Mr. Leishman to Mr. Hay.
Constantinople, February 10, 1903.
Sir: I beg to confirm the cablegram forwarded to the Department last evening, and await your further instruction in regard to American schools in Turkey, etc.
It has embarrassed me considerably not to be able to literally carry out instructions, but I deemed it my duty to first present the case as it appeared to me, feeling certain that the Department would appreciate the delicate position in which I found myself placed and consider the motive and not the act.
As I have written the Department on numerous occasions, it is generally a very difficult matter for a minister to secure an audience with His Majesty to discuss affairs, and particularly so at the present time, when even the ambassadors find it difficult, as the Sultan is so busily occupied with internal matters, owing to the congested state of affairs and the spirit of revolution that disturbs the Empire—especially in Macedonia, where the situation is really critical—that he really has very little time to devote to other matters; and this condition was very vividly brought to my attention when His Majesty told me during a recent interview that he was so busy that he scarcely even had time to take a walk in the palace grounds, and was sometimes confined so closely to his bureau examining papers, etc., that he scarcely knew whether it was morning or evening.
I believe the Ottoman Government is gradualty awaking to the fact that the United States is a great and powerful country—slow to take offense, but quite capable of enforcing its just demands when occasion demands; and the events of the past few years have not tended to lessen this in any way, and I am quite of the opinion that the Turkish Government would go a long distance to avoid any serious friction with the American Government.
It would be difficult for me to give a tangible reason for believing that the Porte is really in earnest and acting in good faith this time, as, generally speaking, I pay little or no attention to promises, but there appears to be an indefinable undercurrent as if they realized that something must be done, and unless I am very much mistaken, I believe that all, or at least the greater part, of the questions under immediate discussion will be favorably disposed of by the Porte without my having to resort to forcible measures at the palace.
In dealing with the Beirut Medical School matter I have dwelt particularly on the failure to properly acknowledge the President’s personal message of August last, construing failure as a slight, if not an [Page 739] insult. This appears to upset them very much, as it is altogether probable that the fault lies entirely with the palace officials as His Majesty is too polite to willingly permit such a discourtesy, and I am quite convinced that this line of action will bring about a prompt settlement of this particular case.
The prompt settlement of the general school question is the only one in which I am in doubt—not that I doubt the eventual settlement for a moment, as I do not believe the Ottoman Government would venture to decline to deny American institutions equal treatment in principle, but as there are a great many schools, etc., established under various conditions, they may insist on taking up the schools, hospitals, etc., in detail, which would necessarily take considerable time; and this is why I have endeavored to avoid filing our list of schools, etc., in advance, which the Porte claims has been done by the other powers, preferring if possible to have the matter decided first in principle; and the following extract from one of my notes to the Sublime Porte will indicate more clearly the line I am pursuing:
What the American Government now desires and expects is that any and all of the American educational, charitable, and religious institutions throughout the Ottoman Empire be granted the same rights, privileges, and immunities that have or may be granted to similar institutions under the protection of any other nation. Once this principle is established and put into force by Imperial edict, the question of the individual institution becomes a matter of mere detail, and the legation will then be only too happy to furnish the Imperial Ottoman Government with a full and complete list of American institutions for which Imperial sanction has not yet been granted.
I have, etc.,