The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-04-13
CHOATE'S STYLE.
LOndOn's Odd Effect on Our
Ambassador.
He Does Not Follow Paunce-
Totes Example.
HE HAS BEGUN BADLY.
But an Influenza Interrupted
His VoIubility
And Afforded Time For Refiec-
tion, Says j. j. Ingalls,.

Westphalia. which, in 1913, ended the
Thirty Years War. Space and time
were barriers then. Nations were not
neighbors. There were no democracles-
The divine right of kings was the touh-
dation of government Monarchs car
ried sceptres and wore crowns. ARMIES
fought with swords and spears anu
catapultS and culVerieS- There were no
teIegraphs nor cables, nor newspapers
nor ocean greyhounds, nor limited SA-
press trains, nor through mains. ".
Travelled in poSt-chalSes, III c9t
and on horseback over founderous
roads Highway robbery was an estap-
Hshed industry. The world was naue
of priests and their dupes; of tyrants
and their victims, of masters ana lhelr
slaves. ..
In those days international inter
course was conducted by Ambassadors
ministers plenipotentiary, ENJOYS extra
ordinary, Iegatees and nuncloS, repre-
sentine soVereigns, travelling in state
with suite and retinue, from capltai 10
capital Thus treaties were negotiated
Thus royal marriages We're a iIa for
Thus the vanquished appealed 1oI
mercy to their cOnQuerorS, adJustSu
disputed SUGGESTIONS, etc mus ING
plots of cabals, the Vaccinations OF
factions the intrigues of court1ers, the
rivalries of courtesans We're carried on
while the masses of the people, con-
demned to incessant toll, to degraud
ton and poverty inconcelVaole' HNeu
Emperors and princes nowadays wear
derby hats made-up ties, cOlored SHIRTS,
cutaway coats, tan shoes and rae the
bicyele. Education in civilized powers
is universal. The people are supreme.
Instead of highway robbers we nave
the trusts. Space and time nave pesh
annihilated. Railroads, which are the
arteries, and telegraphs, which are the
nerves of the world, have abolished
boundaries, and made the past, the
present and the future synonymous.
CONDITIONS HAVE CHANGED.
A message by wire from London to
New York, or from New YORK TO san
Francisco, reaches it's destination hours
before it is sent. All the cities of the
earth are now in the same neighbour
hood, and continents are contiguous:
The great transactions between the
merchants of America, Germany, France
and England are settled daily ana
hourly by telegraph and If an informed
iarv is REQUIRED he crosses the ocean in
six days. In these vast mutations,
governments have come at last TO De
the agents of the people for the con-
duct of business, trade and commerce
Dynasties and traditions have sue
cumbed to economic policies and the
strife for markets, but we still keep up
the venerable fiction of sending ambas-
sailors, ministers plenipotentiary and
ENJOYS extraordinary to foreign courts
as if the world were yet in the Middle
Ages. 1t has the same reason for sur
vival as the seals on our deeds or the
buttons on the back of our coats. They
have no initiative nor any duties that
could not be as we'll performed directly
by communication between the prin-
cipals of the governments they repre-
sent. Their functions are chiefly those
of etiquette, involving questions OF pre-
cedence in the cabinet chamber and
priority at dinners and receptions.
These trivial and frivolous pursuits in
volve enormous expenditure. Our am
bassadors are paid 81, 500, but minis
ter p1enipotentiary told me in 1892 In
Berlin that it was not possible to main
tain the rank and station at any of
the European courts on less than $4O,-
900 a year The employment thus
naturally falls more and more to men
of wealth and leisure. who, having
nothing to do, are accustomed to doing
nothing well. Our ministers and am
bassadors to England have been With
out exception of the most exalted type
of American manhood.
SOME GARRULOUS STATESMEN.
Choate, Hay, Bayard, Lincoln, Lowell,
Motley and the rest are without blemish.
But they have been noted and dis
tinguished over all other diplomats for
garrulity. No matter how taciturn at
home, the instant they leave the steam
er for the tender at Southampton they
are attacked with the cacoethes 10
quendi, which continues with undated
violence until they embark for the
United States again: and. like a flock
of blackbirds disturbed on their trees,
they all say the same thing in the same
way.
The ambassador ordinarily is not
multiloquous. He is silent creature.
Charlemagne Tower is not laxative and
we never heard from Ethan Allen
Hitchcock, nor Clifton Breckenridge.
Andrew D. White speaks a little now
and then, but the most of the corps are
so reticent that their names are I'M
known. Even Horace Porter, the fam
Gus raconteur and after-dinner orator.
has been mute since last Thanksgiving
day "as the harp that once through
Tara's halls the soul of music she'd
LOTS OF TALK.
But from England for a generation
has come a dwelling chorus of prattle
and chatter about kindred blood, COM
mon language, Milton and Shakespeare,
at clubs, dinners, banquets, in newspa-
per interviews. with fluent and Obse-
quious adulation. The shy recluse Haw-
thorne caught the infection. and in his
notes records his trepidation as he rose
for the first time to rehearse the trite
tale of kindred blood, common language
and Milton and Shakespeare.
Bayard, the narrow bigot of his time,
an arid and desiccated product of a
creed Outworn. surpassed all his aSSO-
ciates in trucking subservience, and in
a formal Grafton before a British audi
ence deliberately reviled and condemned
the industrial policies of his country.
If this fawning sycOphancy were mu-
tual it might be Ineligible, but what
ever the English ambassadors to the
United States may think, they observe
decorous silence.
Sir Edward Thornton was here from
1867 till 1881, and during his IA years of
service no newspaper reporter nor
POSTMASTER ever elected a syllable
from him about the kindred blood, the
common tongue. or American literature.
Sackville Vests only public deliverance
was a letter incautfously written to a
Republican decoy duck in California
that abruptly ended his occupancy of
the British legation.
sir r'-Han Pauncefote may have vo-