The representatives of all the Protestant churches who had interests in Turkey were most generous in favoring the appointment when they learned that I was being considered for that mission. The most admired and best beloved American preacher of his time, Henry Ward Beecher, of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, heard of it through Mr. O. A. Gager, one of the trustees of his church; also that there was some diffidence about my actual selection because of my religion. He immediately wrote the President a beautiful and characteristic letter, urging my appointment. The original of this letter, now in my possession, was given to me by Governor Porter, first assistant Secretary of State.
With my wife I had gone to Atlantic City for a few days, to recuperate from a cold, when on March 24, 1887, I received telegrams from friends all over the country congratulating me on my appointment as minister to Turkey. The papers of the day announced it, and the "New York Times" published the Beecher letter just referred to.
To the press of the country my appointment was of added interest because of the Keiley incident of two years before. A. M. Keiley, of Virginia, was nominated by Cleveland as minister to Austria-Hungary, but objected to by that country because Mrs. Keiley, being of Jewish parentage, was persona non grata. As a matter of fact this excuse for the rejection of Keiley was supposedly made because the Austro-Hungarian Government thought it might be acceptable to us in lieu of the truth.
The real reason lay much deeper. Keiley had earlier been nominated as minister to Italy. The Italian Government, through its representative at Washington, made known to our Department of State that Keiley would be persona non grata because it was remembered that in 1870 he had made a public speech in Richmond violently denouncing King Victor Emmanuel for his treatment of the Pope. The nomination was therefore withdrawn. And when a few months later Keiley was appointed minister to Austria-Hungary, that country, being a member with Italy in the Triple Alliance, did not want to run the risk of displeasing Italy by accepting a representative not satisfactory to her; but not wishing to admit this, based its excuse on religious grounds.
This so incensed our Administration that Secretary Bayard rebuked the Austro-Hungarian Government with the statement:
It is not within the power of the President nor of the Congress, nor of any judicial tribunal in the United States, to take or even hear testimony, or in any mode to inquire into or decide upon the religious belief of any official, and the proposition to allow this to be done by any foreign Government is necessarily and a fortiori inadmissible.