Our Recent Diplomacy

SPEECH OF JOHN HAY, SECRETARY OF STATE, IN REPLY TO THE TOAST OF "OUR RECENT DIPLOMACY" AT THE DINNER OF THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, NOVEMBER 19, 1901.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:

I

NEED not dwell upon the mournful and tragic event by virtue of which I

am here. When the President lay stricken in Buffalo, though hope beat high in all our hearts that his life might be spared for future usefulness to his country, it was still recognized as improbable that he should be able to keep the engagement he had made to be with you to-night, and your committee

did me the honor to ask me to come in his place. This I have sometimes done, in his lifetime, though always with diffidence and dread; but how much more am I daunted by the duty of appearing before you when that great man, loved and revered above all even while living, has put on the

august halo of immortality! Who could worthily come into your presence as the shadow of that illustrious Shade?

Let me advert, but for a moment, to one aspect of our recent bereavement, which is especially interesting to those engaged, as you are, in relations whose scope is as wide. as the world. Never, since history began,

has there been an event which so immediately, and so deeply, touched the sensibilities of so vast a portion of the human race. The sun, which set over Lake Erie while the surgeons were still battling for the President's life, had not risen on the Atlantic before every capital of the civilized world was in mourning. And it was not from the centers of civilization alone that the voices of sorrow and sympathy reached us; they came as well from the utmost limits of the world, from the most remote islands of the sea; not only from the courts of Christendom, but from the temples of strange gods and the homes of exotic religions. Never before has the heart of the world throbbed with a sorrow so universal. Never before have the kingdoms of the earth paid such homage at the grave of a citizen. Something of this was naturally due to his great office

presiding, as he did, over the government of a nation holding in fee the certainty of illimitable greatness. But no ruler can acquire the instinctive regard and esteem of the world without possessing most unusual qualities of mind and character. This dead President of ours possessed them. He was strong; he was wise; he was gentle. With no external advantages beyond the mass of his fellow-citizens, he rose by sheer merit and will to the summit of distinction and power. With a growth as certain and gradual as that of an oak, he grew stronger and wiser with every year that he lived. Confronted continually with new and exacting situations, he was never unequal to them; his serenity was never clouded; he took the storm and the sunshine with the same cheery welcome; his vast influence expanded with his opportunities. Like that Divine Master whom he humbly and reverently served, he grew continually "in favor with God and man."

One simple reason why the millions of this country mourned him as if they had buried a brother, and why all the nations of the earth felt that his death was a loss to humanity at large, was that he loved his

fellow-men. There were literally no bounds to his lavish good will. In political genius, in wisdom for government, in power of controlling men, he was one of the elect of the earth- there were few like him; but in sentiment and feeling he was the most perfect democrat I ever met. He never knew what it meant to regard another man as his inferior, or as his superior. Nothing human was alien to him. Even his death was in that sense significant. He was slain in the moment when with that delightful smile we knew so well-which seemed like the very sunshine of the spirit-he was stretching forth a generous hand to greet the lowest and meanest unit in that crowd of many thousands. He made no demagogical parade of his sympathy with the masses, but this sympathy was a part of his life. He knew no interest which was not theirs; their welfare was as dear to him as the blood in his own veins; and in spite of calumny and falsehood the people knew it, and they loved him in return.

Others will rise and labor and do good service to the Republic. We shall never lack good men when the emergency calls for them. Thank God! we do not lack them

now. But it may well be doubted if in any century of the glorious future before us, there will ever appear two such sincere, highminded, self-respecting lovers of the people. as the last fifty years have shown us in Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley.

But the world must go on, though the greatest and best beloved fall by the way. I dare to come to you, because you have asked me, and he would have wished it, for he held that our personal feelings should never be considered when they conflicted with a public duty. And if I fall immeasurably below the standard to which he has. accustomed you, the very comparisons you draw will be a tribute to his memory.

I am asked to say something about our diplomacy. You want from me nothing but the truth; and yet, if I confine myself to the truth, I cannot help fearing I shall do my profession a wrong in the minds of those who have been in the habit of considering diplomacy an occult science, as mysterious as alchemy, and as dangerous to the morals as municipal politics. It must be admitted that this conception of the diplomatic function is not without a certain historical foundation.