tures are involved. I do not think this Government should be niggardly in such matters as that.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. It was testified last year, as I recall, that the British ambassador in Washington gets a salary of $12,000, which is considerably less than the $17,500 salary which our ambassador to London gets; but on the other hand the British ambassador to Washington gets allowances which bring his total salary and emoluments up to nearly $100,000. He gets an embassy on top of that, whereas his $17,500 salary at London is all there is for our ambassador.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not have reference to the ambassador or minister or even a first secretary.

Mr. ROGERS of Massachusetts. I understand that.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gibson was discussing secretaries and their expenses. I think we ought to be very liberal to ambassadors and ministers in the matter of entertainment. As a matter of fact I think they are the ones who really do the entertaining.

Mr. COLE. I think we ought to be more liberal to the secretaries than to the ambassadors because they have millions back of them. The CHAIRMAN. We are trying to get away from that.

Mr. COLE. They are holding those offices for honor and the secretaries are holding theirs for service. I am for the secretaries. Mr. O'CONNELL. So am I.

Mr. GIBSON. So am I. Do not worry about their being anxious to do entertaining. They have got to do their share of it as a matter of obligation if they really take over their part of the burden. But the entertaining a secretary can do within the limits of the salaries provided by this bill will not lead to any wild excesses. They begin at what is paid to a good private secretary in a bank, and after working for many years in a specialized profession, they reach the grade of counselor where they are paid much less than would be paid to a man in a similarly responsible position in private business. During this time they are cut off from the possibility of taking advantage of business opportunities in the United States; they are also forbidden to invest in the country to which they are accredited. It is a wise rule that prevents them from engaging in business abroad, but it is a distinct financial handicap which applies especially to the foreign service. They are therefore pretty well limited to their pay. If the secretary entertains within the limit of these modest salaries without neglecting his work, I don't see that anybody can object to his using his leisure time as he likes. If in addition to this he does, as we maintain, accomplish something for American interests we are that much ahead.

Mr. COLE. Then there are a great many Americans who go over to Europe who do not understand these niceties and distinctions about entertainment that my friend, the chairman, does. They expect more.

Mr. GIBSON. And sometimes it is not altogether unreasonable for them to expect more. For instance, an American turns up in a foreign country with a claim against the Government or something else which gives him a right to consideration. Of course we can

give him a letter of introduction to the official with whom he will have to deal. Or we can tell him that we will take the matter up in writing with the foreign office. Or we can take him around

and introduce him to the right officials in their offices. There are times when any of these courses is merely to condemn the American to having his case handled in a purely impersonal way, which is only too often an obstructive way. Often a short cut can be taken. If the secretary is on friendly terms with the right officials, as it is his duty to be, he can ask one or two of them to lunch or dine quietly and take his American business man along with him. In this way the American is started off on much more advantageous terms and even if the matter of business is not mentioned, when he does come to take it up the officials have some sort of friendly interest in him based on personal contact. His case has ceased to be merely No. 47 and is on a more human basis. It costs the secretary something to do that sort of thing, but a few efforts of this sort often save thousands of dollars to Americans, secure satisfactory settlement of claims or bills, and keep them out of costly litigation. I know that during many years as a secretary, I did that sort of entertaining constantly and found that it was worth many times the amount invested in it. But after having given up things I wanted to do in order to spend the money on advancing American interests I should have been annoyed to hear my work described as an ambition to shine socially. This sort of thing may be called entertaining but it should be borne in mind that it is not always entertaining to the man who pays the bills.

Mr. COLE. A secretary would not always feel like saying to a man he is entertaining, "Here, you have got to pay this bill."

Mr. GIBSON. They would be rather surprised if they knew the size of the bill-that is to say, the total of the unavoidable expenses that pile up in the course of a year even for a third secretary.

Mr. O'CONNELL. The man who is being entertained imagines that it is being paid for by the Government.

Mr. GIBSON. Very often he thinks it is-and says so.

Mr. O'CONNELL. Do you want your testimony to show that large sums are paid by secretaries of embassies and legations for the entertainment of American visitors?

Mr. GIBSON. I should not wish to say that large sums are expended for this purpose but I do wish to say this-that Americans expect something more from a secretary than a day's work at a desk and that if he is alive to his duties and his opportunities of service he is quite ready and willing to incur certain financial obligations which can not be met on the present scale of salaries. I should not say that this is to be described as entertaining Americans. I should say that it was more in the nature of seizing upon every opportunity to advance the interests of Americans.

Mr. MOORES. There are other expenses that people here do not understand about. I remember a secretary of legation who about 20 years ago was at Petrograd. He told me he was expected to make a round of diplomatic calls and that the established tip for the round of calls was $20 and he would have to make a round at least once a month.

Mr. GIBSON. He was then drawing $100 a month in pay from the Government.

Mr. MOORES. He told me another curious thing that surprised me. He said he did not have to pay any of the domestic servants at all

because people who visited him were expected to tip them and he had applications right away as soon as he went there from trained

:servants.

The CHAIRMAN. I am curious to know if that custom is in vogue in very many countries.

Mr. GIBSON. Tips of this sort?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. GIBSON. Yes; that is quite general, and there are the customary gratuities at New Year's, to the postman, the policeman, the fire department, the doorkeeper, etc.

Mr. MOORES. Somebody told me that in London years ago the customary gratuities for a week-end at Windsor were 200 guineas. Mr. GIBSON. I have never spent a week-end at Windsor.

Mr. MOORES. I was told that.

Mr. GIBSON. I should have to ask to be excused.

Mr. MOORES. The American ambassador always has to go down to Windsor.

Mr. GIBSON. There is one question that has been raised about how we were to protect our people in the field from losing their Americanism, a rather ridiculous question, I feel. Another thing we hear about is snobs in the service.

If a man is worth a hoot there is no danger of his losing Americanism. If he is any good he becomes a better American every year he lives abroad, for the simple reason that he understands how much it means to be an American. We have had some specimens who have become poor imitations of foreigners, but they have been third-rate people who have got in solely because the service did not attract the right sort of men. The remedy is not to save their Americanism, but to put them out of the service.

I notice that the papers have alluded to my testimony before the committee on Tuesday in such a way as to convey the impression that I directed charges of frivolity against the Diplomatic Service in general. Inasmuch as my remarks were in exactly the contrary sense, I trust that I made myself clear. In discussing the defects of the service and unless there were defects in the service we should not be asking for legislation to remedy matters-I referred to the small group of incompetents whom it is hoped to replace with better ma terial if we can attract a wider range of men to the ranks. I did however, make it clear that these men were very few in numbers and that their presence was resented by the rest of the service. I trust I have also made it clear that generally speaking we have a fine lot of men of whom we can be justly proud. It is regrettable that the American people does not know more of what the diplomatic service is doing. It is regrettable that public interest in the service is generally concentrated on foolish articles in the papers and magazines depicting the more or less imaginary antics of a few young secretaries and representing these as typical American diplomats. As a matter of fact, we have a service to be proud of, and the so-called white spatter is of no importance beyond the fact that he is obnoxious. It has been well said that the diplomatic service is more spat upon than spatted.

Another thing we hear about is snobbishness in the Diplomatic Service. Now, I have no hesitation in saying that the Diplomatic Service is not snobbish. We have perhaps a few specimens of this sort of undesirable, but no larger proportion than can be found in

any group of men. We have no use for them, and every self-respecting member of the service would be delighted if they were thrown out neck and crop. Having such men in the service is the penalty we pay for not having a career with such inducements as will attract enough good men to crowd out the second raters, living pay, security of tenure during satisfactory service, and hope of reasonable advancement. It is the penalty we pay for having an un-American system of paying so little that men are effectively barred unless they can contribute something out of their own pockets. It is not surprising under the circumstances that some undesirables have managed to get in; it is really surprising that so few of them have got in and that we have got so much excellent material. Nor is it surprising that these people have contrived to stay in if one has any experience of the pressure that is brought to bear on their behalf whenever an effort is made to get rid of them.

Reproaches of snobbishness in the Diplomatic Service are almost always aimed at the young secretaries. There is another form of snobbishness that is seldom referred to, but which is far more offensive than that of immature young men. I mean that form of snobbishness that leads grown-up Americans to seek appointment as minister or ambassador to gratify their desire to shine in the society of European courts. The fact that this is often done to satisfy the social ambition of their wives doesn't make it any better.

Mr. O'CONNELL. Those are mostly political appointments.

Mr. GIBSON. I am willing to admit that. The pathetic part is that they rarely do shine because everybody sees through them and they only make themselves ridiculous. The unfortunate thing is that they usually contrive to make America ridiculous in the process, and to create the belief, which is very prevalent abroad, that this sort of shoddy display is really representatively American. It doesn't take long experience in the foreign service to learn that no American is going to dazzle a European court. They all look upon display by an American representative as something cheap and flashy, and contemptible. If an American representative wants to make a hit in a foreign capital, the easiest way is to be perfectly simple, natural, and unostentatious. The flashy people are soon forgotten, but men like Benjamin Franklin and Walter Hines Page are symbols to other people of what American representation should be.

We are not primarily interested in a permanent service. I should like to emphasize that what we need is a trained service, and if we get a trained service it will become just as permanent as it deserves to be.

If we begin by providing permanency we shall give a deadening sense of security and we can not hope for the sort of enterprise which our men must show if we are to succeed in competition with other countries. By this I mean that so far as the service is concerned training is the desirable thing. In order to get men to take the training they have got to have some assurance that they will be retained so long as their work is satisfactory. Younger men will naturally hesitate to train for a career and start in it if they feel that they can at any moment be thrown out in spite of good work. The same hesitancy would be found with respect to the Army and the Navy if their officers felt that they might be dismissed any day regardless of the character of their work.

We need a trained service because it is the only sort that can afford effective support to American citizens and interests abroad.

For one thing, we need a trained service as a political weather bureau for the country. Nobody questions the statement that an untrained man is useless in a meteorological station, where he is expected to read physical phenomena. It is not only unwise but sometimes dangerous to send an inexperienced and unqualified man to a diplomatic post, where he is called upon to read political, economic, and psvchological phenomena of a strange people in a strange language. Such a man must either plunge into the situation and try to muddle through regardless of the help or guidance of those about him or, as the only alternative, he must depend upon others until he has learned his lesson. This means that he acquires his elementary education in a responsible position and at the expense of American interests. If he is an appointee from private life the chances are that by the time he has learned to do his work well he will be replaced by some one else, and the process of education will begin a fresh. Briefly, we take a gambler's chance every time we send an inexperienced man to a responsible post.

It is often said that diplomacy is merely the application of common sense to the handling of the problems that arise from day to day, and that therefore any good, level-headed American from private life should make as good a diplomat as a man trained in the service. The practice of law or of medicine is, in much the same way, merely the application of common sense to the everyday problems of those professions, but nobody would think of putting the casual banker or farmer in charge of a law office or a doctor's practice, because they would not have the necessary equipment to start the first day's work, and nobody would think of allowing them to learn their lesson on his business or his person.

Diplomacy is not a thing that can be fully mastered in a school and proficiency can only be secured after long experience. In a less degree this is true of the more exact sciences of the law and medicine. A young man may have passed his medical examinations and have about as much book learning as he can get and be certified as a competent physician; in fact, he is in the eyes of the law a competent physician. Nevertheless, we should hesitate to put him in charge of a serious medical case because we think he needs years of experience in dealing with everyday cases before he can be expected to develop the qualities of judgment, resourcefulness, and common sense which we consider essential to the proper handling of delicate medical cases. It is exactly the same with diplomacy. A man coming from private life and taking charge of a legation has not the training which we exact as a preliminary for secretaries and consuls. He also lacks the constant application day by day of his own powers of discrimination and judgment to problems which he increasingly understands on the basis of his training and experience. We exact from a young secretary coming into the service a working knowledge of international law, diplomatic usage, languages, etc. We do not contend that this equipment makes him a trained diplomat-it doesn't—it only gives him some of the elementary knowledge which is necessary before he can be intrusted with the ordinary everyday tasks of a iegation. He becomes a trained diplomat only after he has worked