In 1903 a delegation of some of the most prominent citizens of the United States, representing large property interests in the Turkish Empire, made a visit to Washington and laid before the President a memorial, setting forth that American citizens and property in that empire were denied the rights and protection which had been secured by the ambassadors of the Great Powers of Europe to their subjects and property interests. The President, being impressed with the justice of the memorial, caused a cable instruction to be sent to the American minister in Constantinople directing him to ask an audience of the Sultan in the name of the President, to enable him to communicate a message from the President to the Sultan on the subject of the memorial. After a delay of some weeks an audience was granted on the express condition that the minister should be limited to delivering the message of the President, but that he would not be permitted to discuss the subject with the Sultan.

Even this decisive action of the President seems to have had no effect, as the American citizens continued to be deprived of the rights and privileges enjoyed by the subjects of the Great Powers of Europe, and for a third time an application was made and rejected for the reception of an American representative with the grade of ambassador. The American minister at Constantinople, under renewed and urgent instructions from Washington, pressed for a settlement of the question at issue, but he was greatly delayed and embarrassed by the fact that the ministry have no real power to dispatch any important public business, because the Sultan

reserves to himself that prerogative, and by the further fact that, not being an ambassador, he found great difficulty in reaching the Sultan. Meanwhile, this important question remained undetermined, and it became necessary to dispatch a formidable American fleet to Turkish waters to evidence the President's interest in the question, and the fleet was held in the Turkish port until a promise was exacted that the demand of the United States would be complied with; but even that promise remains unexecuted. What more striking argument can be presented against the maintenance of the various grades in the diplomatic service?

There is no good reason why the representative of the smallest American republic or European principality should have a different standing at the Foreign Office in London, for instance, from that freely conceded to him in the Peace Conference of the nations at The Hague; neither is it reasonable that any government, because of a mere grade in the diplomatic body, should be compelled to make a more lavish display at a foreign court than its principles or convenience justified.

Reference has been made to the question raised as to the relative rank of the secretary of state and of the ambassadors at Washington. Following the practice existing in European countries, the secretary yielded the the precedence to the ambassadors. But if that practice should be strictly followed an argument might be advanced in favor of the secretary. In the monarchical countries, not only the heir-apparent but all the children of the reigning sovereign, as also the brothers, nephews, and grandsons, have precedence over ambassadors. By

virtue of a recent act of Congress the secretary of state is made the successor to the presidency, in the event of the death of the President and Vice-President. By a parity of reasoning the secretary standing so near in the line of succession to the chief-magistracy, a claim might be urged for him of precedence over the ambassadors.

Before the act of Congress cited was passed, the secretary of state had been recognized as the head of the cabinet. This grew out of the fact that the Department of State was the first created, and the custom was established in legislation of naming the secretary of state first in the cabinet list. For twenty years and more after the organization of the Federal government the secretaries of state and of the treasury received higher salaries than their colleagues. But the chief of the Department of State has not always held this preeminence unchallenged. The cabinet of Mr. Monroe had more than one aspirant to be his successor, and they conspired against the more prominent candidate, John Quincy Adams, secretary of state. They first succeeded in making by act of Congress the salaries of the cabinet officers uniform. They then demanded social equality. It had been the practice from the foundation of the government for the President to invite only the secretary of state to the diplomatic dinners. President Monroe was given to understand that henceforth such a distinction would be considered offensive to the other heads of departments. The President determined to invite thereafter to the diplomatic dinners all the cabinet officers. Mr. Adams narrates the result in his diary:

"The Foreign Ministers, though willing to yield pre

cedence to the Secretary of State, are not willing, at dinners of professed ceremony given to them, to be thrown at the bottom of the table by postponement to four or five heads of Departments and their wives. To avoid these difficulties, Mr. Monroe last winter invited the Foreign Ministers without any of the heads of Departments, and to fill the table invited with them the navy commissioners and some respectable private inhabitants of the city. But this did not escape remark. The Foreign Ministers were not pleased at being invited with persons of inferior rank and private citizens, nor at the absence of the Secretary of State, with whom they had usually been associated on these occasions heretofore. The slight to the Secretary of State himself by the omission to invite him as heretofore was also noticed... by the Foreign Ministers and by all the gossips of the District, who have drawn many shrewd conclusions from it. . . . These incidents, apparently so insignificant and contemptible, are connected with all the pantings of Crawford's ambition, and with the future history of this nation and of the world." 1

1 4 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams (1874), 293. Mr. Crawford was a member of the Cabinet and Adams's competitor for the presidency.

CHAPTER III

THE APPOINTMENT OF DIPLOMATS

THE diplomatic representation of the United States to other countries consists at present of ten ambassadors, twenty-seven ministers, two ministers resident, who also act as consuls-general, and one diplomatic agent and consul-general. Six of the ministers plenipotentiary are accredited to more than one state: the minister to Greece acting also as minister to Montenegro, and as diplomatic agent to Bulgaria; the minister to Roumania also to Servia; the minister to the Netherlands also to Luxemburg; the minister to Guatemala also to Honduras; the minister to Nicaragua also to Salvador and Costa Rica; and the minister to Uruguay also to Paraguay. The representative of the United States at Cairo is styled Agent, out of deference to the Sultan, the Khedive of Egypt being under his suzerainty, but for all practical intercourse free from his control.1

Other governments follow the same practice as to combining two or more countries under one diplomatic representative. Adjoining countries are often associated in missions, because of proximity. A number of ministers to the United States are also accredited to Mexico. A single minister is often accredited to more

1 This classification is in conformity with the diplomatic appropriation bill of 1906.