Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-08-08
With Or New DIPLOMATS wo Get Homes Free While Others Pay Rent

simply that our government has gotten
into the habit Of sending Mr.. Straus over
to do business with the sublime porte and
the Yildfz Kiosk. After he gave up the
law to make his fortune in pottery and
glassware he was tempted to Constanti-
nople first by President Cleveland-for.
like Mr. Crane, he is a former Cleveland
democrat. Then President Mckinley dis
covered that he hadn't a dyed-in -the-wool
republican diplomatist who could fill the
Ottoman berth quite so well as could Mr..
Straus, and Mr. Taft has decided that
both Cleveland and Mckinley were right
and that he must emulate them. Mr..
Straus is not so wealthy as his brothers
1sador and Nathan. yet he could manage
to keep the wolf from the door Of the
American embassy at Constantinopie,
even if he had to pay rent therefor.
Our new minister to Spain. Henry
Clay Ide, has had a hand in interna-
tional affairs now nigh on to twenty
after sitting three years in his state
senate became a delegate to the first
national convention nominating Harri-
son. who sent him as our commissioner
England, Germany and our government
gave him the joint appointment of chief
justice Of the islands Then when the
Taft commission started in to estab-
pines it looked about for a specialist
on insular reconstruction and seized
upon Judge Ide From member of that
commission he became secretary or
finance and justice, then vice governor
and finally governor general. His nine
years thus spent in the Philippines have
given him an acquaintance with Span
ish law which will be of value to him
while he is a resident at the court of
Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria.
Robert Louis Stevenson was spending
his last days in Samoa when the Ide
family lived there. and when he learned
that Miss Anne Ide had been born in
leap year and on the 10th of February.
which gave her a birthday only once In
four years. the great novelist drew up
will and testament in which he be-
little girl who is now the wife Of ex-
Representative W. Bourke Cochran OF
New York.
The two men remaining upon the regis
ter Of newly chosen diplomats are both
new to national life. George II. Moses.
who has succeeded Richmond Pearson as
minister to Greece and Montenegro, is
a native of Maine, but has lived at
Concord. n. H.. for some years He
was private secretary to the Governor
of New Hampshire from 1880 to 1891:
secretary of the New, Hampshire forestry
commission from 1898 to the present time:
New Hampshire during the Portsmouth
peace conference. and has been editor
of the Concord Evening Monitor since
1892 He is a graduate of Phillips-Exe-
ter and Dartmouth
Yale athletics have been honored in
the selection of Charles II. Sheriff. as
minister to Argentina. This young man
was not one of the now famous Taft
classmates" for he did not get his sheep
skin from Old Eli until eleven years after
the President got his. But what endeared
him to Mr.. Taft is the fact that he won
seven intercollegiate running champion
ships for 100 yards four years In success
sion and for go yards three years in
succession He was born In Washington,
D. c., forty-two years ago, and after
finishing at Yale settled down to the
law in New York. where he is registered
as a society man. He was colonel and
aid-de-camp on the staff OF Cows. Odell
and Higgins. and between soldering.
sprinting society and the law he has
found time to write two travel books on
France and England, each of which works
is entitled Stained Glass Tours"
JOHN ELFRETH WATKINS.