Smyrna times., 1907-09-25
SHORT And SNAPPY
ITEMS OF INTEREST
CLEANED BY OUR ASH
INGTON CORRESPONDENT
Clever Hits on Big Men and Great
Questions Which are Uppermost
in the Public Eyelof the Week

1t is again reported and again denied
that Baron von Sternberg the German
Ambassador, is going to retire on &C
count of i'll health. 1t is quite certain
tire, it will be against the wishes of
both the German Foreign Office and
President Roosevelt. The German
Ambassador is little man, very small
in fact, but in the earlier years of his
duties in Washington, he was q great
athlete. He was the first secretary of
the Embassy before he was the Am.
bassador and when President Roose-
welt was assistant secretary of the
Navy and Gen. Leon ard Wood was an
army surgeon and none of the three
was anything particular on the politi.
cal horizon, a friendship sprang up
between them because of a snow storm.
Wood Is au athlete, "a big little man"
as he would be termed in the prize
ring, hard as nails and thus a fitting
companion for Roosevelt One after
noon the three of them were over at
the Navy Department and about clos
ing time when there was raging snow
storm going, Sternberg looked out the
window and remarked longingly that
it reminded him of Norway and he
would like to go out and try his skis
if there were anyone to go with. The
ski is the Norwegian snowshoe, a strip
of wood about three inches wide aud
ten feet long, curved at the forward
end and most difficult of manipulation
but a marvellous thing to get tover snow
on when you once have the knack. It
turned out that both Roosevelt and
Wood were old ski runners aud the
three went out for run that after
noon. The two Americans found that
the wiry little German could hold his
own with them in anything needing
nerve and endurance and firm friend
ship ripened out of that snowstorm.
After the first secretary of the EN-,
bassy had married a rich American
wife and himself came back to WASH
ingtOn as Ambassador, he was just as
good friends as ever with Roosevelt
The personal equation counts for a
good deal in diplomacy as we'll as in
other walks of life, and the German
government has never had a more sat
isfsctory representative in Washing
ton than Won Sternberg during the
Roosevelt administration. The Ger
man Foreign Office does not want
Sternberg to retire and has always
sent out prompt denIaIs whenever the
rumor was started. The unpleasant I
factremains, however, that the German
Ambassador is a very sick man, and it
is feared by the many who know and
like him in Washington that he will
be forced to relinquish his post. 1t is
understood that he will be succeeded
by the present Minister of Foreign
Affairs at Berlin.
Organized labor may work in mys-
terious way its wonders to perform,
but it is little hard to follow out the
course of reasoning by which it attacks
Secretary Strauss for trying to make
the national employment bureau as
useful as he can. There was an appro
priation in the last Congress for the
formation of a Bureau of Information
under the Bureau of Immigration in
the Department of Commerce and
Labor. This bureau was primarily
for the benefit of immigrants and was
intended to furnish them prompt and
reliable infol nation as to the condition
of the labor market all over the country
with view to distributing them OF
letting them distribute themselves
where they were most needed. But
Secretary Strauss thought he saw &
chanceto increase the scope the Bureau
and make it more useful and to this
end he prepared 90 keep tab on the de
mands Of the labor market in all lines
so that any skilled or unskilled me-
chanic might know to certainty
"hUbuOI NO COuAQ OCbeCA AAASOA W
moving to another community whel
work in his line was slack. 1t mean
the establishment of sort Of national
employment agency, the first ever rul
by any government. Possibly tn
trades unions of the country have no
all been heard from and the present
opposition may come from some of tn,
hot heads who are never satisfied wit
anything. But it is more likely tina
the Unions are afrai that the new bu
reau may be made use of by employer
as we'll as employees and may in some
measure cripple the effectiveness Of
strike when one is called in any section
Reports TO the DEPARTMENT of Agri