In 1893, a new administration having brought into power the party

opposed to my own, I tendered to President Cleveland my

resignation, and, in the full expectation that it would be

accepted, gave up my apartment; but as, instead of an acceptance,

there came a very kind indication of the President's confidence,

good-will, and preference for my continuance at my post, I

remained in the service a year longer, occupying my odds and ends

of time in finishing my book. Then, feeling the need of going

elsewhere to revise it, I wrote the President, thanking him for

his confidence and kindness, but making my resignation final, and

naming the date when it would be absolutely necessary for me to

leave Russia. A very kind letter from him was the result; the

time I had named was accepted; and on the 1st of November, 1894,

to my especial satisfaction, I was once more free from official

duty.

CHAPTER XXXIX

AS MEMBER OF THE VENEZUELA COMMISSION--1895-1896

Early one morning, just at the end of 1895, as I was at work

before the blazing fire in my library at the university, the

winter storms howling outside, a card was brought in bearing the

name of Mr. Hamlin, assistant secretary of the treasury of the

United States. While I was wondering what, at that time of the

year, could have brought a man from such important duties in

Washington to the bleak hills of central New York, he entered,

and soon made known his business, which was to tender me, on the

part of President Cleveland, a position upon the commission which

had been authorized by Congress to settle the boundary between

the republic of Venezuela and British Guiana.

The whole matter had attracted great attention, not only in the

United States, but throughout the world. The appointment of the

commission was the result of a chain of circumstances very

honorable to the President, to his Secretary of State, Mr. Olney,

and to Congress. For years the Venezuelan government had been

endeavoring to establish a frontier between its territory and

that of its powerful neighbor, but without result; and meantime

the British boundary seemed to be pushed more and more into the

territory of the little Spanish-American republic. For years,

too, Venezuela had appealed to the United States, and the United

States had appealed to Great Britain. American secretaries of

state and ambassadors at the Court of St. James had "trusted,"

and "regretted," and had "the honor to renew assurances of their

most distinguished consideration"; but all in vain. At last the

matter had been presented by Secretary Olney to the government of

Lord Salisbury; and now, to Mr. Olney's main despatch on the

subject, Lord Salisbury, after some months' delay, had returned

an answer declining arbitration, and adding that international

law did not recognize the Monroe Doctrine. This seemed even more

than cool; for, when one remembered that the Monroe Doctrine was

at first laid down with the approval of Great Britain, that it

was glorified in Parliament and in the British press of 1823 and

the years following, and that Great Britain had laid down

policies in various parts of the earth, especially in the

Mediterranean and in the far East, which she insisted that all

other powers should respect without reference to any sanction by

international law, this argument seemed almost insulting.

So it evidently seemed to Mr. Cleveland. Probably no man less

inclined to demagogism or to a policy of adventure ever existed;

but as he looked over the case his American instincts were

evidently aroused. He saw then, what is clear to everybody now,

that it was the time of all times for laying down, distinctly and

decisively, the American doctrine on the subject. He did so, and

in a message to Congress proposed that, since Great Britain would

not intrust the finding of a boundary to arbitration, the United

States should appoint commissioners to find what the proper

boundary was, and then, having ascertained it, should support its

sister American republic in maintaining it.

Of course the President was attacked from all sides most

bitterly; even those called "the better element" in the

Republican and Democratic parties, who had been his ardent

supporters, now became his bitter enemies. He was charged with

"demagogism" and "jingoism," but he kept sturdily on. Congress,

including the great body of the Republicans, supported him; the

people at large stood by him; and, as a result, a commission to

determine the boundary was appointed and began its work in

Washington, the commissioners being, in the order named by the

President, David J. Brewer of Kansas, a justice of the Supreme

Court of the United States; Chief Justice Alvey of the District

of Columbia; Andrew D. White of New York; F. R. Coudert, an

eminent member of the New York bar; and Daniel C. Gilman of

Maryland, President of Johns Hopkins University.

On our arrival in Washington there was much discouragement among

us. We found ourselves in a jungle of geographical and legal

questions, with no clue in sight leading anywhither. The rights

of Great Britain had been derived in 1815, from the Netherlands;

the rights of Venezuela had been derived, about 1820, from Spain;

but to find the boundary separating the two in that vast

territory, mainly unsettled, between the Orinoco and the

Essequibo rivers, seemed impossible.

The original rights of the Netherlands had been derived from

Spain by the treaty of Munster in 1648; and on examining that

enormous document, which settled weighty questions in various

parts of the world, after the life-and-death struggle, religious,

political, and military, which had gone on for nearly eighty

years, one little clause arrested our attention: that, namely, in

which the Spaniards, despite their bitter hatred of the Dutch,

agreed that the latter might carry on warlike operations against

"certain other people" with reference to territorial rights in

America. These "certain other people" were not precisely

indicated; and we hoped, by finding who they were, to get a clue

to the fundamental facts of the case. Straightway two of our

three lawyers, Mr. Justice Brewer and Mr. Coudert, grappled on

this question, one of them taking the ground that these "other

people" referred to were the Caribbean Indians who had lived just

south of the mouth of the Orinoco, and had been friendly to the

Dutch but implacable toward the Spaniards, and that their

territory was to be considered as virtually Dutch, and,

therefore, as having passed finally to England. But the other

disputant insisted that it referred to the Brazilians and had no

relation to the question with which we had to deal. During two

whole sessions this ground was fought over in a legal way by

these gentlemen, with great acumen, the rest of us hardly putting

in a word.

At the beginning of the third session I ventured a remonstrance,

saying that it was a historical, and not a legal, question; that

it could not possibly be settled by legal argument; that the

first thing to know was why the clause was inserted in the

treaty, and that the next thing was to find, from the whole

history leading up to it, who those "other persons" thus vaguely

referred to and left by the Spaniards to the tender mercies of

the Dutch might be; and I insisted that this, being a historical

question, must be solved by historical experts. The commission

acknowledged the justice of this; and on my nomination we called

to our aid Mr. George Lincoln Burr, professor of history in

Cornell University. It is not at all the very close friendship

which has existed for so many years between us which prompts the

assertion that, of all historical scholars I have ever known, he

is among the very foremost, by his powers of research, his

tenacity of memory, his almost preternatural accuracy, his

ability to keep the whole field of investigation in his mind, and

his fidelity to truth and justice. He was set at the problem, and

given access to the libraries of Congress and of the State

Department, as also to the large collections of books and maps

which had been placed at the disposal of the commission. Of these

the most important were those of Harvard University and the

University of Wisconsin. Curious as it may seem, this latter

institution, far in the interior of our country, possesses a

large and most valuable collection of maps relating to the

colonization history of South America. Within two weeks Professor

Burr reported, and never did a report give more satisfaction. He

had unraveled, historically, the whole mystery, and found that,

the government of Brazil having played false to both Spaniards

and Dutch, Spain had allowed the Netherlands to take vengeance

for the vexations of both. We also had the exceedingly valuable

services, as to maps and early colonization history, of Mr.

Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard University, eminent both as

historian and geographer, and of Professor Jameson of Brown

University, who had also distinguished himself in these fields.

Besides these, Mr. Marcus Baker of the United States Coast Survey

aided us, from day to day, in mapping out any territories that we

wished especially to study.

All this work was indispensable. At the very beginning of our

sessions there had been laid before us the first of a series of

British Blue Books on the whole subject; and, with all my

admiration for the better things in British history, politics,

and life, candor compels me to say that it was anything but

creditable to the men immediately responsible for it. It made

several statements that were absolutely baseless, and sought to

rest them upon authorities which, when examined, were found not

to bear in the slightest degree the interpretation put upon them.

I must confess that nothing, save, perhaps, the conduct of

British "experts" regarding the Behring Sea question, has ever

come so near shaking my faith in "British fair play." Nor were

the American commissioners alone in judging this document

severely. Critics broke forth, even in the London "Times,"

denouncing it, until it was supplanted by another, which was fair

and just.

I, of course, impute nothing to the leading British statesmen who

had charge of the whole Venezuelan question. The culprits were,

undoubtedly, sundry underlings whose zeal outran their honesty.

They apparently thought that in the United States, which they

probably considered as new, raw, and too much engaged in

dollar-hunting to produce scholars, their citations from

authorities more or less difficult of access would fail to be

critically examined. But their conduct was soon exposed, and even

their principals joined in repudiating some of their fundamental

statements. Professor Burr was sent abroad, and at The Hague was

able to draw treasures from the library and archives regarding

the old Dutch occupation and to send a mass of important material

for our deliberations. In London also he soon showed his

qualities, and these were acknowledged even by some leading

British geographers. The latter had at first seemed inclined to

indulge in what a German might call "tendency" geography; but the

clearness, earnestness, and honesty of our agent soon gained

their respect, and, after that, the investigators of both sides

worked harmoniously together. While the distinguished lawyers

above named had main charge of the legal questions, President

Gilman, who had in his early life been professor of physical and

general geography at Yale, was given charge of the whole matter

of map-seeking and -making; and to me, with the others, was left

the duty of studying and reporting upon the material as brought

in. Taking up my residence at Washington, I applied myself

earnestly to reading through masses of books, correspondence, and

other documents, and studied maps until I felt as if I had lived

in the country concerned and was personally acquainted with the

Dutch governors on the Cuyuni and the Spanish monks on the

Orinoco. As a result lines more or less tentative were prepared

by each of us, Judge Brewer and myself agreeing very closely, and

the others not being very distant from us at any important point.

One former prime minister of Great Britain I learned, during this

investigation, to respect greatly,--Lord Aberdeen, whom I well

remembered as discredited and driven from power during my stay in

Russia at the time of the Crimean War. He was wise enough in

those days to disbelieve in war with Russia, and to desire a

solution of the Turkish problem by peace, but was overruled, and

the solution was attempted by a war most costly in blood and

treasure, which was apparently successful, but really a failure.

He was driven from his post with ignominy; and I well remembered

seeing a very successful cartoon in "Punch" at that period,

representing him, wearing coronet and mantle and fast asleep, at

the helm of the ship of state, which was rolling in the trough of

the sea and apparently about to founder.

Since that time his wisdom has, I think, been recognized; and I

am now glad to acknowledge the fact that, of all the many British

statesmen who dealt with the Venezuelan question, he was clearly

the most just. The line he drew seemed to me the fairest

possible. He did not attempt to grasp the mouth of the Orinoco,

nor did he meander about choice gold-fields or valuable strategic

points, seeking to include them. The Venezuelans themselves had

shown willingness to accept his proposal; but alleged, as their

reason for not doing so, that the British government had preached

to them regarding their internal policy so offensively that

self-respect forbade them to acquiesce in any part of it.

Toward this Aberdeen line we tended more and more; and in the

sequel we heard, with very great satisfaction, that the

Arbitration Tribunal at Paris had practically adopted this line,

which we of the commission had virtually agreed upon. It need

hardly be stated that, each side having at the beginning of the

arbitration claimed the whole vast territory between the Orinoco

and the Essequibo, neither was quite satisfied with the award.

But I believe it to be thoroughly just, and that it forms a most

striking testimony to the value of international arbitration in

such questions, as a means, not only of preserving international

peace, but of arriving at substantial justice.

Our deliberations and conclusions were, of course, kept secret.

It was of the utmost importance that nothing should get out

regarding them. Our sessions were delayed and greatly prolonged,

partly on account of the amount of work to be done in studying

the many questions involved, and partly because we hoped that,

more and more, British opinion would tend to the submission of

the whole question to the judgment of a proper international

tribunal; and that Lord Salisbury, the prime minister, who, in

his rather cynical, "Saturday-Review," high-Tory way, had scouted

the idea of arbitration, would at last be brought to it. Of

course, every thinking Englishman looked with uneasiness toward

the possibility that a line might be laid down by the United

States which it would feel obliged to maintain, and which would

necessitate its supporting Venezuela, at all hazards, against

Great Britain.

The statesmanship of Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney finally

triumphed. Most fortunately for both parties, Great Britain had

at Washington a most eminent diplomatist, whose acquaintance I

then made, but whom I afterward came to know, respect, and admire

even more during the Peace Conference at The Hague--Sir Julian,

afterward Lord, Pauncefote. His wise counsels prevailed; Lord

Salisbury receded from his position; Great Britain agreed to

arbitration; and the question entered into a new stage, which was

finally ended by the award of the Arbitration Tribunal at Paris,

presided over by M. de Martens of St. Petersburg, and having on

its bench the chief justices of the two nations and two of the

most eminent judges of their highest courts. It is with pride and

satisfaction that I find their award agreeing, substantially,

with the line which, after so much trouble, our own commission

had worked out. Arbitration having been decided upon, our

commission refrained from laying down a frontier-line, but

reported a mass of material, some fourteen volumes in all, with

an atlas containing about seventy-five maps, all of which formed

a most valuable contribution to the material laid before the

Court of Arbitration at Paris.

It was a happy solution of the whole question, and it was a

triumph of American diplomacy in the cause of right and justice.

I may mention, in passing, one little matter which throws light

upon a certain disgraceful system to which I have had occasion to

refer at various other times in these memoirs; and I do so now in

the hope of keeping people thinking upon one of the most wretched

abuses in the United States. I have said above that we were, of

course, obliged to maintain the strictest secrecy. To have

allowed our conclusions to get out would have thwarted the whole

purpose of the investigation; but a person who claimed to

represent one of the leading presses in Washington seemed to

think that consideration of no special importance, and came to

our rooms, virtually insisting on receiving information. Having

been told that it could not be given him, he took his revenge by

inserting a sensational paragraph in the papers regarding the

extravagance of the commission. He informed the world that we

were expending large sums of public money in costly furniture, in

rich carpets, and especially in splendid silverware. The fact was

that the rooms were furnished very simply, with plain office

furniture, with cheap carpets, and with a safe for locking up the

more precious documents intrusted to us and such papers as it was

important to keep secret. The "silverware" consisted of two very

plain plated jugs for ice-water; and I may add that after our

adjournment the furniture was so wisely sold that very nearly the

whole expenditure for it was returned into the treasury.

These details would be utterly trivial were it not that, with

others which I have given in other places, they indicate that

prostitution of the press to sensation-mongering which the

American people should realize and reprove.

While I have not gone into minor details of our work, I have

thought that thus much might be interesting. Of course, had these

reminiscences been written earlier, this sketch of the interior

history of the commission would have been omitted; but now, the

award of the Paris tribunal having been made, there is no reason

why secrecy should be longer maintained. Never, before that

award, did any of us, I am sure, indicate to any person what our

view as to the line between the possessions of Venezuela and

Great Britain was; but now we may do so, and I feel that all

concerned may be congratulated on the fact that two tribunals,

each seeking to do justice, united on the same line, and that

line virtually the same which one of the most just of British

statesmen had approved many years before.

During this Venezuela work in Washington I made acquaintance with

many leading men in politics; and among those who interested me

most was Mr. Carlisle of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury. He

had been member of Congress, Speaker of the House of

Representatives, and senator, and was justly respected and

admired. Perhaps the most peculiar tribute that I ever heard paid

to a public man was given him once in the House of

Representatives by my friend Mr. Hiscock, then representative,

and afterward senator, from the State of New York. Seated by his

side in the House, and noting the rulings of Mr. Carlisle as

Speaker, I asked, "What sort of man is this Speaker of yours?"

Mr. Hiscock answered, "As you know, he is one of the strongest of

Democrats, and I am one of the strongest of Republicans; yet I

will say this: that my imagination is not strong enough to

conceive of his making an unfair ruling or doing an unfair thing

against the party opposed to him in this House."

Mr. Carlisle's talents were of a very high order. His speeches

carried great weight; and in the campaign which came on later

between Mr. McKinley and Mr. Bryan, he, in my opinion, and indeed

in the opinion, I think, of every leading public man, did a most

honorable thing when he deliberately broke from his party,

sacrificed, apparently, all hopes of political preferment, and

opposed the regular Democratic candidate. His speech before the

working-men of Chicago on the issues of that period was certainly

one of the two most important delivered during the first McKinley

campaign, the other being that of Carl Schurz.

Another man whom I saw from time to time during this period was

the Vice-President, Mr. Stevenson. I first met him at a public

dinner in New York, where we sat side by side; but we merely

talked on generalities. But the next time I met him was at a

dinner given by the Secretary of War, and there I found that he

was one of the most admirable raconteurs I had ever met. After a

series of admirable stories, one of the party said to me: "He

could tell just as good stories as those for three weeks running

and never repeat himself."

One of these stories by the Vice-President, if true, threw a

curious light over the relations of President Lincoln with three

men very distinguished in American annals. It was as follows: One

day, shortly before the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, a

visitor, finding Mr. Lincoln evidently in melancholy mood, said

to him, "Mr. President, I am sorry to find you not feeling so

well as at my last visit." Mr. Lincoln replied: "Yes, I am

troubled. One day the best of our friends from the border States

come in and insist that I shall not issue an Emancipation

Proclamation, and that, if I do so, the border States will

virtually cast in their lot with the Southern Confederacy.

Another day, Charles Sumner, Thad Stevens, and Ben Wade come in

and insist that if I do not issue such a proclamation the North

will be utterly discouraged and the Union wrecked,--and, by the

way, these three men are coming in this very afternoon." At this

moment his expression changed, his countenance lighted up, and he

said to the visitor, who was from the West, "Mr. ----, did you

ever go to a prairie school?" "No," said the visitor, "I never

did." "Well," said Mr. Lincoln, "I did, and it was a very poor

school, and we were very poor folks,--too poor to have regular

reading-books, and so we brought our Bibles and read from them.

One morning the chapter was from the Book of Daniel, and a little

boy who sat next me went all wrong in pronouncing the names of

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The teacher had great difficulty

in setting him right, and before he succeeded was obliged to

scold the boy and cuff him for his stupidity. The nest verse came

to me, and so the chapter went along down the class. Presently it

started on its way back, and soon after I noticed that the little

fellow began crying. On this I asked him, 'What's the matter with

you?' and he answered, 'Don't you see? Them three miserable

cusses are coming back to me again.'"

I also at that period made the acquaintance of Senator Gray of

Delaware, who seemed to me ideally fitted for his position as a

member of the Upper House in Congress. Speaker Reed also made a

great impression upon me as a man of honesty, lucidity, and

force. The Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, I saw frequently, and

was always impressed by the sort of bulldog tenacity which had

gained his victory over Lord Salisbury in the arbitration matter.

But to give even the most hasty sketch of the members of the

Supreme Court, the cabinet, and of both houses of Congress whom I

met would require more time than is at my disposal.

This stay in Washington I enjoyed much. Our capital city is

becoming the seat of a refined hospitality which makes it more

and more attractive. Time was, and that not very long since, when

it was looked upon as a place of exile by diplomatists, and as

repulsive by many of our citizens; but all that is of the past:

the courtesy shown by its inhabitants is rapidly changing its

reputation.

Perhaps, of all the social enjoyments of that time, the most

attractive to me was an excursion of the American Geographical

Society to Monticello, the final residence of President

Jefferson. Years before, while visiting the University of

Virginia at Charlottesville, I had been intensely interested in

that creation of Mr. Jefferson and in the surroundings of his

home; but the present occupant of Monticello, having been greatly

annoyed by visitors, was understood to be reluctant to allow any

stranger to enter the mansion, and I would not intrude upon him.

But now house and grounds were freely thrown open, and upon a

delightful day. The house itself was a beautiful adaptation of

the architecture which had reached its best development at the

time of Jefferson's stay in France; and the decorations, like

those which I had noted years before in some of the rooms of the

university, were of an exquisite Louis Seize character.

Jefferson's peculiarities, also, came out in various parts of the

house. Perhaps the most singular was his bed, occupying the whole

space of an archway between two rooms, one of which, on the left,

served as a dressing-room for him, and the other, on the right,

for Mrs. Jefferson; and, there being no communication between

them save by a long circuit through various rooms, it was evident

that the ex-President had made up his mind that he would not have

his intimate belongings interfered with by any of the women of

the household, not even by his wife.

But most attractive of all was the view through the valleys and

over the neighboring hills as we sat at our picnic-tables on the

lawn. Having read with care every line of Jefferson's letters

ever published, and some writings of his which have never been

printed, my imagination was vivid. It enabled me to see him

walking through the rooms and over the estate, receiving

distinguished guests under the portico, discussing with them at

his dinner-table the great questions of the day, and promulgating

his theories, some of which were so beneficent and others so

noxious.

The only sad part of this visit was to note the destruction, by

the fire not long before, of the columns in front of the rotunda

of the university. I especially mourned over the calcined remains

of their capitals, for into these Jefferson had really wrought

his own heart. With a passion for the modern adaptation of

classic architecture, he had poured the very essence of his

artistic feelings into them. He longed to see every stroke which

his foreign sculptors made upon them. Daily, according to the

chronicle of the time, he rode over to see how they progressed,

and, between his visits, frequently observed them through his

telescope; and now all their work was but calcined limestone.

Fortunately, the burning of the old historical buildings aroused

public spirit; large sums of money were poured into the

university treasury; and the work was in process which, it is to

be hoped, will restore the former beauty of the colonnade and

largely increase the buildings and resources of the institution.

During my work upon the commission I learned to respect more and

more the calm, steady, imperturbable character of Mr. Cleveland.

Of course the sensational press howled continually, and the press

which was considered especially enlightened and which had

steadily supported him up to this period, was hardly less bitter;

but he persevered. During the period taken by the commission for

its work, both the American and British peoples had time for calm

thought. Lord Salisbury, especially, had time to think better of

it; and when he at last receded from his former haughty position

and accepted arbitration, Mr. Cleveland and the State Department

gained one of the most honorable victories in the history of

American diplomacy.

CHAPTER XL

AS AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY--1897-1903

On the 1st of April, 1897, President McKinley nominated me

ambassador to Berlin; and, the appointment having been duly

confirmed by the Senate, I visited Washington to obtain

instructions and make preparations. One of the most important of

these preparations was the securing of a second secretary for the

embassy. A long list of applicants for this position had

appeared, several with strong backing from party magnates,

cabinet officers, and senators; but, though all of them seemed

excellent young men, very few had as yet any experience likely to

be serviceable, and a look over the list suggested many

misgivings. There was especially needed just then at Berlin a

second secretary prepared to aid in disentangling sundry

important questions already before the embassy. The first

secretary, whom no person thought of displacing, was ideally

fitted for his place--in fact, was fitted for any post in the

diplomatic service; but a second secretary was needed to take, as

an expert, a mass of work on questions relating to commerce and

manufactures which were just then arising between the two nations

in shapes new and even threatening.

While the whole matter was under advisement, there appeared a

young man from Ohio, with no backing of any sort save his record.

He had distinguished himself at one of our universities as a

student in political economy and international law; had then

taken a fellowship in the same field at another university; and

had finally gone to Germany and there taken his degree, his

graduating thesis being on "The Commercial and Diplomatic

Relations between the United States and Germany." In preparing

this he had been allowed to work up a mass of material in our

embassy archives, and had afterward expanded his thesis into a

book which had gained him credit. As the most serious questions

between the two countries were commercial, he seemed a godsend;

and, going to the President, I stated the matter fully. Though

the young man was as far as possible from having any "pull" in

the State from which he came, was not at all known either to the

President or the Secretary of State or assistant secretary of

state, all of whom came from Ohio, and was equally unknown to

either of the Ohio senators or to any representative, and though

nothing whatever was known of his party affiliations, the

President, on hearing a statement of the case, ignored all

pressure in favor of rival candidates, sent in his nomination to

the Senate, and it was duly confirmed.

The next thing was the appointment of a military attache. The

position is by no means a sinecure. Our government must always

feel the importance of receiving the latest information as to the

armies and navies of the great powers of the world; and therefore

it is that, very wisely, it has attached military and naval

experts to various leading embassies. It is important that these

be not only thoroughly instructed and far-seeing, but gentlemen

in the truest sense of the word; and I therefore presented a

graduate of West Point who, having conducted an expedition in

Alaska and served with his regiment on the Western plains most

creditably, had done duty as military attache with me during my

mission at St. Petersburg, and had proved himself, in every

respect, admirable. Though he had no other supporter at the

national capital, the Secretary of War, Governor Alger, granted

my request, and he was appointed.

These matters, to many people apparently trivial, are here

alluded to because it is so often charged that political

considerations outweigh all others in such appointments, and

because this charge was frequently made against President

McKinley. The simple fact is that, with the multitude of

nominations to be made, the appointing power cannot have personal

knowledge of the applicants, and must ask the advice of persons

who have known them and can, to some extent, be held responsible

for them. In both the cases above referred to, political pressure

of the strongest in favor of other candidates went for nothing

against the ascertained interest of the public service.

The Secretary of State at this time was Mr. John Sherman. I had

known him somewhat during his career as senator and Secretary of

the Treasury, and had for his character, abilities, and services

the most profound respect. I now saw him often. He had become

somewhat infirm, but his mind seemed still clear; whether at the

State Department or in social circles his reminiscences of public

men and affairs were always interesting, and one of these

confirmed an opinion I have expressed in another chapter. One

night, at a dinner-party, the discussion having fallen upon

President Andrew Johnson, and some slighting remarks having been

made regarding him by one of our company, Mr. Sherman, who had

been one of President Johnson's strongest opponents, declared him

a man of patriotic motives as well as of great ability, and

insisted that the Republican party had made a great mistake in

attempting to impeach him. In the course of the conversation one

of the foremost members of the House of Representatives, a man of

the highest standing and character, stated that he had himself,

when a young man, aided Mr. Johnson as secretary, and that he was

convinced that the ex-President could write very little more than

his signature. We had all heard the old story that after he had

become of age his newly wedded wife had taught him the alphabet,

but it was known to very few that he remained to the last so

imperfectly equipped.

Of conversations with many other leading men of that period at

Washington I remember that, at the house of my friend Dr. Hill,

afterward assistant secretary of state, mention being made of the

Blaine campaign, an eminent justice of the Supreme Court said

that Mr. Blaine always insisted to the end of his life that he

had lost the Presidency on account of the Rev. Dr. Burchard's

famous alliteration, "Rum, Romanism, and rebellion," and that the

whole was really a Democratic trick. Neither the judge nor any

other person present believed that Mr. Blaine's opinion in this

matter was well founded.

An important part of my business during this visit was to confer

with the proper persons at Washington, including the German

ambassador, Baron von Thielmann, regarding sundry troublesome

questions between the United States and Germany. The addition to

the American tariff of a duty against the sugar imports from

every other country equivalent to the sugar bounty allowed

manufactures in that country had led to special difficulties. It

had been claimed by Germany that this additional duty was

contrary to the most-favored-nation clause in our treaties; and,

unfortunately, the decisions on our side had been conflicting,

Mr. Gresham, Secretary of State under Mr. Cleveland, having

allowed that the German contention was right, and his successor,

Mr. Olney, having presented an elaborate argument to show that it

was wrong. On this point, conversations, not only with the

Secretary of State and the German ambassador, but with leading

members of the committees of Congress having the tariff in

charge, and especially with Mr. Allison and Mr. Aldrich of the

Senate and Governor Dingley of the House, showed me that the case

was complicated, the various interests somewhat excited against

each other, and that my work in dealing with them was to be

trying.

There were also several other questions no less difficult, those

relating to the exportation of American products to Germany and

the troubles already brewing in Samoa being especially prominent;

so that it was with anything but an easy feeling that, on the

29th of May, I sailed from New York.

On the 12th of June I presented the President's letter of

credence to the Emperor William II. The more important of my new

relations to the sovereign had given me no misgivings; for during

my stay in Berlin as minister, eighteen years before, I had found

him very courteous, he being then the heir apparent; but with the

ceremonial part it was otherwise, and to that I looked forward

almost with dismay.

For, since my stay in Berlin, the legation had been raised to an

embassy. It had been justly thought by various patriotic members

of Congress that it was incompatible, either with the dignity or

the interests of so great a nation as ours, to be represented

simply by a minister plenipotentiary, who, when calling at the

Foreign Office to transact business, might be obliged to wait for

hours, and even until the next day, while representatives from

much less important countries who ranked as ambassadors went in

at once. The change was good, but in making it Congress took no

thought of some things which ought to have been provided for. Of

these I shall speak later; but as regards the presentation, the

trying feature to me was that there was a great difference

between this and any ceremonial which I had previously

experienced, whether as commissioner at Santo Domingo and Paris,

or as minister at Berlin and St. Petersburg. At the presentation

of a minister plenipotentiary he goes in his own carriage to the

palace at the time appointed; is ushered into the presence of the

sovereign; delivers to him, with some simple speech, the

autograph letter from the President; and then, after a kindly

answer, all is finished. But an ambassador does not escape so

easily. Under a fiction of international law he is regarded as

the direct representative of the sovereign power of his country,

and is treated in some sense as such. Therefore it was that, at

the time appointed, a high personage of the court, in full

uniform, appeared at my hotel accompanied by various other

functionaries, with three court carriages, attendants, and

outriders, deputed to conduct me to the palace. Having been

escorted to the first of the carriages,--myself, in plain

citizen's dress, on the back seat; my escort, in gorgeous

uniform, facing me; and my secretaries and attaches in the other

carriages,--we took up our march in solemn procession--carriages,

outriders, and all--through the Wilhelmstrasse and Unter den

Linden. On either side was a gaping crowd; at the various corps

de garde bodies of troops came out and presented arms; and on our

arrival at the palace there was a presentation of arms and

beating of drums which, for the moment, somewhat abashed me. It

was an ordeal more picturesque than agreeable.

The reception by the Emperor was simple, courteous, and kindly.

Neither of us made any set speech, but we discussed various

questions, making reference to our former meeting and the changes

which had occurred since. Among these changes I referred to the

great improvement in Berlin, whereupon he said that he could not

think the enormous growth of modern cities an advantage. My

answer was that my reference was to the happy change in the

architecture of Berlin rather than to its growth in population;

that, during my first stay in the city, over forty years before,

nearly all the main buildings were of brick and stucco, whereas

there had now been a remarkable change from stucco to stone and

to a much nobler style of architecture. We also discussed the

standing of Germans in America and their relations to the United

States. On my remarking that it was just eighteen years and one

day since the first Emperor William had received me as minister

in that same palace, he spoke of various things in the history of

the intervening years; and then ensued an episode such as I had

hardly expected. For just before leaving New York my old friend

Frederick William Holls, after a dinner at his house on the

Hudson, had given his guests examples of the music written by

Frederick the Great, and one piece had especially interested us.

It was a duet in which Mr. Holls played one part upon the organ,

and his wife another upon the piano; and all of us were greatly

impressed by the dignity and beauty of the whole. It had been

brought to light and published by the present Emperor, and after

the performance some one of the party remarked, in a jocose way,

"You should express our thanks to his Majesty, when you meet him,

for the pleasure which this music has given us." I thought

nothing more of the subject until, just at the close of the

conversation above referred to, it came into my mind; and on my

mentioning it the Emperor showed at once a special interest,

discussing the music from various points of view; and on my

telling him that we were all surprised that it was not

amateurish, but really profound in its harmonies and beautiful in

its melodies, he dwelt upon the musical debt of Frederick the

Great to Bach and the special influence of Bach upon him. This

conversation recurred to me later, when the Emperor, in erecting

the statue to Frederick the Great on the Avenue of Victory,

placed on one side of it the bust of Marshal Schwerin, and on the

other that of Johann Sebastian Bach, thus honoring the two men

whom he considered most important during Frederick's reign.

After presenting my embassy secretaries and attaches, military

and naval, I was conducted with them into the presence of the

Empress, who won all our hearts by her kindly, unaffected

greeting. On my recalling her entrance into Berlin as a bride, in

her great glass coach, seventeen years before, on one of the

coldest days I ever knew, she gave amusing details of her stately

progress down the Linden on that occasion; and in response to my

congratulations upon her six fine boys and her really charming

little daughter, it was pleasant to see how

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,"

her eyes lighting up with pride and joy, and her conversation

gladly turning to the children.

It may be added here that the present Empress seems to have

broken the unfortunate spell which for about half a century hung

over the queens and empresses of the house of Hohenzollern. I

remember well that, among the Germans whom I knew in my

Berlin-University days, all the sins of the period, political and

religious, seemed to be traced to the influence of Queen

Elizabeth, the consort of the reigning King Frederick William IV;

and that, during my first official stay in the same capital as

minister, a similar feeling was shown toward the Empress Augusta,

in spite of her most kindly qualities and her devotion to every

sort of charitable work; and that the crown princess, afterward

the Empress Frederick, in spite of all her endowments of head and

heart, was apparently more unpopular than either of her two

predecessors. But the present Empress seems to have changed all

this, and, doubtless, mainly by her devotion to her husband and

her children, which apparently excludes from her mind all care

for the great problems of the universe outside her family. So

strong is this feeling of kindness toward her that it was comical

to see, at one period during my stay, when she had been brought

perilously near a most unpopular course of action, that everybody

turned at once upon her agent in the matter, saying nothing about

her, but belaboring him unmercifully, though he was one of the

most attractive of men.

These presentations being finished, our return to the Kaiserhof

Hotel was made with the same ceremony as that with which we had

come to the palace, and happy was I when all was over.

Of the other official visits at this time, foremost in importance

was that to the chancellor of the empire, Prince Hohenlohe.

Although he was then nearly eighty years old and bent with age,

his mind in discussing public matters was entirely clear. Various

later conversations with him also come back to me--one,

especially, at a dinner he gave at the chancellor's palace to

President Harrison. On my recalling the fact that we were in the

room where I had first dined with Bismarck, Prince Hohenlohe gave

a series of reminiscences of his great predecessor, some of them

throwing a strong light upon his ideas and methods. On one

occasion, at my own table, he spoke very thoughtfully on German

characteristics, and one of his remarks surprised me: it was that

the besetting sin of the Germans is envy (Neid); in which remark

one may see a curious tribute to the tenacity of the race, since

Tacitus justified a similar opinion. He seemed rather melancholy;

but he had a way of saying pungent things very effectively, and

one of these attributed to him became widely known. He was

publicly advocating a hotly contested canal bill, when an

opponent said, "You will find a solid rock in the way of this

measure"; to which the chancellor rejoined, "We will then do with

the rock as Moses did: we will smite it and get water for our

canal."

As to the next visit of importance, I was especially glad to find

at the Foreign Office the newly appointed minister, Baron (now

Count) von Bulow. During the first part of my former stay, as

minister, I had done business at the Foreign Office with his

father, and found him in every respect a most congenial

representative of the German Government. It now appeared that

father and son were amazingly like each other, not only in

personal manner, but in their mode of dealing with public

affairs. With the multitude of trying questions which pressed

upon me as ambassador during nearly six years, it hardly seems

possible that I should be still alive were it not for the genial,

hearty intercourse, at the Foreign Office and elsewhere, with

Count von Bulow. Sundry German papers, indeed, attacked him as

yielding to much to me, and sundry American papers attacked me

for yielding too much to him; but both of us exerted ourselves to

do the best possible, each for his own country, and at the same

time to preserve peace and increase good feeling.

Interesting was it to me, from my first to my last days in

Berlin, to watch him in the discharge of his great duties,

especially in his dealings with hostile forces in Parliament. No

contrast could be more marked than that between his manner and

that of his great predecessor, the iron chancellor. To begin

with, no personalities could be more unlike. In the place of an

old man, big, rumbling, heavy, fiery, minatory, objurgatory,

there now stood a young man, quiet, self-possessed, easy in

speech, friendly in manner, "sweet reasonableness" apparently his

main characteristic, bubbling at times with humor, quick to turn

a laugh on a hostile bungler, but never cruel; prompt in

returning a serious thrust, but never venomous. Many of his

speeches were masterpieces in their way of handling opponents. An

attack which Bismarck would have met with a bludgeon, Bulow

parried with weapons infinitely lighter, but in some cases really

more effective. A very good example was on an occasion when the

old charge of "Byzantinism" was flung at the present regime, to

which he replied, not by a historical excursus or political

disquisition, but by humorously deprecating a comparison of the

good, kindly, steady-going, hard-working old privy councilors and

other state officials of Berlin with fanatics, conspirators, and

assassins who played leading parts at Constantinople during the

decline of the Eastern Empire. In the most stormy discussions I

never saw him other than serene; under real provocation he

remained kindly; more than one bitter opponent he disarmed with a

retort; but there were no poisoned wounds. The German Parliament,

left to itself, can hardly be a peaceful body. The lines of

cleavage between parties are many, and some of them are old

chasms of racial dislike and abysses of religious and social

hate; but the appearance of the young chancellor at his desk

seemed, even on the darkest days, to bring sunshine.

Occasionally, during my walks in the Thiergarten, I met him on

his way to Parliament; and, no matter how pressing public

business might be, he found time to extend his walk and prolong

our discussions. On one of these walks I alluded to a hot debate

of the day before and to his suavity under provocation, when he

answered: "Old ----, many years ago, gave me two counsels, and I

have always tried to mind them. These were: 'Never worry; never

lose your temper.'"

A pet phrase among his critics is that he is a diplomatist and

not a statesman. Like so many antitheses, this is misleading. It

may be just to say that his methods are, in general, those of a

diplomatist rather than of a statesman; but certain it is that in

various debates of my time he showed high statesmanlike

qualities, and notably at the beginning of the war with China and

in sundry later contests with the agrarians and socialists. Even

his much criticized remark during the imbroglio between Turkey

and Greece, picturing Germany as laying down her flute and

retiring from the "European Concert," which to many seemed mere

persiflage, was the humorous presentation of a policy dictated by

statesmanship. Nor were all his addresses merely light and

humorous; at times, when some deep sentiment had been stirred, he

was eloquent, rising to the height of great arguments and taking

broad views.

No one claims that he is a Richelieu, a William Pitt, or a

Cavour; but the work of such men is not what the German Empire

just now requires. The man needed at present is the one who can

keep things GOING, who can minimize differences, resist

extremists, turn aside marplots, soothe doctrinaires, and thus

give the good germs in the empire a chance to grow. For this work

it would be hard to imagine a better man than the present

chancellor. His selection and retention by the Emperor prove that

the present monarch has inherited two of the best qualities of

his illustrious grandfather: skill in recognizing the right man

and firmness in standing by him.

The next thing which an ambassador is expected to do, after

visiting the great representatives of the empire, is to become

acquainted with the official world in general.

But he must make acquaintance with these under his own roof. On

his arrival he is expected to visit the Emperor and the princes

of his family, the imperial chancellor, and the minister of

foreign affairs, but all others are expected to visit him; hence

the most pressing duty on my arrival was to secure a house, and,

during three months following, all the time that I could possibly

spare, and much that I ought not to have spared, was given to

excursions into all parts of the city to find it. No house, no

ambassador. A minister plenipotentiary can live during his first

year in a hotel or in a very modest apartment; an ambassador

cannot. He must have a spacious house fully furnished before he

can really begin his duties; for, as above stated, one of the

first of these duties is to make the acquaintance of the official

world,--the ministers of the crown, the diplomatic corps, the

members of the Imperial Parliament, the members of the Prussian

legislature, the foremost men in the army and navy, and the

leaders in public life generally,--and to this end he must give

three very large receptions, at which all those personages visit

him. This is a matter of which the court itself takes charge, so

far as inviting and presenting the guests is concerned, high

court officials being sent to stand by the side of the ambassador

and ambassadress and make the introductions to them; but, as

preliminary to all this, the first thing is to secure a residence

fit for such receptions and for entertainments in connection with

them.

Under the rules of European nations generally, these receptions

must be held at the ambassador's permanent residence; but,

unfortunately, such a thing as a large furnished apartment

suitable for a foreign representative is rarely to be found in

Berlin. In London and Paris such apartments are frequently

offered, but in Berlin hardly ever. Every other nation which

sends an ambassador to Berlin--and the same is true as regards

the other large capitals of Europe--owns a suitable house, or at

least holds a long lease of a commodious apartment; but, although

President Cleveland especially recommended provision for such

residence in one of his messages, nothing has yet been done by

the American Congress, and the consequence is that every

ambassador has to lose a great amount of valuable time, effort,

and money in securing proper quarters, while his country loses

much of its proper prestige and dignity by constant changes in

the location of its embassy, and by the fact that the American

representative is not infrequently obliged to take up his

residence in unfit apartments and in an unsuitable part of the

town.

After looking at dozens of houses, the choice was narrowed down

to two; but, as one was nearly three miles from the center of the

city, selection was made of the large apartment which I occupied

during nearly four years, and which was bought from under my feet

by one of the smallest governments in Europe as the residence for

its minister. Immediately after my lease was signed there began a

new series of troubles. Everything must be ready for the three

receptions by the eighth day of January; and, being at the mercy

of my landlord, I was at a great disadvantage. Though paying

large rent for the apartment, I was obliged, at my own expense,

to put it thoroughly in order, introducing electric light,

perfecting heating apparatus, getting walls and floors in order,

and doing a world of work which, under other circumstances, would

have been done by the proprietor himself. As to furnishing, a

peculiar difficulty arose. Berlin furnishers, as a rule, have

only samples in stock, and a long time is required for completing

sets. My former experience, when, as minister, I had been obliged

to go through a similar ordeal, had shown me that the Berlin

makers could never be relied upon to get the apartment furnished

in time; and therefore it was that, having secured what was

possible in Berlin, I was obliged to make large purchases at

Dresden, London, and Paris, and to have the furniture from the

last-named city hurried on to Berlin in special wadded cars, with

attendants to put it in place. It was a labor and care to which

no representative of the United States or of any other power

ought to be subjected. The vexations and difficulties seemed

unending; but at last carpenters, paper-hangers, electric-light

men, furniture men, carpet-layers, upholsterers, and the like

were driven from the house just five minutes before the

chancellor of the empire arrived to open the first of these three

official receptions. Happily they all went off well, and thereby

began my acquaintance with the leaders in various departments of

official life.

On my settling down to the business of the embassy, it appeared

that the changes in public sentiment since my former stay as

minister, eighteen years before, were great indeed. At that time

German feeling was decidedly friendly to the United States. The

Germans had sided with us in our Civil War, and we had come out

victorious; we had sided with them in their war of 1870-1871, and

they had come out victorious. But all this was now changed.

German feeling toward us had become generally adverse and, in

some parts of the empire, bitterly hostile. The main cause of

this was doubtless our protective policy. Our McKinley tariff,

which was considered almost ruinous to German manufactures, had

been succeeded by the Dingley tariff, which went still further;

and as Germany, in the last forty years, had developed an amazing

growth of manufactures, much bitterness resulted.

Besides this, our country was enabled, by its vast extent of

arable land, as well as by its cheap conveyance and skilful

handling of freights, to sweep into the German markets

agricultural products of various sorts, especially meats, and to

undersell the native German producers. This naturally vexed the

landed proprietors, so that we finally had against us two of the

great influential classes in the empire: the manufacturers and

the landowners.

But this was not all. These real difficulties were greatly

increased by fictitious causes of ill feeling. Sensational

articles, letters, telegrams, caricatures, and the like, sent

from America to Germany and from Germany to America, had become

more and more exasperating, until, at the time of my arrival,

there were in all Germany but two newspapers of real importance

friendly to the United States. These two journals courageously

stood up for fairness and justice, but all the others were more

or less hostile, and some bitterly so. The one which, on account

of its zeal in securing news, I read every morning was of the

worst. During the Spanish War it was especially virulent, being

full of statements and arguments to show that corruption was the

main characteristic of our government, cowardice of our army and

navy, and hypocrisy of our people. Very edifying were its

quasi-philosophical articles; and one of these, showing the

superiority of the Spanish women to their American sisters,

especially as regards education, was a work of genius. The love

of Spanish women for bull-fights was neatly glossed over, and

various absurd charges against American women were put in the

balance against it. A few sensational presses on our side were

perhaps worse. Various newspapers in America repaid Teutonic

hostility by copious insults directed at everything German, and

this aroused the Germans yet more. One journal, very influential

among the aristocratic and religious public of Northern Germany,

regularly published letters of considerable literary merit from

its American correspondent, in which every scandal which could be

raked out of the gutters of the cities, every crime in the

remotest villages, and all follies of individuals everywhere,

were kneaded together into statements showing that our country

was the lowest in the scale of human civilization. The tu-quoque

argument might have been used by an American with much effect;

for just about this period there were dragging along, in the

Berlin and other city journals, accounts of German trials for

fraud and worse, surpassing, in some respects, anything within my

memory of American tribunals. The quantity of fig-leaves required

in some of these trials was enormous; and, despite all

precautions, some details which escaped into the press might well

bring a blush to the most hardened American offender. It was both

vexatious and comical to see the smug, Pharisaical way in which

many journals ignored all these things, and held up their hands

in horror at American shortcomings. Some trials, too, which at

various times revealed the brutality of sundry military officers

toward soldiers, were heartrending; and especially one or two

duels, which occurred during my stay, presented features

calculated to shock the toughest American rough-rider. But all

this seemed not for a moment to withdraw the attention of our

Teutonic censors from American folly and wickedness. One of the

main charges constantly made was that in America there was a

"Deutschen Hetze." Very many German papers had really persuaded

themselves, and apparently had convinced a large part of the

German people, that throughout our country there existed a hate,

deep and acrid, of everything German and especially of

German-Americans. The ingenuity of some German papers in

supporting this thesis was wonderful. On one occasion a petty

squabble in a Roman Catholic theological school in the United

States between the more liberal element and a reactionary German

priest, in which the latter came to grief, was displayed as an

evidence that the American people were determined to drive out

all German professors and to abjure German science. The doings of

every scapegrace in an American university, of every silly woman

in Chicago, of every blackguard in New York, of every snob at

Newport, of every desperado in the Rocky Mountains, of every club

loafer anywhere, were served up as typical examples of American

life. The municipal governments of our country, and especially

that of New York, were an exhaustless quarry from which specimens

of every kind of scoundrelism were drawn and used in building up

an ideal structure of American life; corruption, lawlessness, and

barbarism being its most salient features.

Nor was this confined to the more ignorant. Men who stood high in

the universities, men of the greatest amiability, who in former

days had been the warmest friends of America, had now become our

bitter opponents, and some of their expressions seemed to point

to eventual war.

Yet I doubt whether we have any right to complain of such attacks

and misrepresentations. As a matter of fact, no nation washes so

much of its dirty linen in the face of the whole world as does

our own; and, what is worse, there is washed in our country, with

much noise and perversity, a great deal of linen which is not

dirty. Many demagogues and some "reformers" are always doing

this. There is in America a certain class of excellent people who

see nothing but the scum on the surface of the pot; nothing but

the worst things thrown to the surface in the ebullition of

American life. Or they may be compared to people who, with a

Persian carpet before them, persist in looking at its seamy side,

and finding nothing but odds and ends, imperfect joints,

unsatisfactory combinations of color; the real pattern entirely

escaping them. The shrill utterances of such men rise above the

low hum of steady good work, and are taken in Germany as exact

statements of the main facts in our national life.

Let me repeat here one example which I have given more than once

elsewhere. Several years since, an effort was made to impeach the

President of the United States. The current was strong, and most

party leaders thought it best to go with it. Three senators of

the United States sturdily refused, their leader being William

Pitt Fessenden of Maine, who, believing the impeachment an

attempt to introduce Spanish-American politics into our country,

resolutely opposed it. The State convention of his party called

upon him to vote for it, the national convention of the party

took the same ground, his relatives and friends besought him to

yield, but he stood firmly against the measure, and finally, by

his example and his vote, defeated it. It was an example of

Spartan fortitude, of Roman heroism, worthy to be chronicled by

Plutarch. How was it chronicled? I happened to be traveling in

Germany at the time, and naturally watched closely for the result

of the impeachment proceedings. One morning I took up a German

paper containing the news and read, "The impeachment has been

defeated; three senators were bribed," and at the head of the

list of bribed senators was the name of Fessenden! The time will

come when his statue will commemorate his great example; let us

hope that the time will also come when party spirit will not be

allowed to disgrace our country by sending out to the world such

monstrous calumnies.

As to attacks upon the United States, it is only fair to say that

German publicists and newspaper writers were under much

provocation. Some of the American correspondents then in Germany

showed wonderful skill in malignant invention. My predecessors in

the embassy had suffered much from this cause. One of them, whom

I had known from his young manhood as a gentleman of refined

tastes and quiet habits, utterly incapable of rudeness of any

sort, was accused, in a sensational letter published in various

American journals, of having become so noisy and boisterous at

court that the Emperor was obliged to rebuke him. Various hints

of a foul and scandalous character were sent over and published.

I escaped more easily, but there were two or three examples which

were both vexatious and amusing.

Shortly after my arrival at my post, letters and newspaper

articles began coming deploring the conduct of the Germans toward

me, expressing deep sympathy with me, exhorting me to "stand

firm," declaring that the American people were behind me, etc.,

etc., all of which puzzled me greatly until I found that some

correspondent had sent over a telegram to the effect that the

feeling against America had become so bitter that the Emperor

himself had been obliged to intervene and command the officials

of his empire to present themselves at my official reception; and

with this statement was coupled a declaration that I had made the

most earnest remonstrance to the Imperial Government against such

treatment. The simple fact was that the notice was in the

stereotyped form always used when an ambassador arrives. On every

such occasion the proper authorities notify all the persons

concerned, giving the time of his receptions, and this was simply

what was done in my case. On another occasion, telegrams were

sent over to American papers stating that the first secretary of

the embassy and myself, on visiting Parliament to hear an

important debate, had been grossly insulted by various members.

The fact was that we had been received by everybody with the

utmost kindness; that various members had saluted us in the most

friendly manner from the floor or had come into the diplomatic

gallery to welcome us; and that there was not the slightest

shadow of reason for the statement. As an example of the genius

shown in some of these telegrams, another may be mentioned. A

very charming American lady, niece of a member of Mr. McKinley's

cabinet, having arrived on the Norwegian coast, her children were

taken on board the yacht of the Emperor, who was then cruising in

those regions; and later, on their arrival at Berlin, they with

their father and mother were asked by him to the palace to meet

his own wife and children. A few days afterward a telegram was

published in America to the effect that the Emperor, in speaking

to Mrs. White and myself regarding the children, had said that he

was especially surprised, because he had always understood that

American children were badly brought up and had very bad manners.

The simple fact was that, while he spoke of the children with

praise, the rest of the story was merely a sensational invention.

One of the marvels of American life is the toleration by decent

fathers and mothers of sensational newspapers in their

households. Of all the demoralizing influences upon our people,

and especially upon our young people, they are the most steadily

and pervasively degrading. Horace Greeley once published a

tractate entitled, "New Themes for the Clergy," and I would

suggest the evil influence of sensation newsmongering as a most

fruitful theme for the exhortations of all American clergymen to

their flocks, whether Catholic, Jewish, or Protestant. May we not

hope, also, that Mr. Pulitzer's new College of Journalism will

give careful attention to this subject?

As to public questions then demanding attention, the first which

I now recall was a bit of international comedy, serving as a

prelude to more important matters, and worth mentioning here only

as showing a misconception very absurd, yet not without dangers.

One morning, as I had just sat down to my office work, there was

ushered in, with due ceremony, a young gentleman of light color,

Parisian to the tips of his fingers,--in accent, manner, and

garb,--who was announced as the charge d'affaires of Haiti. He

was evidently under deep concern, and was soon in the midst of a

somewhat impassioned statement of his business.

It appeared that his government, like so many which had preceded

it, after a joyous career of proclamations, revolutions,

throat-cutting, confiscation, paper money, and loans, public and

private, had at last met a check, and that in this instance the

check had come in the shape of a German frigate which had dropped

into the harbor of Port-au-Prince, run out its guns, and demanded

redress of injuries and payment of debts to Germany and German

subjects; and the charge, after dwelling upon the enormity of

such a demand, pointed out the duty of the United States to

oblige Germany to desist,--in short, to assert the Monroe

Doctrine as he understood it.

The young diplomatist's statement interested me much; it brought

back vividly to my mind the days when, as a commissioner from the

United States, I landed at Port-au-Prince, observed the wreck and

ruin caused by a recent revolution, experienced the beauties of a

paper-money system carried out so logically that a market-basket

full of currency was needed to buy a market-basket full of

vegetables, visited the tombs of the presidents from which the

bodies of their occupants had been torn and scattered, saw the

ring to which President Salnave had recently been tied when the

supporters of his successor had murdered him, and mused over the

ruins of the presidential mansion, which had been torn in pieces

by bombs from a patriotic vessel. My heart naturally warmed

toward the representative of so much glory, and it seemed sad to

quench his oratorical fire and fervor with a cold statement of

fact. But my duty was plain: I assured him that neither the

President whose name the famous "Doctrine" bears, nor the

Secretary of State who devised it, nor the American people behind

them, had any idea of protecting our sister republics in such

conduct as that of which the Germans complained; and I concluded

by fervently exhorting him to advise his government and people

simply to--pay their debts.

It gave me pleasure to learn, somewhat later, that this very

prosaic solution of the difficulty had been adopted.

I make haste to add that nothing which may be said here or

elsewhere in these recollections regarding sundry equatorial

governments has any reference to our sister republics of South

America really worthy of the name. No countries were in my time

more admirably represented at Berlin than the Argentine Republic,

Chile, and Brazil. The first-named sent as its minister the most

eminent living authority on international law; the second, a

gentleman deeply respected for character and ability, whose

household was one of the most beautiful and attractive I have

ever known; and the third, a statesman and scholar worthy of the

best traditions of his country.

As to more complicated international matters with which my

embassy had to deal, the first to assume a virulent form was that

of the Samoan Islands.

During the previous twenty-five years the United States, Germany,

and Great Britain had seemed to develop equal claims in Samoa.

There had been clashes from time to time, in which good sense had

generally prevailed; but in one case a cyclone which destroyed

the German and American vessels of war in the main port of the

islands seemed providential in preventing a worse form of

trouble.

But now the chronic difficulties became acute. In the consuls of

the three powers what Bismarck used to call the furor consularis

was developed to the highest degree. Yet this was not the worst.

Under the Berlin agreement, made some years before, there was a

German president of the municipality of Apia with ill-defined

powers, and an American chief justice with powers in some

respects enormous, and each of these naturally magnified his

office at the expense of the other. To complete the elements of

discord, there were two great native parties, each supporting its

candidate for kingship; and behind these, little spoken of, but

really at the bottom of the main trouble, were

missionaries,--English Wesleyans on one side, and French Roman

Catholics on the other,--each desiring to save the souls of the

natives, no matter at what sacrifice of their bodies.

This tea-pot soon began to boil violently. The old king having

died, the question arose as to the succession. The power of

appointing the successor having been in the most clear and

definite terms bestowed by the treaty upon the chief justice, he

named for the position Malietoa Tanu, a young chieftain who had

been induced to call himself a Protestant; but on the other side

was Mataafa, an old chief who years before had made much trouble,

had been especially obnoxious to the Germans, and had been

banished, but had been recently allowed to return on his taking

oath that he would abstain from all political action, and would

be true to his allegiance to the Malietoan kings. He had been

induced to call himself a Catholic.

But hardly had he returned when, having apparently been absolved

from his oath, he became the leader of a political party and

insisted on his right to the kingship.

The result was a petty civil war which cost many lives. Nor was

this all. A drunken Swiss having one day amused himself by

breaking the windows of the American chief justice's court and no

effective punishment having been administered by the German

president of Apia, the Yankee chief justice took the matter into

his own hands, and this Little Pedlington business set in motion

sensation-mongers throughout the world. They exerted themselves

to persuade the universe that war might, and indeed ought to,

result between the three great nations concerned. On the arrival

of the American Admiral Kautz, he simply and naturally supported

the decree which the chief justice had made, in strict accordance

with the treaty of Berlin, and was finally obliged to fire upon

the insurgents. Now came a newspaper carnival: screams of wrath

from the sensation press of Germany and yells of defiance from

the sensation press of the United States.

It was fortunate, indeed, that at this period the American

Secretary of State was Mr. John Hay and the German minister of

foreign affairs Count von Bulow. Both at Washington and Berlin

the light of plain common sense was gradually let into this

jungle of half truths and whole falsehoods; the appointment of an

excellent special commission, who supplanted all the officials in

the islands by new men, solved various preliminary problems, so

that finally a treaty was made between the three nations

concerned which swept away the old vicious system, partitioned

the islands between the United States and Germany, giving Great

Britain indemnity elsewhere, and settled all the questions

involved, as we may hope, forever.

Among my duties and pleasures during this period was attendance

upon important debates in the Imperial Parliament. That body

presents many features suggestive of thought. The arrangement

under which the Senate, representing the various states of the

empire, and the House, representing the people as a whole, sit

face to face in joint deliberation, strikes an American as

especially curious; but it seems to work well, and has one

advantage in bringing the most eminent servants of the various

states into direct personal relations with the rank and file from

the country at large. The German Parliament has various good

points. Some one has asserted that the United States Senate is as

much better than the British House of Lords as the British House

of Commons is better than the American House of Representatives.

There is much to be said for this contention, and there are some

points in which the German Parliament also struck me as an

improvement upon our Lower House: they do less than we in

committee, and more in the main assemblage; German members are

more attentive to the work in hand, and spread-eagleism and

speeches to the galleries which are tolerated at Washington are

not tolerated at Berlin. On the other hand, the members at

Berlin, not being paid for their services, absent themselves in

such numbers that the lack of a sufficient deliberating body has

been found, at times, a serious evil.

As to men prominent in debate, allusion has already been made to

the chancellor, and various ministers of the crown might be

added, of whom I should give the foremost place to the minister

of the interior, Count Posadowski. His discussions of all matters

touching his department, and, indeed, of some well outside it,

were masterly. Save, perhaps, our own Senator John Sherman, I

have never heard so USEFUL a speaker on fundamental questions of

public business. As to the representatives, there were many well

worth listening to; but the two who attracted most attention were

Richter, the head of the "Progressist," or, as we should call it,

the radical fraction, and Bebel, the main representative of the

Socialists. Richter I had heard more than once in my old days,

and had been impressed by his extensive knowledge of imperial

finance, his wit and humor, his skill in making his points, and

his strength in enforcing them. He was among the few still

remaining after my long absence, and it was clear to me that he

had not deteriorated,--that he had, indeed, mellowed in a way

which made him even more interesting than formerly. As to Bebel,

though generally disappointing at first, he was quite sure, in

every speech, to raise some point which put the conservatives on

their mettle. His strongest characteristic seems to be his

earnestness: the earnestness of a man who has himself known what

the hardest struggle for existence is, and what it means to

suffer for his opinions. His weakest point seems to be a tendency

to exaggeration which provokes distrust; but, despite this, he

has been a potent force as an irritant in drawing attention to

the needs of the working-classes, and so in promoting that steady

uplifting of their condition and prospects which is one of the

most striking achievements of modern Germany.

Among the many other members interesting on various accounts was

one to whom both Germans and Americans might well listen with

respect--Herr Theodor Barth, editor of "Die Nation," a

representative of the best traditions of the old National Liberal

party. He seemed to me one of the very few Germans who really

understood the United States. He had visited America more than

once, and had remained long enough to get in touch with various

leaders of American thought, and to penetrate below the mere

surface of public affairs. Devoted as he was to his own

fatherland, he seemed to feel intuitively the importance to both

countries of accentuating permanent points of agreement rather

than transient points of difference; hence it was that in his

paper he steadily did us justice, and in Parliament was sure to

repel any unmerited assault upon our national character and

policy. He was clear and forcible, with, at times, a most

effectively caustic utterance against unreason.

While the whole parliamentary body is suggestive to an American,

the Parliament building is especially suggestive to a New-Yorker.

This great edifice at Berlin is considerably larger on the ground

than is the State Capitol at Albany. It is built of a very

beautiful and durable stone, and, in spite of sundry criticisms

on the dome in the center and the pavilions at the corners, is

vastly superior, as a whole, to the Albany building. It is

enriched in all parts, without and within, with sculpture

recalling the historical glories of all parts of the empire and

calculated to stir patriotic pride; it is beautified by paintings

on a great scale by eminent artists; its interior fittings, in

stone, marble, steel, bronze, and oak, are as beautiful and

perfect as the art of the period has been able to make them; and

the whole, despite minor architectural faults, is worthy of the

nation. The building was completed and in use within ten years

from the time of its beginning. The construction of the

State-house at Albany, a building not so large, and containing

to-day no work of art either in painting or sculpture worthy of

notice, has dragged along during thirty years, and cost nearly

four times as much as the Berlin edifice; the latter having

demanded an outlay of a trifle over five million dollars, and the

former considerably over twenty millions.

The German Parliament House, apart from slight defects, as a

great architectural creation is in a style worthy of its

purpose--a style which is preserved in all its parts; while that

at Albany is, perhaps, the most curious jumble in the whole

history of architecture,--the lower stories being Palladian; the

stories above these being, if anything, Florentine; the summit

being, if anything, French Renaissance; while, as regards the

interior, the great west staircase, which is said to have cost

half a million of dollars, is in the Richardsonesque style; the

eastern staircase is in classic style; and a circular staircase

in the interior is in the most flamboyant Gothic which could be

got for money. To be sure, there are rooms at Albany on which

precious Siena marble and Mexican onyx are lavished, but these

are used so as to produce mainly the effect of an unintelligent

desire to spend money.

While in or near the Berlin edifice there is commemoration by

sculpture or painting of a multitude of meritorious public

servants, there is nowhere in the whole building at Albany a

statue or any fit remembrance of the two greatest governors in

the history of the State, DeWitt Clinton and William H. Seward.

The whole thing plunges one into reflection. If that single

building at Albany, which was estimated, upon plans carefully

made by the best of architects, to cost five millions of dollars,

and to be completed in four years, required over thirty years and

an expenditure of over twenty millions, what is a great "barge

canal" to cost, running through the whole length of the State,

encountering enormous difficulties of every sort, estimated at

the beginning to cost one hundred millions of dollars, but

including no estimate for "land damages," "water damages,"

"personal damages," "unprecedented floods," "unforeseen

obstacles," "quicksands," "changes of plan," etc., etc., which

have played such a costly and corrupting part in the past history

of our existing New York canals? And how many years will it take

to complete it? This was the train of thought and this was its

resultant query forced upon me whenever I looked upon the

Parliament House at Berlin.

CHAPTER XLI

AMERICA, GERMANY, AND THE SPANISH WAR--1897-1903

During the early days of this second official stay of mine at

Berlin, Russia had, in one way and another, secured an entrance

into China for her trans-Siberian railway, and seemed to have

taken permanent possession of the vast region extending from her

own territory to the Pacific at Port Arthur. Germany followed

this example, and, in avenging the murder of certain

missionaries, took possession of the harbor of Kiao-Chau. Thereby

other nations were stirred to do likewise,--England, France, and

Italy beginning to move for extensions of territory or commercial

advantages, until it looked much as if China was to be parceled

out among the greater European powers, or at least held in

commercial subjection, to the exclusion of those nations which

had pursued a more dilatory policy.

Seeing this danger, our government instructed its representatives

at the courts of the great powers to request them to join in a

declaration in favor of an "open-door policy" in China, thus

establishing virtually an international agreement that none of

the powers obtaining concessions or controlling "spheres of

influence" in that country should secure privileges infringing

upon the equality of all nations in competing for Chinese trade.

This policy was pushed with vigor by the Washington cabinet, and

I was instructed to secure, if possible, the assent of the German

Government, which, after various conferences at the Foreign

Office and communications with the minister of foreign affairs,

some more, some less, satisfactory, I was at last able to do. The

assent was given very guardedly, but not the less effectively.

Its terms were that Germany, having been from the first in favor

of equal rights to all nations in the trade of China, would

gladly acquiesce in the proposed declaration if the other powers

concerned would do so.

The Emperor William himself was even more open and direct than

his minister. At his dinner to the ambassadors in the spring of

1900, he spoke to me very fully on the subject, and, in a

conversation which I have referred to elsewhere, assured me of

his complete and hearty concurrence in the American policy,

declaring, "We must stand together for the open door."

Finally, on the 9th of April, 1900, I had the satisfaction of

sending to the German Foreign Office the proofs that all the

other powers concerned, including Japan, had joined in the

American declaration, and that the government of the United

States considered this acquiescence to be full and final.

It was really a great service rendered to the world by Mr.

McKinley and Secretary Hay; their action was far-seeing, prompt,

bold, and successful.

Yet another subject of contention was the exclusion of sundry

American insurance companies from Germany, due in part to a

policy of "protection," but also to that same distrust of certain

American business methods which had given me much trouble in

dealing with the same question at St. Petersburg. The discussions

were long and tedious, but resulted in a sort of modus vivendi

likely to lead to something better.

The American sugar duties were also a sore subject. Various

writers in the German press and orators in public bodies

continued to insist that America had violated the treaties;

America insisted that she had not; and this trouble, becoming

chronic, aggravated all others. The main efforts of Count von

Bulow and myself were given to allaying inflammation by doses of

common sense and poultices of good-will until common sense could

assert its rights.

The everlasting meat question also went through various vexatious

phases, giving rise to bitter articles in the newspapers,

inflammatory speeches in Parliament, and measures in various

parts of the empire which, while sometimes honest, were always

injurious. American products which had been inspected in the

United States and Hamburg were again broken into, inspected, and

reinspected in various towns to which they were taken for retail,

with the result that the packages were damaged or spoiled, and

the costs of inspection and reinspection ate up all profits. I

once used an illustration of this at the Foreign Office that

seemed to produce some effect. It was the story of the Yankee

showman who, having been very successful in our Northern and

Middle States, took his show to the South, but when he returned

had evidently been stripped of his money. Being asked regarding

it, he said that his show had paid him well at first, but that on

arriving in Texas the authorities of each little village insisted

on holding an inquest over his Egyptian mummy, charging him

coroner's fees for it, and that this had made him a bankrupt.

Speeches, bitter and long, were made on both sides of the

Atlantic; the cable brought reports of drastic reprisals

preparing in Washington; but finally a system was adopted to

which the trade between the two countries has since been uneasily

trying to adjust itself.

Then there was sprung upon us the fruit question. One morning

came a storm of telegrams and letters stating that cargoes of

American fruits had been stopped in the German harbors, under the

charge that they contained injurious insects. The German

authorities were of course honest in this procedure, though they

were doubtless stimulated to it by sundry representatives of the

land-owning class. Our beautiful fruits, especially those of

California, had come to be very extensively used throughout the

empire, and the German consumers had been growing more and more

happy and the German producers more and more unhappy over this

fact, when suddenly there came from the American side accounts of

the scale-insects discovered on pears in California, and of

severe measures taken by sundry other States of our Union to

prohibit their importation. The result was a prohibition of our

fruits in Germany, and this was carried so far that not only

pears from California, but all other fruits, from all other parts

of the country, were at first put under the ban; and not only

fresh but dried and preserved fruits. As a matter of fact, there

was no danger whatever from the scale-insect, so far as fruit was

concerned. The creature never stirs from the spot on the pear to

which it fastens itself, and therefore by no possibility can it

be carried from the house where the fruit is consumed to the

nurseries where trees are grown. We took pains to show the facts

in the case; dealing fairly and openly with the German

Government, allowing that the importation of scale-infested trees

and shrubs might be dangerous, and making no objection to any

fair measures regarding these. The Foreign Office was reasonable,

and gradually the most vexatious of these prohibitions were

removed.

But the war with Spain drew on, and animosities, so far as the

press on both sides of the water was concerned, grew worse.

Various newspapers in Germany charged our government with a

wonderful assortment of high crimes and misdemeanors; but,

happily, in their eagerness to cover us with obloquy, they

frequently refuted each other. Thus they one day charged us with

having prepared long beforehand to crush Spain and to rob her of

her West Indian possessions, and the next day they charged us

with plunging into war suddenly, recklessly, utterly careless of

the consequences. One moment they insisted that American sailors

belonged to a deteriorated race of mongrels, and could never

stand against pure-blooded Spanish sailors; and the next moment,

that we were crushing the noble navy of Spain by brute force.

Various presses indulged in malignant prophecies: the Americans

would find Spain a very hard nut to crack; Spanish soldiers would

drive the American mongrels into the sea; when Cervera got out

with his fleet, the American fleet would slink away; Spanish

ships, being built under the safeguard of Spanish honor, must win

the victory; American ships, built under a regime of corruption,

would be found furnished with sham plating, sham guns, and sham

supplies of every sort. It all reminded me of sundry prophecies

we used to hear before our Civil War to the effect that, when the

Northern and Southern armies came into the presence of each

other, the Yankee soldiers would trade off their muskets to the

foe.

Against President McKinley every sort of iniquity was charged.

One day he was an idiot; another day, the most cunning of

intriguers; at one moment, an overbearing tyrant anxious to rush

into war; at another, a coward fearing war. It must be confessed

that this was mainly drawn from the American partizan press; but

it was, none the less, hard to bear.

In the meantime President McKinley, his cabinet, and the American

diplomatic corps in Europe did everything in their power to

prevent the war. Just as long as possible the President clearly

considered that his main claim on posterity would be for

maintaining peace against pressure and clamor. Under orders from

the State Department I met at Paris my old friend General

Woodford, who was on his way to Spain as minister of the United

States, and General Porter, the American ambassador to France,

our instructions being to confer regarding the best means of

maintaining peace; and we all agreed that everything possible be

done to allay the excitement in Spain; that no claims of a

special sort, whether pecuniary or otherwise, should be urged

until after the tension ceased; that every concession possible

should be made to Spanish pride; and that, just as far as

possible, everything should be avoided which could complicate the

general issue with personal considerations. All of us knew that

the greatest wish of the administration was to prevent the war,

or, if that proved impossible, to delay it.

For years, in common with the great majority of American

citizens, I had believed that the Spanish West Indies must break

loose from Spain some day, but had hoped that the question might

be adjourned until the middle or end of the twentieth century.

For I knew well that the separation of Cuba from Spain would be

followed, after no great length of time, by efforts for her

annexation to the United States, and that if such annexation of

Cuba should ever occur, she must come in as a State; that there

is no use in considering any other form of government for an

outlying dominion so large and so near; that there is no other

way of annexing a dependency so fully developed, and that, even

if there were, the rivalry of political parties contending for

electoral votes would be sure to insist on giving her statehood.

I dreaded the addition to our country of a million and a half of

citizens whose ability to govern themselves was exceedingly

doubtful, to say nothing of helping to govern our Union on the

mainland. The thought of senators and representatives to be

chosen by such a constituency to reside at Washington and to

legislate for the whole country, filled me with dismay.

Especially was the admission of Cuba to statehood a fearful

prospect just at that time, when we had so many difficult

questions to meet in the exercise of the suffrage. I never could

understand then, and cannot understand now, what Senator Morgan

of Alabama, who once had the reputation of being the strongest

representative from the South, could be thinking of when he was

declaiming in the Senate, first in behalf of the "oppressed

Cubans," and next in favor of measures which tended to add them

to the United States, and so to create a vast commonwealth

largely made up of negroes and mulattos accustomed to equality

with the whites, almost within musket-shot of the negroes and

mulattos of the South, from whom the constituents of Mr. Morgan

were at that very moment withholding the right of suffrage. I

could not see then, and I cannot see now, how he could possibly

be blind to the fact that if Cuba ever becomes a State of our

Union, she will soon begin to look with sympathy on those whom

she will consider her "oppressed colored brethren" in the South;

and that she will, just as inevitably, make common cause with

them at Washington, and perhaps in some other places, and

possibly not always by means so peaceful as orating under the

roof of the Capitol.

Moreover, the nation had just escaped a terrible catastrophe at

the last general election; the ignorant, careless, and perverse

vote having gone almost solidly for a financial policy which

would have wrecked us temporarily and disgraced us eternally.

Time will, no doubt, develop a more conservative sentiment in the

States where this vote for evil was cast; as civilization deepens

and advances, better ideas will doubtless grow stronger; but it

is sure that the addition of Cuba to the United States, if it

ever comes, means the adding of a vast illiterate mass of voters

to those who at that election showed themselves so dangerous.

On all these accounts I had felt very anxious to put off the

whole Cuban question until our Republic should become so much

larger and so much more mature that the addition of a few

millions of Spanish-Americans would be of but small account in

the total vote of the country.

Then, too, I had little sympathy with aspirations for what

Spanish revolutionists call freedom, and no admiration at all for

Central American republics. I had officially examined one of them

thoroughly, had known much of others, and had no belief in the

capacity of people for citizenship who prefer to carry on

government by pronunciamientos, who never acknowledge the rights

of majorities, who are ready to start civil war on the slightest

pretext, and who, when in power, exercise a despotism more

persistent and cruel than any since Nero and Caligula. No Russian

autocrat, claiming to govern by divine right, has ever dared to

commit the high-handed cruelties which are common in sundry West

Indian and equatorial republics. I felt that the great thing was

to gain time before doing anything which might result in the

admission of the millions trained under such influences into all

the rights, privileges, and powers of American citizenship.

But there came the destruction of the Maine in the harbor of

Havana, and thenceforward war was certain. The news was brought

to me at a gala representation of the opera at Berlin, when, on

invitation from the Emperor, the ambassadors were occupying a

large box opposite his own. Hardly had the telegram announcing

the catastrophe been placed in my hands when the Emperor entered,

and on his addressing me I informed him of it. He was evidently

shocked, and expressed a regret which, I fully believe, was

deeply sincere. He instantly asked, with a piercing look, "Was

the explosion from the outside?" My answer was that I hoped and

believed that it was not; that it was probably an interior

explosion. To my great regret, the official report afterward

obliged me to change my mind on the subject; but I still feel

that no Spanish officer or true Spaniard was concerned in the

matter. It has been my good fortune to know many Spanish

officers, and it is impossible for me to conceive one of their

kind as having taken part in so frightful a piece of treachery;

it has always seemed to be more likely that it was done by a

party of wild local fanatics, the refuse of a West Indian

seaport.

The Emperor remained firm in his first impression that the

explosion was caused from the outside. Even before this was

established by the official investigation, he had settled into

that conclusion. On one occasion, when a large number of leading

officers of the North Sea Squadron were dining with him, he asked

their opinion on this subject, and although the great

majority--indeed, almost all present--then believed that the

catastrophe had resulted from an interior explosion, he adhered

to his belief that it was from an exterior attack.

On various occasions before that time I had met my colleague the

Spanish ambassador, Senor Mendez y Vigo, and my relations with

him had been exceedingly pleasant. Each of us had tried to keep

up the hopes of the other that peace might be preserved, and down

to the last moment I took great pains to convince him of what I

knew to be the truth--that the policy of President McKinley was

to prevent war. But I took no less pains to show him that Spain

must aid the President by concessions to public opinion. My

personal sympathies, too, were aroused in behalf of my colleague.

He had passed the allotted threescore years and ten, was

evidently in infirm health, had five sons in the Spanish army,

and his son-in-law had recently been appointed minister at

Washington.

Notice of the declaration of war came to me under circumstances

somewhat embarrassing. On the 21st of April, 1898, began the

festivities at Dresden on the seventieth birthday of King Albert

of Saxony, which was also the twenty-fifth anniversary of his

accession; and in view of the high character of the King and of

the affection for him throughout Germany, and, indeed, throughout

Europe, nearly every civilized power had sent its representatives

to present its congratulations. In these the United States

joined. Throughout our country are large numbers of Saxons, who,

while thoroughly loyal to our Republic, cherish a kindly and even

affectionate feeling toward their former King and Queen.

Moreover, there was a special reason. For many years Dresden had

been a center in which very many American families congregated

for the purpose of educating their children, especially in the

German language and literature, in music, and in the fine arts;

no court in Europe had been so courteous to Americans properly

introduced, and in various ways the sovereigns had personally

shown their good feeling toward our countrymen.

It was in view of this that the Secretary of State instructed me

to present an autograph letter of congratulation from the

President to the King, and on the 20th of April I proceeded to

Dresden, with the embassy secretaries and attaches, for this

purpose. About midnight between the 20th and 21st there came a

loud and persistent knocking at my door in the hotel, and there

soon entered a telegraph messenger with an enormously long

despatch in cipher. Hardly had I set the secretaries at work upon

it than other telegrams began to come, and a large part of the

night was given to deciphering them. They announced the

declaration of war and instructed me to convey to the various

parties interested the usual notices regarding war measures:

blockade, prohibitions, exemptions, regulations, and the like.

At eleven o'clock the next morning, court carriages having taken

us over to the palace, we were going up the grand staircase in

full force when who should appear at the top, on his way down,

but the Spanish ambassador with his suite! Both of us were, of

course, embarrassed. No doubt he felt, as I did, that it would

have been more agreeable just then to meet the representative of

any other power than of that with which war had just been

declared; but I put out my hand and addressed him, if not so

cordially as usual, at least in a kindly way; he reciprocated the

greeting, and our embarrassment was at least lessened. Of course,

during the continuation of the war, our relations lacked their

former cordiality, but we remained personally friendly.

In my brief speech on delivering President McKinley's letter I

tendered to the King and Queen the President's congratulations,

with thanks for the courtesies which had been shown to my

countrymen. This was not the first occasion on which I had

discharged this latter duty, for, at a formal presentation to

these sovereigns some time before, I had taken pains to show that

we were not unmindful of their kindness to our compatriots. The

festivities which followed were interesting. There were dinners

with high state officials, gala opera, and historical

representations, given by the city of Dresden, of a very

beautiful character. On these occasions I met various eminent

personages, among others the Emperor of Austria and his prime

minister, Count Goluchowsky, both of whom discussed current

international topics with clearness and force; and I also had

rather an interesting conversation with the papal nuncio at

Munich, more recently in Paris, Lorenzelli, with reference to

various measures looking to the possible abridgment of the war.

On the third day of the festivities came a great review, and a

sight somewhat rare. To greet the King there were present the

Emperor of Germany, the Emperor of Austria, and various minor

German sovereigns, each of whom had in the Saxon army a regiment

nominally his own, and led it past the Saxon monarch, saluting

him as he reviewed it. The two Emperors certainly discharged this

duty in a very handsome, chivalric sort of way. In the evening

came a great dinner at the palace, at which the King and Queen

presided. The only speech on the occasion was one of

congratulation made by the Emperor of Austria, and it was very

creditable to him, being to all appearance extemporaneous, yet

well worded, quiet, dignified, and manly. The ceremonies closed

on Sunday with a grand "Te Deum" at the palace church, in the

presence of all the majesties,--the joy expressed by the music

being duly accentuated by cannon outside.

I may say, before closing this subject, that Thomas Jefferson's

famous letter to Governor Langdon, describing royal personages as

he knew them while minister to France before the French

Revolution, no longer applies. The events which followed the

Revolution taught the crowned heads of Europe that they could no

longer indulge in the good old Bourbon, Hapsburg, and Braganza

idleness and stupidity. Modern European sovereigns, almost

without exception, work for their living, and work hard. Few

business men go through a more severe training, or a longer and

harder day of steady work, than do most of the contemporary

sovereigns of Europe. This fact especially struck me on my

presentation, about this time, to one of the best of the minor

monarchs, the King of Wurtemberg. I found him a hearty, strong,

active-minded man--the sort of man whom we in America would call

"level-headed" and "a worker." Learning that I had once passed a

winter in Stuttgart, he detained me long with a most interesting

account of the improvements which had been made in the city since

my visit, and showed public spirit of a sort very different from

that which animated the minor potentates of Germany in the last

century. The same may be said of the Grand Duke of Baden, who, in

a long conversation, impressed me as a gentleman of large and

just views, understanding the problems of his time and thoroughly

in sympathy with the best men and movements.

Republican as I am, this acknowledgment must be made. The

historical lessons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

and the pressure of democracy, are obliging the monarchs of

Europe to fit themselves for their duties wisely and to discharge

them intelligently. But this is true only of certain ruling

houses. There seems to be a "survival of the fittest." At various

periods in my life I have also had occasion to observe with some

care various pretenders to European thrones, among them the

husband of Queen Isabella of Spain; Prince Napoleon Victor, the

heir to the Napoleonic throne; the Duke of Orleans; Don Carlos,

the representative of the Spanish Bourbons; with sundry others;

and it would be hard to conceive persons more utterly unfit or

futile.

As to the conduct of Germany during our war with Spain, while the

press, with two or three exceptions, was anything but friendly,

and while a large majority of the people were hostile to us on

account of the natural sympathy with a small power battling

against a larger one, the course of the Imperial Government,

especially of the Foreign Office under Count von Bulow and Baron

von Richthofen, was all that could be desired. Indeed, they went

so far on one occasion as almost to alarm us. The American consul

at Hamburg having notified me by telephone that a Spanish vessel,

supposed to be loaded with arms for use against us in Cuba, was

about to leave that port, I hastened to the Foreign Office and

urged that vigorous steps be taken, with the result that the

vessel, which in the meantime had left Hamburg, was overhauled

and searched at the mouth of the Elbe. The German Government

might easily have pleaded, in answer to my request, that the

American Government had generally shown itself opposed to any

such interference with the shipments of small arms to

belligerents, and had contended that it was not obliged to search

vessels to find such contraband of war, but that this duty was

incumbent upon the belligerent nation concerned. This evidence of

the fairness of Germany I took pains to make known, and in my

address at the American celebration in Leipsic on the Fourth of

July declared my belief that the hostility of the German people

and press at large was only temporary, and that the old good

relations would be restored. Knowing that my speech would be

widely quoted in the German press, I took even more pains to show

the reasons why we could bide our time and trust to the

magnanimity of the German people. Of one thing I then and always

reminded my hearers--namely, that during our Civil War, when our

national existence was trembling in the balance and our foreign

friends were few, the German press and people were steadily on

our side.

The occasion was indeed a peculiar one. On the morning of the

Fourth, when we had all assembled, bad news came. Certain German

presses had been very prompt to patch together all sorts of

accounts of American defeats, and to present them in the most

unpleasant way possible; but while we were seated at table in the

evening came a despatch announcing the annihilation of the

Spanish fleet in Cuban waters, and this put us all in good humor.

One circumstance may serve to show the bitterness at heart among

Americans at this period. On entering the dining-hall with our

consul, I noticed two things: first, that the hall was profusely

decorated in a way I had never seen before and had never expected

to see--namely, by intertwined American and British flags; and,

secondly, that there was not a German flag in the room. I

immediately sent for the proprietor and told him that I would not

sit down to dinner until a German flag was brought in. He at

first thought it impossible to supply the want, but, on my

insisting, a large flag was at last found. This was speedily

given a place of honor among the interior decorations of our

hall, and all then went on satisfactorily.

As the war with Spain progressed, various causes of difficulty

arose between Germany and the United States, but I feel bound to

say that the German Government continued to act toward us with

justice. The sensational press, indeed, continued its work on

both sides of the Atlantic. On our side it took pains to secure

and publish stories of insults by the German Admiral Diederichs

to the American Admiral Dewey, and to develop various legends

regarding these two commanders. As a matter of fact, each of the

two admirals, when their relations first began in Manila, was

doubtless rather stiff and on his guard against the other; but

these feelings soon yielded to different sentiments.

The foolish utterances of various individuals, spread by sundry

American papers, were heartily echoed in the German press, the

most noted among these being an alleged after-dinner speech by an

American officer at a New York club, and a Congressional speech

in which the person who made it declared that "the United States,

having whipped Spain, ought now to whip Germany." Still, the

thinking men intrusted with the relations between the two

countries labored on, though at times there must have recurred to

us a sense of the divine inspiration of Schiller's words,

"Against stupidity even the gods fight in vain."

Of course the task of the embassy in protecting American citizens

abroad was especially increased in those times of commotion. At

such periods the number of ways in which American citizens,

native or naturalized, can get into trouble seems infinite; and

here, too, even from the first moment of my arrival in Berlin as

ambassador, I saw evidences of the same evil which had struck me

during my previous missions in Berlin and St. Petersburg--namely,

the constant and ingenious efforts to prostitute American

citizenship. Among the manifold duties of an ambassador is the

granting of passports. The great majority of those who ask for

them are entitled to them; but there are always a considerable

number of persons who, having left Europe just in time to escape

military service, have stayed in America just long enough to

acquire American citizenship, and then, having returned to their

native country, seek to enjoy the advantages of both countries

while discharging the duties of neither. Even worse were the

cases of the descendants of such so-called Americans, most of

them born in Europe and not able even to speak the English

language; worst of all were the cases of sundry

Russians--sometimes stigmatized as "predatory Hebrews"--who,

having left Russia and gone to America, had stayed just long

enough to acquire citizenship, and then returned and settled in

the eastern part of Germany, as near the Russian frontier as

possible. These were naturally regarded as fraudulent interlopers

by both the German and Russian authorities, and much trouble

resulted. Some of them led a life hardly outside the limits of

criminality; but they never hesitated on this account to insist

on their claims to American protection. When they were reminded

that American citizenship was conferred upon them, not that they

might shirk its duties and misuse its advantages in the land of

their birth, but that they might enjoy it and discharge its

duties in the land of their adoption, they scouted the idea and

insisted on their right, as American citizens, to live where they

pleased. Their communications to the embassy were, almost without

exception, in German, Russian, or Polish; very few of them wrote

or even spoke English, and very many of them could neither read

nor write in any language. For the hard-working immigrant,

whether Jew or Gentile, who comes to our country and casts in his

lot with us, to take his share not only of privilege but of duty,

I have the fullest respect and sympathy, and have always been

glad to intervene in his favor; but intervention in behalf of

those fraudulent pretenders I always felt to be a galling burden.

Fortunately the rules of the State Department have been of late

years strengthened to meet this evil, and it has finally become

our practice to inform such people that if they return to America

they can receive a passport for that purpose; but that unless

they show a clear intention of returning, they cannot. Very many

of them persist in their applications in spite of this, and one

case became famous both at the State Department and at the

embassy. Three Russians of the class referred to had emigrated

with their families to America, and, after the usual manner,

stayed just long enough to acquire citizenship, and had then

returned to Germany. One of them committed a crime and

disappeared; the other two went to the extreme eastern frontier

of Prussia and settled there. Again and again the Prussian

Government notified us that under the right exercised by every

nation, and especially by our own, these "undesirable intruders"

must leave Prussian territory or be expelled. Finally we

discovered at the embassy that a secret arrangement had been made

between Germany and Russia which obliged each to return the

undesirable emigrants of the other. This seemed to put the two

families in great danger of being returned to Russia; and, sooner

than risk a new international trouble, a proposal was made to

them, through the embassy, to pay their expenses back to America;

but they utterly refused to leave, and continued to burrow in the

wretched suburbs of one of the German cities nearest the Russian

border. Reams of correspondence ensued--all to no purpose; a

special messenger was sent to influence them--all in vain: they

persisted in living just as near Russia as possible, and in

calling themselves American, though not one of them spoke

English.

From time to time appeared in our own country attacks against the

various American embassies and legations abroad for not

protecting such American citizens, and a very common feature of

these articles was an unfavorable comparison between the United

States and England: it being claimed that Great Britain protects

her citizens everywhere, while the United States does not. This

statement is most misleading. Great Britain, while she is

renowned for protecting her subjects throughout the world,

--bringing the resources of her fleet, if need be, to aid

them,--makes an exception as regards her adopted citizens in the

land of their birth. The person who, having been naturalized in

Great Britain, goes back to the country of his birth, does so at

his or her own risk. The British Government considers itself,

under such circumstances, entirely absolved from the duty of

giving protection. The simple fact is that the United States goes

much further in protecting adopted citizens than does any other

country, and it is only rank demagogism which can find fault

because some of our thinking statesmen do not wish to see

American citizenship prostituted by persons utterly unfit to

receive it, who frequently use it fraudulently, and who, as many

cases prove, are quite ready to renounce it and take up their old

allegiance if they can gain advantage thereby.

Another general duty of the embassy was to smooth the way for the

large number of young men and women who came over as students.

This duty was especially pleasing to me now, as it had been

during my life as minister in Berlin twenty years before. At that

time women were not admitted to the universities; but now large

numbers were in attendance. The university authorities showed

themselves very courteous, and, when there was any doubt as to

the standing of the institution from which a candidate for

admission came, allowed me to pass upon the question and accepted

my certificate. Almost without exception, I found these

candidates excellent; but there were some exceptions. The

applicants were usually persons who had been graduated from some

one of our own institutions; but, from time to time, persons who

had merely passed a freshman year in some little American college

came abroad, anxious to secure the glory of going at once into a

German university. Certificates for such candidates I declined to

sign. To do so would have been an abuse sure to lead the German

authorities finally to reject the great mass of American

students: far better for applicants to secure the best advantages

possible in their own country, and then to supplement their study

at home by proper work abroad.

In sketches of my former mission to Berlin I have mentioned

various applications, some of them psychological curiosities;

these I found continuing, though with variations. Some

compatriots expected me to forward to the Emperor begging

letters, or letters suggesting to him new ideas, unaware that

myriads of such letters are constantly sent which never reach

him, and which even his secretaries never think of reading.

Others sent books, not knowing the rule prevailing among crowned

heads, never to accept a PUBLISHED book, and not realizing that

if this rule were broken, not one book in a thousand would get

beyond the office of his general secretary. Others sent medicine

which they wished him to recommend; and one gentleman was very

persistent in endeavoring to secure his Majesty's decision on a

wager.

Then there were singers or performers on wind or string

instruments wishing to sing or play before him, sculptors and

painters wishing him to visit their studios, and writers of music

wishing him to order their compositions to be brought out at the

Royal Opera.

All these requests culminated in two, wherein the gentle reader

will see a mixture of comic and pathetic. The first was from a

person (not an American) who wished my good offices in enabling

her to obtain a commission for a brilliant marriage,--she having

in reserve, as she assured me, a real Italian duke whom, for a

consideration, she would secure for an American heiress. The

other, which was from an eminently respectable source, urged me

to induce the imperial authorities to station in the United

States a young German officer with whom an American young lady

had fallen in love. And these proposals I was expected to

further, in spite of the fact that the rules for American

representatives abroad forbid all special pleading of any kind in

favor of individual interests or enterprises, without special

instructions from the State Department. Discouraging was it to

find that in spite of the elaborate statement prepared by me

during my former residence, which had been freely circulated

during twenty years, there were still the usual number of people

persuaded that enormous fortunes were awaiting them somewhere in

Germany.

One application, from a truly disinterested man, was grounded in

nobler motives. This was an effort made by an eminent Polish

scholar and patriot to wrest American citizenship for political

purposes. He had been an instructor at various Russian and German

universities had shown in some of his books extraordinary

ability, had gained the friendship of several eminent scholars in

Great Britain and on the Continent, and was finally settled at

one of the most influential seats of learning in Austrian Poland.

He was a most attractive man, wide in his knowledge, charming in

his manner; but not of this world. Having drawn crowds to his

university lectures, he suddenly attacked the Emperor Franz

Josef, who, more than any other, had befriended his compatriots;

was therefore obliged to flee from his post; and now came to

Berlin, proposing seriously that I should at once make him an

American citizen, and thus, as he supposed, enable him to go back

to his university and, in revolutionary speeches, bid defiance to

Austria, Russia, and Germany. Great was his disappointment when

he learned that, in order to acquire citizenship, he would be

obliged to go to the United States and remain there five years.

As he was trying to nerve himself for this sacrifice, I presented

some serious considerations to him. Knowing him to be a man of

honor, I asked him how he could reconcile it with his sense of

veracity to assume the rights of American citizenship with no

intention to discharge its duties. This somewhat startled him.

Then, from a more immediately practical point of view, I showed

that, even if he acquired American citizenship, and could

reconcile his conscience to break the virtual pledge he had made

in order to obtain it, the government of Austria, and, indeed,

all other governments, would still have a full right, under the

simplest principles of international law, to forbid his entrance

into their territories, or to turn him out after he had

entered,--the right of expelling undesirable emigrants being

constantly exercised, even by the United States. This amazed him.

He had absolutely persuaded himself that I could, by some sleight

of hand, transform him into an American citizen; that he could

then at once begin attempts to reestablish the fine old Polish

anarchy in Austria, Russia, and Germany; and that no one of these

nations would dare interfere with him. It was absurd but

pathetic. My advice to him was to go back to his lecture-room and

labor to raise the character of the younger generation of Poles,

in the hope that Poland might do what Scotland had done--rise by

sound mental and moral training from the condition of a conquered

and even oppressed part of a great empire to a controlling

position in it. This advice was, of course, in vain, and he is

now building air-castles amid the fogs of London.

In my life at Berlin as ambassador there was a tinge of sadness.

Great changes had taken place since my student days in that city,

and even since my later stay as minister. A new race of men had

come upon the stage in public affairs, in the university, and in

literary circles. Gone was the old Emperor William, gone also was

the Emperor Frederick, and Bismarck and Moltke and a host of

others who had given dignity and interest to the great

assemblages at the capital. Gone, too, from the university were

Lepsius, Helmholtz, Curtius, Hoffmann, Gneist, Du Bois-Reymond,

and Treitschke, all of whom, in the old days, had been my guests

and friends. The main exceptions seemed to be in the art world.

The number of my artist friends during my stay as minister had

been large, and every one of them was living when I returned as

ambassador; the reason, of course, being that when men

distinguish themselves in art at all, they do so at an earlier

age than do high functionaries of state and professors in the

universities. It was a great pleasure to find Adolf Menzel,

Ludwig Knaus, Carl Beeker, Anton von Werner, and Paul Meyerheim,

though grown gray in their beautiful ministry, still daily at

work in their studios.

Three only of my friends of the older generation in the Berlin

faculty remained; and as I revise these lines the world is laying

tributes upon the grave of the last of them--Theodor Mommsen.

With him my relations were so peculiar that they may deserve some

mention.

During my earlier stays in Berlin he had always seemed especially

friendly to the United States, and it was therefore with regret

that on my return I found him in this respect greatly changed: he

had become a severe critic of nearly everything American; his

earlier expectations had evidently been disappointed; we clearly

appeared to him big, braggart, noisy, false to our principles,

unworthy of our opportunities. These feelings of his became even

more marked as the Spanish-American War drew on. Whenever we met,

and most often at a charming house which both of us frequented,

he showed himself more and more bitter, so that finally our paths

separated. There comes back to me vividly one evening when I

sought to turn off a sharp comment of his upon some recent

American news by saying: "You must give a young nation like ours

more time." On this he exclaimed: "You cannot plead the baby act

any longer. More time! You have HAD time; you are already three

hundred years old!" Having sought in vain to impress on him the

fact that the policy of our country is determined not wholly by

the older elements in its civilization, but very largely by newer

commonwealths which must require time to develop a policy

satisfactory to sedate judges, he burst into a tirade from which

I took refuge in a totally different discussion.

Some days later came another evidence of his feeling. Meeting an

eminent leader in political, and especially in journalistic,

circles, I was shown the corrected proofsheets of an "interview"

on the conduct of the United States toward Spain, given by

Mommsen. It was even more acrid than his previous utterances, and

exhibited sharply and at great length our alleged sins and

shortcomings. Certainly a representative of the American people

was not bound to make supplication, in such a matter, even to so

eminent a scholar and leader of thought, and my comment was

simply as follows: "I have no request to make in the premises--of

Mommsen or of anybody. The article will of course have no effect

on the war; of that there can be but one result: the triumph of

the United States and the liberation of the Spanish islands of

the West Indies; but may there not be some considerations of a

very different order as regards Mommsen himself? Why not ask him,

simply, where his friends are; his readers, his old students, his

disciples? Why not ask him whether he finds fewer clouds over the

policy of Spain than over that of the United States; of which

country, despite all its faults, he has most hope; and for which,

in his heart, he has the greater feeling of brotherhood?"

How far this answer influenced him I know not, but the article

was never published; and thenceforth there seemed some revival of

the older kindly feeling. At my own table and elsewhere he more

than once became, in a measure, like the Mommsen of old. One

utterance of his amused me much. My wife happening, in a talk

with him, to speak of a certain personage as "hardly an ideal

man," he retorted: "Madam, is it possible that you have been

married some years and still believe in the ideal man?"

His old better feeling toward America came out especially when I

next called upon him with congratulations upon his birthday--his

last, alas! But heartiest of all was he during the dinner given

at my departure. My speech was long,--over an hour,--for I had a

message to deliver, and was determined to give it--a message

which I hoped might impress upon my great audience reasons for a

friendly judgment of my country. As I began, Mommsen came to my

side--just back of me, his hand at his ear, listening intently.

There the old man stood from the first word to the last, and on

my conclusion he grasped me heartily with both hands--a

demonstration rare indeed with him. It was our last greeting in

this world.