CHAPTER XI

THE PRELIMINARIES TO THE PURCHASE OF THE DANISH ANTILLES

The more I studied the relations of Germany to Denmark, the more

important it seemed to me that a great nation like ours, bound by the

most solemn oaths to the vindication of the cause of liberty and even

to the protection of the little nations, should have a special

interest in a country which deserved our respect and sympathy.

As I have said, the Danes never for a moment forgot the loss of

Slesvig, and never ceased to fear the mightily growing power of which

that loss had been the foundation. If Germany, whose future was on

the sea, had not acquired Slesvig, would Kiel and the good Danish

sailors she acquired with Slesvig, have been possible as a means of

her aggrandisement?

Danish diplomatists seemed to think that Germany, now that she had

created the Kiel Canal, had no further designs on Denmark, whom the

Pan-Germans continued, however, to call, 'our Northern province.'

This was the opinion of Hegermann-Lindencrone, of Raben-Levitzau, and

I have heard a similar opinion credited to the present Danish

Minister at Berlin, Count Carl Moltke, though he did not express it

to me. My old friend, Count Holstein-Ledreborg, was not altogether of

that opinion. 'In case of war with England, Denmark would be seized

by our neighbour, naturally,' he said; 'unless we go carefully we

are doomed to absorption.' Count Holstein-Ledreborg knew Germany

well. He had lived in that country for many years, having shaken the

dust of his native land from his soles because many of his friends

and relatives--in fact, nearly all the aristocratic class in

Denmark--had practically turned their backs on him on account of his

political Liberalism. This he told me. He had returned, with his

family, to his beautiful estate at Ledreborg, and, for a short time,

became prime minister, in order to do what seemed impossible--to

unite the factions in Parliament in favour of a bill for the defence

of the kingdom. Against England? England had no designs. Against

Russia? Russia was allied to France, and she could hardly join hands

with Germany. The intentions of the Kaiser? But the Kaiser seemed to

be a peaceful opportunist. Even the acute Lord Morley had more than

once, in conversation, put him down as a lover of peace; but--There

was always a 'but' and the General Staff of the German Army!

Study the personality of the important personages as one might, there

were always these things to be considered as obstacles to clear

vision:--the growing corruption of principle in the Reichstag and

among the German people, if Hamburg represented them, and the point

of view of the military caste. In 1911 the increasing riches--the

thirst for money had become a veritable passion--of the German people

seemed to indicate that one of the principal obstacles to aggression

which would involve war was being rapidly removed. The difference

between the American desire for money and the German was, as I was

often compelled to point out, that, while the German desired great

possessions to have and to hold, the American wanted them in order to

use them; and, in spite of the industrious 'muck rakers,' it was

evident that our enormously rich men were not hoarding their wealth

for the sake of greed and selfish power as the German rich were

doing. Possibly, as our Government does nothing for art or for music

or for the people in need, there is a greater necessity for private

benevolence than in countries where the Government subsidises even

the opera. Nevertheless, the fact remains; the European rich man

hoarded more than the American. And Germany, in spite of the

extravagance of Berlin and the great cities, was hoarding. It was a

bad sign for the world.

Of Slesvig, Prince Bismarck said in 1864, 'Dat möt wi hebben.' He

was terribly in earnest, and he spoke in his own Low German. At any

moment, the Kaiser might say of Denmark, 'Her must we have.' But how

foolish this statement must seem to the Pacifists and all the more

foolish in the mind of a Minister who ought not to be carried away by

rumour or guesses or to be determined by anything but the exact

truth!

It would have been foolish if, in 1911, a serious man behind the

scenes could have trusted any country in the European concert to act

in any way that was not for its own national ends. A damaging

confession this, but the truth is the truth. We all know how amazed

some statesmen were when President Roosevelt refused the Chinese

spoil, when Cuba was restored, and promises to the Filipinos began to

be kept. If Denmark should be 'assumed,' the Danish Antilles would be

the property of the nation that 'assumed' it. As it was apparently to

the interest of the Pan-Germans to keep the Danes in suspense, and,

as most of the Danes distrusted the intentions of their neighbours,

it was not well to assume that there was smoke and no fire.

Besides, were there not other powers who might find it to their

advantage to prevent the Danish West Indies from falling into our

hands? We were not, from 1907 to 1914, in such a state of security as

we imagined, in spite of our system of peace treaties. _Dans les

coulisses_ of all countries, there was a certain amount of cynicism

as to the effect of these peace treaties, and very little belief,

except among the international lawyers, that anything binding or

serious had been accomplished by them. After all, my business was to

hoe my own row, but I listened with great respect to such men as my

colleague, now the Norwegian Minister at Stockholm, Mr. Francis

Hagerup, and other legal-minded men. However, I determined to make

the task of saving the Islands from 'assimilation' as easy as

possible for my successor or his successor. I hoped, of course, for

the chance of doing something worth while for the country seemed to

be mine, and President Wilson--I shall always be most grateful to

him--gave me the happiness of doing humbly what I could.

In 1907 I found that the irritation caused by the attitude of our

Government in the matter of the Islands had not worn away. The

majority of the Danes had really never wanted to sell the Islands.

'Why should a great country like yours want to force us to sell the

Danish Antilles? You pretend to be democratic, but you are really

imperialists. It is not a question of money with us; it is a question

of honour. Your country has approached us only on the side of

money--and when you knew that our poverty consented.'

This was the substance of conservative opinion. There was a

widespread distrust, especially among the upper classes in Denmark,

as to our intentions. The title of a brochure written by James Parton

in 1869 was often quoted against us, for the Danes have long

memories. It was entitled _The Danish West Indies: Are we Bound in

Honour to pay for Them?_ 'An arrogant nation, no longer democratic'

because we had seized the Philippines! It must be said that a

minister desiring to make a good impression on the people had little

help from the press at home. Foreign affairs were treated as of no

real importance in the organs of what is called our popular opinion.

The American point of view, as so well understood over all the world

now, was not explained; but sensational stories describing the

exaggerated splendours of our millionaires, frightful tales of

lynching in the South, the creation of an American Versailles on

Staten Island, which would make the Sun King in the Shades grow pale

with envy, the luxuries of American ladies, were invariably

reproduced in the Danish papers. President Roosevelt was looked upon

as the one idealist in a nation mad for money, and even he had a

tremendous fall in the estimation of the Radicals when he spoke of a

Conservative democracy in Copenhagen. It was necessary to overcome a

number of prejudices which were constantly being fostered, partly by

our own estimate of ourselves as presented by the Scandinavian papers

in extracts from our own.

Then, again, the real wealth of our people, our art and

literature--which count greatly in Denmark--were practically unknown.

Everything seemed to be against us. The press was either contemptuous

or condescending; we were not understood.

It is true that nearly every family in Denmark had some

representative in the United States, but their representatives were,

as a rule, hard-working people, who had no time to give to the study

of the things of the mind among us. In spite of all their

misconceptions, which I proposed to dissipate to the best of my

ability, I found the Danes the most interesting people I had ever

come in contact with, except the French, and, I think the most

civilised. There was one thing certain:--if the Danish West India

Islands were so dear to Denmark that it would be a wound to her

national pride to suggest the sale of them to us, no such suggestion

ought to be made by an American Minister. First, national pride is a

precious thing to a nation, and the more precious when that nation

has been great in power, and remains great in heart in spite of its

apparently dwindling importance. It was necessary, then, to discover

whether the Danes could, in deference to their natural desire to see

their flag still floating in the Atlantic Ocean, retain the Islands,

and rule them in accordance with their ideals. Their ideals were very

high. They hoped that they could so govern them that the inhabitants

of the Islands might be fairly prosperous and happy under their rule.

They were not averse to expending large sums annually to make up the

deficit occasioned by the possession of them. The Colonial Lottery

was depended upon to assist in making up this budget. The Danes have

no moral objections to lotteries, and the most important have

governmental sanction.

Under the administrations of Presidents Roosevelt and Taft it was

useless to attempt to reopen the question. All negotiations, since

the first in 1865, had failed. That of 1902, and the accompanying

scandals, the Danes preferred to forget. President Roosevelt's

opinion as to the necessity of our possessing the Islands was well

known. In 1902 the project for the sale had been defeated in the

Danish Upper House by one vote. Mr. John Hay attributed this to

German influence, though the Princess Marie, wife of Prince

Valdemar, a remarkably clever woman, had much to do with it, and she

could not be reasonably accused of being under German domination. The

East-Asiatic Company was against the sale and likewise a great number

of Danes whose association with the Islands had been traditional.

Herr Ballin denied that the German opposition existed; he seemed to

think that both France and England looked on the proposition coldly.

At any rate, he said that Denmark gave no concessions to German

maritime trade that the United States would not give, and that the

property of the Hamburg-American Line would be quite as safe in the

hands of the United States as in those of Denmark. In 1867 Denmark

had declined to sell the Islands for $5,000,000, but offered to

accept $10,000,000 for St. John and St. Thomas, or $15,000,000 for

the three. Secretary Seward raised the price to $7,500,000 in gold

for St. Thomas, St. John and Santa Cruz. Denmark was willing to

accept $7,500,000 for St. Thomas and St. John; Santa Cruz, in which

the French had some rights, might be had for $3,750,000 additional.

Secretary Seward, after some delay, agreed to give $7,500,000 for the

two islands, St. Thomas and St. John. The people of St. John and St.

Thomas voted in favour of the cession. In 1902 $5,000,000 was offered

by the United States. Diligent inquiries into the failure of the

sale, although the Hon. Henry White, well and favourably known in

Denmark, was sent over in its interest, received the answer from

those who had been behind the scenes, '$5,000,000 was not enough,

unaccompanied by a concession that might have deprived the

transaction of a merely mercenary character.'

At that time Germany might have preferred to see the Islands in the

hands of the United States rather than in those of any other

European power. It was apparently to the interest of the United

States to encourage the activities of that great artery of

emigration, the Hamburg-American Line. She did not believe that the

United States would fail to raise the spectre of the Monroe Doctrine

against either of the nations who owned Bermuda or Mauritius, if one

of them proposed to place her flag over St. Thomas.

In 1892 the question of Spain's buying St. Thomas, in order to defend

Puerto Rico, thrown out by an obscure journalist, was a theory to

laugh at. Germany was practically indifferent to our acquisition of

islands on the Atlantic coast that might possibly bring us one day in

collision with either England or France. As to the Pacific, her point

of view was different.

Her politicians even then cherished the sweet hope that the Irish in

the United States and Canada might force the hand of our Government

against 'perfidious Albion' if the slightest provocation was given.

Besides, in 1868, Germany had done her worst to the Danes. She had

taken Slesvig, and had ruined Denmark financially; she had made Kiel

the centre of her naval hopes; she could neither assume Denmark nor

borrow the $7,500,000--then a much greater sum than now--for her own

purposes. I have never had reason to believe that Germany prevented

the sale of the Danish Antilles in 1902.

The Congressional Examination of the scandalous rumours that might

have reflected on the honour of certain Danish gentlemen and of some

of our own Congressmen are a matter of record, and show no traces of

any such domination. Curiously enough, there was a persistent rumour

of a secret treaty with Denmark which gave the United States an

option on the Islands. No such treaty existed, and no Danish Minister

of Foreign Affairs of my acquaintance would have dreamed of

proposing such an arrangement.

It is hardly necessary to dwell here on the value of these Islands to

the United States. President Roosevelt, President Wilson, Senator

Lodge, most persistently, made the necessity of possessing these

islands, through legitimate purchase, very plain.

The completion of the Panama Canal increased their already great

importance. If such men as Seward, Foster, Olney, Root, Hay, and our

foremost naval experts considered them worth buying before the issues

raised by the creation of the Panama Canal were practical, how much

more valuable had they become when that marvellous work was

completed! Many interests contributed to the desirability of our

acquiring islands in the West Indies--every additional island being

of value to us--but the great public seemed to see this as through a

glass--darkly.

Puerto Rico was of little value in a strategic way without the Danish

Antilles. A cursory examination of the map will show that Puerto

Rico, with no harbours for large vessels and its long coast line,

would offer no defences against alien forces. Naval experts had

clearly seen the hopelessness of defending San Juan. Major Glassford,

of the Signal Corps, in a report often quoted and carefully studied

by people intelligently interested in the active enforcement of the

Monroe Doctrine rather than its mere statement as a method of defence

on paper, said that 'St. Thomas might be converted into a second

Gibraltar.' He was right. The frightful menace of the cession of

Heligoland to Germany was an example of what might happen if we

failed to look carefully to the future. Besides, even those advocates

of peace, right or wrong, who infested our country before the war,

who were not sympathetic with the acquisition of territory, ought to

have remembered that one of the best guarantees of peace was to leave

nothing to fight about as far as these islands of value in our

relations 'to the region of the Orinoco and the Amazon' and the

Windward Passages were concerned. The German occupation of

Brazil--increasing so greatly that the Brazilians were alarmed, the

European prejudices, made evident during the Spanish-American War as

existing in South and Central America--were all occasions for

thought.

'The harbour of Charlotte Amalie,' wrote Major Glassford, writing of

St. Thomas, 'and the numerous sheltered places about the island offer

six and seven fathoms of water. Besides, this harbour and the

roadsteads are on the southern side of the island, completely

protected from the prevailing strong winds. If this place were

strongly fortified and provisioned'--the number of inhabitants are

small compared with Puerto Rico--'it would be necessary for an enemy

contemplating a descent upon Puerto Rico to take it into account

first. The location on the north-east side of the Antilles is in

close proximity to many of the passages into the Caribbean Sea, and

affords an excellent point of observation near the European

possessions in the archipelago. It is also a centre of the West

Indian submarine cable systems, being about midway between the

Windward Passage and the Trinidad entrance into the Caribbean Sea.'

Other interests distracted attention from the essential value of

these islands for local reasons, party reasons, which are the curse

of all modern systems of government. The failure to purchase the

Islands in 1892 did not discourage Senator Lodge. On March 31st,

1898, the Committee on Foreign Affairs reported a bill authorising

the President to buy the Danish West India Islands for a naval and

coal station. On this bill, Senator Lodge made a most interesting and

valuable report, in which he said, after stating that the fine

harbour of St. Thomas possessed all the required naval and military

conditions--'It has been pointed out by Captain Mahan, as one of the

great strategic points in the West Indies.' 'The Danish Islands,' he

concluded, 'could easily be governed as a territory, could be readily

defended from attack, occupy a commanding strategic position, and are

of incalculable value to the United States, not only as part of the

national defences, but as removing by their possession a very

probable cause of foreign complications.'

My predecessors in Denmark, Messrs. Risley, Carr, Svendsen, were of

this opinion. The arguments of Mr. Carr, expressed in his despatches,

are invincible. Mr. O'Brien, who was minister plenipotentiary to

Denmark until he was sent as ambassador to Japan, saw, as I did, in

1907, that the Danes and their Government were in no mood to accept

any suggestions on the subject. However, I discussed the matter

academically with each minister of Foreign Affairs, saying that the

United States would make no proposition at any time which might

offend the national self-respect of the Danes, that in fact, as

valuable as the Islands would be to us and as expedient as it might

be for the Danes to sell them to us, their Government must give some

unequivocal sign that it was willing to part with them before we

should seriously take up the question again. Neither Count

Raben-Levitzau nor Count William Ahlefeldt-Laurvig gave me any

official encouragement, though I hardly expected it as I had taken

means to sound public opinion on my own account. Both Count

Raben-Levitzau and Count Ahlefeldt were Liberal Ministers of Foreign

Affairs, and I knew that, if there was any hope that a sale might be

made, they would give me reasonable encouragement. Besides, I was

doubtful whether the price--which might probably be asked--reasonable

enough in my eyes and in the eyes of those European diplomatists who

knew what Heligoland and Gibraltar meant to Germany and to

England--would not have raised such an outcry among voters at home,

who had not yet learned to weigh any transaction with a foreign

Government--except commercially, in terms of dollars and cents, that

another failure might have followed. It was out of the question to

risk that.

Many of my friends among the more conservative of the Danes scorned

the idea of the sale on any terms. Among these was Admiral de

Richelieu, whose father is buried in St. Thomas, and who is the most

intense of Danish patriots. If objections to the sale on the part of

my best friends in Denmark had governed me, I should have despaired

of it. However, my friends, like de Richelieu, felt that our

Government would be glad to see the Danish West India Islands

improved as far as the Danes could improve them. De Richelieu,

Etatsraad Andersen--Etatsraad meaning Councillor of State--Holger

Petersen, Director Cold, formerly Governor of the Islands, Hegemann,

who bore the high title of _Geheimekonferensraad_, were among those

most interested in the Islands.

Hegemann, since dead, was the only one of the group who thought that

the Danish Government could never either improve the Islands socially

or make them pay commercially. 'The Danes are bad colonisers,' he

said. He was a man of great common-sense, of wide experience, and a

philanthropist who never let his head run away with his heart. He did

a great deal for technical education in Denmark. In fact, there was

scarcely any movement for the betterment of the country economically

in which he was not interested. He had great properties in the island

of Santa Cruz; but he looked on the Danish possession of the Islands

as bad for the reputation of his native country and worse for the

progress of the Islands and the Islanders. 'The present Government is

too mild in its treatment of the blacks,' he said; 'equality, liberty

and fraternity, the motto of the ruling party, is excellent, but it

will not work in the Islands.' Besides, the construction of the

Panama Canal was drawing the best labourers from them. He was

interested in sugar and even in sea cotton; he thought that, the

tariff restrictions being removed and a market for labour made,

something might be done by us towards making the Islands a profitable

investment. I was entirely indifferent as to that--our great need of

the Islands was not for commercial uses.

The prevailing opinion in Court circles was against the sale, based

on no antagonism to the United States, but on the desire that Denmark

should not lose more of its territory. The Faroe Islands, Greenland

and Iceland were still appendages; but Iceland was always restive,

and Greenland seemed, in the eyes of the Danes, to have only the

value of remotely useful territory. They had been shorn of territory

by England, by Sweden, and, last of all, by Germany.

Our Government, knowing well how strong the national pride was, and

how reasonable, permitted me to show it the greatest consideration.

When the East-Asiatic Company, which had important holdings in St.

Thomas, proposed that the national sentiment should be tested, and

each Danish citizen asked to make a pecuniary sacrifice for the

retention of the Islands, I was permitted to express sympathy with

the movement, and to assist it in every way compatible with my

position.

The attempt failed. It was evident that the majority of the people,

whatever were their sentiments, knew that it was impracticable to

attempt to govern the Islands from such a distance. If it had been

possible to retain them with honour, with justice to the inhabitants,

who for a long time had been desirous of union with the United

States, no amount of money would have induced Denmark to part with

the last of her colonial possessions. As it was, the prospect was not

at all clear.

In modern times, a man who aspires to do his duty in diplomacy must

be honest and reasonably frank. To pretend to admire the institutions

of a nation, to affect a sympathy one does not feel, with a view to

obtaining something of advantage to one's own country, was no doubt

possible when foxes were preternaturally cunning and crows

unbelievingly vain, but not now. The whole question of the Islands

was a matter which must be settled by the commonsense of the Danes at

the expense of their sentiment; no pressure on our part could be

used, short of such arguments as might point to the forcible

possession of the Islands temporarily in case of war; but the fact

that the United States preferred to give what seemed to be an

enormous sum--(though $25,000,000 have to-day scarcely the purchasing

power of the $15,000,000 demanded for the three Islands from

Secretary Seward in 1867)--rather than run the risk of future

unpleasant complications with a small and friendly State, showed that

the intentions of our Government were on a par with its professions.

When the proposed sale of the Islands stopped, largely because

Senator Sumner disliked President Johnson, and the treaty lapsed in

1870 in spite of the support of Secretary Fish, King Christian IX.

wrote, in a proclamation to the people of the Danish Islands--a

majority of whom had consented to the proposed sale,--'The American

Senate has not shown itself willing to maintain the treaty made,

although the initiative came from the United States themselves.' The

king had only consented to the sale to lighten the terrible financial

burdens imposed on his country by the unjust war which Germany and

Austria had forced upon Denmark with a view to the theft of Slesvig;

and his consent would never have been given had not Secretary Seward,

the predecessor of Secretary Fish, reluctantly agreed that the vote

of the inhabitants should be taken. He was more democratic than Mr.

Seward.

King Christian would not sign the treaty, which gave $7,500,000 to

Denmark for the two Islands of St. Thomas and St. John, until Mr.

Seward consented to 'concede the vote.' The Danes were frank in

admitting that their 'poverty, but not their will,' consented. 'Ready

as We were to subdue the feelings of Our heart, when We thought that

duty bade Us so to do,' continued the king in his proclamation, 'yet

We cannot otherwise than feel a satisfaction that circumstances have

relieved Us from making a sacrifice which, notwithstanding the

advantages held out, would always have been painful to Us. We are

convinced that You share these sentiments, and that it is with a

lightened heart You are relieved from the consent which only at Our

request You gave for a separation from the Danish crown.'

The king added that he entertained the firm belief that his

Government, supported by the Islanders, would succeed in making real

progress, and end by effacing all remembrances of the disasters that

had come upon them, his overseas dominions. Affairs in the mother

country did look up; the Danes developed their country, in spite of

the worst climatic conditions, into a land famous for its scientific

farming. A wit has said that Denmark, after the loss of Slesvig, was

divided like old Gaul, itself, into three parts,--butter, eggs and

bacon. The Danes, cast into a condition of moral despondency and

temporal poverty, with their national pride stricken, and their soil

outworn, seized the things of the spirit and made material things

subservient. Religion and patriotism, developed by Bishop Grundtvig,

saved the mother country; but the Islands continued to go through

various stages of hope and fear. The United States was too near and

Denmark too far off. Home politics were generally paramount, and each

new governor was always obliged to consider the sensitiveness of his

Government to the amount of expenditure allowed. There were persons

in power at home who seemed to see the Islands from the point of view

of Bernardin de Saint Pierre--sentimentally. The happy black men were

to dance under spreading palms, gently guided by Danish Pauls and

Virginias! The black men were only too willing to dance under palms,

whether spreading or not, and to be guided by any idyllic persons

who, leaving them the pleasures of existence, would take the trials.

All the governors suffered more or less from the Rousseau-like point

of view taken by the Government. Mr. Helvig Larsen was the last who

was expected to be 'idyllic.' One of the fears often expressed to me

was that 'the Americans would treat the blacks badly--we have all

read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, you know.'

Even Her Majesty, the Dowager Queen Louise, one of the best-informed

women in Europe, had her doubts about our attitude to the negroes.

'You have black nurses,' Her Majesty said to me; 'why are your

people, especially in the South, not more kind to their race?' Queen

Louise, who was sincerely interested in the welfare of her coloured

subjects, would listen to reason. I sent her the _Soul of the Black_,

which shows unconsciously why social equality in this case would be

undesirable, but not until Booker Washington's visit did Her Majesty

understand the attitude that sensible Americans, who know the South,

take on the subject of the social equality of our coloured

fellow-citizens. During my stay in Europe this matter was frequently

discussed.

Some of my German colleagues politely insinuated that 'democracy' was

little practised in a country where a President could be severely

censured for inviting a coloured man of distinction to lunch. And

nearly all the Danes of the modern school took this point of view.

The naval officers, who are always better informed as to foreign

conditions than most other men, readily understood that social

equality assumes a meaning in the United States which would imply the

probability of what is known as 'amalgamation.' While the German

critic of our conditions might very well understand the impossible

barrier of caste in his own country and object to 'permanent

marriages' with women of the inferior 'yellow' races, he seemed to

think that the laws in some of the United States against the

marriages of blacks and whites were un-Christian and illogical.

'But you would not encourage such marriages?' I asked of one of the

most distinguished Danes at the Copenhagen University.

'Why not?' he asked.

From my point of view, the case was hopeless. And every now and then

an extract from an American paper, containing the account of a

lynching with all the gruesome details described, would be translated

into Danish. I never believed in censoring the press until I came to

occupy a responsible position in Denmark. I confess, _mea

culpa_!--that I wanted many times to have the right to say what

should or should not be reprinted for foreign consumption! The

newspapers seemed to have no regard for the plans of the

diplomatists, believing news is news! There will always be the

irrepressible conflict!

One of my wife's friends in Denmark, the late Countess Rantzau, born

of the famous theatrical family of the Poulsens, who was well-read,

and who knew her Europe well, produced one day an old embroidered

screen for my benefit. There were the palms; there was an ancient

African with a turban on his very woolly head; there was a complacent

young person in stiff skirts seated at his feet, looking up to him

with adoring eyes. 'Antique?' I asked, preparing to admire the work

of art; the tropical foliage of acanthus leaves was so flourishing in

the tapestry, and the luncheon had been so good!

'It is not as a work of art that I show it to the American Minister,

but to let him know that we Danes love the virtues of the blacks.

This is Uncle Tom and Little Eva!'

It was intended to soften a hard heart!

In October 1910 Mr. Andrew Carnegie telegraphed that Mr. Booker

Washington would pay a visit to Denmark. I had met Mr. Booker

Washington with Mr. Richard Watson Gilder in New York, and I admired

him very greatly. However, I felt that I should be embarrassed by

his visit, as I knew both King Frederick and Queen Louise were

interested in him and would not only expect me to present him, but

likewise--they were the fine flowers of courtesy--wish my wife and

myself to dine at Amalieborg Palace with him. When Admiral

Bardenfleth, the queen's chamberlain, came to inquire as to when Mr.

Booker Washington should arrive, I suggested that Her Majesty, who

had often shown her high appreciation of Mr. Washington's work, might

like to talk with him informally, as I knew that she had many

questions to ask, and that he himself would be more at his ease if I

were not present. The Admiral thanked me. I said the same thing to

the Master of Ceremonies of the Court when he came on behalf of the

king.

For charm of manner, ease, the simplicity that conceals the

perfection of social art, and at least apparent sympathy with one's

difficulties, let the high officials of the Court of Denmark be

commended! The Master of Ceremonies was delighted. Their Majesties

would miss me from the introduction and regret that Mrs. Egan and I

would not be present at the dinner, which, however, would be earlier

than usual, as I had said that Mr. Booker Washington must catch a

train; it would also be very unceremonious. His Majesty would ask

only his immediate _entourage_.

I was pleased with myself (a fatal sign by the way!); Mr. Washington

would have all the honour due him. I arranged to attend his lecture,

with all the Americans I could collect. I sent the landau with two

men on the box, including the magnificent Arthur and the largest

cockades, to meet Mr. Washington. In 1910, King Frederick used only

carriages and the diplomatists followed his example, though some of a

more advanced temperament had taken to motor cars. Mr. Washington

was pleased. He loved the landau and the cockades, and Arthur, our

first man, who had been 'in diplomacy twenty-five years,' treated him

with distinction.

'You have honoured my people and my work most delicately,' he said to

me. 'I thank you for sending me the king's invitation to dinner to

the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Too much public talk of this honour in the

United States would do my people and myself much harm. I will make,

in print, an acknowledgment of your courtesy, so effective and so

agreeable. To have my work recognised in this manner by the most

advanced Court in Europe is indeed worth while, and to have this

honour without too much publicity is indeed agreeable.'

Mr. Washington's lecture had been a great success. It had helped,

too, to do away with the impression that lynching is to the Americans

of North America what bull fights are to those of South America. The

most awkward question constantly put to me at Court and in society

was, 'But why do you lynch the black men?'

Filled with satisfaction at the result of my machinations (a bad

state of mind, as I have said), I was bending over my desk one

morning when two correspondents of American newspapers were

announced. They came from London; I had met them both before.

'Cigars?'

'Yes. We do not want to give you trouble, Mr. Minister; you were very

decent to us all in the Cook affair, but we shall make a good story

out of this Booker Washington visit, and we think it is only fair to

say that we are going to 'feature' you. There is nothing much doing

now, and we've been asked to work this thing up. We know on the best

authority that the king will give a dinner to Booker Washington; you

will respond with a reception; Mrs. Egan will be taken in to dinner

by Mr. Washington; there will be lots of ladies there--in a word,

we'll get as big a sensation out of it as the newspapers did out of

the Roosevelt-Booker Washington incident. It will do you good in the

North, and, as you're a Philadelphian, you need not care what the

South thinks.'

These gentlemen meant to be kind; they were dropping me into a hole

kindly, but they _were_ letting me into a hole!

'It is not a question as to _how_ I feel,' I said; 'it is a question

of raising unpleasant discussions, of injuring the coloured people by

holding out false hopes, which, hurried into action, excite new

prejudices against them. President Roosevelt, when he invited Booker

Washington to lunch, acted as I should like to act now, but I would

regret the ill-feeling raised by discussions of such an incident as

greatly as he regretted it; but,' I added, 'you have your duty to

your papers, which must have news, although the heavens fall. If my

wife is taken in to dinner by Mr. Booker Washington at Court, if I

give the reception you speak of----'

'You will,' said the elder newspaper man, joyously; 'it is a matter

of rigid etiquette. We have a private tip!'

'Very well, when I do these things, I shall not complain if you

headline them.'

'Sensation in Denmark,' he read, from a slip. 'Wife of American

Minister is taken in to Dinner by Representative Coloured Man.

Perfect Social Equality Exemplified by Reception to Mr. Booker

Washington at American Legation! London will like you all the better

for that,' he said, laughing.

'As "tout Paris" liked President Roosevelt,' I answered.

I shivered a little. 'Come to lunch to-morrow, but do not let us talk

on this subject. If I am compelled by etiquette, as you insist I

shall, I'll swallow the headlines. I shall ask Mr. Hartvig of some

London papers and the _New York World_ to meet you.' And off they

went!

If I were a Spartan person and really loved to perform my duties in

the most idealistic way, I should have treated the situation greatly,

nobly, and unselfishly; I should not have been pleased at the

prospect of cheating my journalistic friends out of a good story;

but, not being Spartan and really not loving difficult duties, I felt

that I had done enough in giving them a luncheon worthy of the

reputation of our Legation, with _sole à la Bernaise_ and the best

Sauterne.

Mr. Washington called before he went to the king's dinner; he was all

smiles, and his evening suit was perfect. He said 'good-bye,' and I

was thankful that the event of his visit was over; he was not only

satisfied, but radiant and grateful.

Consul-General Bond and his wife, Dr. Brochardt, of the Library of

Congress, and several other interesting people were to come in, to

dine and to play bridge this evening. I fancied the disappointment of

the newspaper men when they should arrive, to find no reception in

progress and no Booker Washington. I think I told my guests of the

remarkably clever way--I hope I did not use that phrase--by which

they had been outwitted.

We were about to go into the drawing-room for coffee when a card was

brought in. 'Mr. Booker Washington.' Some of the guests, those from

the South especially, wanted to see him; but I trembled when I

imagined the scene that would meet the reporters, who were, I knew,

sure to come about nine o'clock. The drawing-room would be

brilliantly lighted, half a dozen charming ladies in evening gowns

would be there, surrounding the eminent apostle! Enter the writers,

and then would follow an elaborate sketch of the social function to

be described as a New Step in Social Evolution, the Dawn of a New

Day, a Symbol of Entire Social Equality. I knew that the elder

newspaper man, a friend of Stead's, was quite capable of all this!

'Coffee will be served in my study,' I said, not waiting to consult

my wife. 'I will see Mr. Washington, at least for a moment, _alone_.'

The group of guests moved off reluctantly. Mr. Washington waited in

the back drawing-room, where both the Kaiser and Colonel Roosevelt

had once stood, though at different times. His train would be late;

he came in the fulness of his heart, to tell me that King Frederick

and Queen Louise had been most sympathetic. He was enthusiastic about

the discernment and commonsense of Queen Louise, who had read his

book and followed every step of his work with great interest. 'I was

glad to have Her Majesty know that the best men of my race are with

me, that the opposition to me comes, not from the whites, but from

that element in my own race which wants to enjoy the luxuries of life

and its leisure without working! I thank you again, Mr. Minister, for

arranging this affair in such a way as to preserve my dignity and to

prevent me from appearing as if I were vain; yet I am legitimately

proud of the great honour I have received. I shall now go to my

hotel, and arrange for my departure.'

'I have ordered the carriage,' I said.

Just then, the footman threw the doors open, and in came the two

newspaper men, resplendent as a starry night, one wearing a Russian

decoration.

'Alone?' he said.

'With Dr. Booker Washington.'

'The reception?'

'Dr. Booker Washington has just come to describe his dinner at the

Court. Let me present you two gentlemen. Dr. Washington has little

time; if you will accompany him to the hotel, he will, I am sure,

give you an interview. Mr. Hartvig of the _New York World_ will be

present, too.'

'Stung!' said the younger newspaper man.

'Lunch with me to-morrow,' I said; 'I have some white Bordeaux.'

Dr. Washington gave a prudent interview and the incident was closed.

May he rest in peace. He was a great man, a modest, intelligent and

humble man, and no calumny can lessen his greatness.

This is a digression to show that the social question in the United

States, much as it might have seemed to people who looked on Denmark

as entirely out of our orbit, had its importance in the affair of the

purchase of the Islands, which then interested me more than anything

else in the world.

Pastor Bast was the only Methodist clergyman in Copenhagen. His good

works are proverbial and not confined to his own denomination. The

Methodists were few; indeed, I think that even Pastor Bast's children

were Lutherans. Having recommended one of his charities, I was asked

by a very benevolent Dane:

'Are the Methodists really Christians in America?'

'Why do you ask that question?'

'I have read that there is a division in their ranks because most of

them refuse to admit black people on equal terms. If that is so, I

cannot help Pastor Bast's project, although I can see that it has

value.'

It was in vain to explain the difference of opinion on the

'Afro-American question' which separated the Northern and Southern

Methodists; he could not understand it. I hope, however, that Pastor

Bast received his donation.

* * * * *

In August 1910, the unrest in Europe, reflected in Denmark, was

becoming more and more evident. The diplomatic correspondents during

the succeeding years--some of it has been made public--showed this.

Japan, it was understood, would, with the Mexican difficulty, keep

the United States out of any entanglements in Europe. So sure were

some of the distinguished Danes of our neutrality in case of war--a

contingency in which nobody in the United States seemed to

believe--that I was asked to submit to my Government, not

officially, a proposal to Denmark for the surrender of Greenland to

us, we to give, in return, the most important island in the

Philippines--Mindanao. Denmark was to have the right to transfer to

Germany this island for Northern Slesvig. The Danish Government had

no knowledge of this plan, which was, however, presented in detail to

me.

Against it was urged the necessity of Denmark's remaining on good

terms with Germany. 'We could never be on good terms with our

Southern Neighbour, if we possessed Slesvig; besides, the younger

Danes in Slesvig are so tied up with Germany economically that their

position would be more complicated. 'In fact,' this Slesviger said,

'though I hate the Prussian tyranny, I fear that our last state would

be worse than our first. Germany might accept the Philippine Island,

and retake Slesvig afterwards. Unless we could be protected by the

Powers, we should regard the bargain as a bad one. Besides, England

would never allow you to take Greenland.' It was an interesting

discussion _in camera_.

These discussions were always informal--generally after luncheon--and

very enlightening. Admiral de Richelieu, who will never die content

until Slesvig is returned to Denmark, looked on the arrangement as

possible.

'Germany wants peace with you; she could help you to police the

Philippines; Greenland would be more valuable to you than to us,--and

Slesvig would be again Danish.'

'But suppose we should propose to take the Danish Antilles for

Mindanao?' I asked.

'Out of the question,' he said, firmly. 'You will never induce us to

part with the West Indies. We can make them an honourable appendage

to our nation; but Greenland, with your resources, might become

another Alaska.'

De Richelieu is one of the best friends I have in the world; but,

when it came to the sale of the Islands, he saw, not only red, but

scarlet, vermilion, crimson and all the tints and shades of red!

In 1915, it seemed to me that my time had come to make an attempt to

do what nearly every American statesman of discernment had, since

Seward's time, wanted done. It must be remembered that, if I seem

egoistical, I am telling the story from the point of view of a

minister who had no arbitrary instructions from his Government, and

very little information as to what was going on in the minds of his

countrymen as to the expediency of the purchase. It is seldom

possible to explain exactly the daily varying aspect of foreign

politics in a European country to the State Department; if one keeps

one's ear to the ground, one often discovers the beginning of social

and political vibrations in the evening which have quite vanished

when one makes a report to one's Government in the morning. Again,

mails are slow; we had no pouch; any document, even when closed by

the august seal of the United States might be opened 'by mistake.'

Long cables, filled with minutiæ, were too expensive to be

encouraged. Besides, they might be deciphered and filed by

under-clerks, who probably thought that 'Dr. Cook had put Denmark on

the Map,'--only that, and nothing more! I knew one thing--that my

colleague, Constantin Brun, was for the sale; another, that Erik de

Scavenius, the youngest Minister of Foreign Affairs in Europe, was as

clever as he was patriotic and honourable, and as resourceful as

audacious. He had an Irish grandfather. That explained much. Another

thing I assumed--that my Government trusted me, and had given me,

without explicitly stating the fact, _carte blanche_. However, I

prepared myself to be disavowed by the State Department if I went too

far. I knew that, provided I was strictly honourable, such a

disavowal would mean a promotion on the part of the President. I had

done my best to accentuate the good reasons given by my predecessors,

especially Carr and Risley, for they were beyond denial, for our

buying the Islands. One despatch I had sent off in May or June 1915,

almost in despair, a despatch in which I repeated the fear of German

aggression and quoted Heligoland, which had become as much a part of

my thoughts and talk in private as the appearance of the head of

Charles I. in that of Dickens's eccentric character.

In June 1915, no nation had the time or the leisure or the means of

interfering with the project, for war means concentration, and I had

found means of knowing that Germany would not coerce Denmark in the

matter. I hoped and prayed that our Government would take action. I

knew, not directly, but through trusted friends like Robert Underwood

Johnson, lately Editor of _The Century Magazine_, what point of view

nearly every important journal in the United States would take.

Senator Lodge's views were well known; in fact, he had first inflamed

my zeal. President Wilson had put himself on record in this momentous

matter. Unless public opinion should balk at the price--$50,000,000

would not have been too much--the purchase would be approved of by

the Senate and the House. This seemed sure.

Against these arguments was the insinuation made and widely but

insidiously spread, that Germany approved the sale because she

expected to borrow the amount of money paid! In June 1915, it was

plain to all who read the signs of the times, that we could not long

keep out of the war. 'I did not raise my boy to be a soldier' was

neither really popular in the United States nor convincing, for, sad

as it may seem, disheartening as it is to those who believe in that

universal peace which Christ never promised, the American of the

United States is a born fighter!

If the Islands were to be ours, now was the acceptable time. In

Denmark, the prospect looked like a landscape set for a forlorn hope.

Erik de Scavenius, democrat, even radical, though of one of the most

aristocratic families in Denmark, would consider only the good of his

own country. He was neither pro-German, pro-English nor pro-American.

Young as he was, his diplomatic experience had led him to look with a

certain cynicism on the altruistic professions of any great European

nation. He relied, I think, as little as I did on the academic

results of the Hague conferences.

Denmark needed money; the Government, pledged to the betterment of

the poor, to the advancement of funds to small farmers, to the

support of a co-operative banking system in the interest of the

agriculturists, to old-age pensions, to the insurance of the working

man and his support when involuntarily idle, to all those Socialistic

plans that aim at the material benefit of the proletariat,[14] and in

addition to this, to the keeping up of a standing army as large as

our regular army before the war, now 'quasi-mobilised,'--could ill

afford to sink the State's income in making up the deficit caused by

the expenses of the Islands.

[14] In Rome, 'the proletariat' meant the people who had children.

The Radicals, like Edward Brandès, despaired of righteously ruling

their Islands on the broad, humanitarian principles they had

established in Denmark. The position of the Government was so

precarious that to raise the question might have serious

consequences. This we all knew, and none better than Erik de

Scavenius. It will be seen that the difficulties on the Danish side

were greater than on ours. The price, which, reasonably enough, would

be greater than that offered in previous times, would hardly be a

very grave objection from the American point of view, since the war

had made us more clear-minded, for our people are most generous in

spending money when they see good reasons for it.

It would take much time to unravel the intricacies of Danish

politics. 'Happy,' said my friend, Mr. Thomas P. Gill,[15] visiting

Denmark in 1908, 'is that land which is ruled by farmers!' I have

sometimes doubted this. The Conservatives naturally hated the Social

Democrats, and the Government was kept in power by the help of the

Social Democrats. The Conservatives would have gladly pitched the

Government to Hades, if they had not had a great fear that Erik de

Scavenius and perhaps Edward Brandès, the Minister of Justice, were

too useful to lose during the war when the position of Denmark was so

delicate. The recent elections have shown how weak the present

Government is.

[15] Mr. Thomas P. Gill is the permanent Secretary of the Irish

Agricultural and Technical Board.

The Danes, as I have said, are probably the most civilised people in

Europe, but an average American high school boy thinks more logically

on political questions. A union of such intellectual clearness with

such a paralysis of the logical, political qualities of the mind as

one finds in Denmark, is almost incredible. They seem to feel in

matters of politics but not to think. After a large acquaintance

among the best of the young minds in Denmark, I could only conclude

that this was the result of unhappy circumstances: the pessimism

engendered by the nearness to Germany, the fact that the Dane was

not allowed to vote until he became almost middle-aged, and the

absence, in the higher schools, of any education that would

cultivate self-analysis, and which would force the production of

mental initiative. Sentiment was against the sale of the

Islands,--therefore, the cause already seemed lost!

The press, as a rule, would be against it, but the press in Denmark,

though everybody reads, has not a very potent influence. I was sure

of _Politiken_, a journal which most persons said was 'yellow,' but

which appealed to people who liked cleverness. The press, I was sure,

would be against the sale largely for reasons of internal politics.

The farmers would not oppose the sale as a sale--in itself--the

possession of a great sum of money, even while it remained in the

United States, meant increased facilities for the import of fodder,

etc., but J. C. Christensen, their leader, must be reckoned with.

There were local questions. Politics is everywhere a slippery game,

but in Denmark it is more slippery than anywhere else in the world,

not even excepting in, let us say, Kansas.

J. C. Christensen had stubbed his toe over Alberti, who had, until

1908, been a power in Denmark, and who, in 1915, was still in the

Copenhagen jail. He had been prime minister from 1905 until Alberti's

manipulation of funds had been discovered in 1908. Under the short

administration of Holstein-Ledreborg, he had been Minister of

Worship, but he smarted over the accident which had driven him

undeservedly out of office. Socialism, curious as it may seem to

Americans, is not confined to the cities in Denmark. It thrives in

the farmlands. In the country, the Socialists are more moderate than

in the cities. In the country, Socialism is a method of securing to

the peasant population the privileges which it thinks it ought to

have. It is a pale pink compared with the intense red of the extreme

urban Internationalists. J. C. Christensen represented the Moderates

as against the various shades of Left, Radical and Socialistic

opinions. Besides J. C. Christensen, though his reputation was beyond

reproach, needed, perhaps, a certain rehabilitation, and he had a

great following. A further complication was the sudden rise of

violent opposition to the Government because of the decision made by

the secular authorities in favour of retaining in his pulpit Arboe

Rasmussen, a clergyman who had gone even further towards Modernism in

his preaching than Harnack. However, as the Bishops of the Danish

Lutheran Church had accepted this decision, it seemed remarkable

that an opposition of this kind should have developed so

unexpectedly.

In June 1915, my wife and I were at Aalholm, the principal castle of

Count Raben-Levitzau. I was hoping for a favourable answer to my

latest despatch as to the purchase of the Islands. A visit to Aalholm

was an event. The Count and Countess Raben-Levitzau know how to make

their house thoroughly agreeable. Talleyrand said that 'no one knew

the real delights of social intercourse who had not lived before the

French Revolution.' One might easily imitate this, and say, that if

one has never paid a visit to Aalholm, one knows little of the

delights of good conversation. Count Raben's guests were always

chosen for their special qualities. With Mr. and Mrs. Francis

Hagerup, Señor and Señora de Riaño, Count and Countess Szchenyi,[16]

Chamberlain and Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone, Mrs. Ripka, and the

necessary additional element of young folk, one must forget the cares

of life. During this visit, there was one care that rode behind me in

all the pleasant exclusions about the estate. It constantly asked me:

What is your Government thinking about? Will the President's

preoccupations prevent him from considering the question of the

purchase? Does Mr. Brun, the Danish Minister, fear a political crisis

in his own country? It is difficult to an American at home to realise

how much in the dark a man feels away from the centre of diplomacy,

Washington, especially when he has once lived there for years and

been in touch with all the tremulous movements of the wires.

[16] Dr. Francis Hagerup, Norwegian Minister to Copenhagen, now at

Stockholm. Count Szchenyi, Austro-Hungarian Minister, Señor de

Riaño, now Spanish Minister at Washington.

One day at Aalholm, the telephone rang; it was a message from the

Clerk of the Legation, Mr. Joseph G. Groeninger of Baltimore. I put

Clerk with a capital letter because Mr. Groeninger deserved

diplomatically a much higher title. During all my anxieties on the

question of the purchase, he had been my confidant and encourager;

the secretaries had other things to do. The message, discreetly

voiced in symbols we had agreed upon, told me that the way was clear.

Our Government was willing,--secrecy and discretion were paramount

necessities in the transaction.

Returning to Copenhagen, I saw the Foreign Minister. The most direct

way was the best. I said, 'Excellency, will you sell your West Indian

Islands?'

'You know I am for the sale, Mr. Minister,' he said, 'but--' he

paused, 'it will require some courage.'

'Nobody doubts your courage.'

'The susceptibilities of our neighbour to the South----'

'Let us risk offending any susceptibilities. France had rights.'

'France gave up her rights in Santa Cruz long ago; but I was not

thinking of France. Besides the price would have to be dazzling.

Otherwise the project could never be carried.'

'Not only dazzling,' I said, 'but you should have more than

money--our rights in Greenland; His Majesty might hesitate if it were

made a mere question of money. He is like his grandfather, Christian

IX. You know how he hated, crippled as Denmark was in 1864, to sell

the Islands.'

'You would never pay the price.'

'Excellency,' I said, 'this is not a commercial transaction. If it

were a commercial transaction, a matter of material profit, my

Government would not have entrusted the matter to me, nor would I

have accepted the task, without the counsel of men of business.

Besides, commercially, at present, the Islands are of comparatively

small value. I know that my country is as rich as it is generous. It

is dealing with a small nation of similar principles to its own, and

with an equal pride. Unless the price is preposterous, as there is no

ordinary way of gauging the military value of these Islands to us, I

shall not object. My Government does not wish me to haggle. And I am

sure that you will not force me to do so by demanding an absurd

price. You would not wish to shock a people prepared to be generous.'

He will ask $50,000,000, I thought; he knows better than anybody that

we shall be at war with Germany in less than a year. I felt dizzy at

the thought of losing the Gibraltar of the Caribbean! However, I

consoled myself, while Mr. de Scavenius looked thoughtfully, pencil

in hand, at a slip of paper. After all, _I_ thought, the President,

knowing what the Islands mean to us, will not balk at even

$50,000,000. While Mr. De Scavenius wrote, I tried to feel like a man

to whom a billion was of no importance.

He pushed the slip towards me, and I read:

'$30,000,000 dollars, expressed in Danish crowns.'

The crown was then equal to about twenty-six cents.

I said, 'There will be little difficulty about that; I consider it

not unreasonable; but naturally, it may frighten some of my

compatriots, who have not felt the necessity of considering

international questions. You will give me a day or two?'

'The price is dazzling, I know,' he said.

'My country is more generous even than she is rich. The transaction

must be completed before----'

Mr. de Scavenius understood. My country was neutral _then_; it was

never necessary to over-explain to him; he knew that I understood the

difficulties in the way.

It was agreed that there should be no intermediaries; Denmark had

learned the necessity of dealing without them by the experience in

1902. I was doubtful as to the possibility of complete secrecy. What

the newspapers cannot find out does not exist. 'There are very many

persons connected with the Foreign Office,' he said thoughtfully.

'I may say a similar thing of our State Department. I wish the

necessity for complete secrecy did not exist,' I said. 'The press

_will_ have news.'

A short time after this I was empowered to offer $25,000,000 with our

rights in Greenland. As far as the Foreign Office and our Legation

were concerned, the utmost secrecy was preserved. There were no

formal calls; after dinners, a word or two, an apparently chance

meeting on the promenade (the Long Line) by the Sound. Rumours,

however, leaked out on the Bourse. The newspapers became alert.

_Politiken_, the Government organ, was bound to be discreet, even if

its editor had his suspicions. There were no evidences from the

United States that the secret was out. In fact, the growing war

excitement left what in ordinary times would have been an event for

the 'spot' light in a secondary place.

In Denmark, as the whispers of a possible 'deal' increased in number,

the opponents of the Government were principally occupied in thinking

out a way by which it could be used for the extinction of the

Council--President (Prime Minister) Zahle, the utter crushing of the

Minister of War, Peter Munch, who hated war and looked on the army as

an unnecessary excrescence, and the driving out of the whole

ministry, with the exception of Erik de Scavenius and, perhaps,

Edward Brandès, the Minister of Finance, into a sea worthy to engulf

the devil-possessed swine of the New Testament. There are, by the

way, two Zahles--one the Minister, Theodore, a bluff and robust man

of the people, and Herluf Zahle, of the Foreign Office, chamberlain,

and a diplomatist of great tact, polish and experience.

Mr. Edward Brandès and Mr. Erik de Scavenius, interviewed, denied

that there was any question of the sale. 'Had I ever spoken to Edward

Brandès on the subject of the sale?' I was asked point-blank. As I

had while in Copenhagen, only formal relations with the members of

the Government, except those connected with the Foreign Office, I was

enabled to say No quite honestly. It was unnecessary for me to deny

the possession of a secret not my own, too, because, when asked if I

had spoken to the Foreign Minister on the subject of the sale, I

always said that I was always hoping for such an event, I had spoken

on the subject to Count Raben-Levitzau, Count Ahlefeldt-Laurvig and

Erik de Scavenius whenever I had a chance. I felt like the boy who

avoided Sunday School because his father was a Presbyterian and his

mother a Jewess; this left me out. I trembled for the fate of Mr. de

Scavenius and Mr. Edward Brandès when their political opponents (some

of them the most imaginative folk in Denmark) should learn the facts.

A lie, in my opinion, is the denying of the truth to those who have a

moral right to know it. The press had no right whatever to know the

truth, but even the direct diplomatic denial of a fact to persons who

have no right to know it is bound to be--uncomfortable! I was

astonished that both Mr. Brandès and Mr. Scavenius had been so

direct; political opponents are so easily shocked and so loud in

their pious appeals to Providence! For myself, I was sorry that I

could not give Mr. Albert Thorup, of the Associated Press, a 'tip.'

He is such a decent man, and I shall always be grateful to him, but I

was forced to connive at his losing a great 'scoop.'

The breakers began to roar; anybody but the Foreign Minister would

have lost his nerve. Two visiting American journalists, who had an

inkling of possibilities of the truth, behaved like gentlemen and

patriots, as they are, and agreed to keep silent until the State

Department should give them permission to release it. These were Mr.

William C. Bullitt, of the Philadelphia _Ledger_, and Mr. Montgomery

Schuyler, of the New York _Times_. The newspaper, _Copenhagen_, was

the first to hint at the secret, which, by this time, had become a

_secret de Polichinelle_. Various persons were blamed; the Parliament

afterwards appointed a committee of examination. On August 1st, 1916,

I find in my diary,--'Thank heaven! the secret is out in the United

States, but not through us.' 'Secret diplomacy' is difficult in this

era of newspapers. If we are to have a Secretary of Education in the

cabinet of the future, why not a Secretary of the Press?

A happy interlude in the summer of 1916 was the visit of Henry Van

Dyke and his wife and daughter. It was a red letter night when he

came to dinner. We forgot politics, and talked of Stedman, Gilder and

the elder days.

The first inkling that the _secret de Polichinelle_ was out came from

a cable in _Le Temps_ of Paris. Mr. Bapst, the French Minister, who

had very unjustly been accused of being against the sale, came to

tell me he knew that the Treaty had been signed by Secretary Lansing

and Mr. Brun in Washington. I was not at liberty to commit myself

yet, so I denied that the Treaty had been signed in Washington. Mr.

Bapst sighed; I knew what he thought of me; but I had told the truth;

the Treaty had been signed in New York.

Sir Henry Lowther, the British Minister, was frankly delighted that

the question of the Islands was about to be opened. Irgens, formerly

Minister of Foreign Affairs in Norway, and a good friend to the

United States, shook his head. 'If Norway owned islands, we would

never give them up,' he said; but he was glad that they were going to

us. The other colleagues, including Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the

German Minister, were occupied with other things. Count Rantzau was

desirous of keeping peace with the United States. I think that he

regarded war with us as so dangerous as to be almost unthinkable. I

found Count Rantzau a very clever man; he played his game fairly. It

was a game, and he was a colleague worth any man's respect. He is one

of the most cynical, brilliant, forcible diplomatists in Europe, with

liberal tendencies in politics. If he lives, he ought to go far, as

he is plastic and sees the signs of the times. I found him

delightful; but he infuriated other people. One day, when he is

utterly tired of life, he will consciously exasperate somebody to

fury, in order to escape the trouble of committing suicide himself.

The plot thickened. The ideas of the Foreign Office were, as a rule,

mine--but here there was sometimes an honest difference. I was

willing to work with the Foreign Office, but not under it. De

Scavenius never expected this, but I think it was sometimes hard for

him to see that I could not, in all details, follow his plans.

Nothing is so agreeable as to have men of talent to deal with; and I

never came from an interview with de Scavenius or Chamberlain Clan,

even when, perhaps, de Scavenius did not see my difficulties

clearly, without an added respect for these gentlemen.

The air was full of a rumour that the United States, suspected in

Europe, in spite of the fair treatment of Cuba and the Philippines,

of imperialism, had made threats against Denmark, involving what was

called 'pressure.' Whether it was due to enemy propaganda or not, the

insinuation that the Danish West Indies would be taken by force,

because Denmark was helpless, underlay many polite conversations.

'The United States would not dare to oblige France or England or a

South American Republic to give up an island. She does not attempt to

coerce Holland; but in spite of the pretensions to altruism, she

threatens Denmark.'

This was an assertion constantly heard. The charges of imperialism

made in our newspapers against some of the 'stalwart' politicians who

were supposed to have influenced President McKinley in older days,

were not forgotten. Letters poured in, asking if it were possible

that I had used threats to the Danish Government.

The Danish politicians were turning their ploughshares into swords.

On August 4th the Rigstag went into 'executive session.' Chamberlain

Hegermann-Lindencrone still heartily approved of the sale. He had, he

said, tried to arrange it, under President McKinley's administration,

through a hint from Major Cortelyon when he was in Paris. The

attitude of the press became more and more evident. Mr. Holger

Angelo, one of the best 'interviewers' in the Danish press, and very

loyal to his paper, the _National News_ (_National Tidende_), came to

see me. Personally, he was desirous not to wound me or to criticise

the conduct of my Government; but he was strongly against the sale,

yet he could find no valid arguments against it. He was obliged to

admit reluctantly that the only ground on which his paper could make

an attack was the denial of the Cabinet Ministers that any

negotiations had existed. This was the line all the opposition papers

would follow.

Nobody would say that the purchase had been negotiated on any grounds

unfavourable to the national sensibilities of the Danes. Even Admiral

de Richelieu admitted that neither my Government nor myself had

failed to give what help could be given to his plans for improving

the economic conditions of the Islands.

On August 10th the debate in the Rigstag showed, as had been

expected, that Mr. J. C. Christensen, who held the balance of power,

would demand a new election under the New Constitution. A furious

attack was made on Messrs. Brandès and de Scavenius for having denied

the existence of negotiations. All this was expected. Nobody really

wanted a new election. It was too risky under war conditions.

Suddenly the rumour was revived that the British Fleet would break

the neutrality of Denmark by moving through the Great Belt, and that

the United States was secretly preparing to send its fleet through

the Belt to help the British. The reason of this was apparent: every

rumour that corroborated the impression that the United States would

become a belligerent injured the chances of the sale. Such delay, to

my knowledge, was an evil, since the continued U-boat horror made a

war imminent. In spite of all optimism, advice from the American

Embassy at Berlin, direct and indirect, pointed that way. The crisis

would no doubt be delayed--this was our impression--but it must come.

Count Brockdorff-Rantzau hoped to the last that it might be avoided,

and Prince Wittgenstein of his Legation, who knew all sides, seemed

to believe that a conflict with the United States might yet be

avoided. And there was still a dim hope, but it became dimmer every

day, so that my desire to expedite matters became an obsession.

On August 12th, J. C. Christensen seemed to hold the Folkerting (the

Lower House) in the hollow of his hand. He moved to appeal to the

country, and to leave the question of a sale to a new Rigstag. This

meant more complications, more delay, and perhaps defeat through the

threatening of the war clouds. J. C. Christensen's motion was

defeated by eleven votes.

On August 14th it was concluded that the quickest and least dangerous

way of securing assent to the sale was by an appeal to the people,

not through a general election, but through a plebiscite, in which

every man and woman of twenty-nine would vote, under the provisions

of the New Constitution.

The Landsting (the Upper House) held a secret meeting. If a coalition

ministry should not be arranged and the motion for a plebiscite

should fail, there would certainly be a general election. This would,

I thought, be fatal, as it would probably mean a postponement of the

sale until after the close of the war. In the meantime, we heard the

German representatives of the Hamburg-American Line at St. Thomas

were carrying on 'some unusual improvements.' These activities, begun

without the knowledge of the Governor, who was then in Denmark, were

stopped by the Minister of Justice, Mr. Edward Brandès, when the

knowledge of them was brought to the Danish Government. On August

15th I was convinced that one of the most important men in Denmark,

indeed in Europe, Etatsraad H. N. Andersen, of the East Asiatic

Company, approved of the sale. This I had believed, but I was

delighted to hear it from his own lips.

Political confusion became worse. In some circumstances the Danes are

as excitable as the French used to be. It looked, towards the end of

August, as if the project of the sale was to be a means of making of

Denmark, then placid and smiling under a summer sun, a veritable

seething cauldron. The gentlemen of the press enjoyed themselves. I,

who had the reputation of having on all occasions a _bonne presse_,

fell from grace. I had not, it is true, concealed the truth by

diplomatic means, as had Mr. Edward Brandès and Mr. Erik de

Scavenius, but I had talked 'so much and so ingenuously' to the

newspaper men, as one of them angrily remarked, that they were sure a

man, hitherto so frank, had nothing to conceal; and yet there had

been much concealed.

The Opposition, which would have been pleasantly horrified to

discover any evidence of bribery, or, indeed, any evidence of the

methods by which our Legation had managed its side of the affair

(they hoped for the worst), could discover very little; when they

called on de Scavenius to show all the incriminating documents in the

case, they found there was nothing incriminating, and the documents

were the slightest scraps of paper.

Knowing how far away our Department of State was, how busy and how

undermanned, owing to the attitude which Congress has hitherto

assumed towards it, I acted as I thought best as each delicate

situation arose, always arranging as well as I could not to

compromise my Government, and to give it a chance to disavow any

action of mine should it be necessary. I had found this a wise course

in the Cook affair. I had resolved to take no notice of Dr. Cook,

until the Royal Danish Geographical Society determined to recognise

him as a scientist of reputation.

When Commander Hovgaard, who had been captain of the king's yacht,

asked me to go with the Crown Prince, President of the Geographical

Society, to meet the American explorer, I went; but my Government was

in no way committed. In fact, President Taft understood the situation

well; receiving no approval of Dr. Cook from me, he merely answered

Dr. Cook's telegram, congratulating him on 'his statement.' I must

say that, when the Royal Geographical Society received Cook, no word

of disapproval from any American expert had reached our Legation or

the Geographical Society itself. The Society, with no knowledge of

the Mount McKinley incident, behaved most courteously to an American

citizen who appeared to have accomplished a great thing. The only

indication that made me suspect that Dr. Cook was not scientific was

that he spoke most kindly of all his--may I say it?--step-brother

scientists! But, as I had accompanied the Crown Prince, in gratitude

for his kind attention to a compatriot, I felt sure that a wise

Department would only, at the most, reprimand me for exceeding the

bounds of courtesy.

Suddenly a crashing blow struck us; Edward Brandès, in the midst of a

hot debate, in which he and de Scavenius were fiercely attacked,

announced that the United States was prepared to exert 'friendly

pressure.' Brandès is too clever a man to be driven into such a

statement through inadvertence; he must have had some object in

making it. What the object was I did not know--nobody seemed to know.

Even de Scavenius seemed to think he had gone too far, for whatever

were the contents of Minister Brun's despatches, it was quite certain

that neither he nor our Government would have allowed a threat made

to Denmark involving the possession of her legitimately held

territory to become public.

Something had to be done to avoid the assumption that we were no more

democratic than Germany. 'We wanted the territory from a weaker

nation; we were prepared to seize it, if we could not buy it! We

Americans were all talking of the rights of the little nations.

Germany wanted to bleed France, and she took Belgium after having

insolently demanded that she should give up her freedom. We, the most

democratic of nations, prepared to pay for certain Islands; but if it

was not convenient for a friendly power to sell her territory, we

would take it.' This was the inference drawn from Mr. Edward Brandès'

words in Parliament. I could not contradict a member of the

Government, and yet I was called on, especially by Danes who had

lived in the United States, to explain what this 'pressure' meant.

Many Danish women who approved of the social freedom of American

women, but mistrusted our Government's refusing them the suffrage,

took the question up with me. 'Pressure _et tu Brute_!' The women

were to vote in the plebiscite. Some of their leaders balked at the

word 'pressure,' but a country which had hitherto refused the

suffrage to American women was capable of anything. Mr. Edward

Brandès had performed a great service to his country in letting out

some of the horrors of our secret diplomacy. Mr. Constantin Brun,

whose loyalty to his own country I invoked in these interviews, was,

they said, 'corrupted' in the United States; he was more American

than the Americans! I should have much preferred to be put in the

'Ananias Society' so suddenly formed of Mr. Brandès and Mr. de

Scavenius than to have myself set down as an imperialist of a country

as arrogant as it was grasping, which not only threatened to seize

Danish territory, but which, while pretending to hold the banner of

democracy in the war of nations, deprived the best educated women in

the world (Mrs. Chapman Catt had said so) of their inalienable right

to vote!

Fortunately, I had once lectured at the request of some of the

leading suffragists. Bread cast upon the waters is often returned,

toasted and buttered, by grateful hands. Madame de Münter--wife of

the Chamberlain--and Madame Gad, wife of the Admiral, were great

lights in the Feminist movement.

Madame Gad is a most active, distinguished and benevolent woman of

letters. There were others, too, who felt that there must be some

redeeming features in a condition of society which produced a

Minister who was so devoted to woman suffrage as I was (as my wife

gave some of the best dinners in Denmark, nobody expected _her_ to go

beyond that!). To Madame de Münter I owed much good counsel and a

circle of defenders; to Madame Gad (if we had an Order of Valiant

Women, I should ask that she be decorated), I am told I owe the

chance that helped to turn the women's vote in our favour, and

induced many ladies, who were patriotic traditionalists, to abstain

from voting. The general opinion, as far as I could gauge it--and I

tried to get expert testimony--was that the women's vote would be

against us.

The _National News_ (_National Tidende_) had never been favourable to

the United States, though personally I had no reason to complain of

it. It was moderate in politics, not brilliant, but very well

written. The virtue of its editor was outraged by the denial of the

two Ministers that negotiations for the sale of the Islands had been

in process. This position in defence of the truth edified the

community. 'Truth, though the heavens fall!' was his motto; he kept

up a fusillade against the sale. Except that one of my interviews had

been unintentionally misquoted, I had hitherto been out of the

newspapers--though I was no longer, in the opinion of the whole

press, the sweet and promising young poet of sixty-five who had

written sonnets--now I was forced in.

An interview appeared triumphantly in the _National News_. It was

attributed to one of the most discreet officials of the State

Department. It denied 'pressure,' which would have pleased me, if it

had not also contradicted my repeated statement that the Senate of

the United States would not adjourn without ratifying the treaty. It

was a blow. I questioned at once the authenticity of the interview.

The Senate, I had said, would ratify the treaty before the end of the

session. The Danish Foreign Office and the public took my word for

it. Unless I could get a disavowal of the interview by cable, it

would seem that the Department of State was not supporting me. The

Foreign Office itself, with the problem of our entering the war

before it, was beginning to be disheartened. The authenticity of the

interview meant failure, the triumph of the enemies of the sale!

After a brief interval, a denial of the interview, which had been

fabricated in London, came to our Legation. There was joy in

Nazareth, but it did not last long.

With the permission of the Foreign Office, I prepared to give this

very definite denial from our State Department to the press. It was

a busy evening. The staff of the Legation was small, and the

necessity of sending men to the Rigstag to watch the debate in the

Landsting, where the treaty was being considered, of gathering

information, and of translating and copying important documents

relating to the Islands for transmission to the United States,

strained our energies. Moreover, the Secretary of Legation, Mr.

Alexander Richardson Magruder, had just been transferred to

Stockholm. Mr. Joseph G. Groeninger, the Clerk, who knew all the

details relating to the affair of the Islands, was up to his eyes in

work. Mr. Cleveland Perkins, the honorary attaché, was struggling

heroically with Danish reports, and I was at the telephone receiving

information, seeing people, and endeavouring to discover just where

we stood. A most trustworthy--but inexperienced--young man was in

charge of the downstairs office, where Mr. Groeninger, the

omniscient, usually reigned. I telephoned to him a memorandum on the

subject of 'pressure' which the bogus interview had denied. It was a

quotation from the 'interview,' to be made the subject of comment,

and then the denial. Both of these were sent up on the same piece of

typewritten paper, and O.K.ed by me, as a matter of routine. It was

not until late in the night that the young man discovered that a

mistake had been made. He was most contrite, though the mistake was

my fault and due to thoughtlessly following the usual routine. He

telephoned at once to the _National News_ and to the other newspapers

explaining that he had made a mistake. The _National News_ preferred

to ignore his explanation. The opportunity of accusing the Ministry

of further duplicity was too tempting. De Scavenius had lied again,

and I had connived at it. The denial of the Washington telegram was

'faked' by the American Minister in collusion with the Minister of

Foreign Affairs! It must be admitted that _Politiken_, edited by the

terribly clever Cavling, had driven the slower-witted _National

Tidende_ to desperation. I had a bad morning; then I resolved to draw

the full fire of the _National News_ on myself. I owed it to de

Scavenius, who had become rather tired of being called a liar in all

the varieties of rhetoric of which Copenhagen slang is capable. From

the American point of view, after I had made my plan, it was

amusing--all the more amusing, since, after the first regret that I

had unwittingly added to the _opera bouffe_ colour of the occasion, I

saw that the _National Tidende_ would become so abusive against me,

that I should soon be an interesting victim of vituperative

persecution. I repeated calmly the truth that the 'interview' was a

fabrication, adding that I had no intention to attack the honour of

the _National Tidende_; it had been deceived; I merely wanted it

understood that my Government was not in the habit of contradicting

its responsible representatives (_Politiken_ kindly added that the

_National Tidende_ had received its information from the 'coloured

door-keeper at the White House'). More fire and fury signifying

nothing! The most elaborate frightfulness in print missed its mark,

as nobody at the Legation had time to translate the rhetoric of the

Furies, and besides, the _National Tidende_ had no case. As I hoped,

the diplomatic sins of the Foreign Office in keeping the secret were

forgotten in the flood of invective directed against me. The result

was expressed in my diary:--'The row has proved a help to the treaty;

I did not know I had so many friends in Denmark. My hour of

desolation was when I feared that somebody in the State Department

had permitted himself to be interviewed. It was a dark hour!' After

this tempest in a tea-pot, all talk about 'pressure' ceased; the air

was, at least, clear of that--and I thanked heaven.

September came in; the debates in the Rigstag continued.

Various papers were accused of having prematurely divulged the

secret--especially _Copenhagen_. It was amusing--the secret among

business men had long before the revelation of _Copenhagen_ become an

open secret. In fact, one of these gentlemen had come to me and

informed me of the various attitudes of people on the Bourse; at the

Legation, we never lacked secret information. The debate, as

everybody knew, and the threat of an investigation of the

responsibility for letting out the secret was a bit of comedy,

probably invented for the provinces, for a Copenhagener is about as

easily fooled as a Parisian.

On September 9th, I had one of the greatest pleasures I have ever

experienced. I announced to the Foreign Office that the treaty had

been ratified, without change, by the Senate. Still the Opposition

made delays. The Foreign Minister did all in his power to expedite

matters. It was hoped that charges of 'graft' could be developed

against the Ministers. 'If you had had a _bonne presse_, as usual,' a

candid friend said to me, 'you might have been accused of bribing. As

it is, the _National Tidende_ attitude showed that you never offered

that paper any money!'

'As much as I regret the attitude of the _National Tidende_,' I said,

'I could as soon imagine myself taking a bribe as of the editor's

accepting one. The attack was a great advantage to me.'

'You Yankees turn everything to your advantage,' the candid friend

said.

On September 27th, Ambassador and Mrs. Gerard arrived. It was a red

letter day. Mr. Gerard showed the strain of his work, but, like all

good New Yorkers, was disposed 'to take the goods the gods provided'

him--one of them was a dinner at the Legation of which he approved.

Praise from Brillat-Savarin would not have delighted us more than

this. The Legation, to use the diplomatic phrase, threw themselves

at the feet of Mrs. Gerard. Gerard deserved the title, given him by

the Germans, of 'the most American of American Ambassadors.' Mrs.

Gerard was cosmopolitan, with an American charm, but also with a

touch of the older world that always adds to the social value of

an ambassadress. I had arranged, in advance of Judge Gerard's

coming, a luncheon with my colleague across the street, Count

Brockdorff-Rantzau. It was interesting. Mr. and Mrs. Swope were

present, Their Serene Highnesses the Prince and Princess Sayn

Wittgenstein-Sayn, Count Wedel, and, I think, Dr. Toepffer. Judge

Gerard told me that he spoke little French, but he got on immensely

well with Count Rantzau, who spoke no English. Count Wedel, with his

love for Old Germany, of the Weimar of Goethe, of the best in

literature, will, I trust, live to see a happier new order of things

in his native country. The Wittgensteins were charming young people.

The Prince was connected with almost every great Russian, French and

Italian family. If ambassadors are not put out of fashion by the new

order of things, the Princess, closely connected with important

families of England, would be a fortunate ambassadress to an

English-speaking country. Peace ought to come to men of good-will,

and I am persuaded that there are men of good-will in Germany.

September, October, even December came in, and the political

factions still fought, ostensibly about the sale, but really for

control, Copenhageners said, of the $25,000,000! Every chance was

taken to delay the matter until after the war. German propaganda and

bribing was talked of, but there was no evidence of it. In my

opinion, it was largely a question as to who should spend the

$25,000,000. In a Monarchy such a horror was to be expected

naturally! In a Republic like ours, the patriotic Republicans would

cheerfully see the equally patriotic Democrats control the funds,

but, then, Republics are all Utopias, the lands of the Hope

fulfilled! All this was amusing to many observers--embarrassing and

humiliating to Danes who respected reasonable public opinion and the

dignity of their country. It was terrible to me who saw the war

coming, for Mr. Gerard and my private informants in Germany left me

in no doubt about that. Even Count Szchenyi, always for peace, and

with us in sympathy, declared that 'the U-boat war would go on, not

to crush England, but as part of the Germanic League to enforce

Peace.' And the use of the U-boat meant war for us!

On all sides, I was told that the women's votes would be against the

sale. It was not unreasonable to believe that ladies, just

emancipated, would vote against their late lords and masters, at

least for the first time. Besides, as Mrs. Chapman Catt had made very

clear during her fateful visit to Denmark, the liveliest, the most

reasonable, the most intellectual women in the world were deprived by

the unjust laws of the country that wanted the Islands of the right

to vote. Even the fact that Mr. Edward Brandès, a noted ladies' man,

was on the side of the angels, might have no effect. He began to be

tired of the whole thing. He hoped, I really believe, that the

Islands would settle the question and sink into the sea! We _must_

have the women's vote. Madame Gad helped to save the day.

'You will, in your annual _conférence_,' she said to me, 'explain the

position of the American women, and your words will be reprinted, not

only all over Denmark, but throughout Sweden and Norway. The editor

of _Politiken_ will give you his famous "_Politiken Hus_," and your

words will make good feeling.'

'I can honestly say,' I answered, 'that I want the women to vote. In

fact, in my country, they have only to want the suffrage badly enough

to have it! It is the fault of their own sex, not of ours, if they do

not get it!'

It was agreed that I should speak on 'The American Woman and her

Aspirations,' at _Politiken Hus_, on the evening of December 5th. The

proceeds were to go to charity. And I never knew, until I began to

prepare my lecture, how firmly I believed that Woman Suffrage was to

be the salvation of the world. Without exaggeration, I believe it

will be, since men have made such an almost irremediable mess of

worldly affairs. My friend, the late Archbishop Spalding, once said

that women had, since the deluge, been engaged in spoiling the

stomach of man, and now they prepared to spoil his politics! I have

some reason to believe that a report of my lecture might have

converted him to higher ideals. I was told by some ladies that it had

a great effect on their husbands.

In the meantime, the tardy delegates, summoned from St. Thomas and

Santa Cruz, arrived. They were called simply to delay action. The

Foreign Minister was heartily ashamed of the transaction on the part

of his opponents; it was palpably childish. The plebiscite must be

delayed as long as possible. The United States had done its part in

a most prompt and generous manner. The press could give only

sentimental reasons against the sale; Denmark found the Islands a

burden; she wanted our rights in Greenland; she needed the

$25,000,000, but her politicians were willing to risk anything rather

than give the control of the money to a Ministry they were afraid to

turn out. A coalition Ministry, that is, the addition of new members

without portfolios to the present Ministry, was agreed to, J. C.

Christensen representing the Moderate Left, Theodore Stauning, a

Socialist, and two others. Nobody really wanted a general election

until after the war.

On the evening of December 5th, I drove to _Politiken Hus_. There was

a red light over the door. This meant _alt udsolgt_, 'standing room

only.' What balm for long anxieties this! Mr. William Jennings Bryan

looking at the crowded seats of a Chautauqua Meeting could not have

felt prouder.

I recalled the night on which King Christian X. had asked me if I

always delivered the same lecture during a season's tour in the

provinces. I said, 'Yes, sir.' 'But if people come a second time?'

'Oh, they never come a second time, sir.' At least, for the first

time, the red light was lit,--who cared for a second time?

The hall was crowded. Sir Ralph Paget, who seldom went out, had come,

and, at some distance--Sir Ralph was of all men the most

anti-Prussian--were the Prince and Princess Wittgenstein. 'All

Copenhagen,' Madame Gad said, which was equivalent to 'Tout Paris.' I

did my best.

At the reception afterwards at Admiral Urban Gad's, the ladies--some

of them of great influence in politics--told me I had said the right

things. I had the next day a _bonne presse_. The provincial papers

all over Scandinavia reprinted the most important parts of the

discourse with approval, and letters of commendation from all parts

of Denmark--from ladies--came pouring in. One from a constant

correspondent in Falster, a 'demoiselle,' which is a much better word

than 'old maid,' who was sometimes in very bad humour with 'America,'

wrote that, after what I said of the American women's position, she

would like to marry an American, and that, though opposed to the

sale, she and her club would refrain from voting. Her offer to marry

an American has not been withdrawn. A few days after this, an

American paper containing an account of a lynching in the South, with

the most terrible details graphically described, reached Copenhagen.

The newspaper man who brought it to me consented, after some

argument, for old friendship's sake, not to release it at this

inauspicious moment.

Time dragged; but the news from the provinces was consoling. The

Foreign Office seemed still to be discouraged, and I am sure that

Edward Brandès again wished that the Danish Antilles had suffered

extinction. Even the enamelled surface of de Scavenius began to crack

a little. Dilatory motions of all kinds were in order. The

examination by the Parliamentary committees at which the delegates

from the West Indies were present, had ceased to be even amusing. It

was a farce without fun. The plebiscite could be put off no longer;

on December 15th, the vote was taken. For the sale, 283,694; against

the sale, 157,596. A comparatively small vote was cast. Many voters

abstained. These were mostly Conservatives and Moderates. At last, it

had come, but after what anxiety, doubts, fears, efforts,--but always

hopes!

The Opposition proposed to continue objections to the sale of all the

Islands. This would mean more appalling delays, and, with the U-boat

menace increasing, failure. On December 16th, I entered the Foreign

Office just as Djeved Bey, the Turkish Minister, was taking his

leave; he had not been very sympathetic with the Turkish-German

alliance; he was very French. After a few minutes' talk, I saw the

Minister of Foreign Affairs. He looked unhappy and harassed, which

was unusual. In the midst of alarms, he had always retained a certain

calm, which gave everybody confidence. When the petrels flew about

his head and the storms dashed, he was astonishingly courageous.

To-day, he sighed. In spite of the plebiscite, he seemed to think

that we were beaten. I was astonished. I had always thought that we

had one quality, at least, in common--we liked embarrassing

situations. I soon discovered the reason for this apparent loss of

nerve.

'Would our Government agree to take less than the three Islands?'

It was plain that the Opposition, not always fair, was tiring him and

Brandès out; I could understand their position, and sympathise with

their discouragement, but not feel it.

'To admit a new proposition on our part would be to interfere in the

interior politics of Denmark,' I said. 'The plebiscite was arranged

on the question of the treaty; it meant the cession of all the Danish

Islands or nothing.' The Rigstag should not prepare such a change

without making a new appeal to the country. I knew it was in the

power of the Rigstag to refuse to ratify the vote of the people. It

would simply mean a delay of the decision if it did so. I would make

no proposition to my Government for a change in the treaty; if such

a proposition was seriously made, I must step down and out at once.

De Scavenius approved of what I said. I believed that we would win,

in spite of dire prophecies. On Wednesday, December 20th, 1916, the

vote in the Folkstag was taken; it stood,--90 for the sale; 19

against it. On December 21st, it stood, in the Landstag, 40 votes for

the sale, and 19 against it.

Ambassador Gerard who had come to Copenhagen again, was among the

first to offer his congratulations. He was most cordial. The sale was

a fact. 'Just in time,' de Scavenius said. Just in time! The War

Cloud was about to burst, and the Legation must prepare for it. The

Islands had hitherto cut off my view; I now saw a New World.