The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

The son of a prominent pasha who held a commission in the Turkish army became acquainted with an American family and visited them frequently for the purpose of improving his English conversation. He became quite intimate with them, accompanied them to church and read books on religious subjects which were loaned by them. He decided to formally renounce the religion of his fathers and become a Protestant, but was compelled to leave the country as soon as his intentions were known. If his father had not condemned his own son with great promptness the entire family would have been involved in danger. The young man fled on an English ship, reached the United States about the time of the opening of the Spanish war, enlisted in the army, served through the Santiago campaign, was promoted for efficiency and has since been appointed a second lieutenant. It is impossible for him to return to Turkey. He would be assassinated by some fanatic if the government police did not get him first and arrest him upon some pretext. He would then disappear and nobody would dare ask questions as to his fate. It would be dangerous to do so. This case is known to every Protestant family and throughout the upper classes of Constantinople, and all other examples of the conversion of Moslems are equally familiar because they are so few. There is, nevertheless, a good deal of missionary work done by the Protestants among the Mohammedans, and at least 5,000 copies of the Bible in the Turkish language are sold in the Ottoman Empire every year, which shows an interest among the people; but the government officials and the Mohammedan priests are so vigilant that the purchasers would not be willing to have their names known. In fact, the Bible House was prohibited from publishing the Bible in the Turkish language for many years and was originally compelled by the censor to print upon the title page a warning that the book was intended for Protestants only.

The educational system of the Turks is not entirely bad, but is mostly for religious instruction. The mekteb, or primary schools, are numerous, and afford every boy and girl in the city an opportunity to learn to read and write and obtain a knowledge of the Koran. Such schools are attached to every mosque in the empire. The ibtidaiyeh, or secondary schools, afford opportunities for learning geography, arithmetic, history and the modern languages, but there are only twenty of these schools in all Constantinople for a million and more people. The medresseh, or colleges, teach philosophy, logic, rhetoric, theology and Turkish law, and generally take the place of the universities found in other countries. They are the highest educational institutions maintained by the Turkish government. There are schools of law, medicine, mines and forestry, art, and a manual-training establishment supported by the government, with nine large institutions for military and naval education. The Greeks, Armenians and Jews each have their own schools connected with their churches and maintained by private contributions. Some of them offer a high standard of education and have fine libraries.

There is a Protestant college for girls at Scutari, on the opposite side of the Bosphorus, which offers education for young women and has an average of one hundred and seventy-five pupils. It has been established for a quarter of a century, and has sent out a large number of useful teachers of nine different nationalities, who are now engaged throughout different parts of the Turkish Empire and the neighboring countries. Miss Mary M. Patrick, the president, is assisted by a faculty of six American professors and fifteen other instructors. You must not think, however, that the Americans are the only people who are doing good in an educational way in the Sultan’s dominions. The English, the Germans, the Swiss, the French and the Austrians all have institutions for the education of the natives, more or less supported by charities.

The editor of a Turkish newspaper is surrounded by numerous embarrassments, yet, notwithstanding the strict censorship to which it is subjected, the press exercises a much wider influence than it is given credit for, considering that the first newspaper was not published, and that no private printing-office was allowed in Turkey until during the Crimean war. There are daily papers in all of the large towns of the interior. Each vilayet, or province, has an official journal. In Constantinople the newspapers are innumerable—political, religious, literary, scientific and commercial—and are published in more different languages than in any other city in the world. There are papers in Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Syriac, Persian, Spanish and in three different dialects of the Turkish language. During the Crimean war papers sprang up in Constantinople like mushrooms, and were free so far as formal regulations were concerned until a press law was promulgated in 1861, under which the publication of articles reflecting upon the Sultan, the government, the church, the police and other officials was prohibited and certain political and religious topics were tabooed. In case of violation of the law the responsible editor was punished by fine, imprisonment or the suspension of his newspaper.

A few years later the minister of the interior assumed arbitrary authority over the press, and when an article appeared that displeased him he punished the editor, suppressed the paper and confiscated the property at his pleasure. This continued until about 1886, when a preventive censorship was adopted and a press bureau was added to the private cabinet of His Majesty the Sultan. Representatives of this bureau are detailed to assist the editors of newspapers and are paid by them. Liberality is a matter of mutual agreement. The more they are paid the less trouble they cause, and if they do not receive as much as they want they generally find means to revenge themselves. The censors have desks in the newspaper offices and proof slips of every article must be submitted for their approval, which is indicated by a rubber stamp and signature. The proof slips thus marked are carefully filed away for the protection of the editor. The censors are usually incapable of forming an opinion as to the merits or effect of a political or economic article, but have a quick eye for prohibited subjects and words. Editors very soon get to understand them, and by the exercise of a little tact are able to handle them without difficulty. But certain rules must be observed. Nobody, of course, dare speak ill of the Sultan or of his government. Everything done by them must be approved; foreign relations cannot be touched upon, and religious discussions must be avoided so far as they affect Mohammedans. Nothing can appear which relates to political revolutions, insurrections or disturbances of any kind in other countries. If all the cabinets in Europe should resign, if a political revolution should break out in England and King Edward’s throne should be overturned, the fact would never be mentioned in a Turkish newspaper. No particulars of the assassinations of King Humbert and of President McKinley were printed—only the announcement of their deaths, which the readers would infer were due to natural causes. It is not safe to let the discontented element in Turkey know that kings or presidents can be killed. They might take a hint.

Nowhere at any of the courts of Europe do the diplomatic representatives of the United States appear to so great a disadvantage among the ambassadors and ministers of other Powers as at Constantinople, and Congress should do something to improve their position for the dignity and honor of our government. If there should be trouble at the Turkish capital to-morrow or next week—and it is likely to occur at any time—the American minister, the members of his legation, the consul-general and his staff and their families would be compelled to take refuge at the British embassy. They might, of course, go to the German or Russian embassy, but our relations with the British are more intimate there, as well as elsewhere, because of a similarity of language and mutual interests. At all capitals the interests of citizens of the United States are protected by the representatives of Great Britain when our own ministers are absent, and vice versa, and the records of our legations and consulates are always intrusted to the British diplomatic and consular officials, and theirs to ours, whenever necessary. Our minister and consul-general, with their secretaries and attachés, would be welcome at the British embassy, which has often extended its hospitality to their predecessors, but it is nevertheless a humiliating fact that they are dependent upon other nations for protection when Uncle Sam is great enough and rich enough to provide for his own agents in foreign countries.

The doctrine of extra-territoriality prevails in Turkey—that is, the citizens of each nation residing there are tried for offenses according to their own laws, and before their own diplomatic and consular representatives. It does not matter who the plaintiff is. He may be a Turk or a Dutchman; the nationality of the defendant determines the court and the law by which an offense shall be tried, for every offense he may commit, from murder down to petty larceny. Hence court is held regularly at the various embassies and legations, petty offenses being tried before the consuls, and those of a more serious character before the minister or ambassador. The Turkish officials have nothing to do with them.

Turkish law is founded on the Koran, the teachings of famous Khalifs and other disciples of Islam, and upon decisions rendered upon questions proposed to the Sheik-ul-Islam, the head of the Moslem Church, who is the court of final appeal and has authority to overrule all magistrates. The teachings of the Koran and the prophet and such precedents, maxims and decisions are codified and published in a volume divided into chapters relating to commercial affairs, penal offenses, etc., and the canon, or ecclesiastic, and common law. To them are added the firmans, or proclamations, of the Sultan, which permit or forbid certain things among his subjects, and the regulations provided by the police authorities which generally stand from year to year. The kazasskers, or justices, as we would call them, a body of theologians, jurists and teachers of Moslem law, are supposed to assist the Sheik-ul-Islam in the investigation and decision of questions of law, and prepare briefs for him to sign. There is also a court known as the Ulema, of minor jurisdiction.

All residents of Turkey are supposed to belong to some religious society, or millet, and are reached through the head of their particular community. Theoretically each millet is allowed the free exercise of religion, the management of its own monasteries, schools, hospitals and charitable institutions and in certain cases judicial authority. The chief millets are Roman Catholic, Greek, Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish, Protestant, Bulgarian, Maronite, Nestorian and Greek Roman Catholic; and each citizen, no matter how humble, is required to be registered as a member of one of these millets. In case he has committed an offense he has the nominal right to appeal to the head of his sect for protection, and on the other hand the patriarch or chief of each millet is nominally the medium through which the laws and orders of the Turkish government are enforced; but this is purely theoretical. Men who are accused of crime or misdemeanor are hauled up by the Turkish police and cast into prison without mercy or justice and remain there until their friends can raise money enough to buy them out or the diplomatic agent of their government appears to protect them.

In the embassy courts no account is taken of Turkish law or mode of procedure, and the proceedings are conducted exactly as they would be at home. Our consul-general has a clerk of court, a United States marshal and other judicial officers, whose powers and duties correspond precisely to those of similar officials at home, and our government has a prison also for the detention of offenders. The business of the United States court, however, is very small compared with that of other legation courts, because we have very few citizens in Constantinople. There are only about two hundred Americans in Turkey all told, and they are mostly missionaries, who do not often appear in the consular courts. But some of the embassies—the Russian, the German, Austrian and French—do considerable business.