The Washington herald., 1921-02-23
DIPLO LOMACY TRANSFORMED
BY BIG CHANGES IN EUROPE +
AS RESULT OF UPHEAVAIS S
Reorganizers of American Service Abroad
Must Recognize New Conditions.

Most of these projects ignore the
cardinal facts that the first requi-
sites for a successful diplomatic
service Is personnel, that a pre-con-
dition to improvements or reforms
OF the service is that 1t must be
made attractive enough to draw
and hold the right class of men
and "all-hope-abandon
ter-here" attitude imposed upon its
members under present conditions
make 1t a living wonder that the
service has enlisted as good men as
it has.
Before prescribing new tests and
additional qualifications in the line
OF business education or training
Tor the aspirants to an appointment
to our embassies and legations ii is
necessary to make the service a real
career for him by providing a rate
OF pay adequate to keep a black
coat on his back, a roof over his
head and enough food in his stom-
ach to sustain existence without
forcing him to dip down into his
own pocket to help out the govern
ment. and by opening to him the
way to the higher and highest posts
in the service. Great improvements
have been made in this last regard
in recent years.
Some Rise From Ranks.
Several ambassadors and a very
considerable number of American
ministers have come up from the
ranks, but the appointments are
still treated too much as political
plems for outsiders and the prospect
that service graduates accepting
posts as heads of missions will pay
for the honor with the removal of
their Official heads and the end of
their diplomatic career at the next
change of administration Is still too
great to induce many men of the
right caliber to spend their produc-
tive and creative younger years in
the lower branches of the diplomatic
service.
The system OF outside appoint
ments should not be abandoned en-
tlrely. Certain of the higher and
highest posts require a type Of man
and qualifications which we have at.
present in our service in limited
numbers, IL at all. The nonprofes-
sional world in the United States,
SIanQ-
point. has yielded. along with a
class of mediocres or worse, Amer;-
can Ambassadors and Ministers
who have ranked with the best Eu
ropean professional diplomacy
could produce. and the fact that the
American system of appointments
from outside the permanent service
has certain merits Is shown by the
fact that the European nations
which have assumed to be our tu-
tors in diplomacy are now copying
this system.
To make the American diplomatic
service an attractive career and to
secure men of ability and ambition
for the permanent service. IL for
no other reason, appointment to
Minister and Ambassador should be
by promotion when qualified candi-
dates are available. * making the
nomination of the outsider, particu-
larly to the post of chief of mis-
sion at the smaller capitals, the eA-
ception rather than the general
rule.
War Changes Conditions.
Inducements to secure the right
Kind OF men for the permanent dip
service haNing Deen consid-
cred, the questions naturally arise,
what are these men to do?
What lines are the reform and the
improvement of the service to
take% These questions can best
be answered by telling what our
diplomats are now doing under the
utterly changed conditions intro
duced by the great war.
A usual conception of the work
OF a diplomatic officer includes va
rious forms of Underground ac-
tivity or polite subterfuge, staged
perhaps among palm trees with a
background of marble arches and
velvet curtains and titled in the
popular mind Secret Diplomacy"
Precisely what the $50 members of