Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-18

1879 from a brick building on l4th street
now occupied by the Washington Orphan
Asylum. In it are employed only 113 per-
sons, while in the treasury, near by, over
5000 are at work.
Mr.. Hays Staff.
The supervision of our important, secret
correspondence with our ambassadors, min
listers and consuls abroad. as well with
those accredited to this country by foreign
governments, is assigned by Secretary of
State Hay to his staff of three assistant
secretaries who correspond to the under
secretaries of the British foreign office.
Assistant Secretary Francis b. LOOMS is
the ranking member of this important staff.
He receives 81 800 a year; his two colleagues
$4,000. In the absence of Mr.. Hay he be-
comes acting secretary of state, with full
power to sign treaties and other important
documents. He is young Ohioan, only
forty-three. and began life a reporter
on the New York Tribune when twenty-five.
He later served in the press galleries of
Congress as a Washington correspondent,
and during Mr.. Harrison's administration
was appointed consul to st. Etienne
France.
While abroad he wrote extensive reports
on the labor situation in Europe and after
Mr.. Cleveland returned to the White House
became editor-in-chief of the Cincinnati
Daily Tribune. President Mckinley ap-
pointed him minister to Venezuela. The
sympathies of Spanish-America were with
spain curing our war WITH tnat state, ana
Mr.. LOOMS discovered plot to assault his
legation. By his strenuous attitude he
cowed the Venezuelans and reinforced his
position by having the details of our victo-
ries cabed in detail to Caracas, whose
newspapers had published canards describ-
ing Spanish bombardments of New York
and other American cities. Mr.. LOOMS
was later transferred to Portugal, where he
remained until Secretary Hay called him to
Washington to become his chief assistant
Drac;dan+,e Et;o,a4+o T,,4a,
Mr.. Alvey A. Adee. the second assistant
secretary, is a veteran diplomat. After be-
ing graduated at Yale he was appointed
secretary of legation ct Madrid, where he
also acted for time as charge daffaires
Later he returned to the State Department
as chief of the diplomatic bureau, and since
1882 has been assistant secretary At the
time of Secretary Shermans death he was
appointed Secretary of State ad interim.
He is an enthusiastic bicyclist and spends
his vacations touring Europe on his wheel.
He is the departments authority on the
details of diplomatic etiquette and is the
supreme court of appeal in the many con-
troversies continually arising over queS-
lions of precedent. When a new batch of
diplomats are accredited to Washington Mr..
Adee is frequently called upon to seat them
properly at state dinners. He has been
dubbed 'the Presidents tutor in etiquette
He is. moreover, the national capitals most
erudite Shakespearean scholar.
Inc ADMINISTRATOR OF consular corps
is intrusted to the third assistant sec
rotary, Mr.. Herbert Henry Davis Peirce,
| who. by the way, pronounces his name
Purse" He is a Massachusetts, Yam
kee and a Harvard graduate, who
early in life planned for himself a
career of geology. but who abandoned
that pursuit for the more strenuous one OF
diplomacy. After studying at the Royal
School of Mines, London, and occupying
himself with his geological studies in this
country, he became secretary of legation
and later secretary of embassy at st.
Petersburg He also acted counsel in
the arbitration cases against Russia, de-
cided in our favor in 1902. 1t is part OF
his duty to personally inspect our many
conSulateS scattered abroad and the recent
charges against several of our consular Off
Gals in the orient developed after a tour
of China and the far east which he made
last summer.
The modus operaHdi of our State Depart
| ment is practically the same as that of the
cases the diplomats in Washington have ac-
| cess to Secretary Hay on most any week
| day. Thursday. known in the department
| as diplomatic day is always reserved
| and the ministers ambassadors of for
| eign powers. Between 10 am. and 1 D. m.
| en- this special day the ante-room to the
diplomatic room near the Secretary's
office is generally well filed with these for
| eign representatives. The Secretary does
! not receive the diplomats in his Office but
| always III the lOilS ana SplendlOly appointed
| diplomatic room aforesaid. Those of
| equal rank are admitted to him by the rule
| of first come, first served" but If an am
bassador arrives late and finds the ante
| room filled to overlooking with ministers
! and charges d'affaires, these small fry
must grin and bear the delay occa sioneI
| by his exce,lency's immediate reception
| that is, of course. after the Secretary next
| becomes disengaged.
Third Person Never Present.
| AS is the rule az other foreign Offices
| each diplomatic visitor is guaranteed by
| ent during the official Interviews with the
| premier. Mr.. Hay takes no notes during
| the interviews, but carefully remembers the
| salient points of discussion, and 1t is usual
| after each diplomat retires, for him to call
| in a stenopgrapher and dictate a mote
| verbal" or digest, of the conversation.
| These memoranda are locked away in the
after being used as a basis of cipher dis
| patches to our diplomatic representative
| accredited to the government concerned
| The departments diplomatic dispatches
| are cabled in cipher. Congress recently
| made an appropriation for the purchase of
| a State Department cipher code to be placed
| with our embassies, legations and consul
| ates
At the end of each year such Of the notes
| verbal and diplomatic dispatches as may
| with propriety be made public are published
/ in a bound volume. known as Diplomatic
| Relations" and which corresponds to the
OF France the white book" of Germany
4 and Portugal the red hO0lp Of Spafn and