The United States has always been admirably represented at the Court of St. James. I consider it as a rare privilege and a delightful memory that I have known well these distinguished ambassadors and ministers who served during my time. I was not in England while Charles Francis Adams was a minister, but his work during the Civil War created intense interest in America. It is admitted that he prevented Great Britain from taking such action as would have prolonged the war and endangered the purpose which Mr. Lincoln was trying to accomplish, namely, the preservation of the Union. His curt answer to Lord John Russell, "This means war," changed the policy of the British Government.
James Russell Lowell met every requirement of the position, but, more than that, his works had been read and admired in England before his appointment. Literary England welcomed him with open arms, and official England soon became impressed with his diplomatic ability. He was one of the finest after-dinner speakers, and that brought him in contact with the best of English public life. He told me an amusing instance. As soon as he was appointed, everybody who expected to meet him sent to the book stores and purchased his works. Among them, of course, was the "Biglow Papers." One lady asked him if he had brought Mrs. Biglow with him.
The secretary of the embassy, William J. Hoppin, was a very accomplished gentleman. He had been president of the Union League Club, and I knew him very well. I called one day at the embassy with an American living in Europe to ask for a favor for this fellow countryman. The embassy was overwhelmed with Americans asking favors, so Hoppin, without looking at me or waiting for the request, at once brought out his formula for sliding his visitors on an inclined plane into the street. He said: "Every American—and there are thousands of them—who comes to London visits the embassy. They all want to be invited to Buckingham Palace or to have cards to the House of Lords or the House of Commons. Our privileges in that respect are very few, so few that we can satisfy hardly anybody. Why Americans, when there is so much to see in this old country from which our ancestry came, and with whose literature we are so familiar, should want to try to get into Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament is incomprehensible. There is a very admirable cattle show at Reading. I have a few tickets and will give them to you, gentlemen, gladly. You will find the show exceedingly interesting."
I took the tickets, but if there is anything of which I am not a qualified judge, it is prize cattle. That night, at a large dinner given by a well-known English host, my friend Hoppin was present, and at once greeted me with warm cordiality. Of course, he had no recollections of the morning meeting. Our host, as usual when a new American is present, wanted to know if I had any fresh American stories, and I told with some exaggeration and embroidery the story of the Reading cattle show. Dear old Hoppin was considerably embarrassed at the chafing he received, but took it in good part, and thereafter the embassy was entirely at my service.
Mr. Edward J. Phelps was an extraordinary success. He was a great lawyer, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States told me that there was no one who appeared before that Court whose arguments were more satisfactory and convincing than those of Mr. Phelps. He had the rare distinction of being a frequent guest at the Benchers' dinners in London. One of the English judges told me that at a Benchers' dinner the judges were discussing a novel point which had arisen in one of the cases recently before them. He said that in the discussion in which Mr. Phelps was asked to participate, the view which the United States minister presented was so forcible that the decision, which had been practically agreed upon, was changed to meet Mr. Phelps's view. I was at several of Mr. Phelps's dinners. They were remarkable gatherings of the best in almost every department of English life.
At one of his dinners I had a delightful talk with Browning, the poet. Browning told me that as a young man he was several times a guest at the famous breakfasts of the poet and banker, Samuel Rogers. Rogers, he said, was most arbitrary at these breakfasts with his guests, and rebuked him severely for venturing beyond the limits within which he thought a young poet should be confined.
Mr. Browning said that nothing gratified him so much as the popularity of his works in the United States. He was especially pleased and also embarrassed by our Browning societies, of which there seemed to be a great many over here. They sent him papers which were read by members of the societies, interpreting his poems. These American friends discovered meanings which had never occurred to him, and were to him an entirely novel view of his own productions. He also mentioned that every one sent him presents and souvenirs, all of them as appreciations and some as suggestions and help. Among these were several cases of American wine. He appreciated the purpose of the gifts, but the fluid did not appeal to him.
He told me he was a guest at one time at the dinners given to the Shah of Persia. This monarch was a barbarian, but the British Foreign Office had asked and extended to him every possible courtesy, because of the struggle then going on as to whether Great Britain or France or Russia should have the better part of Persia. France and Russia had entertained him with lavish military displays and other governmental functions, which a democratic country like Great Britain could not duplicate. So the Foreign Office asked all who had great houses in London or in the country, and were lavish entertainers, to do everything they could for the Shah.
Browning was present at a great dinner given for the Shah at Stafford House, the home of the Duke of Sutherland, and the finest palace in London. Every guest was asked, in order to impress the Shah, to come in all the decorations to which they were entitled. The result was that the peers came in their robes, which they otherwise would not have thought of wearing on such an occasion, and all others in the costumes of honor significant of their rank. Browning said he had received a degree at Oxford and that entitled him to a scarlet cloak. He was so outranked, because the guests were placed according to rank, that he sat at the foot of the table. The Shah said to his host: "Who is that distinguished gentleman in the scarlet cloak at the other end of the table?" The host answered: "That is one of our greatest poets." "That is no place for a poet," remarked the Shah; "bring him up here and let him sit next to me." So at the royal command the poet took the seat of honor. The Shah said to Browning: "I am mighty glad to have you near me, for I am a poet myself."
It was at this dinner that Browning heard the Shah say to the Prince of Wales, who sat at the right of the Shah: "This is a wonderful palace. Is it royal?" The Prince answered: "No, it belongs to one of our great noblemen, the Duke of Sutherland." "Well," said the Shah, "let me give you a point. When one of my noblemen or subjects gets rich enough to own a palace like this, I cut off his head and take his fortune."
A very beautiful English lady told me that she was at Ferdinand Rothschild's, where the Shah was being entertained. In order to minimize his acquisitive talents, the wonderful treasures of Mr. Rothschild's house had been hidden. The Shah asked for an introduction to this lady and said to her: "You are the most beautiful woman I have seen since I have been in England. I must take you home with me." "But," she said, "Your Majesty, I am married." "Well," he replied, "bring your husband along. When we get to Teheran, my capital, I will take care of him."
Mr. Phelps's talent as a speaker was quite unknown to his countrymen before he went abroad. While he was a minister he made several notable addresses, which aroused a great deal of interest and admiration in Great Britain. He was equally happy in formal orations and in the field of after-dinner speeches. Mrs. Phelps had such a phenomenal success socially that, when her husband was recalled and they left England, the ladies of both the great parties united, and through Lady Rosebery, the leader of the Liberal, and Lady Salisbury, of the Conservative, women, paid her a very unusual and complimentary tribute.
During John Hay's term as United States minister to Great Britain my visits to England were very delightful. Hay was one of the most charming men in public life of his period. He had won great success in journalism, as an author, and in public service. At his house in London one would meet almost everybody worth while in English literary, public, and social life.
In the hours of conversation with him, when I was posting him on the latest developments in America, his comments upon the leading characters of the time were most racy and witty. Many of them would have embalmed a statesman, if the epigram had been preserved, like a fly in amber. He had officially a very difficult task during the Spanish War. The sympathies of all European governments were with Spain. This was especially true of the Kaiser and the German Government. It was Mr. Hay's task to keep Great Britain neutral and prevent her joining the general alliance to help Spain, which some of the continental governments were fomenting.
Happily, Mr. Balfour, the British foreign minister, was cordially and openly our friend. He prevented this combination against the United States.
During part of my term as a senator John Hay was secretary of state. To visit his office and have a discussion on current affairs was an event to be remembered. He made a prediction, which was the result of his own difficulties with the Senate, that on account of the two-thirds majority necessary for the ratification of a treaty, no important treaty sent to the Senate by the president would ever again be ratified. Happily this gloomy view has not turned out to be entirely correct.
Mr. Hay saved China, in the settlement of the indemnities arising out of the Boxer trouble, from the greed of the great powers of Europe. One of his greatest achievements was in proclaiming the open door for China and securing the acquiescence of the great powers. It was a bluff on his part, because he never could have had the active support of the United States, but he made his proposition with a confidence which carried the belief that he had no doubt on that subject. He was fortunately dealing with governments who did not understand the United States and do not now. With them, when a foreign minister makes a serious statement of policy, it is understood that he has behind him the whole military, naval, and financial support of his government. But with us it is a long road and a very rocky one, before action so serious, with consequences so great, can receive the approval of the war-making power in Congress.
I called on Hay one morning just as Cassini, the Russian ambassador, was leaving. Cassini was one of the shrewdest and ablest of diplomats in the Russian service. It was said that for twelve years he had got the better of all the delegations at Pekin and controlled that extraordinary ruler of China, the dowager queen. Cassini told me that from his intimate associations with her he had formed the opinion that she was quite equal to Catherine of Russia, whom he regarded as the greatest woman sovereign who ever lived.
Hay said to me: "I have just had a very long and very remarkable discussion with Cassini. He is a revelation in the way of secret diplomacy. He brought to me the voluminous instructions to him of his government on our open-door policy. After we had gone over them carefully, he closed his portfolio and, pushing it aside, said: 'Now, Mr. Secretary, listen to Cassini.' He immediately presented an exactly opposite policy from the one in the instructions, and a policy entirely favorable to us, and said: 'That is what my government will do.'" It was a great loss to Russian diplomacy when he died so early.
As senator I did all in my power to bring about the appointment of Whitelaw Reid as ambassador to Great Britain. He and I had been friends ever since his beginning in journalism in New York many years before. Reid was then the owner and editor of the New York Tribune, and one of the most brilliant journalists in the country. He was also an excellent public speaker. His long and intimate contact with public affairs and intimacy with public men ideally fitted him for the appointment. He had already served with great credit as ambassador to France.
The compensation of our representatives abroad always has been and still is entirely inadequate to enable them to maintain, in comparison with the representatives of other governments, the dignity of their own country. All the other great powers at the principal capitals maintain fine residences for their ambassadors, which also is the embassy. Our Congress, except within the last few years, has always refused to make this provision. The salary which we pay is scarcely ever more than one-third the amount paid by European governments in similar service.
I worked hard while in the Senate to improve this situation because of my intimate knowledge of the question. When I first began the effort I found there was very strong belief that the whole foreign service was an unnecessary expense. When Mr. Roosevelt first became president, and I had to see him frequently about diplomatic appointments, I learned that this was his view. He said to me: "This foreign business of the government, now that the cable is perfected, can be carried on between our State Department and the chancellery of any government in the world. Nevertheless, I am in favor of keeping up the diplomatic service. All the old nations have various methods of rewarding distinguished public servants. The only one we have is the diplomatic service. So when I appoint a man ambassador or minister, I believe that I am giving him a decoration, and the reason I change ambassadors and ministers is that I want as many as possible to possess it."
The longer Mr. Roosevelt remained president, and the closer he came to our foreign relations, the more he appreciated the value of the personal contact and intimate knowledge on the spot of an American ambassador or minister.
Mr. Reid entertained more lavishly and hospitably than any ambassador in England ever had, both at his London house and at his estate in the country. He appreciated the growing necessity to the peace of the world and the progress of civilization of closer union of English-speaking peoples. At his beautiful and delightful entertainments Americans came in contact with Englishmen under conditions most favorable for the appreciation by each of the other. The charm of Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid's hospitality was so genuine, so cordial, and so universal, that to be their guest was an event for Americans visiting England. There is no capital in the world where hospitality counts for so much as in London, and no country where the house-party brings people together under such favorable conditions. Both the city and the country homes of Mr. and Mrs. Reid were universities of international good-feeling. Mr. Reid, on the official side, admirably represented his country and had the most intimate relations with the governing powers of Great Britain.
I recall with the keenest pleasure how much my old friend, Joseph H. Choate, did to make each one of my visits to London during his term full of the most charming and valuable recollections. His dinners felt the magnetism of his presence, and he showed especial skill in having, to meet his American guests, just the famous men in London life whom the American desired to know.
Choate was a fine conversationalist, a wit and a humorist of a high order. His audacity won great triumphs, but if exercised by a man less endowed would have brought him continuously into trouble. He had the faculty, the art, of so directing conversation that at his entertainments everybody had a good time, and an invitation always was highly prized. He was appreciated most highly by the English bench and bar. They recognized him as the leader of his profession in the United States. They elected him a Bencher of the Middle Temple, the first American to receive that honor after an interval of one hundred and fifty years. Choate's witticisms and repartees became the social currency of dinner-tables in London and week-end parties in the country.
Choate paid little attention to conventionalities, which count for so much and are so rigidly enforced, especially in royal circles. I had frequently been at receptions, garden-parties, and other entertainments at Buckingham Palace in the time of Queen Victoria and also of King Edward. At an evening reception the diplomats representing all the countries in the world stand in a solemn row, according to rank and length of service. They are covered with decorations and gold lace. The weight of the gold lace on some of the uniforms of the minor powers is as great as if it were a coat of armor. Mr. Choate, under regulations of our diplomatic service, could only appear in an ordinary dress suit.
While the diplomats stand in solemn array, the king and queen go along the line and greet each one with appropriate remarks. Nobody but an ambassador and minister gets into that brilliant circle. On one occasion Mr. Choate saw me standing with the other guests outside the charmed circle and immediately left the diplomats, came to me, and said: "I am sure you would like to have a talk with the queen." He went up to Her Majesty, stated the case and who I was, and the proposition was most graciously received. I think the royalties were pleased to have a break in the formal etiquette. Mr. Choate treated the occasion, so far as I was concerned, as if it had been a reception in New York or Salem, and a distinguished guest wanted to meet the hosts. The gold-laced and bejewelled and highly decorated diplomatic circle was paralyzed.
Mr. Choate's delightful personality and original conversational powers made him a favorite guest everywhere, but he also carried to the platform the distinction which had won for him the reputation of being one of the finest orators in the United States.
Choate asked at one time when I was almost nightly making speeches at some entertainment: "How do you do it?" I told him I was risking whatever reputation I had on account of very limited preparation, that I did not let these speeches interfere at all with my business, but that they were all prepared after I had arrived home from my office late in the afternoon. Sometimes they came easy, and I reached the dinner in time; at other times they were more difficult, and I did not arrive till the speaking had begun. Then he said: "I enjoy making these after-dinner addresses more than any other work. It is a perfect delight for me to speak to such an audience, but I have not the gift of quick and easy preparation. I accept comparatively few of the constant invitations I receive, because when I have to make such a speech I take a corner in the car in the morning going to my office, exclude all the intruding public with a newspaper and think all the way down. I continue the same process on my way home in the evening, and it takes about three days of this absorption and exclusiveness, with some time in the evenings, to get an address with which I am satisfied."
The delicious humor of these efforts of Mr. Choate and the wonderful way in which he could expose a current delusion, or what he thought was one, and produce an impression not only on his audience but on the whole community, when his speech was printed in the newspapers, was a kind of effort which necessarily required preparation. In all the many times I heard him, both at home and abroad, he never had a failure and sometimes made a sensation.
Among the many interesting characters whom I met on shipboard was Emory Storrs, a famous Chicago lawyer. Storrs was a genius of rare talent as an advocator. He also on occasions would make a most successful speech, but his efforts were unequal. At one session of the National Bar Association he carried off all honors at their banquet. Of course, they wanted him the next year, but then he failed entirely to meet their expectations.. Storrs was one of the most successful advocates at the criminal bar, especially in murder cases. He rarely failed to get an acquittal for his client. He told me many interesting stories of his experiences. He had a wide circuit, owing to his reputation, and tried cases far distant from home.
I remember one of his experiences in an out-of-the-way county of Arkansas. The hotel where they all stopped was very primitive, and he had the same table with the judge. The most attractive offer for breakfast by the landlady was buckwheat-cakes. She appeared with a jug of molasses and said to the judge: "Will you have a trickle or a dab?" The judge answered: "A dab." She then ran her fingers around the jug and slapped a huge amount of molasses on the judge's cakes. Storrs said: "I think I prefer a trickle." Whereupon she dipped her fingers again in the jug and let the drops fall from them on Storrs's cakes. The landlady was disappointed because her cakes were unpopular with such distinguished gentlemen.
Once Storrs was going abroad on the same ship with me on a sort of semi-diplomatic mission. He was deeply read in English literature and, as far as a stranger could be, familiar with the places made famous in English and foreign classics.
He was one of the factors, as chairman of the Illinois delegation, of the conditions which made possible the nomination of Garfield and Arthur. In the following presidential campaign he took an active and very useful part. Then he brought all the influences that he could use, and they were many, to bear upon President Arthur to make him attorney-general. Arthur was a strict formalist and could not tolerate the thought of having such an eccentric genius in his Cabinet. Storrs was not only disappointed but hurt that Arthur declined to appoint him.
To make him happy his rich clients—and he had many of them—raised a handsome purse and urged him to make a European trip. Then the president added to the pleasure of his journey by giving him an appointment as a sort of roving diplomat, with special duties relating to the acute trouble then existing in regard to the admission of American cattle into Great Britain. They were barred because of a supposed infectious disease.
Storrs's weakness was neckties. He told me that he had three hundred and sixty-five, a new one for every day. He would come on deck every morning, display his fresh necktie, and receive a compliment upon its color and appropriateness, and then take from his pocket a huge water-proof envelope. From this he would unroll his parchment appointment as a diplomat, and the letters he had to almost every one of distinction in Europe. On the last day, going through the same ceremony, he said to me: "I am not showing you these things out of vanity, but to impress upon you the one thing I most want to accomplish in London. I desire to compel James Russell Lowell, our minister, to give me a dinner."
Probably no man in the world could be selected so antipathetic to Lowell as Emory Storrs. Mr. Lowell told me that he was annoyed that the president should have sent an interloper to meddle with negotiations which he had in successful progress to a satisfactory conclusion. So he invited Storrs to dinner, and then Storrs took no further interest in his diplomatic mission.
Mr. Lowell told me that he asked Storrs to name whoever he wanted to invite. He supposed from his general analysis of the man that Storrs would want the entire royal family. He was delighted to find that the selection was confined entirely to authors, artists, and scientists.
On my return trip Mr. Storrs was again a fellow passenger. He was very enthusiastic over the places of historic interest he had visited, and eloquent and graphic in descriptions of them and of his own intense feelings when he came in contact with things he had dreamed of most of his life.
"But," he said, "I will tell you of my greatest adventure. I was in the picture-gallery at Dresden, and in that small room where hangs Raphael's 'Madonna.' I was standing before this wonderful masterpiece of divine inspiration when I felt the room crowded. I discovered that the visitors were all Americans and all looking at me. I said to them: 'Ladies and gentlemen, you are here in the presence of the most wonderful picture ever painted. If you study it, you can see that there is little doubt but with all his genius Raphael in this work had inspiration from above, and yet you, as Americans, instead of availing yourselves of the rarest of opportunities, have your eyes bent on me. I am only a Chicago lawyer wearing a Chicago-made suit of clothes.'
"A gentleman stepped forward and said: 'Mr. Storrs, on behalf of your countrymen and countrywomen present, I wish to say that you are of more interest to us than all the works of Raphael put together, because we understand that James Russell Lowell, United States Minister to Great Britain, gave you a dinner.'"
One other incident in my acquaintance with Mr. Storrs was original. I heard the story of it both from him and Lord Coleridge, and they did not differ materially. Lord Coleridge, Chief Justice of England, was a most welcome visitor when he came to the United States. He received invitations from the State Bar Associations everywhere to accept their hospitality. I conducted him on part of his trip and found him one of the most able and delightful of men. He was a very fine speaker, more in our way than the English, and made a first-class impression upon all the audiences he addressed.
At Chicago Lord Coleridge was entertained by the Bar Association of the State of Illinois. Storrs, who was an eminent member of the bar of that State, came to him and said: "Now, Lord Coleridge, you have been entertained by the Bar Association. I want you to know the real men of the West, the captains of industry who have created this city, built our railroads, and made the Great West what it is." Coleridge replied that he did not want to go outside bar associations, and he could not think of making another speech in Chicago. Storrs assured him it would be purely a private affair and no speeches permitted.
The dinner was very late, but when they sat down Lord Coleridge noticed a distinguished-looking gentleman, instead of eating his dinner, correcting a manuscript. He said: "Mr. Storrs, I understood there was to be no speaking." "Well," said Storrs, "you can't get Americans together unless some one takes the floor. That man with the manuscript is General and Senator John A. Logan, one of our most distinguished citizens." Just then a reporter came up to Storrs and said: "Mr. Storrs, we have the slips of your speech in our office, and it is now set up with the laughter and applause in their proper places. The editor sent me up to see if you wanted to add anything." Of course Lord Coleridge was in for it and had to make another speech.
The cause of the lateness of the dinner is the most original incident that I know of in historic banquets. Storrs received great fees and had a large income, but was very careless about his business matters. One of his creditors obtained a judgment against him. The lawyer for this creditor was a guest at this dinner and asked the landlord of the hotel if the dinner had been paid for in advance. The landlord answered in the affirmative, and so the lawyer telephoned to the sheriff, and had the dinner levied upon. The sheriff refused to allow it to be served until the judgment was satisfied. There were at least a hundred millions of dollars represented among the guests, packers, elevator men, real-estate operators, and grain operators, but millionaires and multimillionaires in dress suits at a banquet never have any money on their persons. So it was an hour or more before the sheriff was satisfied. Lord Coleridge was intensely amused and related the adventure with great glee.
Several years afterwards Lord Coleridge had some difficulty in his family which came into the courts of England. I do not remember just what it was all about, but Storrs, in reading the gossip which came across the cable, decided against the chief justice. Lord Coleridge told me he received from Storrs a cable reading something like this: "I have seen in our papers about your attitude in the suit now pending. I therefore inform you that as far as possible I withdraw the courtesies which I extended to you in Chicago." In this unique way Storrs cancelled the dinner which was given and seized by the sheriff years ago.
I met Storrs many times, and he was always not only charming but fascinating. He was very witty, full of anecdotes, and told a story with dramatic effect. Except for his eccentricities he might have taken the highest place in his profession. As it was, he acquired such fame that an admirer has written a very good biography of him.
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