must be done as well as you can do it.

As the trouble drew near and suddenly fell upon the world, the burden of enormously increased and varied duties pressed heavily upon the American representatives abroad. The first thing that we had to do was to make provision for taking care of our own people in Europe who were caught out in the storm and the danger.

That was a practical job with unlimited requirements. No one, except those who had the distracting privilege of being in the American diplomatic and consular service in the summer of 1914, knows how much work and how many kinds of work rushed down upon us in a moment. Banking, postal, and telegraph service, transportation, hotel and boarding-house business, baggage express, the recovery of missing articles and persons, the reunion of curiously separated families, confidential inquiries, medical service (mainly mind-healing), and free consultation on every subject under the sun—all these different occupations, trades, and professions were not set down in our programme when we came to Europe, nor covered by the slim calf-bound volume of Instructions to Diplomatic Officers which was our only guide-book. But we had to learn them at short notice and practise them as best we could. No doubt we often acted in a way that was not strictly protocolaire. Certainly we made mistakes. But it was better to do that than to sit like bumps on a log doing nothing. The immediate affair in hand was to help our own folks who were in distress and difficulty and who wanted to get home as quickly and as safely as possible. So we tried to do it, making use of the best means available, and praying that heaven and our diplomatic colleagues would forgive any errors or gaffes that we might make. We preserved a profound respect for etiquette and regularity. But our predominant anxiety was to get the things done that had to be done.

Take an illustration. Excuse the personal references in it.

From the very beginning it seemed clear to me that one of the greatest difficulties in the first days of war would be to secure a supply of ready money for American travellers in flight. As a rule they carried little hard cash with them. Paper money would be at a discount; checks and drafts difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate in Holland. Moratoriums were falling everywhere as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.

So I went directly to my friend Foreign Minister Loudon, and asked him a plain question.

"Would your Government be willing to help us in getting American travellers' checks and drafts on letters of credit cashed if I should indorse them as American Minister?"

He answered as promptly as if the suggestion had already been formed in his own mind—as perhaps it had.

"Certainly, and gladly! Those pieces of paper would be the best securities in the world—short-term notes of the American Government. If you will get the authority from Washington to indorse, the Bank of the Netherlands will honor the checks and drafts; and if the Bank hesitates the National Treasury will cash them."

I cabled to the Department of State asking permission to make the indorsements (a thing hitherto expressly forbidden by the instructions to diplomatic officers), and explaining that I would take in each case the best security obtainable, whether in the form of a draft on a letter of credit or a personal note of hand with satisfactory references, and that no money should be drawn except for necessary living expenses and the cost of the journey home. The answer came promptly: "You have the authority to indorse."

So a system of international banking between two Governments was introduced. I believe it was absolutely a new plan. But it worked.

Then another idea occurred to me. The letters of credit were usually drawn on London or Paris. In both cities a moratorium was on. Why not make the drafts directly on New York? Why not call on the signer of the letter of credit for the money instead of calling on the addressee? This would cut out any possibility of difficulty from the moratorium.

This also was a new method. But it seemed reasonable. We tried it. And it worked. A visiting committee of New York bankers to whom I related this experience later laughed immensely. They also made some remarks about "amateurs" and "audacity" which I would rather not repeat. But upon the whole they did not seem shocked beyond recovery.

So it happened, by good fortune, that there was never a day in The Hague when an American fugitive from the war, homeward bound, could not obtain what cash he needed for him to live and to get to the United States. But not money to buy souvenir spoons, or old furniture and pictures. "Very sorry," we explained, "but our Government is not dealing in antiquities at present. It is simply helping you to get home as quickly and comfortably as possible. Please tell us how much money you need for board and passage-money and you shall have it."

Except three or four chronic growlers and a few passionate antiquarian ladies, everybody took it good-humoredly and cheerfully. I think they understood, though not always clearly, that our Government was doing more for its citizens caught out in a tempest than any other government in the world would have done.

When the Tennessee arrived in the latter part of August with $2,500,000 in gold for the same purpose, it was another illustration of our Government's parental care and forethought. We received our share of this gold at The Hague. The first use we made of part of it was to take up the American checks and drafts on which the Bank of the Netherlands had advanced the money. Then we sent the paper to America for collection and repayment to the National Treasury. I have not the accounts here and cannot speak by the book, but I think I am not far out in saying that our loss on these transactions was less than five per cent of the total amount handled. And we banked for some very poor people, too!

I never had any idea, before the war broke out, how many of our countrymen and countrywomen there are roaming about Europe every summer, and with what a cheerful trust in Providence and utter disregard of needful papers and precautions some of them roam! There were young women travelling alone or in groups of two or three. There were old men so feeble that one's first thought on seeing them was: "How did you get away from your nurse?" There were people with superfluous funds, and people with barely enough funds, and people with no funds at all. There were college boys who had worked their way over and couldn't find a chance to work it back. There were art-students and music-students whose resources had given out.

There was a very rich woman, plastered with diamonds, who demanded the free use of my garage for the storage of her automobile. When I explained that, to my profound regret, it was impossible, because three American guest cars were already stored there and the place could hold no more, she flounced out of the room in high dudgeon.

There was a lady of a different type who came to say, very modestly, that she had a balance in a bank at The Hague which she wanted to leave to my order for use in helping people who were poor and deserving. "Please make as sure as you can of the poverty," said she, "but take a chance, now and then, on the deserts. We can't confine our kindness to saints." This gift amounted to two or three thousand dollars, and was the foundation of the Minister's private benevolence fund, which proved so useful in later days and of which a remnant has been left for my successor.

An American wrote to us from a little village in a remote province of the Netherlands saying that his remittances from home had not arrived and that he was penniless. He added by way of personal description: "My social position