Show AMERICAN DIPLOMACY New World Idea That Has Proven V Best Professor Grosven of Amherst before the American Economic and Historical His-torical Association I make no claim that our diplomatic service is perfect or that all American foreign ministers have been saints or sages Sometimes we have had inefficient in-efficient sometimes timid shuffling men but what General Woodford said sad of himself was the record of his colleagues col-leagues When your minister reached Spain he was absolutely direct and frank in his dealings In scholarly culture our diplomatic representatives have surpassed those of any other land No foreign country has summoned to its service such a host of historians political economists poets orators journalists and educators educat-ors of every class cass Any discussion of this subject is incomplete in-complete which does not recognize the ability in diplomacy displayed by the officers of our navy in ISIS Decatur in Algiers in 1854 Perry in the Gulf of Yeddo In 1S67 Farragut in his European Euro-pean visit on the flagship Franklin in 1S9S Dewey in Manila baThe ba-The American diplomatist lives in a glass house where he may not only be seen but stoned The European diplomatist diplo-matist still inhabits a halfmedieval castle almost impregnable to criticism and difficult of access except by the privileged few I am well aware that many are clamorous clam-orous for the adoption of the European system of diplomacy Does American diplomacy offer only an uncertain title and promise nothing of real accomplishment accom-plishment The immensity of its achievement covers the whole nine teenth century of international law I has broken the caste shackles of birth has successfully asserted the right of expatriation has declared the seas and straits and continental rivers Gods highways destined to be free for man I has compelled the rights of neutrals to be recognized by every civilized state Now it is building the scaffolding for achievement no less great the exemption of private property prop-erty from capture on sea as it is exempt from capture on land This year three famous universities held a regatta One crew rowed a foreign for-eign stroke one a stroke half foreign and the third one American In the van finished the boat propelled by the American stroke In honorable nearness near-ness followed the boat with the stroke half foreign and half American The i crew taught with the foreign training was left behind The American stroke is the stroke for us whether on the Thames the Seine the Tiber the Spree I or the Wien And that not because of provincial prejudice or national pride I but because of the facts of history |