Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-07
ECHOES NOT PLEASANT
Portsmouth Still on the Map
But
THERE ARE OTHERS
CoMMISSIoNERS LEAVE A DEAD,
DULL GAP.
Hard Job Ahead for Those Compelled
to Stay in Massachusetts,
Town.
THERE ARE OTHERS

Special Dispatch to The Star.
PORTSMOUTH. N. H. September T.
History may be depended upon to en-
balm the meat of the Portsmouth peace
conference. Its dry bones and hide, fact
figure and premise, will mummify in depart
mental pigeon holes of at least three gov
ernments. But even after the school books
have begun dismssing the whole thing with
crisp grammar grade paragraph, on such
and such date did Japan and Russia make
i. UP between them certain of the side
lights .sundry smears of local color will
be bright spots in the memories of the men
who watched the envoys work out their
problem on Newcastle Island.
1t may be the mosquitoes which stung
and spared not that they'll remember
longest, or perhaps it will be B'rer Rab-
bit sato who trammeled the waters of in
ternational diplomacy with his own little
nets for newspaper correspondents, or third
Assistant Secretary of State Peirce (pro-
nounced Purse), or the automobile agent, or
the hollyhock girls or the price of mixed
drinks in the Hotel Wentworth palm gar
den. 1t depends largely on the nature of
the fellow who does the remem mbering.
1t is going to be hard job to keep cases
on the things which properly made up the
proceedings at Portsmouth. Taking them,
by and large, one day was pretty much like
another. There was an exception, the af
ternoon when the navy yard telephone
brought news that the plenipotentaries
were out of the woods at last. Otherwise,
reducing its vital points to brass tacks, the
mental record of each days dofngs will
somewhat resemble an entry in the diary
that Mark Twain kept on his sea trip:
Got up, washed and went to bed
For example, who among the survivors
of this world powwow will be able TO state
for sure this date a year hence that on
Saturday morning. August u. NJ. Witte sub
h rnI -n Do, = .l1 1l,r.
anyhow, Witte said it was the cars re-
ply, and polite fictions go in this state
craft game.
Lost the Picture
But who one year hence will have lost
the picture from his minds eye of the fat
philanthropist. that family grouping in one
piece, whose name nobody knew, who used
to promenade the porch on warm days,
emitting the pure gravy Of goodness at
every visible pore and anon opening flzz
for all corners? Sometimes these anons
came three in an evening.
Then there was the automobile agent
busy a bird dog, day and night, know
ing everybody or saying he did. 1t was
the automobile agent who got in the front
for photograph. 1t was he, no less, who
made 1T two's company threes q crowd
every time he saw couple of innocent by
ISLANDERS In confidential talk together. AS
palm garden or it's roof is to imagine 1t
without the automobile man.
The time the Korostoritz toothache was
making copy for the reporters was when the
automobile agent scored heaviest. A bubble
wagon brought Korostoritz of the swollen
face back from Portsmouth. The lanky sec
retary sat all coiled up in the tonneau. He
was a chrome of MuscoVitish misery as he
exploringly poked the tip of his tongue into
the recent site and tried to get the taste Of
the dentists thumb out of his mouth. And
by his side. in fact half sitting in his lap.
was the automobile agent, earnestly
pounding to him the merits Of the whoop-
de-doodle machine over all others.
The personality of Secretary Peirce has
likewise left its indelible impress upon the
story of the conference. Always buoyant,
always optimistic in his gait and manner,
radiating the very essence of hope, even
when silver Innings were fewest in the cloud
Mr. Secretary Peirce. by some indefnable.
intangible agency conveyed the impression
that he felt 1t in his bones that everything
would come out all right, although he never
said so by word of mouth. Secretary Peirce
in his nose glasses and semi-military duck
suit, bringing up the autos for the ENJOYS
in the morning; Secretary Peirce in the
evening, with his dinner coat his three blue
turquoise studs and his effective Boston ac-
cent, was to the end one of the spotlight
hgures of this notable gathering.
Sato Recalled.
Sato was another. Somehow when you
speak of the japanese envoys one still in
stinotively recalls Sato, the mouthpiece of
Nippon at Portsmouth. Komura and Taxa
hra hardly seemed like men Of flesh and
blood-men who would bleed if you stuck a
pin in them They impressed the onlooker
as mechanical devices, automatic but ef-
fective, cogs in the iron machine which cuts
such swaths for little Japan In statecraft
and war. If either Of them had a personal
side nobody here got peep at it. They
mt air for hafr bad
rooms, along with the silk brocaded, be-
lowered komonas which hotel gossip has
1t that they wore off duty. Sato, on the
other hand, was thoroughly human in most
of his aspects. On a rough but conserva-
tive estimate he was interviewed one thou
sand times during his stay here. and al
ways he was ready to answer questions In
the Sato way which, by the same token,
means he invariably said nothing at some
length. AS a conversationalist for purposes
of publicity Mr.. Sato approximatedt the safe
and sane. The whole thing at Portsmouth
might have been likened to a two-ring cir
Gus, with the rings under separate manage
ment and encroaching upon each other only
occasionally.
"Ah, gentlemen" said Korostovitz, to two
reporters who had witnessed the manner of
his return. I'm me behold one helpless
cripple. Ze dentist he pull out my jaw.
and re gentleman who owns the automobile
factory he talk my arm off.
And the big Russian shrugged SO hard
that his shoulder blades put his earobes
for shrugs and other gestures made in
France, these members Of the Russian suite.
Fact is most of them didn't look or act like
Russians at all. In one ring were the en-
voys. their suites, the men drawn together
by their presence and about seyenty-five
correspondents from all over the world.
The other group was made up of the regu-
lar guests, the people who would have spent
the summer at Newcastle IL the conference
had been held anywhere else.
Mainly the two sets kept apart. The regu-
lars practically monopolized the golf links
and the automobiles. and the special yisf-
tors shone at Switchboard and the bathing
pool behind the house. The regulars, for
the most part, wearied OF the diplomatic
show soon as the novelty of it wore or,
and the others were too busy mindng the
business which sent them to Portsmouth to
be making many new acquaintance.
There was no friction between the two
sets-they did not rub up against each other
enough for that. Probably no one of the
Russian legation met half dozen women
at the hotel. Takeshita, the naval attache
OF Komuras STAFF, was the only real social
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