Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1909-05-19
our DIPLOMATS
MUST BE WEALTHY
WILLIAM T. STEAD SAYS HONORS
OPEN ONLY TO PLU-
TOCRATS.
WHITELAW REID PAID TEN TIMES
HIS SALARY FOR
RENT

London, May 11-There seems to be
good deal of diplomatic doubt here
when DR.. Eliot of Harvard will move
into the London embassy, wherever
that may be, and whether he will move
| in at all, but the talk about DR.. Eliot S
nomination has brought out clearly
two things:
First, that the personality of the
American ambassador is much more
important than that of any foreign am,
reputation count for everything, while
mere wealth counts for little. With
the smaller public which gives. dinners
and goes to them, the plutocrat is OF
course esteemed, not so much for him
self as for the chief whom his wealth
enables him to employ.
Whitelaw Reid has carried the
power of the purse to the highest
point. The result has not been a
great success. When he took Dor
chester house, the most superb palace
in London, people were for moment
dazzled by his audacity. For Dor
chester house is the most stately and
magnificent of all the lordly pleasure
houses in London. 1t is a dream of
beauty and a perfect treasure of art.
Rent Ten Times Salary.
Rumor said, do not know with
what truth, that Whitelaw Reid pays
$4,000 year for the tenancy of this
superb Italian palace that dominates
Park Lane.
The result? One of the ablest jour-
nalists in London discussing the mat
ter with me the other day said:
Poor Whitelaw Reid had not a
chance. The frame smothered the
picture"
Which cryptic saying, being inter-
preted, meant that to house the am
bassador of a republic, plain citizen
of the United States in building
which was constructed to be either
the court of great noble, or the
museum of great connoisseur, was
to extinguish rather than to display
the personality of its occupant.
1t is a subject of constant marvel to
Europeans that the American people,
so lavish even to extravaganza in al
most every other direction, should be
penurious as skinfiints in the pro
vision which they make for their am
basSadorS.
For PIutocrats Only.
I remember listening to the lamen-
tations of an American minister at
Rome, whose wife wore diamonds that
far outshone in luster those of the
queen OF Italy, over the stinginess of
congress.
my salary" he said, "does not pay
my rent. For everything else have
to pay out of my own pocket"
AS a result the American people is
restricted in the choice of diplomatic
representatives to handful of pluto
Gratis who can afford to pay for the
privilege of representing their coun-
try in foreign capitals.
An American diplomatist ruefully
declared that the American farmer,
whose votes in the end dominate
everything, can never be made to I'M
derstand that man can honestly
spend more than $4,000 a year.
"They would believe we waste our
salaries in debauchery"
Have No Home.
1t may be so. But one thing surely
ought to be done without delay
Nearly every first-class power has an
official residence provided for its own
ambassadors. Why should not this
be the case for the Americans?
The British embassy in Paris, st.
Petersburg and Berlin are as well
known to every one as the Louvre,
the winter palace or the Schloss. But
who knows where the American en-
bassy can be found? 1t is here today,
there tomorrow.
One ambassador lives in Dorches-
ter house; the next day lodges in a
third floor back" To us of the Old
World this is one of the inexplicable
American anomalies which mo fellow
can understand"