American Embassy

“ The American Embassy here will at the given moment receive a Note in which the American Government will be requested to communicate our peace offer to those of our enemies with whom they represent our interests. Our other enemies will be informed through the medium of Switzerland and Spain respectively. ”

“ Though the big American bar was crowded by men, in the corner where they sat upon a red plush settee they could not be overheard, the chatter and noise being so great. “We at the Embassies are only puppets, after all. It is such men as you who shape the nation’s policy. We’re simply the survival of the old days when kings exchanged courtesies and views by means of their ambassadors, and we, the frills of the Embassy, merely dress up, dance attendance at every function, and pretend to an importance in the world which we certainly do not possess.” ”

“ I{60} always think of this ambassadorial group going down those stone steps to the church, to pay their respect to the Archduke, and then going up to the gaily decorated American Embassy, to pay their respect to the Declaration of Independence. All the station ships of the foreign countries lay out in the stream, decorated and dressed in honour of our national holiday, and the ambassadors and ministers called in full regalia. ”

“ The Embassy is humming with people calling, [Pg 166] making inquiries, asking for passports, demanding everything from a room in the best hotel to a good store where an American can buy a pair of suspenders, and a thousand and one other requests. ”

“ Watch the newspapers! I'll advertise in the personal column of the Times, beginning 'Shipmate.' At the end of three days if there's nothing—well, you'll know I'm down and out. Then take the packet to the American Embassy, and deliver it into the Ambassador's own hands. ”

“ This is the American embassy. I must look funny in my pelisse. Thank God for the breakfast I ate somewhere ... good-looking girl, Parisienne, at the switch-board upstairs. “Go right in, sir.” A1 English by God. So this is the person to whom Edward E. Cummings is immediately to report.
“Is this Mr. Cummings?”
“Yes.” Rather a young man, very young in fact. Jove I must look queer.
“Sit down! We’ve been looking all over creation for you.”
“Yes?”
“Have some cigarettes?”
“Yes.”
By God he gives me a sac of Bull. Extravagant they are at the American Embassy. Can I roll one? I can. I do. ”

“ I explained to him that the President desired to raise the mission to an embassy, but as the law stood we were dependent upon the initiative of the Sultan. He said that during his incumbency as prime minister he had much to do with having the United States name an ambassador to London; he took special care that Great Britain should be the first nation to send an ambassador to Washington and to receive an American ambassador. ”

“ The suggestion was cheerfully accepted by the government at Washington, and it was determined to bring the embassy in naval vessels of the United States. Some delay was occasioned, however, by the necessity of securing an exception to the law inflicting the penalty of death upon any one leaving the empire. The embassy consisting, officials and attendants, of seventy-one persons, sailed from Japan in February, 1860, the thoughtful Harris having planned the journey so that his Japanese friends might see his capital in the genial month of May. ”

“ Legation, or embassy, formerly meant the particular business, the errand, so to speak, upon which the ambassador was sent.
These terms are now used more often to designate the officers themselves who are sent on an embassy, and finally by the extension of the term they also mean the official residence of those officers.
American legations as a rule have fewer members than those of other great nations and are much less expensive. The American 126diplomatic service costs only one fourth as much as the British. Whether or not the result is desirable upon the whole you may judge for yourselves ”

“ And while such a provision is the first thing, it would be wise to add, as other nations do, a moderate allowance for furniture, and for keeping the embassy or legation properly cared for during the interim between the departure of one representative and the arrival of another.
If this were done, the prestige of the American name and the effectiveness of the service would be vastly improved, and diplomatic posts would be no longer so onerous and, indeed, ruinous as they have been to some of the best men we have sent abroad. ”

“ Petersburg, our mistaken policy in this respect once cost the United States a sum which would have forever put that embassy, and, indeed, many others besides, on the very best footing. If an American ambassador is to exercise a really strong influence for the United States as against other nations he must be properly provided for as regards his residence and support,—not provided for, indeed, so largely as some representatives of other nations; for I neither propose nor desire that the American representative shall imitate the pomp of certain ambassadors of the greater European powers. ”

“ At one place an American ambassador was recently asked to pay double what his predecessor had paid, and as he was not willing to do this, he is still living at a hotel. There are not many suitable buildings from which to select, and our representative is at the mercy of those who control the limited supply. Diplomatic requirements are such that the embassy must be centrally located and sufficiently commodious to enable the ambassador or minister to return the courtesies which he receives. ”

“ But, as the very first thing to be done, whether our diplomatic service remains as at present or be improved, I would urge, as a condition precedent to any thoroughly good service, that there be in each of the greater capitals of the world at which we have a representative, a suitable embassy or legation building or apartment, owned or leased for a term of years by the American Government Every other great power, and many of the smaller nations, have provided such quarters for their representatives, and some years ago President Cleveland recommended to Congress a similar policy. ”

“ As for the men of the Embassy, from the Ambassador down to "Wilhelm," the old German doorkeeper who has initiated two generations of American diplomats into the mysteries of their profession in Berlin, no faithful servants of an ungrateful Republic ever came so valiantly to the rescue of fellow taxpayers. The Embassy apartments, including the Ambassador's own sanctuary, were turned into offices which looked for all the world like a Census Bureau. ”

“ Such persons as were intending to go to these regions in the hope of finding quiet and rest there would do well to hesitate, for it looks as if they may be rather overcrowded.
"The American Ambassador," we read last week, "is confined to his room at the Embassy owing to a cold." Colds, we know, are nasty catching things, but we consider it shows cowardice on the part of the staff to have, apparently, locked their chief in his room. ”

“ And when the war is over I believe that the names of Franklin, Jefferson and Herrick will constitute a triumvirate of American ambassadors to France, that [Pg 23] all French school children of the future will be taught to remember and respect.
I passed much time at the Embassy during the first weeks of war, for it was a real center of news for an American newspaper. ”

“ Good Americans, on passing the United States Embassy headquarters, at the corner of Schadowstrasse, raise their hats in a sudden welling of patriotic reverence, and very likely with a wistful sympathy for the heimweh that must frequently oppress the two thousand members of the American colony that tarry in the pleasant environs of Victoria Louise Platz. ”

“ I had no time to go near a police station. My wife telephoned that at our commissariat the line of waiting foreigners was about eight hundred. She flatly declined to take her turn—permit or no permit. I suggested that she go home; but later I heard disquieting rumors, that there had been several arrests of foreigners unable to show a permis de séjour. I did not blame the police, for the city was full of spies; but I could see no good reason why the Americans should suffer and I went full speed to the Embassy to put the facts before the Ambassador. ”

“ English soldiers salute our officers in the street and old gentlemen take off their hats when they meet nurses with the American Red Cross uniform. My Embassy now occupies four buildings for offices, more than half of them military and naval. And my own staff, proper, is the biggest in the world and keeps growing. ”

“ Cloud. He announced that since it was now no longer possible to reach London via the train to Havre, he would transport Americans on his little boat to England, going down the Seine past Rouen and across the Channel. For such service each person was to be charged an extravagant amount, payment strictly in advance. The scheme was widely advertised to have the approval of the American Ambassador, although no one at the Embassy knew anything about the matter until Americans came to the Chancellerie yesterday to ask for further information. Mr. Herrick sent me out to investigate. ”

“ A foreign state’s embassy in Washington, D. C., is generally a place where a U. S. court can communicate by mail with the state’s foreign minister. Unless an embassy decides to decline packages containing judicial summonses—as it is free to do, both in individual cases or as a broader policy—a service packet addressed and dispatched to a foreign minister at the address of its embassy in the United States satisfies §1608 (a) (3) . ”

“ The Embassy now is a good deal bigger than the whole State Department ever was in times of peace. I have three buildings for offices, and a part of our civil force occupies two other buildings. Even a general supervision of so large a force is in itself a pretty big job. The army and the Navy have each about the same space as the Embassy proper. Besides, our people have huts and inns and clubs and hospitals all over the town. Even though there be fewer vexing problems than there were while we were neutral, there is not less work—on the contrary, more. ”

“ The ambassadors carry no presents with them, to shew that they do not intend to supplicate or beg a peace: they take with them only the pipe of peace, as a proof that they come as friends. The embassy is always well received, entertained in the best manner, and kept as long as possible; and if the other nation is not inclined to begin a war, they make very large presents to the ambassadors, and all their retinue, to make up for the losses which their nation complains of. ”

“ We came home after I had shown myself with Elim at the Country Club on our way in. People are in a panic here, but no one has heard anything from me except that I expect to receive on Thanksgiving Day from four to eight. The telephones are being rung all day by distracted fathers and husbands, not knowing what to do. They cannot leave their daily bread. They are not men who have bank accounts in New York or in any other town, and to them leaving means ruin. They come with white, harassed faces. “Is it true that the Embassy is to be closed to-night?” ”

“ It is not that our Government is impecunious; it is only pennywise. Now for the first time in our history America has an embassy in London worthy of her greatness, thanks not to our Government, but to the princely munificence of her new Ambassador. Perhaps he will never know the impetus he has given to the lesser patriotism, nor with what innocent pride we have contemplated his residence from every point of view, and with what patriotic rapture we watched the erection of that splendid marquee destined for the welcome of his fellow-countrymen. ”

“ Not so long ago I was in conversation with one, who, residing in a town not far from Paris, had, as I think deservedly, brought himself under the vengeance of the French law; but he was an English subject. "So," said he, "I shall appeal to the Ambassador!" and appeal he did. This just gave me an instance of the number of petty matters that come for settlement to the Embassy.
Downstairs is another room where any amount of business is transacted, and where I had a few minutes' chat with Austin Lee, Esq., one of the secretaries; and opposite are the offices of the Consulate. ”

“ They know when to be silent, too; and they [pg II-417] are trusted as they deserve to be. Of course I see them, singly or in pairs, every day in the regular conduct of the work of the Embassy; and once a week we all meet together and go over everything that properly comes before so large a "cabinet" meeting. Thus some of us are on confidential terms with somebody in every department of the Government, with somebody in every other Embassy and Legation, with all the newspapers and correspondents—even with the censors. And the wives of those that are married are abler than their husbands. ”

“ As it is often necessary that nations should treat for the mutual advantage of their affairs, and especially to accommodate and terminate differences, and as they can treat only by ministers, the right of embassy is well known and established by the law and usage of nations. ”

“ The United States will steadily observe the maxims by which they have hitherto been governed. They will respect the sacred rights of embassy; and with a sincere disposition on the part of France to desist from hostility, to make reparation for the injuries heretofore inflicted on our commerce, and to do justice in future, there will be no obstacle to the restoration of a friendly intercourse. ”