Mr. Adee to Mr. Terrell.
Washington, September 6, 1895.
Sir: I have received your No. 592, of the 13th ultimo, in relation to the attack upon servants of Rev. Mr. Christie, of St. Paul’s Institute, [Page 1282] at Tarsus. I note the incidental reference contained in your dispatch and its inclosure to the conviction of a native teacher in the school, named Minassian, on the charge of possessing a copy of Shelley’s Poems, containing the well known “Revolt of Islam.” Such a conviction on such grounds can only be regarded as a frivolous and vexatious interference with a native teacher of an American school, and therefore covered by your instructions in that regard heretofore given. Apart from the grave character of such molestation of a legitimate American enterprise in the person of its dependents, it is for the Porte to measure the degree of ridicule which must inevitably attach to such ignorant perversion of the course of justice. Probably no epic poem in the English language is more widely known or more universally recognized as transcendental and inapplicable to any historical or existing condition of facts in the East, even at the time it was written, nearly eighty years ago, and certainly not now, when it has for half a century passed into the domain of the world’s classic literature.
The case of Minassian’s father, who suffered a year’s imprisonment for possessing a hymn book containing the popular and innocent Sunday-school hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” is scarcely less preposterous, and may be used in supporting your appeal for justice toward the younger Minassian and his release from the iniquitous penalty imposed upon him; but as his father is not a citizen of the United States, and apparently not employed in the American school, direct intervention in his behalf is not practicable.
I am, etc.,
Acting Secretary.