| Show OUR TWO CHIEF AMBASSADORS How Horace Porter and Tolin Hay May Help tho Business Situation Prpsli Gossip and Story About Thorn fen Picture of Central Porter His llxferunces as a Soldier and Diplomat HUM Grant Treated Him What lie Hoped 10 Data falctTht Parts Exposition Reciprocity and Ameiicaii Trade John Hay as a Business Alan Something About His Fortune His Career as a Diplomat and How He Aided in Aeefting Maximilian Out of Mexico His Literary MithodsHis Life of Lincoln and Other Matter Corjrlgbted by Frank 0 Carpenter I pedal Correspondence of the Maws WASHINGTON March 171111897 I Iff3 j WANT to tell you something H about our 10 leading an 1 I A iH bdors Colonel John fllayh lobe ambassador to II Great Britain and General j Horace Porter is to be our i ambassador to France Th v hw ambassadors rank far above tbe ministers AtMcKinteys I t inauguration the four ambas adors came Into the Senate l first Then ministers followed n ur follow-ed The ambassadors sat f oi side by side wills Presidents I Cleveland and McKlnley I when Vice President Hobart was sworn in It will b a the same way at London and Paris Ambassadors Hay and Porter will take precedence ol the minIsters I min-Isters from other countries and they will In fact command as much respect as > though President McKinley himsell was in their places They Co abroad as the representatives of the Precident himself I and they can confer directly with Queen Victoria or President Faire The English and French secretaries of state mill make the first calls upon them and i their influence will be such that they can do much for our country I understand that they both go abroad with the Intel lion of accomplishing more than our minister have in the past f They realize that this Is a business administration and they Intend to do everything they can to iiuih American business I to the Itont lloth I lay and Porter are practical business men They are both ct a singularly diplomatic turn and both he had Ile whichfit them for the place which they are now about to fill OUR NEW AMASSADOR TO FRANCE I hove seen a good deal of General Horace Porter during the past three weeks lie has been here In charge of the inaugural parade and has ben apart a-part of nearly all the ceremonies con netted with the introducmgol President McKinley to the White House General Porter is I perhaps the finest locking man of the now uJminlllration lie I I stands fully six feet in his stockings and he Is I as erect today as he was thirty seven ytars ago when he graduated from West Point one of the highest men in his PointIfeone i broad shouldered and deep clusted and is so straight that a line dropped from the back of his well brushed head would just touch the heels of his polished boots ills face Is i avery a-very al handsome one The I forehead ni is hifll and broad the eyes are blight and cheerful and the note Is i just n little inclined in-clined to the Roman Above all things he impresses you as being a gentleman He keen himself well r dhiel cile 1 wears the I best ol clothes of the West cut and he has the quiet air of the New York club man He is now sissy I yearn of age but he does not look to be more than fillv I am told that he never worries wor-ries and that he has accustomed himself him-self to take things t at they come and do 13 it nhe bent He says himself that he never goes ill a spasm over anything end ou can see by talking with him teat he has himself well in hand HORACE PORTER AND GENERAL GRANT Some of Horace Porters experiences with General Grant will stand him in good stead at the court ol Iris Everyone Every-one knows that he was with Grant day ing the war but lew appreciate that he was to a large extent the confidential adviser nl Grant white hs was President of Ih United States Grant did not at first take to the Idea cf icing President When MD name was proposed by his friends he hung hack and when he went Into the White House he felt afraid of the change of life and duties As seon as he was elected however he sent for General Porter and told him that he must come wIth him into the While l toue and that lie needed his altance In what capacity said General Porter 1 want you to cone and take charge 1 of things replied President Grant I have a set cf clerks nnd secretaries here but 1 dont know them They are not used tome I ned sonic one about men bane I can trust and who will see that no mistakes are made in the carrying carry-ing out ot my orders I want yea to be my military secretary and lull have the War Department assign v cm to the White House To this General Potter assented and tccime a toil of confidential adviser to General Grant He VAS not a private iccretaiy nor secretary u the resident Lut he was associated still him in many important matets 01 Ills administration He had a great deal to do with the fun cues cummlslon of Grants first term and oho with the settlement of the All bamt claims by which we got Ircm Great Britain 15500000 IIB SPEAKS 1RENC11 In this work General Porter was able lobe of the more advantage to General Grant on account of thorough knowledge ledge l-edge of the French language He Is I a natural linguist and lie canspak I rrnch and Spanish quite as fluently as English lie can make an after dinner speech In Trench and he Is noted as being one of the best after inner speakers of the United States being ranked by many higher I in this regard tl in Chauncey DepeA lie is also a man of literary note He has the degree ofl L L D and ha written n number 01 book fact Hill add to Ins standing at J tr cht 11 Paris af for the Trench have high respect for llteiary character His position an allay officer illiliso help him and the fact that he Is I a rich man is i another Imprtant item The ambassadors from other countries will spend all the way from 30000 and upward n year In en tertilnmj General Porter uill probably to the same although lit salary it itoUJ oi tf oUJ 7i ha rtua f < 17500 He has made a fortune you know in railroads and other love 1 stments He was for uses manager of the Pullman Pull-man Palace Car Company and he has been the president and director ol a number ol the largest business enterprises enter-prises of the United States He has made some inventions which have brought him In money and be under ncfs ournbu1iness Velation8 fti tanes our business relation In the r broadest sense WE NEED BUSINESS MINISTERS Gen Porters business experience will at the start make him especially valuable as ambassador to Trance I happen to know something about how be heels as 10 our business situation lie believes that an enormous increase can he made In our foreign commerce and that the reciprocity feature may be so de v elo Prods ed In connection with certain P-rods s as will be ol vast advantage to this country Both he and the Presl dent think that the national exposition at Paris inl in 1900 can t be used to great I advantige to us by proper American exhibits and Gen iorter goes abroad I with the idea ol pushing American Industries In-dustries at that exposition 1 He believes also that the consul service can be very much Improvdand that our consuls should be to a large extent the advance agents of American business men They should devote their time to studying the foreign market mar-ket where they are located and to findIng find-Ing every loop hole possible tor American Ameri-can manufacturers to come in BLUE BLOOD AND DRAINS lust one word about Gen Porters family You can tell a geod deal about a man from his arcstors Horace Porter has no reason to be ashamed of lib His genealogical tree Is i a big one One ol its roots is found in John Porter who won his spurs as a soldier at the bailie of Warwick under William the Conqueror The first Porter of this branch who came to tins country was an Irishman Ills name was Robert and heliad enough money to be able to buy some land in Pennsylvania ihorlly alter he landed This nan was the great grandfather of our new anibassa dor Ills son was Andrew Porter one of the most distinguished characters ol the reolotion Andrew Porter woo a teacher 01 mathematics In Philadelphia I in t776 Congress made him the cap I rata of the marines on one of the frigates but he soon left the navy for the army Before the revolutionary war was over he hid risen to be a colonel At Its close he retired to his farm refusing refus-ing a professorship In the University ol Pennsylvania because as he said II did not look well for one who had been commanding men to come down to flog King boys This i man you know was Horace Porters grandfather He afterward f after-ward became a brigadier general and he refused the place of Secretary of War In President Monroe cabinet He was a thtllly man and thrill seems to be one of the attributes of the Potters This I was the case with Gen Porters father whose name was David It Henhouse Porter and who was the first man to put up anthracite furnaces at larrlsburg and the first to engage In the mounts lure of steel In this country OUR AMBASSADOR TO LONDON I see that Col John Hay his already rented his house in Loncon He f has t taken one of Ihe most expensive estab > lisbments in the most fashionable part ot the city and the dignity ol the United Stales will be upheld 1 wltnout regard to cost Colonel Hay It I also a very rich man He has I nude something of a fortune himself by hU literary and other work but be became a millionaire when his lathei inlau Amasa blonc died Amasa Stone was a Massachusetts boy lie developed a great capacity for railroad rail-road building He was the superintendent superintend-ent ot the New Haven and Hartford railroad before he was thirty and had shown remarkable talent as a bridge builder by the tune he was out of his ten When he u as still > cui he came out to Ohio and settled at Cleveland He built the Cleveland Columbus and Cnclnnatl railroad l from Cleveland to Columbus This is now a part of the Big Four stem He built the Chicago and Milwaukee railroad and was for along a-long time manager of the Lake Shore road lie made a treat deal of money and when he died he left behind him j large variety of railroad and other interests inter-ests President Lincoln thought a great deal ol Amasa Stone lie advised with him often as to railroad matters during the war and he once offered to make Mr Stone a brigadier general II he would accept such nn appointment Mr Stone however thought he was better fitted for business than for soldiering and he preferred to do his work for the Union In a more quiet way He was often called to the White House and It was probably through hi visits there that John lIay bcarue acquainted with him and his daughter At any rate Mr Hay married Alfas Stone and at her lather death he became one of the executors ol his great estate As such he has had to deal with some of the largest business Interests of the country He has had to learn how such things are managed and today he Is on this account the more fitted to go abroad as the eoi representative of this Business admlnix tration JOHN HAY AS A DIPLOMAT There Is no doubt but that John Hay will make a good ambassador to Ergo laud He had the advantage of Presl dent Lincolns tutorsnip white he was private secretary in the White House md Lincoln it IS now generally conced ed was one of the greatest diplomats his country has produced I As an lllus fiction of his diplomacy I heard the other day of a lesson which he is I said to have given Colonel Illy when lie was private secretary at the White House A public man had acted rather offensively toward hive President and John Hay so the story goes told the President that he expected to write a letter giving him a piece of his mind hats 1 right said President Lincoln Do so give it to him write out lust what you think John flat did so and he brought the letter to tile President and read It to him As he read Mr Liocon from time to tune slid Goo I gooil That fixes him Alt close Mr Hay I laid Well he will get the letter tomorrow morniiiind we will sec what he has to say In reply lint returned president Lincoln 1 on clonl intend to mail toot letter 1 1 wan red > ou to write it out because It help I one to ease his feelingsbut you must not think of tending tend-ing it You would only make the nun mad without doing good to vourscll or the administration The result was the letter was never sent This incident if true must have oc cured more than a generation ago and John Hay has since shown himself to be one of the shrewdest diplomatists of this country He began his diplomatic career upon leaving the White House being first sent to Pans Here he kept Secretary toward Informed ol the schemes of Maximilian and Carlotta and enabled him to lay the plans which kept Maximilian from succeeding In Mexico I have heard It said that hall It nol been for 110y MeXIco might have become a monarchy instead of belnlr one of the most thriving republics 01 Spanish America Leaving Paris Colonel Colo-nel Hay was sent to Vienna as secretary of legation Here he was for a longtime long-time charge daflaires and he served so sell that later on he was sent to Spain lie has alto been one ol the first assistant assist-ant secretaries ol state and his tile since he left the While Home away back in lS6j has bern largely made up of dip lomatic work COLONEL HAY AS A LITERARY MAN John lay l will have the advantage ol a good literary reputation abroad Our literary nun have been our best diplomats UVshiiulol Irving was an elhcltnt minister to bp > mIlaard Taylor was one of our best ministers to Berlin and the man who served with perhaps the greatest reputation in En land was James Russell Lowell Colonel Hay during his May In Santa wrote his book entitled Castilian DaS This ranks Castilianb unwell with the bst books of travel He brought the manuscript home with him III his valise and arrived here Just at the time when Bret haute had made himself famous by writing Ins Heathen Chi nee and other poems Colonel Hay wrote and published a number of the came knd ol poems Ihe most of which are far better than llret Hanes lie entitled them thoTike County Ballads und among then were the famous poem of Little Breeches lm Illudsoe and others rr 1 hey took well r and before he knew it he was famous asa dialect poet As soon as he teamed his notoriety notor-iety in Inn respect he regretted it for he laid me one he was rather ashamed of having written Little Breeches I be heve ho considers It below him and Hut he has always prided himself on doing do-ing Letter work Hr can however write poems ol a Inch order At the Chnstlan Endeavor meeting here at Washington not long ago he rote the Invocation IImn He H I an earnest Christian and the reading ol this hymn may gist yon sonic Idea 01 his character INVOCATION I Local from firieverej climes HO come To meet at hit In Thee our home Thou who halt teen our guide and guard U < 9 still our hope our rich reward Defend us Lord from every Ill Strengthen our hearts to do rby will In all we plan and all we do bull keep ul to I hy service true O let us hear Ihe inspiring word Which thy ot old at Mach heard Breathe to our hearts he high command Go onward and possess the Id Thou whn art light shine on each soul Thou who art truth each mind control Open our eves and make us seeThe see-The path w hlch leads to heaven and Theo Signed JOHN HAY HOlY JOAN HAY WROTE TilE LIFE OF I LINCOLN John Hays literary reputation however how-ever will rest more upon Lincolns I biography than anything else He rote this yoo know in I connection with John J G Nicolay the two spending almost a quarter ol a century in the preparation for the work Col Hay I told me once that he and Mr Nicolay had read more than twelve hundred volumes before they began the real work ot writing and that Ihey had been making notes upon Lincoln air and on for many years When Col Hav was wiling at tills file I had a chat with him about his literary methods He has you know II mal g nlficent home here the library cf which l is l one of the finest in Washington Tills library ls a luxurious place U Is walled and celled with oak It has many shelves J filled with books Costly rujs cover the floor and bcautllul paintuigs look don upon you from over the bookcase It was nol here however that Colllay wrote It was away up in the attlcseat JC bJ rrt before five ed on a straight 1 back chair a n dollar desk that he penned the most of hU manuscript He told me that he could not dictate and that he considered a thousand words a days work Ho said that he and Nicolay planned the Inogripny when they were In the White House and that lacy began to make notes for it during the first administra I lnU iJ lion ol President Lincoln They took down conversations and kept the Incidents Inci-dents of White House life from day today llso sJI3edt r day Col I Hay has a diary ol that lime which fills three large manuscript volumes vol-umes The most Intel estmg parts of this book hive never been published He has u vast amount ol other material J comprising much unwritten history He has been a man whom public men could trust but he is 60 conscientious that his private correspondence will probably never be given to the public When I called upon him not long ago he told me he had no literary work on hand and his hie in London will be devoted I judge In other matters than literature q onI J |
