Mary Antin Quotes
One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the czar's health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue.
Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912, p. 22.
In Russia at the time, serfs were little better off than slaves. Not only did they have to obey their landlords in all things, but any who advocated disobedience on their part were beaten and sent to Siberia. Exile to the Siberian Gulags was not an invention of the Communists of the 20th century although they used that punishment in unprecedented numbers. It was used by the Czars and the Empress.
In 1948 Japanese Emperor Hirohito convened the Japanese Diet. By tradition the Emperor would receive the bows and homage of the leaders of the upper and lower houses in a special audience room before the ceremony. Matsumoto did not so greet Hirohito provoking a scandal of sorts. However, in the past, Hirohito had been worshipped as a living God. When his subjects attended an audience, they would bow low and leave walking backwards or sideways so as never to insult the Emperor be showing him their backs. The court maneuver was known as the “crab walk.’ However, under the 1946 Constitution the Emperor had become a mortal, human “symbol” of the state. Matsumoto was purged from politics with the active assistance of the American Occupation authorities. No one was willing to take the new Constitution both literally and seriously.
Fortunately for Turkey and the world, a great Turkish leader, Ataturk, rose up and radically reformed the nation and transformed it to a European style, secular democracy which became the most successful Muslim nation in the world but was under pressure by Ismalists to revert and have more religious control. Ataturk ended the Turkey that TR and others were criticizing.
Honore Gabriel Victor Requiti
Mary Antin was an American author and immigration rights activist. She is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanization.
