Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1907, (In two parts), Part II

File No. 1558/2.

The Persian Minister to the Secretary of State.

[Translation.]

Legation of Persia,
Washington, November 14, 1906.

No. 29/208.

Mr. Ministers: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s note of the 7th instant, in reply to that I addressed you on the 17th of October last.

As the allusions and remarks contained in that answer are susceptible of some elucidation, I venture to elucidate them, before transmitting the reply to the knowledge of my Government, and to draw your attention to the following remarks:

1. The proposition I had the honor, by order of my Government, to lay before you orally and in writing, did not state or imply that the amount of a fine to be imposed could be equal to the sum that has been paid in the final settlement of the case of the murder of the American missionary Labaree and there is no foundation whatever for such an assumption.

2. If a few inventive or overcompassionate persons have, without warrant, led the State Department into a belief that the fine would be levied, in the guise of taxation or impost of any description, on the poor and innocent inhabitants of the country, not only do I most formally contradict them, but I further and expressly refute so erroneous a surmise that is totally inconsistent with the traditional magnanimity of my Government.

3. The Imperial Government never did wrong any power in the protection of the subjects of any of them, particularly those of the Government of the United States, to which it is bound by the strongest ties of friendship, and the readiness evidenced by the Imperial Government in the settlement of the case of Missionary Labaree to the satisfaction of the Government of the Republic can not be questioned, since every reparation, in money and at law, has already been granted, both by paying the amount claimed and sentencing the actual perpetrator; and as I had the honor to tell your excellency in the course of our conversation, a secondary question, that of a few men suspected on mere hearsay of having instigated the commission of the felony, remained pending; and it had been agreed by the two Governments that it would be investigated in order to ascertain whether the charges were well founded and punish those of the accused who could not exonerate themselves.

4. Unforeseen difficulties encountered by the local authorities have thus far prevented their carrying out the orders issued by the Imperial Government; the suspects, who claim they are innocent, took alarm at so grave an accusation and not only eluded by flight the fierce pursuit of the authorities, but also succeeded, through their allies, chiefs of tribes, in fomenting disturbances all along the border. It was for the purpose of bringing to an end the situation that has endured so long that their relatives begged the Governor of Oroomiah to use his good offices with the Imperial Government for a commutation of the penalty of their actual or conjectural offense into a pecuniary and bearable mulct to be paid, in part, by themselves and, in part, by their relatives and a few tradesmen of Oroomiah who are in favor of pacification.

5. The Imperial Government, in directing me to lay the above-mentioned proposition before your excellency and to agree with you upon the amount of an equitable and reasonable fine, in nowise intended to bring profit to the Government of the Republic of the United States, which is held by the orientals to be so wealthy that so trifling a sum would be like a drop of water spilled in the ocean, or benefit to the imperial treasury, whose daily benefactions are ten times as large, but inasmuch as under the law of all countries fines belong of right to the local authorities the intention of my Government is to take it from these authorities for the benefit of some existing charitable institution.

6. The murder of Mr. Labaree can not be compared with those committed in China, but rather with those that are daily committed in the most civilized countries, and while the amount of a fine, to be equitably imposed, is very far from coming up to the cost of founding a charitable institution, the proposition in itself is nevertheless an unprecedented one in Persia, and I can not imagine that the Imperial Government can ever assent to it and establish such a precedent.

The sense of equity and humanity evidenced on every occasion by the Government of the United States encourages me to hope for a much more consonant settlement of a secondary question, the main part of which was adjusted to its satisfaction, and, so hoping, I renew, etc.

Morteza.