Filled with the desire to perform its task, the Medjlis, or national parliament, had voted in the latter part of 1910 to obtain the services of five American experts to undertake the work of reorganizing Persia’s finances.  They applied to the American Government, and through the good offices of our State Department, their legation at Washington was placed in communication with men who were considered suitable for the task.  The intervention of the State Department went no further than this, and the Persian Government, like the men finally selected, was told that the nomination by the American Government of suitable financial administrators indicated a mere friendly desire to aid and was of no political significance whatsoever.

The Persians had already tried Belgian and French functionaries and had seen them rapidly become mere Russian political agents or, at best, seen them lapse into a state of dolce far niente.  Poor Persia had been sold out so many times in the framing of tariffs and tax laws, in loan transactions and concessions of various kinds that the nationalist government had grown desperate and certainly most distrustful of all foreigners coming from nations within the sphere of European diplomacy.  What they sought was a practical administration of their finances in the interest of the Persian people and nation.

In this way the writer found himself in Teheran on the 12th of May last year, having agreed to serve as Treasurer-General of the Persian Empire, and to reorganize and conduct its finances.

It is difficult to describe the Persian political situation existing at that time without going too deeply into history.  It is true that in a moment of temporary weakness after her defeat by Japan, Russia had signed a solemn convention with England whereby she engaged herself, as did England, to respect the independence and integrity of Persia.  Later, by the stipulations of 1909, these two Powers solemnly agreed to prevent the ex-Shah, Muhammad Ali, from any political agitation against the constitutional government.  But, as the world and Persia have seen, a trifle like a treaty or a convention never balks Russia when she has taken the pulse of her possible adversaries and found it weak.  What is more painful to Anglo-Saxons is that the British Government has been no better nor more scrupulous of its pledges.

During the first half of July, we began to learn where some of the money was supposed to come from, and we were just beginning to control the government expenditures after a fashion when, on July 18th, late at night, the telegraph brought the news that Muhammad Ali, the ex-Shah, had landed with a small force at Gumesh-Teppeh, a small port on the Caspian, very near the Russian frontier.  It was the proverbial bolt from the blue, for while rumors of such a possibility had been rife, most persons believed that Russia would not dare to violate so openly her solemn stipulation signed less than two years before.