Mr. Olney to Moustapha Bey.
Washington, November 11, 1896.
Sir: On Saturday last, the 7th instant, you were pleased to hand me copy and English translation of a telegraphed memorandum sent to you by the Ottoman foreign office in regard, first, to the inspection of foreign vessels in Turkish ports and the prevention of the landing of persons alleged to be disaffected toward the Ottoman Government, to which end the cooperation of the United States representatives is suggested; and, secondly, the prevention of revolutionary Armenian publications in the United States, and the expulsion of Armenian agitators. You invited expression of my views on both these points, and I conversed with you at some length on the subject.
In view, however, of the comparatively formal character of your written inquiry, and in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding of my remarks, it seems to me desirable to briefly put the views I intended in writing also.
Under the first head the Ottoman suggestion reads thus, following the French text:
We cherish the hope that the Government near which you are accredited and which has never ceased from giving evidence of its solicitude for the maintenance of good order throughout the Empire, would not under all the circumstances refuse to us the support we need for the realization of this aim and will transmit, accordingly, to its representative at Constantinople, formal instructions directing him to invite his appointed agents to lend us their aid and the necessary facilities will exercise surveillance over the vessels coming from abroad. We ask this surveillance for the sole purpose of preventing the landing of Armenian agitators and of engines, arms, etc.
No steamers or other commercial vessels under the flag of the United States are known to ply between foreign ports and those of Turkey, carrying passengers or arriving under circumstances likely to give rise to the abuses of which His Excellency Tevfik Pasha’s telegram complains. Were there any such vessels concerned the duties and functions of the United States consuls, which are defined by law and regulation, would not extend to the detection of the persons described as “anarchists, concealed on board, who only make their appearance after their arrival, disguised as seamen or otherwise, in order to evade the vigilance of the police.” Our consular officers are charged only, as regards the vessel’s company, with the shipping and discharge of members of the crew, and with the regulation of disputes concerning discipline on board and the like. As respects passengers, or stowaways, they are without authority to exercise police surveillance on behalf or in substitution of the Turkish authority.
It is understood, however, that the Ottoman Government elaborately regulates the entry of persons and merchandise into the territory of [Page 927] the Empire, and if any attempt were made to clandestinely land men or munitions from a vessel under our flag the officers of the United States would certainly interpose no obstacle to the due execution of the laws of Turkey by Turkish agents, or intervene further than to secure for any implicated citizen of the United States all rights and privileges to which he may be entitled in virtue of such citizenship, precisely the same as they would intervene to safeguard the interests of any American citizen found on board a vessel of another flag than ours and accused under like circumstances.
Your memorandum does not suggest that the coming of armed revolutionary expeditions to Constantinople is apprehended; but even in the extreme supposition that citizens of the United States might attempt to enlist abroad for the purpose of making war upon any foreign power with which the United States are at peace, the United States minister is authorized in countries where the United States possess extraterritorial jurisdiction to issue writs and otherwise to prevent such enlistments, carrying out this power by resort to such force belonging to the United States as may at the time be within his reach (Rev. Stat., sec. 4090). Under this provision, the admiral commanding the United States fleet on the European station was instructed nearly a year ago to cooperate heartily with our minister in Turkey in enforcing all writs issued by the latter to prevent the entry into Turkey of any American citizens as armed revolutionists. As your communication has particular reference to the situation at Constantinople, it is proper to remark that the admiral’s instructions can only hold good in fact at ports or places visited by the vessels under his orders, so that in the absence of a dispatch boat at Constantinople subject to his directions the hands of the United States minister are tied.
The second aspect of his excellency’s inquiry, touching the treatment of persons who in the United States may publish their sympathy with those who oppose the rule of Turkey in Asia Minor, has been on several occasions discussed with your esteemed predecessor. Mavroyeni Bey has been repeatedly informed that while the laws of this country provide a judicial remedy for any act of armed hostility against a power with which the United States are at peace by organizing expeditions or fitting out vessels to make war against the same, the expression of opinion by speech, writing, or otherwise is free under our Constitution and laws, so that neither the act nor the actor can be held accountable by any exercise of administrative power, nor can they come within the cognizance of the courts save in case of libel or defamation, upon suit brought by the party alleging to have suffered injury. In a number of his later notes Mavroyeni Bey has expressly referred to and recognized this position, so that I may assume that it is well known to your Government, and that the inclusion of this suggestion in his excellency’s telegram may have been due to his employment of a circular formula intended to be addressed principally to the Governments of countries whose laws provide for administrative treatment of press offenses and where, contrary to the constitutional rule which here obtains, the discretionary power of expulsion may be used by the executive branch. There is no existing statute nor has any ever been enacted here which forbids the entrance into the United States of persons belonging to the category described in the telegram you communicated to me, nor any provision for the expulsion of aliens deemed abnoxious to their own Governments from American territory. The only law restrictive of alien residence ever enacted by Congress is the alien act of June 25, 1798, which was passed very soon after the adoption of our present [Page 928] Constitution, and which, however, merely authorized the deportation of such aliens as should be deemed “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” That act continued in force for two years only from the passing thereof, and consequently expired by its own limitation June 25, 1800. It has never been reenacted. The present immigration laws of the United States, while forbidding the landing of certain obnoxious classes of alien convicts and authorizing the deportation within a limited time of such as should effect unlawful entrance into our territory, expressly exempts from its operation persons “convicted of a political offense.”
I have thus fully referred to our legislation concerning alien immigration, in pursuance of my promise to answer more explicitly your oral inquiry on the subject.
Accept, etc.,