The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-12
The RooseveIt-StOrcr Case.

The Storer-Roosevelt episode has pro-
duced a most unpleasant impression and
one that in our judgment will not readily
be d~issipated. Mr.. RoosEvELT's intem-
perate denial is Ineffective and leaves all
the graver elements in the case man
swered, or at best ignored.
Leaving out altogether the unsavory
excursion into Vatican politics for what
il might profit in Roman Catholic votes
in America, and dismissing all on
sideration of the taste n wisdom OF
p~ropitiating simultaneously a powerful
ecclesiastic in st. Paul and another in New
York, it is pertinent to consider merely
the circumstances of the summary re-
moval of the Ambassador to Vienna.
We do o approve of women in diplo-
macy. We recall many women who have
achieved brilliancy in the semi-political
salon, but few who have altogether
escaped mischief. In the long run their
hearts get in the way of their heads and
the best intentions in the world are
frustrated by an uncomfortable excess of
zeal. This was Mrs. SToRER's besetting
sin, and no fair minded scrutiny of the
correspondence published can impute to
her any graver dereliction. She did
exactly what she was desired to do,
but she did it too much; and she abated
nothing of her activity after this activ-
ity was no longer in request-in fact,
after it had become inconvenient.
Admitting now the urgency OF the
-~.sl~-t .anAs.nap ,-1,,ll Il A.R h,.,o
suficed him and satisfied the urbanities
Of official severity if he had asked for
his Ambassadors resignation? Why
proceed to the extremity of removing
both the Ambassador and the Ambassa-
doris wife, and why achieve this result
through the medium of such a letter as
that which he addressed TO Mr.. SToRER?
There are conventions, e decencies,
in life that no one, certainly not the
President of the United States, can
afford to violate.
Is it unwarrantable to that
Mr.. SToRER would have resigned had he
been asked to do so? The President
could | % had no uneasiness on that
score. To resign" is more or less of a
fiction, as Mr.. SToRER must have felt
when he received the Presidents cable
of March S with its singular ~affluence Of
alternative:
You have not answered my letter OF December
II, although I supplemented II by another letter OF
February 5. ! do not know whether this Is because
you do not wish to remain in the Diplomatic Ser.
vice or are unwilling to comply with the require
ments which I have stated. In either event I re.
quest your resignation as Ambassador
Mr.. SToRER's resignation was instan-
taneous; but there was no way in which
Mrs. SroRER could resign, in compliance
with the d~elicately and ascetically ex-
pressed letter of December IL. Had
Mr.. ROOSEVELT been content simply to
ask for Mr.. SToRER's resignation, or had
he removed him summarily rs he did
subsequently, the more exacting re-
quirements Of distrust and wrath would
have been met. 1t is true that in that
case Mrs. STORER would have gone
unscathed; that is to say, would not
have received the Presidents amazing
and shocking letter of December II, and
all the world would have been spared the
disclosures of the last few days.
When Mr.. ROOSEVELT betrays such
heat and impetuosity as to spell cor
rectly, which he does in his letter to
Secretary RooT, it should be a sign 10
him that he is running past his signals.