Rebuilding Diplomacy

...The truth is that both the Department of State itself and the Foreign Service are starved for lack of men and money...

...The Senate in the last Congress passed the Moses Bill for a reorganization of the Foreign Service so as to correct certain abuses, chiefly in the matter of personnel, which have grown up out of the administration of the Rogers Act establishing the Foreign Service upon a united and permanent basis...

...the Department of Agriculture about ten million...

...The only instance in which its work overlaps that of any other Department in a material way is in the foreign work of the Department of Commerce a difficulty participated in to some extent by the foreign work of the Departments of Agriculture and Labor...

...the Navy Department, about eighteen million...

...while, if the government of Russia should be recognized and diplomatic relations with that country should be resumed, the Department must have still another fifty for that work...

...REBUILDING DIPLOMACY By GEORGE E. ANDERSON THERE is considerable significance in the fact that the one Department of the government singled out by President Hoover in his annual message to Congress as requiring additional appropriations for the next fiscal year is the Department of State...

...Hence, if taxation is to be held to a minimum-and in this all agree-it is doubly important that any possible savings in the American military and naval establishments or any other departments of the government should be realized...

...The fact that the military expenditures of this country, as indicated by President Hoover, constitute the largest military and naval budget in the world at the present time is rather disconcerting, but as a matter of fact this does not mean that the United States has the largest army or the largest navy or the largest combination of the two...

...It is apparent also that it is the one Department of the government which can be reorganized without in any way interfering with other plans for reorganization by the administration, for which broad powers are requested of Congress and the need of which is so pressing and so generally recognized that it was promised by both party platforms and both of the leading candidates at the last presidential election...

...The clash of interests between the Departments of State and Commerce has been serious at times, but much if not all of the overlapping of function can be to some extent, actually has been remedied by administrative action...

...The pay of a private soldier or a sailor in the navy is good pay, all things considered...

...The disposition of the present administration seems to be toward the selection of assistants by specialties-a specialist in charge of extraterritoriality, or international armaments or, perhaps more important than all, commercial affairs-rather than a division of work on geographical lines...

...From time to time various bureaus have been organized to have immediate charge of the several divisions into which the work of the Department can be divided-geographical divisions in the first place, but also such matters as passports, treaties, ceremonies and commercial work, as well as routine matters like indexing and archives, treaties, general coordination and the like...

...and most of them lack adequate salaries and are compelled to serve years without promotion, financially or otherwise...

...It will also provide for the establishment of a Home Service in the Department whose officers shall be permanent, protected by provisions for retirement, and otherwise encouraged to make service in the Department the same sort of career as that now afforded in the Foreign Service...

...It is required primarily for the employment of additional officers both in the Department itself and in the field...

...Very likely, reorganization within the Department itself will be rather drastic...

...Bills covering the major features of the general reorganization of both the Foreign Service and the State Department have already been introduced in the two Houses and it is generally agreed among members of Congress that legislation along this line will be among the first of the general matters considered in the current session, and that it will be passed substantially without opposition...

...The present system dates almost from time immemorial...

...The fact that one-half of the prospective increase in expenditures in the next three years is for purely military services gives occasion for pause...

...There seems to be no question that the so-called economy which has been the policy in the federal government for the past five years or so has so crippled some of the activities of the government that they are commencing to fall far short of that usefulness which the American people have a right to expect...

...Perhaps this is as it should be...

...As a matter of fact, the reorganization of the State Department will further this end to a very considerable degree...

...An increase in the expenditures of the federal government has become inevitable...

...The pay of their prototypes in the naval and military establishments of other countries is little more than nominal...

...The fact is that the army and navy of the United States cost more than those of certain other countries because army and navy pay is higher, army expenses are greater because of the high cost of men and materials, navy expenses are greater because the cost of vessels, repairs and materials are greater than they are in other countries-in short the United States operates its military establishments upon a generous basis...

...the Department of Justice, about four million-but nothing was said about these in the annual message, although they are properly discussed in the budget message...

...All these matters depend upon the action taken by Congress...

...A request for a considerable portion of the additional appropriations was made two and four years ago, but was refused by the Bureau of the Budget...

...While expenditures for so-called defense have been increasing from year to year, appropriations for the scientific and sociological activities of the government have been more or less at a standstill-where they have not actually decreased...

...The facts are that the service has lost something like fifty officers during the current year largely because of unsatisfactory conditions of service and a lack of financial and other support...

...The anxiety of the administration in Washington to reduce army expenditures by overhauling the army establishment and eliminating all factors and services which are not effective in modern warfare or which are not worth their cost, can readily be understood...

...But whether at home or abroad, the services will be permanent and as efficient as men of experience in foreign affairs at home and abroad can make them...

...The case of the State Department is individual...

...The chief reason for this apparent discrimination in favor of the State Department is that it is more urgently in need of reorganization than any other...

...At all events, the facts- are that we get less for our money than other countries and in a general way the American people are satisfied that such should be the case, for it is the American system of doing things...

...More recently the tendency has been to choose Assistant Secretaries as specialists in the diplomacy and affairs of various parts of the world by geographical divisions...

...that its personnel is fairly well paid and that the conditions of service are good...

...What is more important, perhaps, is better coordination in the expenditures of government, not only savings where savings can be effected but more effective expenditures, even larger expenditures in some departments...

...No provision for any of these officers was made by Congress, apparently because the matter was not pressed in the face of the administration's policy of economy...

...far from it...

...With the country growing in population and particularly with constant increase in the activities and various services of the federal government, an increase in the cost of it all is naturally to be expected...

...It was brought out in hearings before the committees of Congress at the last session that the Foreign Service at that time was in urgent need of seventy-three additional officers for the field, and that the Department itself as urgently required fifty additional officers to carry on its ordinary work...

...Others estimate increases the War Department, over three million dollars...

...On the other hand sentiment in Congress, so far as it could be ascertained, was favorable to an increase in funds and a general reorganization of the Department and the Foreign Service...

...There seems to be an impression abroad that the Foreign Service of the United States is well treated...

...Accepting these premises as satisfactory to the American people with respect to the army and navy, however, what is to be said of the treatment of the Foreign Service in recent years...

...The Assistant Secretaries for the most part in recent years have been men trained in general diplomacy rather than as specialists in any particular line of diplomacy...

...It is uncertain exactly what form this reorganization will take, but it is known that in any event it depends primarily upon the increased appropriations which the President recommends...

...It is probable that the proposed legislation will include provision not only for the additional officers needed in the Department and in the field but also for the appointment of two additional Assistant Secretaries of State, one for administrative purposes and one as an expert on international law, with possibly an additional Under-Secretary...

...This increase is proposed at a time when the prospect of war between the United States and any other nation is more attenuated than at any time in the past forty years...

...This increase, already approved by the Bureau of the Budget, calls for an additional appropriation of $2,443,000...

...A certain amount of interchangeability between the two services must be provided for in a manner similar to that obtaining in the Home and Foreign Service of the British Foreign Office...

...Chairman Porter, of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, introduced a bill for the reorganization of the Department itself upon which the Committee held hearings covering several weeks- hearings whose results will doubtless appear in the legislation to be passed by the present Congress...

...The only question is whether or not tax-payers are securing their money's worth in governmental service...

...Congress has made a very acceptable move in the direction of providing proper housing for the service abroad, but in spite of the more or less generous appropriations so far, the great mass of men in the service lack satisfactory housing and adequate allowances for expenses of representation...