana have now repeated this unlawful act in seizing nineteen boxes containing the personal effects of two missionaries of the American Board on their arrival at Hadjin, and the removal therefrom of all their books, papers, documents, letters, notebooks, etc., which have been retained for examination by the authorities at such time as they can find some one who knows English enough to read the papers.
Messrs. Read and Martyn, who suffered from this outrage, arrived at Hajin from Adana on the 1st of October, and their goods were at once seized without any pretense of any charge against them, and merely in order to see what they might have in the way of writings in their boxes and on their persons (their pockets were also searched). In short, the Turkish authorities claimed to do to them, because they were traveling from one house to another in the same province, what they would not venture to claim to do without gross violation of treaty obligations to the same men and the same articles of property in their house of abode. Or, to put the matter another way, if the authorities may search the private papers of an American whom they meet in the open country, the treaty which prohibits this indignity to Americans residing in the country becomes null in its reference to the domicile also.
It is, in my view, absolutely essential for the safety of Americans in all the land, that this outrage, following so soon upon another of the same nature in the same province, and associated with others of a similar nature in other parts of the country, should be made the subject of serious demands upon the Porte which will make an example of the petty officials who have applied the treatment due to highway robbers to honorable men, through their inability to understand either the obligation of the treaties or the claims of decency.
I should add that of the sufferers by this aggression, Mr. Mead is an American citizen, but Mr. Martyn, while also a missionary of the American Board, is a British subject from Canada.
Yours very truly,