Fifty Years of Public Service / Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

by Shelby M. Cullom

CHAPTER XXIX TITLES AND DECORATIONS FROM FOREIGN POWERS

The Constitution of the United States provides:

"No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States, and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign State."

When I became chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, there were numerous bills pending, and numerous requests submitted through the State Department, for authority, on the part of officers of the United States, to accept gifts and decorations from foreign Governments. At first I was disposed to consent to the report and passage of such bills, and during the first year or two they were reported from the committee from time to time and passed in the Senate. The House did not act upon the individual bills, but a so- called "omnibus bill" was passed in the House containing all the bills that previously had been passed by the Senate, and in addition quite a number of House bills. I had not realized until then how extensive the practice had become, and I thereupon determined to use what influence I had to put a stop to it. Since then but two decorative bills of an exceptionally meritorious nature, one in favor of Captain T. deWitt Wilcox, and one in favor of Admiral B. H. McCalla, have been enacted by Congress.

I thoroughly disapprove of the practice, and wanted to put an effectual stop to it. At the same time the requests came pouring in from session to session, and certain Senators, both on the committee and others who were not members of it, insisted and urged that favorable action be taken in behalf of officers of the United States in whom they were interested. After more than two hundred requests had accumulated, I determined to appoint a subcommittee to consider the whole matter and report to the committee such cases as were meritorious, or to adopt a general rule against the whole practice. As chairman of that subcommittee, I appointed Mr. Root, and with him Mr. Lodge, Mr. Carter, Mr. Bacon, and Mr. Stone. The subcommittee, on March 10, 1910, submitted its report, which was adopted by the full committee and submitted to the Senate. Besides reviewing at considerable length the reasons for legislation, the report included the following salient features:

First, the existence of the provision in the Constitution indicates that the presumption is against the acceptance of the present, emolument, office, or title. A habit of general and indiscriminate consent by Congress upon such applications would tend practically to nullify the Constitutional provision, which is based upon an apprehension, not without foundation, that our officers may be affected in the performance of their duties by the desire to receive such recognition from other Governments. A strong support for the view that the practice should not be allowed to become general is to be found in the fact that the Government of the United States does not confer decorations or titles, or—unless in very exceptional cases—make presents to the officers of other Governments. The report then recommended that the following five rules be observed;

"1. That no decoration should be received unless possibly when it is conferred for some exceptional, extraordinary, and highly meritorious act, justifying beyond dispute a special mark of distinction.

"2. That no presents should be received except such articles as are appropriate for souvenirs and marks of courtesy and appreciation, and having an intrinsic value not disproportionate to such a purpose.

"3. That the acceptance of presents within the limitation above stated should be further limited to cases in which some exceptional service or special relation justifying the mark of courtesy exists between the recipient and the Government offering the present.

"4. That no offer of any other title or emolument or office should be considered.

"5. We consider that membership in learned societies, even though the appointment thereto may have a quasi Governmental origin, should not be considered as coming within the Constitutional provision, and it may well be that as to certain trifling gifts, such as photographs, the rule of de minimis lex non curat should be deemed to apply."

I agreed to the report of the subcommittee and agreed to the bill, permitting certain officers to accept the presents tendered to them, where there were good reasons therefor; but I am free to say that I was somewhat disappointed that the subcommittee had not reported in favor of abolishing the practice entirely, instead of discriminating between presents and decorations, as they did.

The bill passed the Senate without debate and without objection. It went to the House, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, through Mr. Denby, of Michigan, submitted a most admirable report, which was far more in line with my own ideas than was the report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I agree with the conclusions arrived at by the Committee on Foreign Affairs so thoroughly that I am going to give most of that report here:

" . . . The subcommittee expresses the hope that this adverse disposition of these bills, which contains items fairly representative of the great majority of the requests for Congressional sanction for the acceptance of foreign orders, decorations, or presents, by officials of the United States, will be regarded as notice to officials of the United States that this committee at least, and it is hoped all future committees dealing with this subject-matter, will refuse to consider such requests, except as hereinafter noted.

"The Committee of Foreign Affairs has been required to devote much time to the consideration of bills to grant permission to accept such gifts. The committee has in the past very generally declined to recommend favorably any such legislation, except in the case of decorations offered to American citizens by official or quasi- official scientific associations for eminent scientific achievements."

Article 1, section 9, paragraph 8, of the Constitution of the United
States is quoted, and the report proceeds:

"The Congress has been frequently importuned since the adoption of the Constitution to grant its consent for the acceptance of orders, decorations, and presents offered to officials of our Government, frequently upon pretexts the most trivial and for services the most commonplace, when services of any kind were rendered at all. A glance at the requests now on file, summarized in Calendar No. 378, which accompanies S. 7096, will show that the offers of foreign gifts, decorations, etc., have been made in the great majority of cases to officials for services in the direct line of their duty, and which in themselves, in the majority of cases, were not deserving of any special commendation. Following a practice which, because of reciprocal considerations, probably operates satisfactorily between foreign powers, the Governments of the world frequently tender to our officers decorations or presents upon such occasions as the first visit of a fleet to a foreign power, or the presence of individual officers representing our Government at reviews and public ceremonials, and to our diplomatic officials upon the termination of their missions, or upon occasions of rejoicing, jubilees of sovereigns, etc. While the practice of exchanging such graceful souvenirs is not unpleasing among the nations which recognize and reciprocate the courtesy, it is entirely inappropriate that officials of this Government should accept, or desire to accept, such presents.

"The prohibition of the Constitution appears to have been put there out of a well-founded desire to safeguard our officials from the insidious influence of a natural but not desirable sense of obligation toward the powers donor. The history of nations abounds with instances of the giving of rich presents to retiring ambassadors and ministers upon the conclusion of treaties or the satisfactory termination of negotiations. There can be no doubt of the danger of recognizing that the agent of our Government may properly be compensated by another to which he is accredited. Another and obvious objection to permitting our officials to receive gifts or decorations from foreign powers is that, having no orders of nobility and no decorations in this country, and not recognizing the propriety of offering to officials of other powers, we can in no way reciprocate. It is beneath the dignity of the American Government to receive, through its representatives, presents for which it can make no return. The Constitutional prohibition is, in the opinion of the subcommittee, a wise one, to which Congress should very seldom permit any exception.

"Therefore the subcommittee earnestly hopes that the Committee may put itself on record so unequivocally in this instance as to clearly indicate that it will not, except under circumstances the most unusual and extraordinary, grant permission to any official of the Government to receive such presents.

"To that end the subcommittee further recommends that this report may, by resolution, be adopted as expressing the view of the members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives; that this report may be printed, and that a copy may be communicated to the Secretary of State.

"(Signed) Edwin Denby,
"H. W. Palmer,
"H. D. Flood, Subcommittee,

"Adopted by the Committee of Foreign Affairs, April 7, 1910.
"Frederic L. Davis, Clerk."

I have no doubt that these two reports, first the report of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, and second, the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House, taken together, will effectually stop the application for permission to accept both presents and decorations from foreign Governments. Indeed, I do not think that the Secretary of State will again consent to apply to Congress in behalf of officers who have been tendered presents and decorations.