The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-05-14

=
| hut RI find men with the business acu-
men and the diplomatic intuition who
can be depended on to take care of the
tremendous American commercial in
terests in such vast capitals as >.u-.-
| don. Paris. Pekin, Berlin, etc.,
Some Desolate Consulships.
! For coldness and bleakness, Lester
MAYNARD. born in smiling California,
has a post at Vladivostoc, Siberia that
contends in severity with the far
Southern post of Puente Arenos, where
John E. Rowen, of Connecticut, rep
resents the United States, in almost
sole exile. so far as his fellow country
men are concerned.
Hoffman Philip, at Ads Ababa, Abys-
sinia. where he enjoys the resounding
title of Minister Resident and Consul
General to the Enir of Abyssinia, 10
probably the most isolated of all Amer
lean consular officials. Far removed
from any railroad, in the heart of a
truly savage and barbarlc territory,
where head hunters and canniDals ex-
ist bv the thousand in the thinly set
tied sections. Hoffman Philip represents
the United States. He must make a
caravan journey mounted on the humps
of African camels for over two weeks
through a trackless desert in order to
reach his post of duty. Mr.. Philip
only received his appointment on July
20 last. and it took him nearly two
months to reach his destined post.
William F. Doty, consul at .Tabriz
colletcs $4,000 per annum from the
United States government for repre-
sentfng the nation at another ISOLATED
and dangerous post, for Tabriz is in
A section of Persia where Europeans
and Americans are cordially hated and
where no friendly railway train can
offer a quick escape from the Persian
fanatics. who constantly run amuck
Mr.. Doty is New Yorker, who enter
ed the consular service seven years
ago by way of New Jersey.
He went to Tabriz from Tahiti, in
the Society Islands, where the real So
ciety consists of few foreigners and
many thousand dark skinned savageS,
at one time the most notorious canni
balls in all the known world.
Pierre Paul Demers. despite the ro-
mantle form of his patronymic, is none
the less stalwart American and he
upholds the flag and American coffee
interests in Bahia, Brazil. He is a
French Canadian, and at Bahia he is
surrounded by coffee-colored Brazilian
savages, who pick coffee berries all
day long. attired in one large, and not
overly clean pocket handkerchief. which
is draped around the waist. lie has
been there only year. This is Signifi-
cant in the case of Bahia, as two men
out of every ten die inside of a year
from the fever, which makes the place
a practical death-trap for Caucasians
of the full blood.
Percival HeintZleman of PennSyl-
vania. has his consular post in the far
interior of China, on the Great Yellow
river, which has a greater volume of
water than the Mississippi, even in
flood time. This Chinese town sends
millions of exports to the United States
and the post is one of Importance. New
ertheless, Mr.. Heintzleman seldom sees
an American, for the journey into the
interior of China to his post is one of
most primitive.
Thea there is PernambucO and Bar
ranquilla and Tamatave, which last is
in Madagascar, and dozens of other
isolated and barbarc posts, whose
names sound like the titles of comic
operas. There are true and loyal Amer
leans in all these outlandish places and
each plays his part manfully, when the
savage population turns out to burn
and Stay, or some strange disease creeps
in and attacks the lonely American far
from decent nursing or scientific doc
toring.
1t takes a. man, and a good man at
that, to be an effective consul for the
United States, and since Theodore
Roosevelt and the late John Hay fol-
lowed the footsteps of William McKin-
ley and routed out the politicians from
the choosing of our consuls the service
has taken the very first rank, as COM
pared with the similar organizations
of other great powers.