Evening star., 1940-02-20
'Greenerocer' Diplomats

'Greenerocer' Diplomats
Popolo di Roma, one of the
authoritative organs of the Italian
Fascist party, and therefore a per-
sonal mouthpiece of Premier Mus
solini, has just seen fit to deride
our diplomatic ENJOYS as enriched
greengrocers," who distinguish them
selves "for their lack of culture and
manners, as we'll as for the 'boners'
they commit in the course of their
duties, and who are mainly bene-
f1ciaries of the President for substan-
tial favors rendered"
For some inexplicable reason Popo-
10 di Roma's intemperate outburst
Is evoked by Myron c. Taylor's i'm
pending arrival at the Vatican as
President Roosevelt's personal repre-
sentative and by Undersecretary of
State Welles' coincident mission of
exploration in italy, Germany,
France and Great Britain.
The exact contrary of the Fascist
newspapers slanderous illusions
happens to be the fact. If the party
hack who penned the article knew
his Italy of only the past thirty years,
he would realize the absurdity of his
allegation with respect alone to the
Americans who have served their
country at the Italian court, both be-
fore and during the Fascist regime.
No enriched greengrocers" were
Thomas ]. O'Brien, Thomas Nelson
Page, Robert Underwood Johnson,
Richard Washburn Child, or the four
career diplomats whom the United
States has sent to Rome since 1924
Henry P. Fletcher, John w. Garrett,
Breckenridge Long and William
Phillips. One ventures to think that
each and all of these distinguished
Americans, career and non-career
men alike, compared favorably in
character and capacity with the
noblemen and courtiers whom the
King Of Italy from time to time as
signs to Washington. These have
often been, like our ENJOYS to Rome,
men of repute in various fields, al
though some of them owed their
appointments either to the fact that
family social rank, wealth or con-
tributions to the Fascist cause in one
form or another outstripped any
claims they possessed on grounds of
equipment for diplomatic duty.
It is indisputable that the foreign
service of the United States has long
been happy hunting ground for
checkbook patriots and party spoils-
men. Successive administrations,
Republican and Democratic, have
tried to break with this unwholesome
tradition and professionalize our
diplomatic and consular branches to
the extent that the American po-
litical system permits. Enactment
of'the Rogers law was long step in
this direction. It is one of the
achievements Of the New Deal that
it has carried the principle of merit
into the foreign service to a very
considerable degree, though there
are few men whose cash contribu-
tions to Democratic campaign funds
were the impelling reasons for
awarding them ambassadorial or
ministerial plums. Yet, even in some
of these exceptional instances the
country has discovered that wealth
is not of itself necessarily a bar to
diplomatic skill. Certainly the
"greengrocer" taunt is not applicable
to Myron c. Taylor, whose record as
an enlightened captain Of industry
equips him for diplomatic or any
other responsible service to which
his country may call him, and, of
course, the Italian innuendo is par
ticularly misdirected against a man
of Sumner Welles' quality.
Italy casts notoriously longing eyes
on Latin America, where her vault
ing trade ambitions clash with those
of the United States, Great Britain,
France and Germany. Perhaps
Popolo di Romais outburst springs
from Mussolini's realization that in
stead of manning our principal dip
lomatic posts south Of the Rio
Grande with enriched greengroc-
ers," we are nowadays sending sea-
soned diplomats like George s. Mes
sersmith to Cuba, Jefferson Caffery
to Brazil, Norman Armour to Argen-
tina, R. Henry Norweb to Peru, Ed
win c. Wilson to Uruguay, Douglas
Jenkins to Bolivia, Robert Frazer to
Fl Salvador, Robert M. Scotten to
the Dominican Republic and William
Dawson to Panama.