File No. 9757.
The Secretary of State to
Chargé Brown.
Department of State,
Washington, November 13,
1907.
No. 287.]
Sir: I inclose a copy of a letter in which the
foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions requests the department to endeavor to prevent the opening by
Turkish officials of the mail of American missionaries.
You are requested to remind the Sublime Porte of its assurances given in
1892, and the positive orders which it issued in the latter part of
April of that year not to detain letters addressed to Americans. (See
Foreign Relations, 1892, p.
561.)
I am, etc.,
[Inclosure.]
The foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions to the Secretary of
State.
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions,
Boston, November 5,
1907.
Sir: From different parts of the Turkish
Empire reports are coming to us announcing that the local officials
of the Turkish Government have again begun opening the letters of
our American missionaries, which are properly sealed and properly
stamped for transmission through the mails. We understand that from
the beginning our Government has insisted that the private mails’ of
Americans shall be inviolate. It is evident that if the Turkish
Government is permitted thus to open the letters of some of our
American missionaries they will quickly assume the right to open
all, and thus they will render the mail service of Turkey
practically useless to us. I would therefore, on behalf of this
board, respectfully ask that this matter receive the immediate
attention of the State Department, in order that American interests
in Turkey may be properly [Page 1068] guarded and their rights as American citizens not infringed upon
in order to satisfy the curiosity of the Turkish local
officials.
The infringements to which I refer occurred recently in relation to
the mail of Doctor Underwood, our missionary at Erzroom, eastern
Turkey, and the mail of Mr. Clark, our missionary at Monastir, in
European Turkey. There may be other cases reported.
I remain, etc.,