Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-05
SERVICE BOOSTS
DIPLOMATIC MAN
Leland Harrison Ably Suited
in Tariff international
Relations Post.
BY WILLIAM HARD.

ate 10y reSlgnatlon) from our proleS-
sional diplomatic foreign service, is, at
this moment, doubly interesting. He is
interesting as a specimen of the griev-
Gus losses which the foreign service has
recently suffered; and he Is interesting
as an illustration of the ready recep-
lions which our resigned foreign serv-
ice officers acquire elsewhere.
Mr.. Harrison was one OF the most
experienced and one of the most highly
esteemed of our diplomats of career.
He began by icing private secretary to
our Ambassador to Toxic in 1907. He
became secretary of legation Of class
three" secretary of legation of class
two" Secretary of legation of class
one" at Peiping, at London, at Bogota.-
He became diplomatic secretary" of
the American Peace Commission after
the Great War at Paris. He became
counselor of embassy" at Paris. He
became Assistant Secretary Of State at
washington. He became Minister at
Stockholm, Sweden. The principle
should be concentrated upon Latin
America. Mr.. Harrison was appointed
to be Minister at Montevideo, Uruguay,
The appointment was honoriflc, but
FOR private reasons difficult The pri-
vate reasons were overborne. Mr.. ,Har-
rison proceeded to Montevideo. He
faced the difficulties that he had fore
seen and tried to live them through.
They became insurmountable. He re-
signed. The American foreign service
lost one more or its very best men.
20 or IS designations.
There have been some 10 or rs resig-
nations from the foreign service since
the first of last year. Sometimes the
reason has been encouragement over
the discrepancy between income and
expected expenditure. Sometimes the
reason has been encouragement over
the chance of promotion to high posts
in the midst of the rivalry from politi-
cally powerful personages from OUTSIDE
the foreign service. Sometimes the rea-
son has been encouragement over APP
parent political indifference at home to
professional endeavor abroad. Among
the flrst-rate, top-rung men whom the
foreign service has recently thus lost to
other enterprises are these:
Dewitt G. Poole, counselor OF en-
bassy at Berlin, to Princeton University.
John Van A. MacMurray, Minister at
Peiping, to Johns Hopkins University.
II. F. A. Schoenfeld, Minister desig-
nate at San Jose, Costa Rica, TO the
International General Electric Co.
I.atin-Anerican affairs at Washington.
to Lehman Brothers, New York bankers.
Allen Dulles, chief of division OF
Near Eastern affairs at Washington, to
Sullivan 81 Cromwell, New York law
yers.
ton at Ottawa, to Schroeder q Co.,
London bankers.
Evan Young, Minister at Santo Do
mingo, TO firm OF bankers. =.
The resultant af1iuence OF some OF
these gentlemen deprives them OF all
claim to present financial sympathy.
That affiuence Is significant in just one
overpowering respect. It teaches, OF
should teach, our public that the tai
ent among the tea hounds" OF our For
eign Service is worth not mockery but
money.
Other Resignation Causes.
Some of our most capable professional
diplomats are affiuent without resigning.
They resign for reasons wholly unflnan-
cial. They resign out of discourage
ment wholly professional. Among them
recently have been the following:
Alexander Weddell, consul general at
Mexico City.
James c. Dunn first secretary at Lon
F. LaMoott Belin, frst secretary at
Thomas Daniels, first secretary at
Rome.
William Phillips, Minister at Ottawa.
Each of these men has taken an eX-
cellently trained intelligence, at It's
prime, back out of the public service
into private use-or into private dlsuse.
We are In our professional diplomacy
enlisting good brains, drilling them, get
ting them ready for their ultimate utll-
ity to us and then losing them. Inc
instances given are samples only.
From grief. though, Mr.. Leland Har-
rison now takes us to graduation. Re
signing from the service Of his country
in the area occupied by the State De-
partment, he has instantly returned u
It in the area occupied by the Tarln
Commission. This dexterous perform
ance has an interestingness much more
than personal. 1t points on to 6itua-
ton publicly unique in the world.
The tariff Of every country creates
resentments in every other country.
This international fact is acutely real
tied by Henry Prather Fletcher, the new
chairman Of our Tariff Commission and
himself the most illustrious instance OF
recent resignation from the interna-
tional activities of our State Depart
ment. In the Tariff Commission there
Is an International Relations Division.
Mr.. Harrison, while Assistant Secretary
of State in the State Department, dis
played a special passion and special
painstaking aptitude for the study and
mastery of foreign bond issues and
German reparations and cable and
radio communications and other inter-
national economic problems.
Opportunity for Service.
Mr.. Fletcher has now made Mr.. Har-
rison the new chief of the Tariff Com
MISSIONS International Relations Dr.
vision, and Mr.. Harrison will proceed,
for instance, to examine and to expedite
the efforts of foreign countries to seek
whatever readjustmentS may properly
under the law be granted to them in
our present tariff structure in the course
of carrying into effect the mandates OF
the Congress.
Note A-There is beginning to be. as
illustrated In our Consular Service and
in our Commerce Department Foreign
Trade Development Service and now in
our Tariff Commission Service, a pro-
fessional career in the international
economic representations well as,
through the State Department, in the