Fifty Years of Public Service Part 30

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.

A more recent case in which he showed his independence was his taking up the fight of the troops dismissed on account of the so- called Brownsville affair. This was very unselfish on the part of Senator Foraker. He had nothing to gain by espousing the cause of a few negroes, but much to lose by antagonizing the National administration. He did not hesitate a moment, however. There is no question that President Roosevelt acted hastily in dismissing the entire company; but this was one occasion when President Roosevelt would not recede even though it became perfectly clear to almost every one in Congress that he was wrong.

Senator Foraker always did make it a point to attend the meetings of the Committee on Foreign Relations, but for some reason or other he was never punctual and was seldom in attendance when the committee was called to order. But at the same time he was prepared on all important questions coming before the committee. He seemed to me to have given attention beforehand to subjects which he knew would come before a particular meeting, and his opinion on any treaty or bill before the committee was always sought by his colleagues and listened to with respect, and almost without exception his opinion prevailed.

I regretted exceedingly to see him retire from the Senate. From the time he entered that body, he was consistently one of the princ.i.p.al defenders of Republican policies and Republican administrations on the floor of the Senate.

Senator John C. Spooner, of Wisconsin, was, in my judgment, one of the best lawyers who ever served as a member of the Senate, and among its membership we find the names of the greatest lawyers and judges of America. He had served in the Civil War, having retired at its close with the brevet of Major. He early took up the law as a career, and never abandoned it, even when elected to the Senate; and as I write this, I believe he is regarded as one of the foremost lawyers of New York.

He came into the Senate two years after I entered that body, and I remember him there as opposing the conference report on the Interstate Commerce Act. His State having pa.s.sed into the control of the Democrats, he retired from the Senate in 1891, but was re- elected in 1897. He declined several tenders of cabinet positions, preferring to remain independent as a Senator.

I knew him for a good many years. Representing a neighboring State, as he did in the Senate, I became very intimate with him, and never had the slightest hesitancy in seeking his advice when I was in doubt concerning any legal or const.i.tutional question.

Senator Spooner was a much more technical lawyer than Senator Foraker, but not quite so technical as Senator Bacon. On questions coming before the Committee on Foreign Relations, his advice was always to be trusted. My judgment in this respect may be influenced by our close personal friendship; but I always felt that when I had his support on any question I was safe and right in the position I took respecting it. Seldom within my knowledge did the Senate fail to agree with any att.i.tude that Senator Spooner a.s.sumed on a controverted question.

Senator Spooner was placed on the committee at the time I became its chairman. At that time there were before the committee treaties, legislation, and matters of the utmost importance. He entered upon the work with the greatest interest, and exercised commanding influence in the disposition of matters under consideration. He always seemed to take particular interest in my success as chairman of the committee, and always wanted to a.s.sist and help me wherever he could.

We were wrestling with the Reciprocity treaty with Cuba at a meeting.

It had been before the committee for a number of meetings; Senator Spooner feared that I was about to turn the treaty over to another Senator to report, and he sent me, while the committee was in session, a brief note marked "Confidential." It read:

"The report is that you will give this treaty to another to report.

I think you should report it yourself, as you are not only chairman of the committee, but you are also a member of the Committee on Relations with Cuba. Platt spoke to me about it. He felt sensitive in the first place because the treaty did not go to his committee.

The fact that you and others on this committee were on his committee reconciled him. I will stand to your shoulder in the fight for its ratification.

"Yours, "Spooner."

I hope Senator Spooner, if he does me the honor of glancing through these rambling recollections, will forgive my quoting this confidential note without his consent; but I do so only to show the very friendly and confidential relationship that existed between us.

I doubt very much whether the Colombia or Panama treaty would have been ratified, or the Panama route selected in preference to the Nicaraguan route for the Isthmian ca.n.a.l, despite the great influence of Senator Hanna, had not Senator Spooner joined in advocating the Panama route.

It was a long and difficult struggle, not only before the Committee on Foreign Relations, but before the Committee on Interoceanic Ca.n.a.ls, and resulted in the retirement of Senator Morgan as chairman of the last-mentioned committee--a position he had held for many years--and in the selection of Senator Hanna to succeed him. But Senator Spooner, through his technical knowledge, dominated the Committee on Interoceanic Ca.n.a.ls, and succeeded finally in the pa.s.sage of the Spooner act which designated Panama, if that route could be purchased, as the route for the ca.n.a.l.

Senator Spooner was one of the real leaders of the Senate from 1897 until he retired. He was one of the most eloquent men who served in the Senate during that period. During all the debates on the Cuban question, the important results growing out of the Spanish- American War, the question of Imperialism--his partic.i.p.ation in all these momentous subjects was above criticism. I have heard him in the Senate, speaking day after day. He never grew tiresome; never repeated himself; always held the most profound attention of the Senate; and his closing words were listened to with the same attention and with the same interest, by his colleagues and by the galleries, as marked the beginning of any of his speeches. After his conclusions his Republican colleagues invariably gathered around him, offering their congratulations.

Senator Spooner and Senator Foraker have both retired. It was thought at the time that their places could not be filled, and I, as one of the older Senators who remember them well, can not believe that their places have been filled. Of all the Senators with whom I have served, Spooner and Foraker were most alike in their combative natures, in their willingness to take the responsibility to go to the front to lead the fight. Senators come and go, the personnel of the Senate changes, one Senator will be replaced by another, but the Senate itself will go on as long as the Republic endures.

One of the most dignified, honest, straightforward, capable men with whom I have served, was the Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana. He was a devoted adherent, friend, and follower of the late President McKinley, and had been his friend long before he was nominated for President in 1896. Senator Fairbanks took a very prominent part in that convention, was its temporary chairman, and in 1900 was chairman of the Committee on Resolutions of the National Convention which met at Philadelphia. He entered the Senate in 1897, and during the following year was appointed by President McKinley a member of the United States and British Joint High Commission for the adjustment of all outstanding questions concerning the United States and Canada. The commission was an exceedingly important one, but failing to agree on the Alaskan boundary, it was compelled to adjourn without settling any of the questions before it. Its labors were not wasted, however, as it furnished the nucleus for the final adjustment of those questions under the administration of Mr. Root, in the State Department.

Senator Fairbanks was a close personal friend of President McKinley, and almost immediately a.s.sumed quite an important position in the Senate. He was appointed to the Committee on Foreign Relations, of which he was quite an able and influential member, as he was of every committee of the Senate on which he served. He accepted the nomination of the Republican Convention of 1904 for Vice-President.

I considered that his proper place was in the Senate; but for some reason or other he gave it out that he would not decline the nomination for the office of Vice-President, and neither would he seek it. The Convention very wisely determined that he was the best candidate that could be nominated. The duties of the Vice- President are not very arduous; but in all my service in the Senate I do not know of a Vice-President who so strictly observed the obligation adherent to the office as did Mr. Fairbanks. He was a candidate for President in 1908 but was defeated by President Taft.

Since his retirement from the Vice-Presidency, he has at least twice been tendered high appointments in the diplomatic service, first as Amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James, and, later (it having been rumored while he was travelling in China that he had expressed himself as favorably inclined toward the acceptance of the position of minister to that country), Secretary Knox indicated a desire through mutual friends to have him appointed. Mr. Fairbanks thanked his friends, but declined the appointment.

In his tour around the world after retiring from the office of Vice- President, he conducted himself with great dignity and propriety.

Senator Albert J. Beveridge succeeded Senator Fairbanks, as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. For years Senator Beveridge had seemed more than anxious to become a member of this committee.

When he first entered the Senate he thought he should have been made one of its members, as he had always taken a deep interest in foreign matters; but the Committee on Organization determined that his colleague, Senator Fairbanks, was ent.i.tled to the preference.

When Senator Fairbanks retired, I requested the Committee on Organization to place Senator Beveridge on my committee, which it did.

I have always admired Senator Beveridge. He is an exceptionally engaging speaker, a brilliant man, and so talented that one cannot help being attracted to him. I had heard of him years before he entered the Senate. The late Senator McDonald of Indiana, a strong, gifted lawyer and the highest type of a man, told me one day that he had a young man in his office, named Beveridge, who knew more about the politics of the day than almost any other man in the State, and he believed he would be a controlling factor in Republican politics in Indiana.

Senator Beveridge is a popular magazine writer, as he is one of the most popular public speakers of to-day. As a campaign orator, his services are constantly in demand.

I regret very much to say, that notwithstanding Senator Beveridge's prior anxiety to become a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, after his appointment he attended very few meetings and apparently took little interest in its business. His duties as Chairman of the Committee on Territories, combined with work on other committees, necessarily consumed most of his time.

For a number of years after the Hon. John Kean, of New Jersey, entered the Senate, I had no special acquaintance with him, and I did not welcome him particularly when he was made a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in 1901. Since then I have become very intimate with Senator Kean, and there have been few men on the committee for whom I entertained a higher regard, or in whom I placed more confidence. He was a very industrious and useful member, as he is in the Senate. He filled quite a prominent place in the Senate, and watched legislation probably more closely than any other member. He was always familiar with the bills on the calendar, and made it a point to object to any questionable measures that came before the Senate. He advanced in influence and power very rapidly in the last few years of his service. Through Senator Kean, I have been enabled very often to expedite the pa.s.sage of measures, not only coming from the Committee on Foreign Relations, but bills in which I have been interested pertaining to the affairs of my own State. If the Senate had what is known as a "whip," I would say that Senator Kean comes more nearly being the Republican "whip" than any other Senator, with the possible exception, in recent years, of Senator Murray Crane, of Ma.s.sachusetts.

Senator Thomas H. Carter, of Montana, a member of the committee in the Sixty-first Congress, was one of the most popular members of the Senate. His ability as a lawyer and legislator, combined with his wit and keen sense of humor, enabled him to a.s.sume quite a commanding position in that body. When feeling ran high in debate, sometimes almost to the point of personal encounter, Senator Carter would appear, and by a few well-chosen words, voiced in his calm, quiet manner, throw oil upon the troubled waters, and peace again reigned supreme.

I have known Senator Carter for very many years. I knew him as a young man. His home was at one time in Illinois, at the little town of Pana, about twenty-five miles from my own home at Springfield.

He has held many public offices. Delegate from the Territory of Montana, member of the Fifty-first Congress, Commissioner of the General Land Office, Senator from 1895 to 1901 and from 1905 to 1906, Chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1892, he has in all these positions distinguished himself as a man of a high order of ability. I have always liked Senator Carter very much, and I was glad indeed that he was named a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. He is a very useful and influential member, as he is of the Senate.

Senator William Alden Smith, of Michigan, was only recently placed on the Committee on Foreign Relations, quite a distinction for a Senator who had served for so brief a time as a member of the Senate. Senator Smith, however, was a prominent member of the House for many years, and was elected to the Senate while serving as a member of the House of Representatives. He has taken position in the Senate very rapidly. He is a lawyer of experience and long practice, and an industrious and competent legislator. He is always watchful of the interests of his State. He took a prominent part in the consideration of the treaties between the United States and Great Britain concerning Canada, more especially the boundary and water-way treaties. It was through his efforts that an amendment to the latter treaty was adopted, which he considered necessary to protect the interests of his State, and which I greatly feared would result in the rejection of the treaty by the Canadian Parliament. I am very glad to say, however, that the treaty has been ratified by both Governments, and only recently proclaimed.

Senator Smith has taken a keen interest in matters before the Committee on Foreign Relations, and with his experience, industry, and capacity, he is bound to become a very useful member of the committee.

One of the last members to be appointed on the Committee on Foreign Relations was the Hon. Elihu Root, of New York. He is one of the greatest men and ablest Senators who have ever been members of the committee. When he became a member of it, he was not at all a stranger, for the reason that he, on my invitation, had, while Secretary of State, for two years previous to his retirement from that office, attended almost every meeting of the committee.

Between Mr. Hay and the members of the Senate, there was not the close relationship which should have existed between that body and the State Department.

Secretary Hay was not disposed to cultivate friendly relations with Senators, and certain remarks he made concerning the Senate as a body were very distasteful to Senators; and although I had invited him, he seemed very averse to coming before the Committee on Foreign Relations. I did not press the point. The result was that important treaties and other matters were constantly sent in, with which the members of the committee were not familiar, and we had to grope in the dark, as it were, and inform ourselves concerning them as best we could.

But when Mr. Root became Secretary of State, I resolved to insist that the Secretary meet with us from time to time, and explain such treaties and measures as might need explanation, and upon which the Administration was anxious to secure favorable action. In other words, there should be closer relationship between the Committee on Foreign Relations and the State Department than had formerly existed. I first saw President Roosevelt and told him I hoped Mr. Root would come before the committee as occasion might require. The President seemed at once impressed with the propriety of the proposed plan, and remarked in his own characteristic fashion: "That is just the thing." I then saw Mr. Root, whom I knew very well as Secretary of War, and he was more than pleased with the suggestion, a.s.serting that it was just what he wanted to do. It so happened that during his administration of the State Department he found it necessary to negotiate more treaties, and treaties of greater importance, than any of his more recent predecessors in that high office, and he became so constant and punctual in his attendance at the meetings of the committee that we grew almost to regard him as a regular member, even before he entered the Senate.

He has served on the committee but two sessions, but even in that short time he has proved his fitness to fill the gap left by the retirement of Senators Spooner and Foraker. As a lawyer he is as brilliant as either of those men, and probably, owing to his executive experience, a more efficient statesman. I regard him as the best qualified man in this country for any position in the public service which he would accept. He would make a strong President, and as a Senator he is equipped with extraordinary qualifications. If he remains in the Senate, by sheer force of ability alone he is bound to become its acknowledged leader. We have never had a stronger Secretary of State. Mr. Hay was a very great man in many respects, and could handle an international question, especially pertaining to the Far East, with more skill than any of his predecessors; but Mr. Root, while probably not as well versed in diplomacy as Mr. Hay, is one of the foremost lawyers in America, and has the faculty of going into the minutest details of every question, large or small, even to the extent of reorganizing all the mult.i.tude of details of the State Department. He was the real head of the department, and supervised every matter coming before it.

As Secretary of State he made it one of his policies to bring the republics of this hemisphere into closer relationship with one another. He visited South and Central America, and did much to bring about a friendly feeling with the republics of those regions.

He is one of those who insisted upon the absolute equality of nations, both great and small; and in this he was particularly pointed in his instructions to the delegates representing the United States at the Second Peace Conference at The Hague.

He did not retire from the State Department until he had adjusted almost, if not all, outstanding questions between the United States and other Nations. He closed up the work of the Joint High Commission, and by a series of treaties adjusted every factor of difference between the United States and Great Britain concerning Canada.

Bringing the consideration of the personnel of the committee up to the close of the Sixty-first Congress, there remain to be mentioned only William J. Stone, of Missouri, and Benjamin F. Shively, of Indiana, both Democrats. Mr. Stone and Mr. Shively are not only new men on the committee, but both of them are comparatively new to the Senate. They had, however, been sufficiently tried in other fields of effort to justify their States in sending them to this exalted body, and the records both have made here have well vindicated their selection. In a comparatively brief time they have attained to positions of leadership on the Democratic side of the chamber, and since they have become members of this committee they have manifested an unusual grasp of international subjects. They are from States which adjoin my own State of Illinois, and I am especially pleased to have them as members of the committee of which I am chairman.

CHAPTER XXIV WORK OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

When I became chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in 1901, I found a large quant.i.ty of undisposed of matter on the dockets, both legislative and executive. I determined that I would at once proceed to clear the docket and endeavor to make the committee an active working one. I have since made it a policy, as best I could, to secure some action, favorable or unfavorable, on every matter referred to the committee by the Senate.

The first subject to which I turned my attention was the reciprocity treaties between the United States and Barbados, Bermuda, British Guiana, Turk Islands and Caicos, Jamaica, Argentine Republic, France, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Denmark.

These treaties had been pending before the committee for two years, and I resolved as I expressed it to one Senator, who was opposed to them, that I would get them out of the committee "if I had to carry them out in a basket." These treaties were negotiated under the authority contained in the fourth section of the Dingley Act, which provided:

"Section 4. That whenever the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, with a view to secure reciprocal trade with foreign countries, shall, within a period of two years from and after the pa.s.sage of this act, enter into commercial treaty or treaties with any other country concerning the admission to such country of goods, wares, or merchandise of the United States . . . and in such treaty or treaties shall provide for reduction during a specified period of the duties imposed by this act, to the extent of twenty per centum thereof, upon such goods, wares, or merchandise as may be designated therein, . . .

or shall provide for the transfer during such period from the dutiable list of this act to the free list thereof of such goods, wares, or merchandise the product of foreign countries; and when . . . any such treaty shall have been duly ratified by the Senate and approved by Congress, then and thereafter the duties which shall be collected by the United States upon any of the designated goods, wares, or merchandise from the foreign country with which such treaty has been made, shall, during the period provided for, be the duties specified and provided in such treaty, and none other."

There was a considerable opposition to the ratification of these treaties in the Senate, and very strong opposition to them in the committee. President McKinley was very much in favor of their ratification, and as one treaty after another expired, a new one would be made reviving it.

The first problem which confronted me was this: The fourth section of the Dingley Act provided that such treaties should be made only within two years after the pa.s.sage of the act; the two years had long since expired--could the Senate ratify them at all?