Evening star., 1899-01-03
American Peace, Commissioners Had
NosEasS Thing.
FoENBH VoH8HY OF THEIR STEEL
Pen Sketches of a Remarkable
Group Of 8ainy Men.
RIOS is A GREAT DIPLOMAT

special correspondence OF ne Evening star.
PARIS, December II, 1898.
When the manager of a French cable
company was reproached by an American
correspondent for leaving a cabiegram, an
nouncins the settlement of the peace treaty,
Unsent In his office for seven hours. the
Frenchman wrung his hands miserably and
declared Il am desole"
He described the condition of the Hotel
Continental today. The Continental is a
big house, like most Paris hotels with a
past shop palace, that was some
years ago remodeled to its present uses
and shelters many of the wealthy Ameri-
cans who come to the French metropolis to
buy things at double the prices they would
pay in New York or London Its front
overlooks the garden of the Tuilleries and
the finest square in the world, the Place
de la Concorde where mournful and bloody
history has transpired, and where, on a
wet night like this one, the asphalt reflect
ed a thousand gaudy lights, and its court
yard any one may see by turning to Du
Mauriers picture Of his three musketeers
of the brush returned to Paris in their
period Of prosperity, dining in an atmos-
phere Of bank notes and gold.
A Russian Grand Duchess.
The Continental has been bereft in a
single day Of the American peace commits
sion and grand duchess. The peace COM
mission was probably the more important
body; the duchess certainly to an
American whose calling list includes few
grand duchessas the more interesting. She
was cousin of the Gear of Russia. was
listed on the hotel register with her suite
betweel an English actor and the proprl-
etor of an American circus. as Her Royal
HighnesS Helen Vladimir, with unre
memberable terminal ending in sky" and
| the business of her trip to Paris 10 buy
a wedding outfit. The Russian nobility if
the grand duchess may be taken an ex-
ample, get almost as much fun out of life
| as Americans. She was a young lady of
about twenty years, rather short and
| plump, with very black hair, very red
cheeks, and, romping through the hotel cor
| ridors in a shirt waist, might have been
| taken for OF Gibsons summer girls.
Several princes, countesses, colonels and
| other titles composed the suite, who, with
| their duchess, were to be met in the music
halls and cafes of Paris every night or
| dining in the public restaurant of the hotel
| and gossiping over their coffee afterward
! in the writing room, with the difference be-
tween them and the counterfeit yellow
haired Russianf countesses who infest the
| lobbies of gilded European hotels that they
did not smoke cigar6tSeS ostentatiously in
public Only one form<lity raised the little
duchess above the level of her fellow lodg
ers. When she entered the dining room all
the ladies and geptIemsn of her party would
rise, and the solaieriyT1 Cooking men, bowling
lifted toward them. This unexpected cere-
moniai, when Il was, witnessed the first
time by Mr.. Arthur Ferguson, the inter-
prefer of the commission, sitting at the
next table, gave such a start to his demo-
cratic nerves that he dropped his glass
with an audible gasp of astonishment, and
was glared at 1870 severely by a Russian
officer throughout the, meal that the other
dlnefs expected an exchange of cards for
the sequel.
The grand duchess departed yesterday.
Some twenty wagons piled high with Sara
toga trUr ks stamped with a coronet follow
ed her to the depot and the best wishes of
all her American naighbors that the hus-
band may prove all such a simple little
duchess deserves.
COMMISSIONS Difficult Task.
The American commissioners were less in
evidence than the grand duchess They
had come to Paris to secure the trousseau
wherewith Uncle Sam enters into his new
estate as a world power. The purchase
price of this colonial millinery had already
been paid not in Russian roubles but IN
| brave American blood, and the five COM
mlsslonerS had been sent to sign the title
deeds on behalf of their government but
no lawyers ever found more trouble to Sc
cure the enforcement of a courts Judgment
from unwilling itigants than these five 10
eA'.tt from the Spaniards the admission in
"CrdS OF the verdict of war. Whatever
| may be the staying power of Spaniards on
| the battlefield. they are long-winded at
diplomatic chaffering.
1hoSe who represented their country at
Paris had come with a view of the func-
tlons OF tt.u commission which differed
vitality from the idea of the American en-
VOWS. These Spdniards believed, or pre-
tended 10 believe, which came to the same
thlhs, that the var had been a drawn
| game, ard that the work Of the peace com
| mission was to divide the spoils The
Americans thought they were there merely
| to draft into lanp1la crp the of
quered. Afr the SpaEiards had been
made TO realize the truth they turned their
attention 10 the gallery.
Talking for POsterity.
our arguments are for posterity'' one
or them explained. They were dragging
out the conference through useless weeks
with so many briefs, rejoinders and rebut-
tals, not to convince the Americans-that
they knew to be hopeless-but to make
pleasant reading for their own constituents.
to justify themselves in the eyes of Eu-
torlans of the next century. Such a chal-
!ense the Americans could not afford to
ignore the historian of the future must not
be permitted to register against them a
Judgment by default; their case must not
appear on the record less fully and care
FULLY presented than the Spanish side even
though the power was theirs to enforce
closure OF debate at any moment by the
threat of ending the armistce signed at
Washington.
Months OF Hard Work.
Populists may rise up in the House of
Representatives and declaim to the Con-
gressional Record that the peace commits
sioners reveled in a luxurious junket on
'the money Of the people" AS matter of
fact. no legislative or diplomatic body ever
devoted itself 10 three months of harder
work than filled the months which the
commissioners spent outside of America
Its members. with the exception of Judge
Day whose State department experience
served him we'll, embarked upon the mis-
sion with little special knowledge of the
political, commercial, legal and social con-
ditions of the West Indies and the Philip
| pines beyond that within command of the
average well-infermed legislator. All these
classes of problems they had to deal with,
and many more which home people had
never thought Of. Hardly had they reached
their hotel in Paris when they were beset
| by the representatives of special interests,
| and general interests as well. The Hobbies
of the Continental assembled the House
corridors when aotariH bill is under incuba-
| ton in the ways and means committee
There were Spaniards Engiishmen. Amer