the foundations of that diplomatic career which began in 1872 upon. his appointment by President Grant as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the then distracted Republic of Mexico. The incidents of this appointment the veteran diplomatist himself very modestly relates in the two volumes published in 1909, under the caption of Diplomatic Memoirs, an admirable work which supplies the facts of his career and only leaves to other hands its appreciation. General Foster had been Chairman of the Republican Committee of his State in the presidential campaign of 1872, in which, at first, the tide seemed to be against General Grant, but which, in the end, turned strongly toward him and resulted in his triumphant reëlection. As Governor of Indiana, Oliver P. Morton had appointed Mr. Foster, as he then was, a major of volunteers, without solicitation and without his knowledge. Governor Morton was now United States Senator, and, realizing the obligation of the party to General Foster and desiring to recognize it by an appointment, asked him to choose the position which he most preferred and to give himself no worry about his appointment to it. The General was somewhat taken aback at this mark of confidence in his abilities, which he never rated so highly as his friends. He asked time to consult with Mrs. Foster, whom he had left to go into the army, but who, for fifty-eight years, administered to his comfort, making a great career possible, notwithstanding his delicate constitution and precarious health. They came to the conclusion that "a brief residence in Europe would be both pleasant and useful," and they picked upon the ministry to Switzerland, which General Foster says in his Memoirs "was in the lowest grade of our diplomatic service." Switzerland was promised, but Mexico was free; and in this casual, indeed accidental way, he began that diplomatic career which has given him an abiding place in the history of his country.

During his seven years in Mexico that country passed through the storm and stress of revolution and settled down, with a brief interval, to a policy of order, if not of law, under President Diaz, relapsing, ast General Foster feared and for the reasons he stated, into anarchy after the strong hand was stayed. Commenting upon his service in the army, he had said, "My military life greatly enlarged my knowledge of men and gave me fuller confidence in myself." And no better example can be found of his knowledge of men and the reason why his countrymen had confidence in him than his analysis of the Diaz régime. its nature and its consequences:

It would have been a wise and patriotic act for General Diaz to have retired from the Presidency at the end of his second term, leaving the prohibitive clause of the Constitution in force. He would then have been in a position to guarantee a peaceful election of a successor and a continuance of the good order and prosperity which he had established. The people also might have had an opportunity to test their ability to conduct a government by means of a free and untrammeled exercise of the electoral franchise, a condition as yet unknown to Mexico. The benevolent autocracy under his administration has resulted in great prosperity for the country, but it has done little to educate the masses of the people in their duties under a republican government.

The biographer of Pericles, the greatest of the republican rulers of Athens, in describing the disorders which followed his death, makes these comments: "In his determination to be the foremost man in the city, he left no room for a second. ... Under his shadow no fresh shoots sprang. He taught the people to follow him as leader, and left no one behind to lead them; he destroyed their independence or at least the mutual play of opposite forces and when he died came 'the deluge.' There was no one who could succeed him. A democracy without great men is a dangerous democracy." 1

While still in Mexico, General Foster was, without consultation, and indeed without his knowledge, notified by telegram that he was to be transferred to the Russian mission. On January 19, 1880, President Hayes nominated him for that post, and General Foster recalls with pleasure that his name was sent to the Senate with that of Mr. James Russell Lowell, transferred from Madrid to London. He arrived in Russia on May 28, later than was expected, owing to the fact that he stayed in Mexico to receive General Grant, then visiting the country. He remained in Russia during the balance of 1880 and in August, 1881, he obtained a leave of absence to visit the United States, which, however, proved to be not only his farewell to Russia but his renunciation of diplomacy as a permanent career. For, although he later filled posts temporarily and was sent on diplomatic missions, they were as incidents or as interruptions in the career of a publicist and international lawyer, not to be sought, yet not to be avoided if offered.

Having stated with frankness in his Memoirs the reasons which led him to enter, so with equal candor he gives the reasons which caused him to leave, the diplomatic service. Thus, he says:

After reaching home I came to the conclusion that the interests of my family and due consideration for my own future demanded my retirement from office. I had been continuously in the Diplomatic Service for nearly nine years. They

1 Diplomatic Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 106–107.

had proved very interesting and instructive and I had reason to be satisfied with my labors. But under our system of government I could not hope to make the Diplomatic Service a life career. I was giving to the Government the best years of my life, and I thought it better to choose my own time for retirement than to have it determined by a change of administration.

I had a growing family and I preferred to give them an education in our own country rather than abroad. Financial considerations also influenced my determination. Before entering the Service I had not accumulated a competency, and the salary received from the Government required me to exercise economy in office. I did not consider it either prudent or honest to adopt a style of living beyond my income. I do not advocate large salaries for our diplomatic representatives, but permanent houses should be provided for them, and there should be such a moderate increase in their salaries as would justify men of talents without fortunes entering the Service. Lavish display is not becoming in the representatives of a democratic government, but they should be enabled to live comfortably and in becoming style without drawing upon their private means or credit.1

In an earlier portion of his Memoirs, in connection with his entrance upon "the highest and most difficult mission on the American hemisphere," for such the Mexican mission then was, he makes the following observation upon diplomacy as a career, wise in itself and the fruit of his experience, which is an appropriate pendant to his observation upon leaving the service:

I am a strong advocate for the establishment of a regular career for the diplomatic service of the United States; I would have all Secretaries of Legation enter the service through a competitive examination; continue in office during good behavior; and, as they should prove worthy, have them promoted to Ministers. But I doubt whether the time will ever come when our Government will think it wise to confine the appointment of Ministers and Ambassadors entirely to promotions from the posts of Secretary. It has never been so in the Governments of Europe where the regular diplomatic career has long been an established system. Many of their most useful and distinguished diplomats have been those who never entered the service through a competitive examination, but who were appointed from other branches of the public service or from private life.2

By resigning, on November 1, 1881, from the mission to Russia, to settle in Washington and to engage in the practice of law, particularly of international law, in which he prospered and acquired fame, he doubtless thought that he had severed his relations with Russia; but in this he was mistaken, and it is probably the only mistake with which he can be taxed in his diplomatic career. He was sent on special mission by President McKinley in 1897. And if he really thought that he 1 Diplomatic Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 213–214. 2 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

was not again to hold a regular diplomatic post, his judgment was again at fault, for President Arthur, who had regretfully accepted his resignation as Minister to Russia, insisted that he proceed to Spain, which, however, was in the nature of a special mission, although it was not confined to a single purpose with a temporary residence. He yielded to the President's request, and from 1883 to 1885 he served as American Minister to Spain, which in 1891 he visited a second time, as in the case of Russia, on special mission, demonstrating that his services were acceptable both to those countries and to the United States.

In the interval, however, between these two missions, General Foster had come to his own. In 1892, upon the resignation of Mr. Blaine as Secretary of State, General Foster was appointed by President Harrison, a citizen of his own State, to succeed that distinguished statesman; and it is interesting to note, in this connection, that it was not the first time that General Foster had been considered for the cabinet. President Hayes wanted the State of Indiana to be represented in his cabinet, and, unconscious of the threatened honor, General Foster was, as appears from Mr. Williams's Life of President Hayes, the President's preference. "Finally," to quote the President's biographer, "the choice narrowed down to John W. Foster, at that time Minister to Mexico, and Richard W. Thompson, famous since 1840 for his political oratory. . . . Of these two Mr. Hayes was inclined to prefer General Foster, the younger, abler, and more active man. But as it would take so long for him to reach Washington, and as it was desirable that all members of the Cabinet should be installed at once, Colonel Thompson won the distinction.” 1 But in 1892 General Foster was not in Mexico; he was in Washington, and he was appointed and entered at once upon the performance of his duties.

However, he did not long remain in this post, inasmuch as the Bering Sea controversy between Great Britain and the United States, a legacy of his predecessor, was very difficult, very perplexing, and required a tried and deft hand for its settlement. It was submitted to arbitration, and General Foster resigned the Secretaryship of State in 1893 in order to take charge of the case on behalf of the United States. Two years later he was drafted into service by the Chinese Government, then at war with Japan and anxious to extricate itself from the toils of the Island Empire, which, in a single campaign, had defeated' that immense and venerable country. General Foster accepted the call and

1 C. R. Williams, The Life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Vol. II, p. 23.

acted as adviser to the Chinese plenipotentiaries in the negotiations ending in the treaty of peace between the two countries - with such apparent satisfaction to his imperial client that, without solicitation or knowledge, China appointed him a member of its delegation to the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907. In the interval between these dates, General Foster's practice of law was at least twice interrupted by his own country: in 1898, by his appointment as a member of the Anglo-American high commission to settle the disputes between Canada and the United States, and in 1903, as agent for the United States in the Alaskan boundary dispute.

Accidental and casual as his entry upon diplomacy, in which he achieved, however, solid and enduring distinction, was his entry into the domain of letters, in which he likewise succeeded. Urged to deliver a series of lectures on diplomacy in Columbian (now George Washington) University, he yielded, and what was an incident in his career as a diplomat and international lawyer has become the foundation of what promises to be an enduring reputation, for his lectures have been published as A Century of American Diplomacy, just as Kent's lectures, delivered at Columbia, were published and have remained a standard work, under the title of Commentaries on American Law.

The Century is a remarkable book. Published in 1900, it is as fresh as the day it issued from the press. The learned author wisely limited himself to a field, not, indeed, closed to controversy, but the great lines of which were drawn and within which he could move unembarrassed and at his ease. It begins, of course, with the 4th day of July, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by a sturdy race and representatives worthy of the future of their country. It ended with 1876, a period when the United States had been reunited after the Civil War, through which it had passed but a decade before, and when our own fathers looked with wistful eyes, not to the past but forward to the second century of the Republic and to the future which time has in store for us.

Chronologically, and in the form of a narrative, General Foster sketched with a masterly hand our diplomatic relations, confined, at first, to France, our first and for more than a century our only ally, until our relations broadened out and encircled the world. And he appropriately ended his survey with a statement of the origin and nature of the Monroe Doctrine, which should be treated as a whole,