The Washington herald., 1915-08-18
HISTORY BUILDERS.
by DIR. r.. }. EDWARDS.
Revealed in a Biography.

One of the monumental publication
OF the time-monumental at least !,
point of size-was prepared by DIR. Johl
| Bassett Moore at the request of the Stat
| department at Washington some ten o
| twelve years age.
/ Congress had authorized the pubIica
| ton of a digest of arbi,rations carried
| on by the United States since the begin
| ming of the government. An appropria
| tion of $4,000 was also made with which
To meet the expense. DIR. Moore wa.
known to be more profoundly versed ir
the history of the State Department thar
| any other citizen. and for that reason tc
| him was committed the important work
| The prOba bilities are that DR. Moore die
not md 1t very profitable from the money
| point of view. since 1t WAS necessary fol
him TO pay out of the appropriation the
expenses OF a good deal OF the clerical
work
Il did get in this wor.." said DR. Moore
to me. many hings that were of value
as We'll as some delightful experiences
In rummacing through the archives
found good many incidents described
ard set forth in Il manner which appealed
strongly to my sense of humor You
would not think that the State Depart
ment archives furnisl, ! material of that
KIND, yet there was "A good deal of it and
IT served as refreshing oasis, so to
speak, in the dreary desert which the
dusty archivo' # the State Department
represent. There was one Incident which
l discovered which made a strong impress
sion upon me, and it was one which re-
vealed some OF the personal character
istics of President Polk and his Sccre-
tary of State. james Buchanan.
Polk. in the spring of 1916. sent n
IN n g q
that Congress pass a resolution de-
claring state of war with Mexico
Congress took President Polk at his
word, and the war with Mexico was
authorized. There was vast amount
or correspondence. much of which re-
lated to the terms OF peace. Some of
it bore upon the proposition that the
United States should make peace easy
by offering to pay Mexico SIS, 900. 600,
IN return for which We were to get
the California territory. That BAR
gain was made. and by means of IT
we did obtain the CALIFORNIA; There
was good deal of public curiosity,
some of it manifested by Congress, to
learn exactly what form the proposition
took and what was done by the State
Department But when Polk was
called upon to furnish all the corre-
spondence he refused to do It,
fcaFS iatcr l was employed by the
family of James Buchanan to write
his biography. That entailed a great
deal of work and the scrutiny of a
vast amount of documents In the
course of that work l came across this
correspondence. Buchanan was quite
as crafty and cautious as Polk And
there could be no good biography of
him which did not contain this corre-
spondence at the time of the Mexican
war and the treaty ofspeace.
We'll, / felt that l was justified in
use of II, and l did include IL
in my biography of Buchanan. The
which President Polk
refused to give up at las. saw the
light in that way in my biography of
James Buchanan. / found it mighty
reading. and it throws a
new light upon the diplomacy which
at last gave us the States of Cali
Utah, Nevada. New Mexico and
Arizona"
Copyright 1915. by E. J. Edwards All rights re-
served.)
Tomorrow DIR. Edwards will tell
How Some Prudent Americans Sc
M