The Foreign Service Journal, March 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2021 63 dinary and minister plenipotentiary to Austria by President Chester A. Arthur in July 1884. Born in Troy in 1853, Charles S. Francis would follow in his father’s footsteps, literally and figuratively. He became propri- etor of the Troy Daily Times on his father’s death in 1897. And after serving as his father’s secretary in Athens and Vienna, he returned to diplomatic service when President WilliamMcKinley named himminister to Greece in 1900. President Theodore Roo- sevelt named him ambassador to Austria-Hungary in 1906. During their assignments in Greece and Austria, the Fran- cises dealt with many usual and some unusual matters of the day. The following snapshots of their diplomatic work are drawn from excerpts of official communications out of Vienna and Ath- ens contained in the volumes of the U.S. State Department publi- cation, Foreign Relations of the United States . All communica- tions from an embassy go out over the name of the ambassador regardless of the author, so we cannot be sure if all the passages quoted were written by one of the Francises. But given that both were in the newspaper business, it seems likely that they wrote their own diplomatic cables. Navigating Religious Controversy While serving in Vienna, John M. Francis supported the U.S. government’s official anti-Mormon policy of the 1880s. The international aspect of this policy was to discourage immigra- tion by Mormons recruited overseas. The Austrian govern- ment was sympathetic. In a series of approving cables in 1884, Francis described measures that had been adopted by Austria “for the repression of Mormon proselytizing and recruiting in His Majesty’s Empire for the purpose of securing accessions by emigration to the polygamous sect in the United States.” He also reported that Thomas Biesinger of the Utah Terri- tory, chief agent of the Mormons for Austria, had been arrested in Prague and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment and a fine of five florins “for encouragement of a religious creed not sanctioned by the state.” The Austrian government pointed out that Mormon pros- elytizing and recruitment were violations of Austrian laws that prohibited organized methods of inducing people to emigrate, and that it had instructed all regional governments “to keep a watchful eye upon them and to issue such orders to their subordinates as would suppress all possible recruiting for the Mormons by all lawful means.” Francis praised the Austrian position, telling Foreign Min- ister Count Szogyényi: “I am instructed by my Government to recognize the action referred to of His Majesty’s Government, and to express its sincere gratification that such praiseworthy action has been taken.” In late 1901, Charles S. Francis described the violence that ensued in Athens following a seemingly innocuous event: the translation and publication of the Bible into common (“vulgar”) Greek. Although this project had been approved by A portrait of Ambassador John M. Francis, father of Charles S. Francis who later followed in his footsteps. WIKIMEDIA Charles S. Francis, circa 1901, when he served as ambassador to Greece, where his father had served 30 years earlier. WIKIMEDIA