Racist Immigration Policy – 1909.
The American courts have barred from citizenship Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, and their half-breeds. Will they bar Turks? The United States Circuit Court in Cincinnati has been called upon to decide whether a Turkish citizen shall be naturalized as a white person. Only “to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” does the statute admitting to American citizenship apply. Few Turks migrate to this country, fewer settle here. But this case is of interest to the representatives of the Hunnish and Magyar peoples, whose stock is akin to the Turks, and who constitute a chief part of our immigrants.
The original Turks were of the yellow or Mongolian race. TIMUR and his Turkish-speaking descendants, headed the invasions into Russia with hordes of Turkish-speaking soldiery, of Tartar or Manchu stock, from the central and western steppes of Asia. They swept down into Persia, overran Arabia and Egypt, and invaded Europe to Vienna. Before them came the plundering Huns, or Hiung-nu, as they were known in China.
But in their westward progress the Turks freely intermingled with the Caucasian races whom they subjugated. The Turkish in Constantinople to-day are the descendants of Arabs, Kurds, Slavs, Albanians, and Greeks, and of foreign slave girls of more mixed ancestry. The deposed ABDUL shows unmistakably Semitic features. But Sir CHARLES ELIOT would not generalize from the physique. In his book on “Turkey in Europe” he says:
In June, 1897, I saw many thousand Turkish soldiers together in Thessaly, collected from all parts of Anatolia, and was much impressed by strongly non-Caucasian type of many.
And President GEORGE WASHBURN of Robert College has testified:
The Turkish mind does not work as ours, and it is very difficult, even for one who has lived in Constantinople for fifty years in close relations with the people, to predict from one day to another what is likely to happen.
They are a cruel and massacring people, and they have lost none of their ancient proclivities. But they are also Europeans, as much “white” people as the Huns, Finns, and Cossacks. A trace of negro blood, if only enough to stain the fingers about the nails, will bar a person from white society. But that is a distinction chiefly of caste, not really of race. Would so narrow a distinction, or even a broader one, prevent the Turk from being considered a white man?
The New York Times
Published: Septembar 30, 1909
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9807EEDE1438E033A25753C3A96F9C946897D6CF
TURKISH SUBJECTS
Declares That Prejudice Exist Against Their Becoming American Citizens
To the Editor of The New York Times
The attitude you have assumed in the question “Is the Turk a White Man?” as expounded in your editorial under the above title on the 30th ult. Should be readily approved and commanded by m… qualified to judge as to the origin and evolution of the Turkish race. Your brief analysis of Turkish history is correct and authentic. But the main point at issue in this question, as it appears to me, is not the practicability of considering the Turk a white man, but possibility of considering every Turkish subject a Turk, eliminating in this general classification all distinction of race, language, and religion in as much as the cause which prompted this inquiry and dissension is eligibility of Turkish subjects to American citizenship.
To quote from your editorial above referred to The United States Circuit Court in Cincinnati has been called upon to decide “whether a Turkish “citizen” shall be naturalized as a white person.”
Now it may be the same or a similar case, but the fact remains that the United States Circuit Court in St. Louis, MA has been called upon to make a decision on the same question with some variation in that the point at issue is the expediency of segregating all representatives of Ottoman nationalities in one class with the Turks. Ti… cause being that a full-blooded white Syrian having applied for naturalization papers was refused them ob the ground he was a Turkish subject.
Canada in her recent prohibitive laws which she enacted against Asiatic made the same discrimination. But being classed under the general term “Asiatics” is not as bad, after all, as having contested your plain right to your race and class. This attitude not only tends to show a certain feelings od wanton prejudice but a regrettable predominance of ignorance on the part of those who hold such a view of the matter.
The Turks of today are no longer those hordes of Mongolians who made the conquering sweep of Western Asia and Southern Europe. Centuries of free mingling and intercourse with the nations they had conquered brought about an absolute change in their blood and a consequent change in their color and their features. But to leave aside the Turk and his transformation: Is it not a fact that the peoples conquered by the Turks of old retain an indisputable claim to their racial descent?
In other words how could the Caucasian blood of the Greek, the Slav, the Armenian, the Arab, and the Syrian be contested, since they were the aborigines of the lands where they now live, and since also the early Turks took as wives the women of these peoples whose white blood has prevailed and become predominant after many centuries with the result that the Turk may now justly claim the right to be considered a white man.
In the light of these facts it would appear to be sh… prejudice and absolute injustice to bar all Turkish subjects from the right of American citizenship. For . To again quote from your editorial “few Turks migrate to this country fewer settle here” But those who do migrate and settle are none other than Turkish subjects of diverse nationalities who have through a succession of many centuries and in the face of the severest oppression clung to and kept alive their national characteristics, religions, and languages, and who driven by that same oppression have sought a refuge in this free and hospitable country.
I wish to thank THE TIMES on behalf of all Syrians for the obliging and generous attitude it has taken in this matter and hope that by its nf…. And sound indgment it will cause a reversal of that mistaken opinion to its correct and liberal views.
S.A. MOKARZEL
New York Oct. 1. 1909.
The New York Times: October 3, 1909.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C0CE7DD143EE033A25750C0A9669D946897D6CF
