OUR DOLLAR-MARKED DIPLOMATS-AND OTHERS
Jones, E. Clarence
Our Dollar-marked Diplomats-And Others The Need of Having the BEST Men, Rather Than the RICHEST Men, Represent Us Abroad—And What We Must Do To Get Them By E. CLARENCE JONES AMONG the important...
...What Other Great Nations De IN WASHINGTON the residences of the foreign embassies and legations are pointed out to visitors, but the fact is not dwelt upon that these buildings are either owned outright or rented by the foreign governments for embassy or legation purposes...
...President Wilson can do much...
...These, mind you...
...at London, $40,000...
...Does not his duty toward Americans abroad lie in throwing the arm of the government around them and protecting them whenever they are in trouble...
...Our Dollar-marked Diplomats-And Others The Need of Having the BEST Men, Rather Than the RICHEST Men, Represent Us Abroad—And What We Must Do To Get Them By E. CLARENCE JONES AMONG the important ques tions that will face President Woodrow Wilson at the outset of his administration, there, is none that will affect the standing of the United States before the world at large, both in the near future and through administrations to come, as that which involves the choice of envoys to represent this country in the capitals of the world...
...In many cases, these investments have increased enormously in value...
...at London, $40,000...
...Herein...
...England pays her ambassador at Paris $45,000...
...These pensions, in many cases, are as large as the salaries paid by the Government of the United States...
...We make an Ambassador or Minister locate his own house, and rent, and furnish it...
...The saying is cur rent that a man cannot afford to accept the post of ambassador or minister to a foreign country unless either he has a fortune, or his wife's relatives can come forward with the cash necessary for him to uphold dignity and furnish display...
...but 1 do claim that a man who has wealth alone to recommend him is a disgrace to this country in an ambassadorial position, and that this Government should see to it that it is represented by MEN, who should be adequately housed for that representation...
...and it goes without saying that the American democratic spirit and the American national pride demand that such a condition of affairs be terminated...
...at Vienna, $40,000, and at Rome, $32,000...
...The act of Congress which I approved on February 17, 1911, was a right step in this direction...
...We have the authority of President Taft that he can appoint only millionaires to occupy our highest, diplomatic posts...
...It is undemocratic, and it also reflects on the dignity of the nation, for one ambassador to live in a palace and for his successor to live in a flat...
...at Rome, $2S,000, and at Vienna, $30,000...
...Petersburg, $37,500...
...Even in our early days, our highest diplomatic representatives abroad received $12,000, yet Franklin, Jefferson and Adams repeatedly complained of the difficulty of paying their expenses with this allowance...
...at Paris, $35,000...
...Now I ask you whether this is consistency...
...All governments, except the United States, pay their ambassadors a substantial pension upon retirement...
...at Berlin, $40,000...
...The Austrian ambassador receives, at Berlin, $31,000...
...Petersburg, $39,000...
...Speaking before the National Board of Trade on January 26, 1910, the President made this remarkable statement: ''We boast ourselves a democratic country...
...We say that there is no place within the gift of the people to which are may not select the most humble inhabitant, providing he is fit to discharge its duty, and yet we, have on arrangement which mokes it ab-solutely impossible for anyone but a millionaire to occupy the highest diplomatic post...
...If Congress refuses to pay our ambassadors more than $17,500 for all purposes, then an ambassador should not spend any more than that sum...
...Throughout the country are men of extraordinary ability, whose training and whose inclination for diplomatic service would insure their reflecting high credit on the entire nation, but who are debarred .from selection because, having been born without money or a genius for making it, or without having been practical about the question of marrying, it takes most of what they earn to support their families...
...Refusal on the part of the Government in the past to provide its ambassadors with suitable residences has precluded the nation from obtaining the service of many of its citizens who were best qualified by ability and experience to look after our interests in high positions abroad...
...Embassies creditable to our nation and strictly American in design can be acquired at an average of not over three hundred thousand dollars each —a total of only three million dollars for all the countries to which we send an ambassador, and they will enhance in value...
...at London, $45,000...
...at Rome, $35,-000, and at Vienna, $40,000...
...The secretarial positions have long been regarded as the prerogatives of rich men's sons, who do not have to live on the stipends paid, and who are thus furnished opportunities for "careers" and for meeting the really "best" people abroad, thereby winning, or adding to, their social prestige at home...
...The Secretary of State has already made the limited recommendations permitted by the act, for any one year, and it is ray hope that the bill introduced in the House of Representatives to carry out these recommendations will be favorably acted on by the Congress during its present session...
...This apex of snobbishness has, let us hope, forever passed...
...at Rome, $33,000, and at St...
...Germany gives her ambassador at Paris, $30,000...
...If what one hears is true about the independence of the President-elect, he will not have to pay faithful henchmen who supplied "sinews" during the campaign with appointments to London, or Berlin, or Paris, or Vienna, or Rome, or St...
...I believe that the present requirements that must be met by candidates for foreign secretarial appointments have greatly benefited this branch of our Foreign Service...
...Thus this country lost the services of one of the ablest men this generation has produced...
...Still the chances are that he will be besieged in the interest of wealthy-men who have held back, but "stood ready," and who are casting their eyes on these appointments as social plums...
...at St...
...The contrast with what foreign governments give their leading envoys is striking...
...I do not assert that wealth disqualifies a man for a diplomatic post...
...This plan has been pursued in later years by France, Austria, Germany, Russia and Italy, and the...
...Taft further says: "In line with the object which I have sought of placing our foreign service on a basis of permanency, I have at various tiroes advocated provision by Congress for the acquisition of Government-owned buildings for the residence of offices of our diplo matic officers, so as to place them more nearly on an equality with similar officers of other nations and to do away with the discrimination which otherwise must, necessarily be made, in some cases, in favor of men having large private fortunes...
...Let Us Foster World Peace OUR COMMERCE, our aims, our personal feelings dictate that we should live at peace with the rest of the world...
...It is niggardly, but if this Government holds that it is enough, it should be enough...
...at Paris, $40,000...
...Merit, Not Money, Should Count THE American Embassy Association has been waging a non-partisan campaign for the acquisition by the United States of permanent homes for its ambassadors in foreign capitals...
...Upon that our envoy must represent his country, if he has no private means...
...In many of the leading capitals of the world, you will find many of the great powers owning their own particular spot of soil, with a handsome building on it, which is truly under the sovereignty of the flag that flies above it...
...As we appropriate annually over two hundred million dollars in making preparations to keep on a hostile footing with other nations, we can well afford to expend three million dollars to promote friendship with them...
...namely, What did he contribute to the campaign, and has he an ample fortune...
...at London, $37,500...
...whether it is not the purest kind of demagogy...
...it opposes either the rental or ownership of palaces...
...He had visited the capital of that country, had been horrified at the tremendous private expenditure that was apparently considered necessary to maintain the dignity of an American embassy there, and, naturally not having a Croesus's income, he felt he could not undertake the succession...
...Since their time, the cost of living has at least quadrupled, while the salaries of the envoys of the highest rank have been increased less than one-third...
...it stands purely for the acquisition by our government of suitable buildings that will combine the office and the residence that an ambassador can maintain on his pay, and in which all ambassadors must reside, whether worth millions or dependent, on their salaries...
...Petersburg, $40,000, and at Vienna, $35,000...
...True, a government does not now have to await a report from its accredited representative to learn what is going on in a foreign country, but with the growth of commerce and the spread of the demand for peace among nations of the highest civilization, the post of foreign representative has increased in importance, and upon him...
...The French ambassador gets, at Berlin, $28,000...
...Russia pays her ambassador at Berlin, $40,000...
...even in greater measure than in the past, though not, perhaps, for the same reasons, rests a larger responsibility...
...smaller pow ers are following suit...
...No representative of our government abroad should he called upon to make expenditures from his private fortune, nor should it be necessary for him to have one in order to enable him to accept the appointment and to maintain our dignity in foreign countries...
...The theory of the Association is that this would he a great step forward in making it possible for this country to be represented abroad by the men best qualified by ability for diplomatic posts...
...He has his house rent to pay...
...Even now a minister draws no more than $12,000, and a man long in the diplomatic service recently felt compelled to decline an appointment to Argen tina, mainly because his income was not sufficient to stand the strain of the cost of living and entertaining in Buenos Aires, The envoy of this country in a for-eign capital ought to be able to represent this government upon the money paid him by this government and that sum should be sufficient to enable him to represent us in a fitting manner...
...We Need the BEST Men, Rather Than the RICHEST Men to Represent Us Abroad WE PAY our foreign ambassadors just $17,500 a year-—no more...
...It was considered that the main qualifications for such positions consisted aside from wealthy relatives, in knowing what sort, of coat to wear at...
...are over and above the buildings furnished them, or the rental, and a generous allowance made for the entertaining which every government except ours officially recognizes to be a part of the duties of its envoys...
...Congress has already acted favorably upon a bill which will make a modest beginning of this and the Secretary of State, after an investigation, has recommended the purchase of sites and the construction of embassies or legations in Mexico City, Tokio, Berne and Hankow...
...A noteworthy case in point is that told about a distinguished University president, who, upon retiring a few years ago, was talked of as envoy to one of the great European powers...
...For almost a. century, Great Britain has followed a policy of housing her diplomatic representatives in the, largest, handsomest and best buildings...
...The theory that the telegraph and the press have in the last generation or two usurped the functions of an ambassador or a minister is a fallacy, except in part...
...In each of those capitals, the American ambassador draws from his government $17,500...
...Take the case of the British Embassy in Paris, for instance,—a magnificent house and surrounding park adjoining the Palace of the Elysee, for which $200,000 was paid fifty years ago, and which is now said to be worth more than $2,000,000, Look at These Salaries...
...We want the trade of other countries, we want their surplus capital for the development of our resources and industries, we want the whole world to move forward with us, and we want that peace that Conferences at the Hague have not as yet seemed to promote...
...obtainable in foreign capitals, generally without regard to cost or rental...
...Petersburg...
...The idea existing in some quarters that this association advocates the purchase of palaces abroad, is erroneous...
...As individual contributions to the Democratic campaign fund were limited by his order, it is to be presumed that he is bound by no promise to reward anybody by a diplomatic post for "services rendered...
...a social function...
...at Rome, $24,000...
...By demagogy I mean the advancement of an argument which stems to be in favor of democracy, but which, when it actually works out, is in favor of plutocracy...
...It hag been my observation in my travels about the country advocating the idea of our providing suitable homes for our representatives abroad, that the idea was most popular in democratic sections, where they seemed to realise the necessity of providing for able men, regardless of their means...
...He wouldn't take the job...
...So long as our representatives abroad are compelled to expend large sums from their private fortunes, just so long will our citizens feel, that their rights in such residences are uncertain, and that such expenditures on the part of our representatives tend to give them too much independence toward their compatriots and thereby render them less useful to their fellow citizens and their country...
...Petersburg, $35,000...
...in being able to determine whether to address a, foreigner as "Your Grace'' or "Your Lordship" or as plain "Mister" or "Monsieur...
...IHAVE BEEN at pains to obtain from trustworthy sources, some facts as to the salaries paid foreign ambassadors...
...in the ability to estimate the social or financial status of the American from home and whether his influence counted for anything with the "administration," and in knowing just when society should move to Cowes, or Scotland, or Trouville, or Kiel, and getting aboard the train that carried the most important consignment of it...
...Wilson's Opportunity THE OPPORTUNITIES before President-elect Wilson in the matter of the betterment of our diplomatic service are tremendous...
...This course may aid him, but it brings no benefit to the people of our country...
...he has to pay for all the entertaining he does—and he has no assurance that he won't at any time be kicked out of his job...
...Is it any part of his duty to create a snobbish court circle by entertaining certain traveling Americans...
...For Millionaires Only" FOR YEARS the important, ambas sadorial posts have been considered proper rewards for the men who have made the biggest contributions to the campaign chest of the successful political party, in determining the qualifications of a candidate, frequently only two considerations have been taken into account...
...at St...
...Dollars and Dress Suits THE HISTORY of American diplomacy for more than half a century is a basis for the cynical view many of us take of the American diplomatic service...
...at St...
...I believe that our countrymen would point with pride to a place in which they feel they have citizens' rights, and where they might come and go with the same freedom as that existing at the White House at Washington...
...Still, I believe an overwhelming majority of the people of this country want to see their country represented abroad as befits its rank among the nations of the world, and if the question were put to them squarely there would be an almost unanimous demand to give us the best men for these posts, and make it pos sible for them to represent the United States as this country should be represented...
...In his Message to Congress on December 3, 1912, Mr...
...and the advent of the Democratic party makes the acquisition of homes a burning issue...
...We Seed Government-owned Embassies IS NOT an American ambassador's duty the cultivation of friendship among the people of the country to which he is accredited, go that he may be prepared to speedily smooth over any rough places, thereby averting possible war, and, through being on friendly terms with the government and the people, to get everything possible in the way of commercial advantages for our country...
Vol. 5 • February 1913 • No. 6
