Judah to Cuba

If a diplomat says "no" he is said to be no diplomat. If he can say "I know" he is likely to be a very good diplomat.

Major General Enoch Hebert Crowder, lately retired U. S. Ambassador to Cuba, was a very good diplomat. Modern diplomacy, especially between the U. S. and Cuba, is more a matter of business than bons mots. U. S. investors pay two-thirds of Cuba's wages. U. S. markets absorb 80% of Cuba's exports. In addition to keeping these business relations smooth, General Crowder could often say "I know" about Cuba's private affairs. He aided in electoral reforms, in a financial crisis. To replace General Crowder in Cuba, some one was wanted who could keep smooth in a business way and continue to assist Cuba's business-like President Machado.

Such was the reasoning perceived last week behind President Coolidge's appointment of Col. Noble Brandon Judah, Chicago lawyer, soldier, bank director, to the Cuban post. Like the selection of Morgan-partner Dwight Whitney Morrow for the recent vacancy in Mexico, Mr. Judah's selection, over the heads of State Department "career men," was an effort to discover and apply special aptitude for a special necessity.

Ambassador Judah never before held public office higher than a seat in the Illinois assembly. He has never felt that his Republican sentiments required him to admire Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson, who labeled Mr. Judah a "silk sock" when the latter managed an anti-Thompson primary campaign. Senator Charles Samuel Deneen of Illinois has been the Judah patron. He introduced the bemedaled* lawyer-soldier to Washington last year and President Coolidge was impressed. Colonel Judah, onetime Assistant Chief of Staff of the Rainbow Division, is a director of the Chicago Title and Trust Co. and an alumnus-trustee of Brown University.

In Cuba quite as much as elsewhere, social duties accompany the business of diplomacy. Such duties Ambassador Judah is financially equipped to perform better than many a diplomat. He inherited substantially from his father, and Mrs. Judah was Dorothy Patterson of the National Cash Register family (Dayton, Ohio). The Judahs will have a month or so to get settled in Havana. Then will come the pan-American conference, at which the new ambassador will be, ex officio, a member of the U. S. delegation and host of his colleagues, the latter perhaps including President Coolidge.

* Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre (with palm), D. S. M.