In the Tradition

For 150 years the U. S. has made much of its diplomatic inexperience. If the classic picture of a British diplomat is a well-read University man, trained to translate Rimbaud or snub the Estonian minister with equal aplomb, the classic figure of the U. S. diplomatist is a man who knows no foreign language, mixes up seating arrangements, and is just learning as he goes along. U. S. foreign service bags at the knees, pretends that its hearing is not very good, cannot dance, has only a vague idea of what is going on, is cheerfully disparaged by the populace, and is judged by historians to have been extremely successful. So it was when Ben Franklin popped up in Paris wearing a fur cap instead of a wig. So it was when General Schenck (less successfully) "became the lion of the hour when he introduced draw poker into London society." And so it was last week when U. S. foreign policy and the U. S. State Department made plenty of news.

Biggest was the news of the appointment of Myron Taylor to the Vatican (see p. 7). But behind the old cream-colored swinging doors of the State Department, Cordell Hull, 47th U. S. Secretary of State, his aides and under secretaries, carried through the routine steps according to the great tradition of their great and second-rate predecessors:

> Secretary Hull signed a trade agreement with Cuba that cut the duty on sugar 40%, the duty on stemmed cigar filler tobacco from 40-c- to 25-c- a pound.

> The Secretary also tangled with Senator Vandenberg when the Senator attacked his beloved reciprocal trade agreements. Wrote the Secretary grandly: "I have received your letter ... in which you express your concern over possible reduction of the duty on beans. . . ."

> Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles said a few words about Cuba, speaking at a dinner given by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce. Last October Soviet Premier Molotov defended Russia's course in Finland, said Russia had granted Finnish independence while the Philippines and Cuba "had long been demanding freedom and independence from the U. S. and cannot get them." Said Mr. Welles dryly: matters between the U. S. and Cuba appear to be in better shape than matters between the Soviet Union and Finland, and are getting still better. Coming next February: Cuba's national election, of which the Under Secretary made a graceful mention.

The State Department's most notable move was to join the U. S. with the 20 other American Republics in protesting to France, Germany and Great Britain against violations of the 300-mile safety zone, established by the Declaration of Panama last October. Because a naval battle was fought off the coast of Uruguay, because the Admiral Graf Spee took refuge in Montevideo and was scuttled on the River Plate, because a German merchant ship was sunk within the zone, the American republics warned the belligerents that they were going to consult "in order to strengthen the system of protection."

Although experts were disposed to minimize the effects of the protest, joint Pan American action on such a scale looked impressive. To opponents of the foreign policy of the Roosevelt Administration, it looked like one of those moves that Statesman Elihu Root described as "first shaking one's fist and then shaking one's finger." The finger shake: a threat to deny the use of American ports to ships which fight in the safety zone. Best argument put forward by opponents was Walter Lippmann's: The 21 Republics are in a position of having asserted a right which they have failed to enforce. Belligerents cannot be persuaded to respect the zone. To enforce it would require a formidable fleet, would mean driving out all warships, protecting all merchant ships, arresting all supply ships that act as naval auxiliaries. Far simpler, said Mr. Lippmann, to enforce the traditional code of neutrals and let the Allies deal with the raiders, realize the ideal of the Declaration of Panama without abandoning American neutrality.

Until last week, plain readers had no rapid up-to-the-minute survey of U. S. diplomatic history to place such moves in historical perspective.* Last week Stanford Professor Thomas Bailey brought out A Diplomatic History of the American People. It begins with an account of colonial foreign policy and ends, 766 pages later, with President Roosevelt's Neutrality Proclamation and a retrospect and prospect. But its best feature is that it makes diplomatic history lively reading.

Samples:

> On July 8, 1853, Japanese on the Bay of Yedo saw Perry's flagship belching black smoke, moving up the Bay against a headwind, recalled a folk song in consternation:

Thro' a black night of cloud and rain,

The Black Ship plies her way--

An alien thing of evil mien--

Across the waters gray.

Professor Bailey believes that in his mission to open up Japan Perry was diplomatically shrewd in secluding himself and refusing to deal with any except the highest officials. But after Perry's show of force and dignity, the treaty he made was disappointing, and Author Bailey agrees with Finley Peter Dunne (in effect): "When we knocked at the door, we didn't go in, they came out."

> U. S. feelings have always been passionate on foreign affairs. Virginians drank "a speedy death to General Washington" for approving Jay's treaty ending the immediate trouble with Britain without settling the underlying questions. A Boston friend of Jay's found written on his fence: "Damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won't put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!"

> U. S. foreign policy has been on the whole so successful that a big question is what it might have accomplished had its minor personnel been better. One such was Congressman "Beast" Butler's nephew, who got a post in Egypt, "where he caused a minor scandal by drunkenness, brawling, a shooting affray and the purchase of dancing girls."

> For 95 years either Second Assistant Secretaries William Hunter or Alvey Augustus Adee provided continuity in the State Department, saved inexperienced secretaries serious mistakes. Hunter came in with Andrew Jackson, worked under Martin Van Buren, served 57 years. Adee came in in 1878, served until 1924. Deaf, reserved, unmarried, Adee often slept in his office when work became heavy, examined almost every written State Department communication for 30 years. When he became third assistant Secretary of State, John Hay cried, "The country is safe!" Known as semper paratus, faithfully keeping a diary and never entering a syllable that dealt with his public life, Adee gave the Department one of its favorite anecdotes: during the Boxer Uprising he was asked what happened during an interview between Secretary John Hay and Wu Ting Fang. Said Mr. Adee, "Mr. Hay was rather hazy and Mr. Wu was rather woozy."

Says Professor Bailey of isolation--"Between 1689 and 1918 there were eight general European wars. And the American people were involved in every one of them, whether they wanted to be or not." Unjustified is the conclusion that the U. S. must be drawn into every general war, but "it seems reasonably clear that America has never been, and probably can never be, completely separated from Europe."

Said Elihu Root: "When foreign affairs were ruled by autocracies or oligarchies, the danger of war was in sinister purpose. When foreign affairs are ruled by democracies the danger of war will be in mistaken beliefs. The world will be the gainer by the change, for, while there is no human way to prevent a king from having a bad heart, there is a human way to prevent a people from having an erroneous opinion."

* Although many a careful but usually highly specialized work exists: Samuel Flagg Bemis' Diplomatic History of the United States, John Holladay Latane's History of American Foreign Policy.

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