Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-23
INFORMATION OFF THE BAT
Know Lots of Things, But Haven't
Time to Tell It All.
BALK AT THINGS NOT KNOWN
Trouble Made by All Sorts of In
quiries at Home About Past,
Present and Future.

serene and SomnoleSCent soul, make the
Department of Commerce and Labor
pause In its mad career of corporate in
Vestigation and tremble with fear of the
| future, and stagger the Department of
Agriculture in the midst of it's milk in
quir1es and COW tuberculosis experiments
| until the cause of the agony dies away
| and either consular lives and salaries are
| doubled or mad inquiries for information
| as to foreign conditions draw in their
horns from illimitable space and confine
themselves to the boundaries of the
| finite.
The ancient Greek philosopher confined
the limits of human investigation and in
| curry TO the narrow maxim, Know thy
sell But If reports be true, American
institutions, corporations and even indi-
viduals are extending their probes beyond
the confines of earth and soaring into
realms which make the average American
consul quake with terror. For they, the
consuls. by command of their executive
nead and at the request of almost every
pody, are now being called upon to fur
nlSh information within a few months,
1uil and complete data, concerning many
subjects which have occupied the atten-
tlon or European governments for gen.
erations and are still being patiently and
persistently wrestled with by specialists
OF the highest order in their respective
| lines.
Kick Is Registered.
Now this, say the consuls. ought not to
be- Something is wrong at home, and it
Is high time that somebody walked I'D.
| 1t has been the general opinion in the
| past that consular position was soft
job, just bit less in splendor than the
| sclntlllatlng glory of that of embassy at
! tache. 1t has been supposed that wbila
| or course, something was expected in the
way or work in return for the modest
stlpend doled out at regular intervals by
we department of State, it was the duty
| OF the American consul to mix with the
hol polo1, acquire a foreign accent learn
10 wear monocle and get accustomed to
court manners. But heavens. Some sor-
dld mind In this benighted commercial
country is revolutionizing things and nm
less the brakes are put on soon sometime
is going to happen.
!hen, too 1t has been a sort of precon-
celVed notion in this new and untutored
lano or mlllionaires and savages that
every man, even those that receive SAL
airy from the government has the right
10 call some part of the twenty four
hours his own and to live the length Of
MS years at the rate of 300 days per an
mum without molestation or further ex-
acton as to time. But no. even that idea
is being pushed to the rear, at least i'm
the consular service
The true test of a good consul now
fdthOm
the unfathOmable and crowd into few
short weeks the 1abors and results that
skilled specialists heretofore have barely
achieved in lifetime. His range of Wis
ION now must reach from the baking of
bread to the building of airships from
the slaughter of animals to an intimate
acquaintance with the nebulae that per-
colates through the solar system.
Pay! Pshaw! What's the use of talk
ing about consul's pay. Men in that
service ought to work for glory Fame
ought TO be the inspiration to fire their
ambition So let us forget the word
pay in this connection.
But. insists the CONSUL aside from
the matter of our pay. listen to the cause
of our complaint Whenever any indi-
vidual or civic body in America wants
to be supplied with facts. all the facts
concerning a given subject, letter to
the State Department or to the Depart
ment Of Commerce and La Dor is suffi-
cient to set the full force OF 29S consuls
In all parts of the world to work to get
the desired information. no matter what
it may be. If 1t but come within the pale
OF commercial. economic or moral in
quiry.
A temperance worker may ask for sta
tisticS as to saloons, the cost of keeping
them. the kind of help employed. the
character of liquor sold. the financial con-
dition of the patrons, the moral effect
on the community-anything oh. any
| thing that pertains to that comprehensive
subject. And the consul must hustle to
get it.
The enthusiastic female suffragist can
start an inquiry that takes everything in
its scope. from the color of ballot to
the reasons for woman's disposition.
And the consul must furnish the answer.
Fool Questions Put.
1t is said that during the first Six
months of the present year the most re-
markable demands have been made upon
the consular force that have ever been
known in the history of the government,
some of them to be complied with in a
few weeks which would take a trained
body of experts in political and social
economy months to meet If they had
nothing else to do.
For instance. in the matter of road
| building. The Weary Willie who plods
the pike and the scented aristOcrat whose
auto hurls It's clouds of dust and dirt
| into ones face on the public highway
have never dreamed of the hundreds of
| technical questions that can be crowded
| into an investigation of a roadway, its
construction It's maintenance, its re-
pair. etc.
Is it rock or dirt? What kind of rock
or dirt? Is 1t indigenous or foreign? Who
broulht it there and what did it cost?
| Describe its condition If 1t should be en-
quilted in a flood. State why. What can
| be done to insure it against an earth
quake and why.
Now these questions are as simple is
A. B c to the ordinary consul. But when
| the inquiries begin to probe into what
| will lay dust, where you are going to
get it. why and what is the cost, one
needs must pause.
Then there come inquiries about manu-
| featured articles. Over here 1t is pretty
| well understood that the man who makes
| anything for sale keeps to himself why
| he makes it. of what he makes it for.
| what 1t costs him and why you have to
| pay so much for it. But whenever one
| of the native manufacturers wants to
| know all about the foreign fellows goods
simply shoots an inquiry at the Secretary
| and Labor and the consul abroad has to
| get busy.
Nothing is too sacred. too personal. too
commercially valuable to save the foreign
| er from the willy consuis inquiries made
| by order of his home government, and
| woe betide the luckless adjunct to the
State Department who falls to get the de-
sired results. Why. the ambassador has
pipe dream of purest bliss in his efforts
| to make a foreign government yield its
| honor and its territory compared with
| the consul who hikes out on some of these
missions from his government at the be-
| hest Of some inqusitive American.
| One would naturally suppose that the
| consul's first call for information would
be at least lacking in pleasure: but his
| second-Who of all the American in
| quisitors that send him in quest of the
| Information would care to venture an
!