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When he (McKinley) urged me to accept the position of Secretary of State, I accepted with some reluctance and largely to promote the wishes of Mark Hanna. The result was that I lost the position both of Senator and Secretary, and I hear that both McKinley and Hanna are pitying me for failing memory and physical strength. I do not care for their pity and do not ask them any favors, but wish only to feel independent of them, and conscious that, while they deprived me of the high office of Senator by the temporary appointment of Secretary of State, they have not lessened me in your opinion or in the good will of the great Republican Party of the United States. (Vol. 1, p. 508.)

The temper of this letter lends color to the report that flowers sent from the White House to the funeral in Ohio were returned by the family unused.

The part which Mr. Foraker had already taken in public affairs as Governor of Ohio and in national politics, gave him at once a recognized place in the Senate as a ready and forcible debater, and soon after taking his seat we find him occupying a leading part in the discussion of the Spanish situation growing out of the Cuban rebellion. He argued strongly in favor of the recognition of the independence of Cuba, and was finally the author of a series of resolutions which became the basis of our declaration of war against Spain.

In a foot-note to a discussion of the barbarous warfare pursued in Cuba by Spain, reference is made to the new methods pursued in the present war in Europe by the submarines, which he claims cannot change the existing rules of international law. "Hence, if submarines cannot remove non-combatants before sinking their ship, they must not sink it. To hold otherwise is inhuman and in violation of the foundation principles of all law and, therefore, a practice that will never be approved by the civilized peoples of the earth." (Vol. II, pp. 17-20.)

Some discussion is had of the authorship of the so-called Platt Amendment, which virtually places the Cuban Republic under the tutelage of the United States. Mr. Foraker states that the provisions of that amendment were fully discussed in the Senate long before they took shape in the Amendment, and that one of the earliest proposers of it was General James H. Wilson, commanding a department in Cuba during the American occupation, and that to him more than any one else is due the credit for its ultimate adoption.

Senator Foraker was a prominent participant in the discussion which grew out of the independence of Panama and the treaty with Great Britain respecting the Canal. He defended the action of President Roosevelt in securing the independence of the new republic. He was

the author of two important amendments to the first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty: the first declaring the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty superseded, and, second, striking out the clause providing for the adhesion of other Powers. In a letter to President Taft, written after he had left the Senate, he gives an interesting account of how the first treaty, amended by the Senate and rejected by Great Britain, was revived through a confidential conference at the Senator's residence, sought by Mr. Hay, the Secretary of State.

This letter was written to show that it was the intention of both Secretary Hay and the Senators that our Government should be left free to use its discretion as to the fortification of the Canal. (Vol. II, p. 137.)

At the time President Wilson submitted to Congress the question of our right to discriminate in favor of our vessels using the Canal, Mr. Foraker discussed the subject at some length in a public address, taking the position that in ratifying the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty we supposed we were to be the sole owners of the Canal, and that we had a right, if we saw fit, to exempt our own vessels from the payment of tolls for its use. (Vol. II, p. 144.) He also has made known his views on the Colombian treaty now pending in the Senate. In a letter written in 1914 he says:

I had personal knowledge at the time of their occurrence of all the facts then known, or now known, so far as I am aware, to which this treaty has reference. Colombia suffered no injury at our hands, except only such as she brought upon herself by her own unwise and indefensible conduct. To pay her $25,000,000, or any other sum, would be like submitting to blackmail; and to apologize to her would be an abject national humiliation, for which there is no excuse whatever. (Ib., p. 450.)

While in the Senate, Mr. Foraker zealously supported the annexation of Hawaii to avoid complications with foreign Powers; and for the same reason the treaty for the annexation of the Danish St. Thomas group, which failed of ratification by Denmark. He calls attention to the present importance of the acquisition of the latter, in view of the completion of the Panama Canal and the situation of the European conflict. He points out that if Germany should become dominant in Europe she would overshadow Denmark, and, without directly challenging the Monroe Doctrine, secure control of St. Thomas.

One of the most characteristically independent acts of Senator Foraker's service was his defeat of a bill reported from the Committee on

Immigration providing further and more drastic legislation as to Chinese exclusion, a measure which generally found ready support in Congress. Upon examination of the bill he found it in violation of our national obligations and calculated to bring discredit upon us as a nation. Almost single-handed he attacked it in a speech which he says was "one of my most carefully prepared speeches in the Senate." This speech brought to his support such influential Senators as Platt of Connecticut, Hoar, and Cullom, and the bill was finally defeated. Senator Cullom in his Personal Recollections writes: "Senator Foraker very well knew that his opposition to this bill would not strengthen him at home, but he disregarded that fact, and opposed it because he believed it was contrary to our treaty obligations."

The general arbitration treaties which Secretary Hay submitted to the Senate awakened in that body as sturdy opposition as the first Panama Canal treaty which preceded them and had a like fate, as they were so amended as to incur Secretary Hay's disapproval. His treatment by the Senate was in his estimation of such a character that he felt it his duty to tender his resignation, which happily the President declined to accept. In his Notes Mr. Foraker refers to Mr. Thayer's "Life of John Hay," recently published. Of this book he says

It shows that Mr. Hay was not only pessimistic and opinionated, but full of misinformation and false impressions as to the disposition of the Senate towards himself, for it shows that he somehow got the notion that the Senate was actuated in making its amendments by a spirit of spite and unfriendliness with respect to him, prompted by "ignorance," "incompetence," and almost every other lack of qualification a man blessed with a rich vocabulary and prompted by virulent resentment could name; all of which was very unlike the quiet, urbane and affable Mr. Hay whom I knew. The following extract from a letter he wrote to Joseph H. Choate is a fair sample of numerous others: "It is a curious state of things. The howling lunatics like Mason and Allen and Pettigrew are always on hand, while our friends are cumbered with other cares and most of the time away. 'W' has been divorcing his wife; Morgan is fighting for his life in Alabama; Cullom ditto in Illinois; even when Providence takes a hand in the game, our folks are restrained by 'Senatorial courtesy' from accepting his favors. Last week 'X' had delirium tremens; Bacon broke his rib; Pettigrew had the grippe; and Hale ran off to New York on 'private business,' and the whole Senate stopped work until they got around again. I have never struck a subject so full of psychological interest as the official mind of a Senator."

In numerous other letters Mr. Hay is shown to have spoken in a disparaging way of the Senate as a body, and of Senators individually as incompetents, who are "hostile and actuated by ill-will" towards him personally in dealing with the great international questions presented by the treaty he had framed. In all this he was greatly mistaken. There was never at any time on the part of any Senator of either

party any personal ill-will towards Mr. Hay, of which there was any indication in the Senate.

Mr. Foraker justly remarks, in regard to the differences between Secretary Hay and the Senate respecting the Panama and arbitration treaties: "No argument is needed to establish that the Senate was right and Mr. Hay wrong in both instances when privately he indulged in such outbreaks."

In his twelve years' service in the Senate Mr. Foraker had proved himself to be one of the most valuable members of that body, and his usefulness was conspicuous especially in matters connected with our foreign relations. And yet when he came before the people of his State for reëlection for a third term, he was rejected and forced into retirement from the public service. But this result was brought about by a combination of circumstances which reflected little credit upon our democratic system of government. Late in the campaign of 1908 a demagogue of national reputation made a speech in Columbus, Ohio, in the course of which he produced letters between Mr. Foraker and the president of the Standard Oil Company, secured in some surreptitious manner, which with the interpretation put upon them by the speaker seemed to show some kind of improper relation between them. Added to this was a charge that as attorney for certain Cincinnati public service companies he had exerted dishonest influence upon the Legislature of Ohio. Notwithstanding Mr. Foraker met these charges with prompt denials and with proofs of their falsity, which ought to have convinced every impartial voter, they created such a prejudice against him that it was impossible to overcome it in the short time remaining before the election.

In addition, another important influence was brought to bear against him in this campaign. During his service in the Senate he had found it necessary to take issue with President Roosevelt in some of his measures before Congress, notably the Brownsville Affray. This so irritated the President that he pursued the unseemly course of making a personal attack upon the Senator at a Gridiron Dinner, which the latter resented by a somewhat caustic reply. In the heat of the campaign of 1908 both the President and his candidate for the succession, Mr. Taft, made a discreditable alliance with the demagogues who were fanning into a flame the scandals above mentioned, and these high officials did not hesitate to attack his official integrity, notwithstanding Mr. Foraker had done more than any other person to promote Mr. Taft's public career.

Under such combined opposition Mr. Foraker went down to defeat, and has never again been able to so reëstablish himself before his constituents as to reënter public life. Thus, using the language of Mr. Roosevelt's adherents, was "eliminated" from official service one of the most able and useful statesmen this generation of Americans has produced. His retirement has, however, enabled him to render a last valuable service to his countrymen in these Notes of a Busy Life.

JOHN W. FOSTER.

The Silesian Loan and Frederick the Great. By the Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Satow, G. C. M. G., LL. D., D. C. L. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1915. pp. xii, 436.

This celebrated case in international law, the author says in his preface, is mentioned in various historical works and treatises on international law, but the whole facts have never been correctly stated. It is his purpose to give a full and correct statement of the matter. In the first two hundred pages of the book is the author's extended study of the case; and the remaining two hundred and thirty pages of reading matter, comprised in the appendix, contain one hundred and eighteen official documents quoted in full on which the author principally bases his study. They consist chiefly of letters and documents which passed between the English and Prussian Governments and which, the author says, "have, with but one exception, never been printed before." They are drawn principally from the Public Record Office and the British Museum manuscripts. Besides these previously unpublished documents, the author cites many others contained in fourteen well-known collections of memoirs, letters, treaties, etc.

In the first chapter he tells how the Silesian debt originated while Silesia was still a possession of the Emperor, Charles VI, who in 1734 borrowed from English merchants two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the payment of which he pledged the revenues of that province. The second chapter tells how, after the first Silesian war, when the province was ceded to Prussia, Frederick bound himself to pay to the London merchants the debt which had been secured by its revenues but which still remained unpaid. The third chapter tells of numerous Prussian complaints against the seizure by English privateers of French goods on board Prussian vessels during the war between France and England from 1744 to 1748. Although France and England were actually fighting against each other as allies of Prussia and Austria

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