The Last Refuge of the Spoilsman

APRIL, 1914

BY AN OBSERVER

I

A GREAT deal has been heard of the way in which the foreign service has been demoralized by the present administration. It is said that under the feet of spoilsmen, lean and hungry after sixteen years in opposition, the young plant of a real diplomatic service has been bruised and withered beyond recognition. The State Department is said to be in chaos, and the effectiveness of its servants abroad to have been gravely impaired by a cynical return to the spoils system as practiced in the bad old times.

This is a serious indictment. In days gone by the diplomatic service was the one government department where appointments ‘unconnected with the good of the service’ mattered least. If a state chairman or provincial editor liked to accept a diplomatic post in payment of a political debt, it was all to the good from the administrative point of view. Pressure upon the domestic spoils market was relieved, and the appropriate foreign representative in Washington could always take up with the State Department any serious questions that might arise. Things now are very different. The days of economic self-sufficiency have passed. Americans can no longer ‘point with pride’ to the fact that their country is the granary of the world and therefore likely to be courted by the world. A relatively dwindling food-supply and an increasing output of manufactures due mainly to a magnificently growing industrialism and its almost inevitable concomitant, stagnation of agriculture, have absolutely altered her position. She needs each year new markets in which to sell her manufactures and to buy her supplies. Signs of the change are everywhere. One may read them in Mr. Underwood’s tariff-reform law, in the new currency law, in the Panama Canal, in the new Pan-Americanism, even in the general, and especially the commercial, intelligence supplied by the average daily organs of enlightened opinion.

Nor is that all. If economic pressure is driving the United States into world-politics, world-politics is becoming each year more a matter of commerce and finance. The Anglo-German relationship which, when all is said and done, is the central factor in European affairs, the power of cosmopolitan finance in the same field, the general trend of British imperialism, the nature of the activities of the Powers in the outlying parts of the world — everything, in fact, points to the substitution of economic forces for the forces of dynastic, racial, religious, even territorial ambitions. To this the Balkan War with its barbarous interplay of the older passions is but the exception that illustrates the rule. There can still be no questioning of the wisdom of Washington’s advice about the avoidance of political entanglements with Europe; there is still much force in the prohibition opposed by the Monroe Doctrine to European political aggression in this hemisphere. No thinking American could wish to see his country interfere in the Balkan muddle. Rather to their own surprise the European Powers have recognized that they have no political interest in the Mexican muddle. But even the old saw that trade follows the flag is at a discount. Inexorable forces are making diplomacy more and more part and parcel of the game of cosmopolitan finance and trade, and in that game the United States must take an effective part if she is to enjoy the destiny that physical geography and national character have mapped out for her.

A sometimes subconscious realization of that fact, together with a genuine desire for civil-service reform, seems to be at the bottom of the criticism to which Mr. Bryan and the President have been subjected. How far is that criticism justified by the facts? In the opinion of the writer there has been a tendency toward summary over-harshness. Not even his bitterest enemy can accuse the President of provincial blindness in regard to the necessity for a forward commercial policy. Such changes in that policy as he has made or favored concern means, and not ends. A notable example of this was his withdrawal last spring from the Chinese loan consortium. Upon the main proposition that it is the duty of a modern government to help its commerce there seem to be no two opinions in Washington. That in itself is a great deal for a party so hidebound in insular tradition as the Democrats used to be.

II

The next thing to notice is the fate of the consular service, which ought to be the closest link between traders and their government. It has been kept intact. Since March, thirty consular positions have been filled from within the service, or from a list furnished by official examiners of candidates. This is very different from what happened upon former occasions, when a change in administration has meant a change in party. To go back no further than President Cleveland’s second administration, one finds that within a period of ten months, 30 out of a total of 35 consuls general, 133 out of a total of 183 consuls of the first class, besides the great majority of minor officials, were superseded by hastily selected Democrats. A similar course was followed by Mr. McKinley. Of the 272 consuls above the $1,000 grade whom he found in office, 238 were dismissed.

Debauches of this kind were in accord with the precedents of a century. The original consular act of 1792 did little except breed abuses. Whereas, by the early nineteenth century, most countries had their salaried consular services, American consuls, ‘with very few exceptions, were commission merchants, anxious, like all other merchants, to increase their business. In many, perhaps the greater number of cases, the place is sought chiefly for the advantage and influence it will give to extend the commercial affairs of the officer.’ (Report of Secretary of State Livingston to President Jackson.)

Neither President Jackson nor succeeding presidents or congresses were able to do much to correct this evil. There were some attempts at legislation. Executive orders were promulgated, but without much effect.

Until 1906 there were wholesale changes in the service with each administration. Favorites of presidents had almost Verrine opportunities of enrichment in places like London; minor party hacks were sent with their families for a few years’ sojourn abroad at the country’s expense; and the work of fostering export trade and so on went usually by default. By 1905, however, public opinion had been aroused as to the necessity for a competent service. Mr. Root as Secretary of State drafted a comprehensive bill to classify and grade the consular service, to apply civil-service principles to the selection, appointment, and promotion of officers; and to provide, among other things, a system for the regular inspection of consulates. The measure was strongly supported by public opinion; but Congress was loath to part with one of its finest spoils preserves, and the law as finally enacted did not contain the provision regulating the selection, appointment, and promotion of officers.

Mr. Root was not to be beaten. By his advice, Mr. Roosevelt issued in 1906 an executive order which applied the principle of the civil service to all grades, created a board of examiners, and defined the system under which the service was to be made permanent.

An executive order can easily be reversed. It is known that much pressure was put upon President Wilson to reverse that of Mr. Roosevelt. That he should have withstood in this respect the clamor of political henchmen is a signal example of political courage, and one that should count for much in any effort that is made to apportion the blame for such spoils-mongering as the Democrats have been guilty of. So should the intelligent care with which Mr. Redfield, the Secretary of Commerce, has approached the question of the promotion of foreign trade. In an address delivered last April before the Cotton Manufacturers’ Association, he outlined what he believed to be a serviceable policy.

‘ We have,’ he said, ‘ the consular service scattered all over the earth, and greatly improved in the last few years in its efficiency. Every one who has read the Daily Consular and Trade Reports knows that they have practical value. For long I have been accustomed to look them over frequently and make extracts from them for use in my business. It is remarkable that this work should be so well done, and that it should be increasing in its practical value, when we consider how many other matters the consuls have under their care. . . . They must report upon the political affairs in the regions in which they reside, having thus important work of a national rather than a commercial character. They have to do with disputes between masters and seamen, and the relief of sailors in distress. They authenticate and legalize documents, grant various certificates, and deal with the registry of births, marriages, and deaths. They administer oaths and take testimony; act as protectors, and in some cases as guardians, of Americans; and even perform the duties of arbitrators, or in certain cases exercise a judicial authority. They assist to protect our people from the introduction of diseases, through their reports on sanitary conditions of vessels and ports; and they take a practical part in the enforcement of the pure-food law and of the customs laws by their care for merchandise about to be imported into this country. There are in addition certain special duties performed at particular points.

‘ The wonder is that amid these cares the consuls are doing such excellent service as all who are familiar with their work are glad to recognize them as performing.

‘In addition to the limitations which their numerous duties place upon the consuls, they are also limited by the fact that their jurisdiction — or perhaps we would better say their opportunity — is strictly local. They are not supposed to travel in the countries where they live. Their outlook is in a large measure confined to the things which happen at, or near, or within the influence of, their place of residence.. . .

‘As opposed to this local and almost stationary force, the Department of Commerce, through its Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, is represented by what are known as commercial agents. These are men who are always on the move. They do not deal with localities at all, and only in a limited sense with countries. Their duties commonly involve the investigation of one or more subjects, looked at in a general or international way rather than as confined to the limits of any one nation. Here we have the entire absence of the local view, or even of the national view; for the scope of these agents is such that their inquiries are supposed to include the whole world, so far as it relates to the development of the subjects they have in hand.

‘It will doubtless be evident to you that between these two functions, the general one and the particular one, there is a third function which remains unfilled, and it is concerning that that I desire to speak now. Perhaps the best means of describing the commercial gap is to suggest how it seems possible to fill it.

‘ In our leading embassies are officers of the Army and Navy, called military and naval attachés. They are accredited by the Department of State to the respective nations, and their purpose is the study of the conditions in other nations within the lines of their professions. Would it not be possible to add what we may call a commercial attaché in, say, six or seven of our embassies? Let us suppose that this commercial attaché was a well-equipped man of business, who had no duties save that of studying carefully industrial and commercial subjects in the country to which he was accredited. He would be free from the office and local duties of the consul. He would not be limited to any locality. His scope would be as wide as that of the nation in which he resided. He would have nothing to do with diplomatic affairs. His service would be continuously and only that of studying carefully the commercial development and progress of the people among whom he lived. He could be an efficient factor in making clear to them American commercial and industrial interests, and in likewise making plain to us the similar interests in his foreign field. . . .For example, what clearer way could there be to learn of certain phases of South American commerce than to know thoroughly well how the great nations of Europe were dealing with that commerce?

‘If I grasp at all clearly the possible functions of the supposed officer whose duties I am discussing, he would be able to coördinate the work that the consuls now do, and make a unified whole out of what is now necessarily a group of unrelated parts. Such an officer would be in touch with the various consuls in the ports of the nation where he lived — not as replacing them, but as supporting and correlating them. In like manner the work of the commercial agents would be supplemented and unified by such an organization, and the result would seem to be probable that we should get no longer only monographs on special themes, and reports from diverse localities; but while these continue, we should also get the mature and well-digested results of a continued study which would take all these into account.’

There can be no doubt that as reorganized in recent years the consular service has been a great help to American exporters. It contrasts very favorably to-day with the English service, and bears comparison with Germany’s infinitely more competent organization. Its general and special reports are disseminated daily among the business men of the country; its officers abroad are gradually evolving systematized plans for bringing foreign purchasers into closer contact with American firms. It has been estimated officially that in 1910 and 1911 the total export business that could be traced directly to the work of the Department of State amounted to over $100,000,000.

Though Mr. Redfield’s plan for commercial attachés is still in the air, this administration has already been responsible for various executive improvements in the same direction. The Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce has opened an office in the Custom-house, New York, and will shortly open offices in Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco, to assist merchants and manufacturers in the development of foreign trade. Arrangements have been made for consuls on leave to visit these offices and to place their special knowledge at the disposal of local business men. Recently in New York the representatives of twenty-two houses interested in a particular field called upon the consul at the local office of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce.

Another of Mr. Redfield’s innovations is that the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce shall send its commercial agents, on their return to America, to trade conferences or conventions.

III

Thus in one very important direction the indictment that the administration has debauched the foreign service falls to the ground. There remains the diplomatic branch — the State Department at home and its foreign agencies in the shape of embassies and legations abroad. It must be admitted at once that nothing has been done for its betterment, and that a good deal has been done toward its deterioration. But here again it is unfair to do as most critics have done, and to ignore the traditions and precedents with which the President had to contend. There is a tendency to attack him for having allowed the sudden demoralization of a service, the effectiveness of which was as firmly rooted in history as, say, the British or French services. It need hardly be said that that is not the case. The American diplomatic body never got a fair start. All the traditions of its management make for incompetency. At its inception it was handicapped by a legislature as jealous of its prerogatives as it was careless of external relations. It was some years before the Congress of the Confederation even created a foreign department; and, after the adoption of the Constitution, the department soon lost its never very effective entity in the Department of State, at the head of which was a minister combining in one personality the usually distinct functions of Chancellor and Foreign Minister. In the words of Jefferson, the department embraced ‘the whole domestic administration (war and finance excepted).’ Even the mint was for a time under its management. It is recorded that one of Jefferson’s earliest official acts was to submit to the President a bimetallic cent ‘made by putting a silver plug worth three fourths of a cent into a copper coin worth one fourth of a cent.’ (Address of Mr. Knox before the Civic Federation, New York, December 1911.)

Hence, when the changing needs of the new century began to press, the United States found herself practically without a diplomatic service. The Department of State had gradually sloughed off its domestic functions as new departments were created; but it remained a foreign office only in name. Its organization was amorphous. Its lower ranks, like those of the consular service, were filled by the protégés of the smaller fry of politics; its high places went to the friends of presidents and to the friends of those friends. Esprit de corps and special knowledge were at a discount. Such prestige as fell to American diplomacy was due to the genius of chance individuals and not at all to the system.

It was a state of affairs difficult to remedy. The prejudices of Congress, a majority of whose members were utterly ignorant and careless of foreign affairs, had to be removed; the dislike of the average member for spending public funds outside his constituency had to be overcome; and, what was more difficult still, parochial politicians had to be taught that a spoilsman in a European embassy might be as prejudicial to the common good as a spoilsman in a first-class post-office.

But, it will be argued, all that was brought to an end when, after the Spanish War, the country began to awake to the responsibilities of a nascent world-power. Under the Presidency of Mr. Roosevelt the consular service was reformed, and a great deal was done to impress the diplomatic service with a sense of its new-found duties. Under Mr. Taft the diplomatic service was reformed. That is true: what people forget is the nature of those reforms and the methods by which they were enforced. They were due solely to the energy and foresight of a few men. They were almost entirely the result of administrative initiative. Congress did practically nothing to forward them; and if spoils politicians were practically powerless to hinder them, it was mainly because after Mr. Roosevelt came into power there were three successive administrations without a change of party.

Mr. Roosevelt’s executive order concerning the consular service has already been described. In 1909 Mr. Taft promulgated a similar order by which civilservice rules and regulations, including a rigid entrance examination, such as is found in England and most large countries, were imposed upon all members of the diplomatic service up to heads of missions. Secretaries of embassies and legations were thus temporarily placed in the same position of security as their confrères of other countries. They felt safe; they began to take a new-found pride in their career; they no longer feared that the work of years might crumble overnight before the intrigues of some powerful but ignorant politician.

Nor did the process stop there. Almost simultaneously Mr. Knox prevailed upon Congress to appropriate $100,000, much of which could be used for the internal reorganization of the Department of State. The result was surprisingly satisfactory. Within a few months an amorphous and archaic organization was transformed in essentials. A number of geographical ‘Divisions’ were created, somewhat like the divisions of the English Foreign Office. They were those of the Far East, the near East, Latin America, and Western Europe. The latter was placed under the charge of the Third Assistant Secretary of State. To preside over the others it was arranged that officials with local knowledge should be detached from foreign service, assisted as a rule by juniors similarly seconded. To relieve the Secretary of State and his three assistants, the posts of counselor for the department and of resident diplomatic officer were created. To deal with the reorganized consular service the post of director of the consular service was created. A better scheme could hardly have been devised. It adapted to the exigencies of the American service many of the features that in European chancelleries have been evolved through the centuries. The danger of a red-tape, sedentary bureaucracy was minimized; the foreign service was kept in close touch with home; and the appointment of a succession of trained diplomatists to the divisional posts was calculated to do something to make up for the want of permanent under-secretaries such as incoming ministers have at their elbows abroad.

This system the new administration has done much to upset. The best way to explain this is to examine the personnel of the department and of the embassies and legations as given in the registers of the department for 1912 and 1913. The ambassadorial posts may be quickly dismissed. There is no pretense that they are under civilservice rules. They cannot be until a trained American diplomacy has really been evolved, and until Congress raises the salaries of heads of missions and, by providing them with dwellings as well as offices, lowers their expenses. Even in foreign services ‘outsiders’ are sometimes appointed to be heads of missions. Mr. Bryce, for instance, came to Washington from the British Cabinet. Sir Mortimer Durand was originally in the Indian Civil Service. Of Mr. Taft’s ten ambassadors, nevertheless, two had risen from the rank of secretary, namely, Mr. E. V. Morgan, in Brazil, and Mr. Rockhill, in Turkey; Mr. T. J. O’Brien, in Italy, had come up through the consular service; and three, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, in England, Mr. C. P. Bryan, in Japan, and Mr. H. L. Wilson, in Mexico, had been ministers and had had considerable diplomatic experience. Of the remainder, Mr. Leishman (Berlin), whatever his qualifications may have been, had held a previous embassy (Rome); and of the other three appointments, political though they were, namely Mr. Myron Herrick to France, Mr. Curtis Guild to Russia, and Mr. Richard C. Kerens to Austria, only the latter was a really rotten spoils appointment.

But two of the ten ambassadors of a year ago now retain their posts, namely, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Herrick: the former, it is to be hoped, on his merits; the latter because the President’s search for a successor has so far failed. In Russia Mr. Guild’s resignation has been accepted. In Mexico, also, there is no ambassador, as there is no government recognized by the United States, and as Mr. H. L. Wilson fell out with the President and had his resignation accepted.

Of new ambassadors appointed, Mr. Penfield, in Vienna, is the only one with any diplomatic experience, and he is not a diplomatist de carrière. In England Mr. Whitelaw Reid (deceased) has been succeeded by Mr. W. H. Page, a publisher, but, it must be said at once, a worthy incumbent of the greatest American diplomatic post. The appointment to Rome of Mr. T. N. Page is also an excellent one, and compensates for the enforced resignation of Mr. O’Brien. Berlin, too, should profit by the change between Mr. Leishman and Mr. James W. Gerard, a member of the New York Bar and a Democratic politician. In Tokyo Mr. Bryan has been succeeded by Mr. Guthrie, a prominent Pittsburger, though here again there is no reason to apprehend that disaster will follow the change.

Indeed, so far as ambassadors go, the only thing in regard to which the administration is open to severe censure is the acceptance of Mr. Rockhill’s resignation. While his successor, Mr. Morgenthau, is up to the average of Constantinople appointments from outside the service, Mr. Rockhill’s loss is a really great one. With nearly thirty years of diplomatic experience behind him, with a charming personality and unfailing tact, he is a diplomatist of whom the most polished service might well be proud. Yet his resignation was accepted offhand. But for this, even, there was a precedent in Mr, Taft’s treatment of Mr. Henry White. The President’s critics, in a word, cannot afford to be too severe on his ambassadorial appointments.

IV

A different story is told by the appointments to heads of legations. There are thirty-two ministers in the American service, including the minister to Liberia and the agent in Egypt. At the end of 1912 fifteen of these had worked their way up from the grade of secretary, for which some of them had passed the examination. Several of the remainder had had previous diplomatic experience of one sort and another, though they had not adopted the service as a career. All but eight of the thirty-two have ‘resigned.’ Of the survivors, curiously enough, only three are of the class of trained diplomatists.

Not one of the ministers appointed by the President is from the service. At least one, gossip says, has provoked smiles and even worse abroad. Thus instead of fifteen more or less trained diplomatists at the head of legations, the United States has to-day but three. Nor is that the worst. For practical purposes, the European legations, even when so inaptly filled as the one at Lisbon, may be dismissed. It is the legations in Latin America and China that count. Doubtful as it is on paper, the President’s appointment to China seems to be turning out well. No such consolation is at hand in regard to Latin America.

The necessity for a good Latin-American service is obvious. Mr. Wilson himself has admitted the major premise. His action in regard to Mexico; Mr. Bryan’s draft treaty for the imposition of something tantamount to a financial protectorate over Nicaragua; his interest in the commercial and social work of the Pan-American Union — everything proves that the administration realizes the political responsibilities of the United States in regard to the less stable Latin republics, and the advantage of good relationship with the great countries of the South. Everything, that is to say, except its diplomatic appointments. It is an astounding situation. The simplest way to gauge it is to take the different countries separately. In Mexico Air. Wilson found a trained diplomatist as ambassador; he dismissed him, and for practical purposes replaced him by Mr. John Lind, a Scandinavian from the Northwest, a man of impeccable character but utterly ignorant of diplomacy, of the Spanish language, and of the Mexican temperament. To criticise Mr. Henry Lane Wilson’s dismissal would be unfair. He could not have been retained. He backed the wrong horse none too tactfully. Nor does it matter whether the President’s alternative policy be right or wrong. Mr. Lind also seems to be acquitting himself with dignity and tact. The point is whether there was any justification for sending, apparently upon the recommendation of Mr. Bryan, an untried politician from the Northwest to deal with, and to inform the President about, a politico-diplomatic situation of quite unusual difficulty and delicacy.

Next come the Central American Republics. Salvador is the only country in which the Republican appointee remains as minister. In Nicaragua a diplomatist who had in 1907 entered the service after examination, and who had spent his active career in Mexico and Central America, has been succeeded by Mr. Benjamin Lafayette Jefferson, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a politician whose highest office has been one term in the House of Representatives. In Costa Rica Mr. Lewis Einstein, a young diplomatist of wide experience and recognized intelligence, was replaced by Mr. E. J. Hale, a distinguished North Carolinian of seventy-four, whose wide commercial experience in consular and other capacities belongs to the last generation and was acquired practically everywhere except in Latin America. In Honduras a diplomatist trained largely in Latin America has been replaced by a gentleman whose life has been passed in petty offices in Mobile and in newspaper work in New Orleans. In Guatemala a trained diplomatist has been replaced by a Presbyterian pastor whose only venture into statesmanship was to vote for free silver.

In the Caribbean, one finds that in Cuba Mr. Arthur Beaupré, who had passed a long time in Latin-American diplomatic work, is succeeded by a South Carolina newspaper man who, it is true, did go to Cuba as a volunteer during the war. In Santo Domingo another trained diplomatist is succeeded by Mr. James Mark Sullivan, a Tammany retainer and criminal lawyer in New York, who has already brought unsavory rumor to roost in his legation. More important still, the personnel of the American customs administration established by Mr. Roosevelt has been upset in a way which smacks of the spoils system, and which cannot have given Dominicans a particularly favorable impression of ‘American methods’ — or of the possibilities of a somewhat similar financial protectorate such as the President advocates over Nicaragua and perhaps other Caribbean countries. In Haiti there has been a change of ministers of no particular importance. In Panama one finds American interests in the hands of a law professor from Kentucky, instead of a diplomatist with thirteen years of Latin-American experience behind him. The Colombian legation is occupied by a Texas rancher vice Mr. Dubois, who, after some service as a consul, had been a clerk in the State Department for over a decade. In Ecuador an ex-Congressman, a Republican who left his party to become a bimetallist, has succeeded a diplomatist de carrière. To Bolivia an obscure lawyer from Missouri has been sent in the place of a man who had already held two Latin-American legations. Only in Brazil, the Argentine, and Chile do Mr. Taft’s appointees remain.

V

The situation in the State Department is even worse. It is to be feared that there is much foundation for the stories that chaos obtains there. Passing over for a moment Mr. Bryan, one finds that he has for Assistant Secretary Mr. J. E. Osborne, ex-Congressman, ex-Governor of Wyoming, and a member of the Democratic Committee; an excellent politician, no doubt, but a very different kind of assistant from Mr. Huntington Wilson, a diplomatist trained in the Far East and of considerable cosmopolitan knowledge. The Second Assistant Secretary of State is still Mr. Adee, who, after twenty-five years in the office, is invaluable in matters of routine and etiquette, but his position does not give him powers of direction. The post of Third Assistant has been vacant since the departure for New York of Mr. Dudley Malone, the son-in-law of Senator O’Gorman. His predecessor was Mr. Chandler Hale, who, if he owed the place to the influence of his father, ex-Senator Hale, was a passable routine diplomatist. The subordinate offices, such as chiefs of divisions and bureaus, are, however, really more important for the smooth running of the department.

During the next four years the majority of European Countries will overhaul their commercial arrangements. It is certain that the United States will need intelligent diplomacy if she is not to be left out in the cold. Under Mr. Taft the trade adviser to the department was Mr. Charles M. Pepper, a trained thinker and writer upon commercial subjects. To his skill was largely due, among other things, the Canadian reciprocity agreement, which Canada refused on the plea that her representatives had given too much. One of Mr. Bryan’s first acts was to replace Mr. Pepper by Mr. R. F. Rose, a newspaper man and skilled shorthand writer, whose only qualification for the post seems to have been the sympathetic skill with which he took Mr. Bryan’s wingèd words during the campaigns of 1900 and 1908.

The most important State Department division is that of Latin America. Under Mr. Taft its chief was Mr. Doyle. Mr. Doyle had been counsel for the United States in an arbitration case with Mexico in 1902; assistant agent in the Venezuela case at Caracas in 1903; Mr. Root’s private secretary during his South American tour in 1906; representative of the Department of State at the Central-American Peace Conference of 1907; secretary to special missions to Guatemala and Venezuela in 1908; a leading agent in the arrangement of the Venezuelan arbitration at The Hague in 1909; secretary of the American delegation to the Pan-American Conference of 1910; secretary to Mr. Knox on his Caribbean tour in 1912; and a special commissioner to the Dominican Republic in 1912. A man of these qualifications was not likely to escape the notice of the American commercial interests in Latin America.

When the shake-up of March began, a firm offered Mr. Doyle a lucrative position. Mr. Doyle told Mr. Bryan that, though it was his ambition to continue to serve the government, it was not an opening that he could afford to let slip if his position in the State Department was not assured. Mr. Bryan replied curtly to the effect that he had better go into trade. Mr. Doyle’s successor is Mr. Boaz Walter Long, whose only special qualification seems to be that he was head of a commission company which happened to have an office in Mexico City. When the second Mexican revolution began last winter, Mr. Doyle’s chief assistant in charge of Mexican affairs was Mr. Fred M. Dearing, a first secretary in the diplomatic service, of unusual ability and unusual experience in Mexican affairs. So that Mr. Long might have a free hand in the most difficult of his duties, Mr. Dearing was sent last summer to be secretary of embassy in Europe.

The other divisions may be passed over rapidly. That of the Far East — which used to be important before the President jettisoned the politico-commercial policy into which, under Mr. Taft, John Hay’s Open-Door Policy in China developed — is still in experienced hands. The Division of the Near East, which used to be in diplomatic hands, is now under a lawyer-professor from Chicago, with one year in the Philippines to his credit, so far as extra-American affairs are concerned. The Division of Western Europe is without a head pending the appointment of a Third Assistant Secretary. The junior personnel has in all cases been as much disarranged as is possible under the civil-service rules. The post of resident diplomatic officer no longer exists.

There remain the posts in the department which have not normally been filled by diplomatists. Of these, the most important is that of Counselor. Its incumbent is Mr. John Bassett Moore, one of the few members of the administration who, a year ago, would not have needed an introduction to the public. There can be no doubt about the brilliance of his qualifications. Could he have been a secretary of state he would have ranked intellectually with Mr. Hay and Mr. Root. There is reason to believe that he was appointed to offset the inexperience of Mr. Bryan, and was promised an unusually free hand; but if current gossip and indications count for anything, he is sorely handicapped by the incubus of Bryanism, and there will be relieved surprise if he does not shortly resign.¹ The Solicitor of the Department is Mr. Folk, ex-Governor of Missouri. Whatever his talents, he is not a lawyer of international experience, and his appointment smacks of partisanship.

Enough has been said to show that if there is inexperience in most of the important posts abroad, there is little chance for wise guidance from home. It is a deplorable state of affairs; but it is one that, especially in view of the recent agitation, should be scrutinized in the perspective of facts, and not of Utopian theories. As has been shown above, the United States never has had a real diplomatic service for the administration to destroy. What seems to have happened is that an enlightened President has found himself hopelessly, perhaps rather unexpectedly, handicapped by the force of circumstances. Politics being what they are, he had to make Mr. Bryan his Secretary of State.

Mr. Bryan is essentially a politician of the old school. He has an immense personal following whose loyalty has been tested in defeat after defeat. He may have aspirations of future leadership. At any rate, the first paragraph in his political creed is that to the victors belong the spoils. Of foreign affairs and their responsibilities his conceptions are of the Chautauqua variety. His patriotism seems to be prevented, by the warmth of a tremendous and optimistic sincerity, from congealing into a cold creed of practical politics. A popular leader of the interior West, he has no use for the pomp and vanities of old-world intercourse, but an immense faith in the old American tradition that the place creates the man. Hence, when he entered office, he did not scruple to reward his friends at the expense of a service for which he had neither sympathy nor understanding. ‘How can I give you ten minutes,’ he is said to have asked a subordinate with important business, ‘when my office is crowded with men who have voted for me three times?’ ’How can I trust a Republican appointee to carry out the policies of a Democratic administration with which he is out of sympathy?’ has been the sense of his defense in regard to the political appointments that he has made. ‘More weight should be given in official appointments generally to natural gifts than to acquisitions from education. Examinations have often proved an insufficient test for fitness. The man who ranks highest may be one who ranks lowest in character to fill a public station well.’ The latter words are not Mr. Bryan’s; but with the other two sentences they explain what the President was ‘up against.’

The President seems to have been forced to yield a good deal to save a good deal. He seems to have handed over the personnel of the State Department, and the appointment of most ministers, to the tender mercies of Mr. Bryan as the price of the protection of the consular service, the partial protection of the lower grades of the diplomatic service, and the nomination of his own candidates to certain important embassies and legations. There is, of course, no proof that such a bargain was actually struck; but it is difficult to examine the facts sketched above without a feeling that something of the sort has happened. Nor must it be overlooked that, however much its spirit has been abused on paper, the reform work of Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt has been preserved. The executive orders of 1906 and 1909 still stand in spite of great pressure for their reversal by those who think like Mr. Bryan. It may be doubted whether in the circumstances the President could have done more than he has done. Nor, in the last resort, does it seem that Mr. Bryan is so much to blame as the national point of view which, directly and indirectly through Congress, still tolerates the abuses of which he has been guilty. During the last decade there has been effort after effort, to get Congress to legalize the executive orders of Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt and to enact reforms which were beyond the scope of administrative action. They all failed largely because they were not backed by an intelligent public opinion.

‘Look to-day at the Diplomatic Service of the United States. No man who is not worth millions of money can hold a position in one of the great courts of Europe as ambassador or minister plenipotentiary of the United States. They are there giving a false light to the conditions in America. Your recent ambassador to the Court of St. James is said to have expended $300,000 per annum in maintaining his dignity as a representative of the United States. Yet there is scarcely an official international act to his credit. What are you going to do? Are you no longer to be represented in France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Great Britain by men imbued with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence? Are you no longer to be represented by true Republicans and true Democrats? Must the leaders of society, with the false glare and glitter of their position, falsely represent the feelings and sentiments of the American people? You have not the slightest use in this day and time for an ambassador or a minister plenipotentiary in any court on earth. In these days of cablegrams and close communication your Government, if it should have any trouble anywhere, might communicate with its business consuls, if it desired, or with the Governments direct, and so deal with all questions of international importance. Your Diplomatic Service is a superfluous appendage to a republic in this day, and your whole diplomatic corps, in the interest of economy and good government, and a decent conception by foreign people of the views and habits and conditions of the American people, ought to be abolished. [Applause.] They form a distinct class, so distinct, I understand, that they scarcely pay any regard to the Senators who vote for their confirmation when once they have approached the thrones of royalty. [Laughter.] It is that gang of political reprobates and society degenerates that we ought to wipe out of existence. [Applause and laughter.] ’

So spoke a Congressman this winter in debate. As long as the country will listen quietly to that sort of thing and is ready to accept a party without definite pledges of constructive civilservice reform, there can be little surprise that, when a new party comes into power, the traditions of the past century tend to outweigh the needs of the present century. The question that really matters seems to be whether when the opportunity arrives, when in fact more immediate problems have been disposed of, the President will rise to the occasion and use his great influence with Congress to secure the necessary legislation once for all to put the foreign service upon a secure basis. If his party holds together he should, before he leaves office, have the opportunity of putting through reforms of incalculable value.