PROPER GRADE OF DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES 367 



to their country that it is very difficult to get any just and proper 

 consideration and dispatch of their business, because of the irre- 

 sponsible character of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs or even of the 

 Grand Vizier, as all important matters are determined by the Sultan; 

 and that, as they do not possess the ambassadorial character, they 

 cannot without great difficulty have audience with him to discuss 

 official business. 



To remedy this embarrassment, President McKinley caused appli- 

 cation to be made to the Turkish Government for the appointment 

 by the two governments respectively of ambassadors; but the propo- 

 sition was not accepted by Turkey. The condition of the interests 

 of American citizens in that empire continuing to be very unsatis- 

 factory, President Roosevelt renewed the application for the appoint- 

 ment of ambassadors; but it was again rejected. It cannot well 

 be understood in the United States why this application should be 

 refused, when ambassadors from much smaller and less powerful 

 countries, like Italy and Persia, are received at Constantinople. 



Last year a delegation of some of the most prominent citizens of 

 the United States, representing large property interests in the 

 Turkish Empire, made a visit to Washington and laid before the 

 President a memorial, setting forth that American citizens and 

 property in that empire were denied the rights and protection which 

 had been secured by the ambassadors of the great powers of Europe 

 to their subjects and property interests. The President, being im- 

 pressed with the justice of the memorial, caused a cable instruction 

 to be sent to the American minister in Constantinople, directing 

 him to ask for an audience of the Sultan in the name of the Presi- 

 dent, to enable him to communicate a message from the President 

 to the Sultan on the subject of the memorial. After a delay of some 

 weeks an audience was granted on the express condition that the 

 minister should be limited to delivering the message of the President, 

 but that he would not be permitted to discuss the subject with the 

 Sultan. 



Even this decisive action of the President seems to have had no 

 effect, as the American citizens continued to be deprived of the rights 

 and privileges enjoyed by the subjects of the great powers of Europe, 

 and for a third time an application has been made and rejected for 

 the reception of an American representative with the grade of am- 

 bassador. The press has informed us that the American minister 

 at Constantinople, under renewed and urgent instructions from 

 Washington, pressed for a settlement of the question at issue, but 

 that he was greatly delayed and embarrassed by the fact that the 

 ministry have no real power to dispatch any important public busi- 

 ness, because the Sultan reserves to himself that prerogative, and 

 that, not being an ambassador, he found great difficulty in reaching 



