ers and the police or military authorities, and also to give such moral comfort as is possible. One can readily see how the life of internment and restraint, even when the prisoner is not confined to a camp or in any way harshly treated, must wear down the spirit. The civilian prisoner may be a laborer, a sailor, a clerk, a professional acrobat, or a millionaire banker. All classes are represented. One of the embassy inspectors in Russia told me of his meeting a Bohemian violinist of great note, who was interned in a town in the heart of Siberia: how he came to the hotel to play for him for two hours, a singular and pathetic figure.

I cannot omit a passing reference to other humanitarian work in which our diplomatic and consular officers are also assisting, namely, the relief of Belgium; the long-drawn-out negotiations for the relief of Poland; and the Armenian and Syrian relief in Turkey. In Belgium our diplomacy-together with the Spanish has created the machinery known as the Commission for the Relief of Belgium, by means of which the Belgian population has been saved from starvation. The Commission, at the head of which is a remarkable American, Mr. Hoover, buys food, with funds contributed for this purpose, from all the available markets of the world and brings it in especially chartered ships to The Hague, where it is trans-shipped into the interior of Belgium and there distributed to the population by the officers of the Commission. Unfortunately, our efforts to help Poland have not yet reached any definite results, but our embassies in Berlin, Vienna, London, Paris, and Petrogad are doing their utmost to secure permission from the governments concerned for the Belgian Relief Commission to extend its machinery over Poland. Our embassy in Constantinople has recently succeeded in securing permission for the entrance of medical supplies into Jaffa; and after protracted negotiations we have arranged for sending food from the United States to the destitute in Syria.

After the war is over, and the passions of war have subsided, it is believed that the relief which has been extended by our officers will be readily appreciated. At present, however, when the work to be done is so vast and the improvement of conditions so necessarily slow, we cannot hope to satisfy all the governments and peoples for whom we are laboring.

Coming Responsibilities

While the work imposed upon our foreign service during the war is necessarily greater than were its labors before the war began, it is a fact with which we must reckon that, after the war is ended and the reconstruction of the world is taking place, responsibilities even more vital to the American people than are the responsibilities borne by our diplomatic and consular officers at this time will be thrust upon their shoulders; such, for example, as the presentation of claims of individual Americans against the various belligerent governments; the furtherance of American trade in those countries now being torn asunder by the ravages of war; and various other matters which time will not permit of my discussing to-night.

I have attempted to describe the machinery with which our Government works in the foreign field, and the volume of the business in

volved, but I do not wish to give the impression that this machinery is adequate to the needs of our country. On the contrary, it is very inadequate in many respects, and many of the chief difficulties can only be overcome by increased annual appropriations for the upkeep of the services.

In the first place, the State Department has wholly outgrown its present limited quarters in Washington. Plans have already been made and approved for the purchase of a lot near the present site and for the erection of a suitable building where all the Department's offices could be located under one roof instead of being boarded out as they now are in various parts of the city.

Commensurate with the dignity of his high office, the Secretary of State should be able to give his official receptions in a building belonging to the United States Government, and to receive the representatives from foreign governments in a manner befitting their rank and prestige. But even more important is the necessity of providing our ambassadors, ministers, and even many of our consuls, with permanent and suitable residences.

At the present time our Government owns its embassies in Constantinople and Tokyo and its legation at Peking; and appropriations have been allotted for an embassy in Mexico and the legation in Havana. With these five exceptions, the diplomatic representatives of the United States must find their own quarters and locate themselves as best they An ambassador or minister, representing as he does the Government of the United States, should be able to reside in a building which is the property of the United States and not in a house which is leased to him by a private individual by the year.

So often we fail to realize that in many foreign countries America and Americans are practically unknown, and that sentiments of friendship towards us and towards our country are largely governed by the personalities and standing of our diplomatic and consular officers resident in those countries — the only Americans who are actually visible. We should require our representatives to adopt a standard of simplicity and dignity in keeping with the best traditions of this country; by such means we shall be better understood and shall gain the respect of nations.

We should remove as soon as possible the conditions which permit of caricatures such as that of our recent illustrous ambassador to Great Britain, Mr. Choate, who, after his arrival in England, and while he was searching for a house, was pictured throughout the press clinging to a lamp-post in the blackness of a London night. On being commanded by a burly policeman to "move on and go home," Mr. Choate could only reply: "Home! home! I have no home; I am the American ambassador."

And so, although the State Department and the foreign service are toiling unceasingly in your behalf, their work has only begun.

I know that we can count on the Boston City Club, and the city clubs throughout the country, to stand behind the work and to encourage in every way possible the development and the prestige of the diplomatic and consular services. All of you can help by your interest and coöperation, and especially by encouraging the right kind of young men

to take up the honorable career now offered them. As our foreign trade expands, and we as a nation become more intimately associated with peoples of other lands, so must the Department of State develop and expand, and help guide our country to the fulfillment of its destiny.

ADDRESS BY AMBASSADOR WILLIAM G. SHARP
October 20

"When I was first asked to come to Boston to address the members of the Boston City Club, I could not see how it could be accomplished in the limited time at my disposal, and was on the point of declining your invitation when I was again urged, and finally I accepted, and I am very glad to be here to-day and meet so many of your men and a large number of my former colleagues in Congress, among whom are Governor McCall and Mayor Curley.

"Of course it is obvious to everybody that I am not a free lance and cannot say everything that I would like to say, otherwise I would not be a fit occupant for my position. There would be a good many things that I could say that would be highly interesting, relative to the position of the United States towards the European governments. cannot refer to them, and I must abstain, for the same reasons, from expressing my personal opinion as to the causes of the war and its final outcome.

"I am going to take you, with your permission, from the time I landed in Havre down until about two months ago when I left France for a short vacation in the United States. I do not know how many of you are aware of the time I left the United States, but I will say that I arrived in Paris on the morning of the day that the Germans were nearest the city of Paris, literally and figuratively knocking at the gates of Paris, eighteen miles away from the central part of the city. During my voyage across the water there were posted about the head of the stairway, wireless bulletins showing the events of the war and the progress being made by the various forces, but it was very indefinite, so much so that when we finally landed in Paris we were unable to understand, without very great surprise, the fact that the Germans had swept through Belgium and more than one hundred miles through Northern France and were closely pressing upon the city of Paris. You can imagine our feelings at that time. A distinguished gentleman who was with me. hesitated to proceed to Paris, as he had told his wife that he would be back in a month, and he felt that after reaching Paris it might be a good many months before he could get out. His feelings were relieved when one of our military attachés from Paris told him there was no danger.

"We rode all that afternoon and night, through the courtesy of the French Government, which sent down an automobile to take me up to Paris. The trip took twelve hours, the distance under ordinary conditions being traversed in from three to four hours. This was accounted for mainly by the fact that along the route from Havre to Paris there were many barricades constructed, and many bridges had been blown up

along the highways to prevent the German forces from surrounding Paris on the north. We were obliged to make a detour about twentyfive miles to the west, and in all we were obliged to halt more than twenty times.

"We arrived in Paris on the 4th of September, 1914, at four o'clock in the morning. That was the eventful day in the history of Paris, and I might say of France, and possibly an event that turned the tide of the entire war, at least up to the present time. You see, that was the crucial stage, so crucial that the representatives of the French Government early in the morning removed the official capital down to Bordeaux, four hundred miles away; there they remained until the end of the year 1914, and then they came back to take charge of their work in Paris. That was the time when General Von Kluck's army was within eighteen miles of the center of Paris, at which time their shells, if they had been provided with those great guns that both sides now possess, would have been sent all over Paris.

"The Defeat at the Marne

"We all know of the retreat and that famous march of the German forces, but just why it was made, what factors led up to it, nobody knows. You all are familiar with some of the factors that caused that retreat; I mention it because I happened to be an observer of that whole scene. You remember reading of General Gallieni's forces (I understand that the military protection left to guard Paris consisted of seventy thousand troops) how they suddenly started out from Paris and its environs, and with that cavalcade of men succeeded in turning back the combined armies of Von Kluck and the Crown Prince.

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'It was my good fortune, if you may call it that, to be one of two Americans, the other being my son, who saw that wonderful procession of every kind of nondescript vehicle leave Paris at half past one or two o'clock in the morning to convey those soldiers to the battlefield. We were suddenly awakened that morning by the monotonous sound of the vehicles, we went to the front windows of our house, and saw this wonderful caravan of vehicles. They were so thickly placed together it would be impossible for a man to pass between them. I do know that every conceivable vehicle I could think of was there in that procession, one hundred thousand of them, everything had been impressed into that service, all of them empty except the driver or chauffeur. How many miles out they went to get the forces, I do not know, but an army was hurriedly transported out to the scene of activity.

"A week after that it was my good fortune, or I might say of interest to me, to drive out in an automobile sixty-five miles from Paris to the town of Soissons, right straight across the entire battlefield of the Marne. It was during the equinoctial storms, September 17, although a little early in the season for those conditions, but anyway, the wind was blowing at the rate of sixty miles an hour, accompanied by rain, and we drove clear up to within a mile from Soissons, where, by just going over the brow of the hill, we could see the armies in action, but we were cautioned by the officer with us that it would invite danger. Out over that whole field, we saw, that day, with the rain beating down

upon their faces, the dead soldiery of France and Germany here mingled side by side indiscriminately, some laid out just as they had fallen, in a pitched manner, some with their arms stretched in death agony, faces upturned. A number of these bodies had been laid out ready for burial. I was told that a mile west of there two thousand had been buried in one trench. Dead bodies were everywhere seen over the expanse of the field. “A great number of bullets and cartridges were scattered over the highway; it must be remembered that at that time this trench method of warfare had not been put into practice, and we saw there in the space of perhaps forty-eight hours this great army pushed back that long distance, because there were no trenches. The only trenches were those improvised affairs; the only thing resembling a trench on the ground that we scanned, was alongside that highway, in a natural declivity, the soldiers had availed themselves of its protection, and then the enormous holes made by exploded shells were made use of.

"I saw incidentally here an aeroplane that, if it had one hole shot through it, it had a hundred. What became of the operator, I do not know, but unquestionably he had been killed, for no man could live under those bullets. There is one thing interesting about the retreat, and that is that in reading the French papers and journals about that time, there seemed to be a general assumption on the part of all writers that the retreat of the German army that had already been started was to continue. But they finally got back to Soissons, that was September 17, 1914, — and they are there to-day, over two years, without having been moved either way a half a mile. Along that entire front from the North Sea diagonally down to the southeast direction and the Swiss frontier, with the exception of the advance now being made by the Allies on the Somme front, the line of battle has been changed but very little from what it was two years ago. What occasioned that, this strong retreat covering sixty miles within a few hours, and to-day an advance of perhaps fifty rods means the loss of men on both sides to the number of one hundred thousand, a month's time, and millions of dollars in material?

"To my mind, posing as no military expert, there are three factors that stand out above all other agencies that portend to prolong the war, and will continue to prolong it. I do not know which is foremost in importance of these three, but I will just name them.

“One is, and I think possibly the most important of all, the trench method of warfare. You might take as an example, out on the plains of Dakota, a million of these gophers, and on the surface of the ground they will be easily exterminated, but let them burrow under the ground with their network of hundreds of miles of underground passages, running across each other in every conceivable direction, and it would be an entirely different kind of a task. I have been told by soldiers coming to the embassy, some of them members of the American Foreign Legion, that they have been along the battlefront in these trenches for ten months, located one hundred yards from their opponents, and yet they never caught a glimpse of one of them. That is one of the difficulties to-day of fighting over there.

And we know that both sides have to precede their infantry