As to the next visit of importance, I was especially glad to find at the Foreign Office the newly appointed minister, Baron (now Count) von Bulow. During the first part of my former stay, as minister, I had done business at the Foreign Office with his father, and found him in every respect a most congenial representative of the German Government. It now appeared that father and son were amazingly like each other, not only in personal manner, but in their mode of dealing with public affairs. With the multitude of trying questions which pressed upon me as ambassador during nearly six years, it hardly seems possible that I should be still alive were it not for the genial, hearty intercourse, at the Foreign Office and elsewhere, with Count von Bulow. Sundry German papers, indeed, attacked him as yielding to much to me, and sundry American papers attacked me for yielding too much to him; but both of us exerted ourselves to do the best possible, each for his own country, and at the same time to preserve peace and increase good feeling.
Interesting was it to me, from my first to my last days in Berlin, to watch him in the discharge of his great duties, especially in his dealings with hostile forces in Parliament. No contrast could be more marked than that between his manner and that of his great predecessor, the iron chancellor. To begin with, no personalities could be more unlike. In the place of an old man, big, rumbling, heavy, fiery, minatory, objurgatory, there now stood a young man, quiet, self-possessed, easy in speech, friendly in manner, "sweet reasonableness" apparently his main characteristic, bubbling at times with humor, quick to turn a laugh on a hostile bungler, but never cruel; prompt in returning a serious thrust, but never venomous. Many of his speeches were masterpieces in their way of handling opponents. An attack which Bismarck would have met with a bludgeon, Bulow parried with weapons infinitely lighter, but in some cases really more effective. A very good example was on an occasion when the old charge of "Byzantinism" was flung at the present regime, to which he replied, not by a historical excursus or political disquisition, but by humorously deprecating a comparison of the good, kindly, steady-going, hard-working old privy councilors and other state officials of Berlin with fanatics, conspirators, and assassins who played leading parts at Constantinople during the decline of the Eastern Empire. In the most stormy discussions I never saw him other than serene; under real provocation he remained kindly; more than one bitter opponent he disarmed with a retort; but there were no poisoned wounds. The German Parliament, left to itself, can hardly be a peaceful body. The lines of cleavage between parties are many, and some of them are old chasms of racial dislike and abysses of religious and social hate; but the appearance of the young chancellor at his desk seemed, even on the darkest days, to bring sunshine.
Occasionally, during my walks in the Thiergarten, I met him on his way to Parliament; and, no matter how pressing public business might be, he found time to extend his walk and prolong our discussions. On one of these walks I alluded to a hot debate of the day before and to his suavity under provocation, when he answered: "Old ——, many years ago, gave me two counsels, and I have always tried to mind them. These were: 'Never worry; never lose your temper.'"
A pet phrase among his critics is that he is a diplomatist and not a statesman. Like so many antitheses, this is misleading. It may be just to say that his methods are, in general, those of a diplomatist rather than of a statesman; but certain it is that in various debates of my time he showed high statesmanlike qualities, and notably at the beginning of the war with China and in sundry later contests with the agrarians and socialists. Even his much criticized remark during the imbroglio between Turkey and Greece, picturing Germany as laying down her flute and retiring from the "European Concert," which to many seemed mere persiflage, was the humorous presentation of a policy dictated by statesmanship. Nor were all his addresses merely light and humorous; at times, when some deep sentiment had been stirred, he was eloquent, rising to the height of great arguments and taking broad views.
No one claims that he is a Richelieu, a William Pitt, or a Cavour; but the work of such men is not what the German Empire just now requires. The man needed at present is the one who can keep things GOING, who can minimize differences, resist extremists, turn aside marplots, soothe doctrinaires, and thus give the good germs in the empire a chance to grow. For this work it would be hard to imagine a better man than the present chancellor. His selection and retention by the Emperor prove that the present monarch has inherited two of the best qualities of his illustrious grandfather: skill in recognizing the right man and firmness in standing by him.
The next thing which an ambassador is expected to do, after visiting the great representatives of the empire, is to become acquainted with the official world in general.
But he must make acquaintance with these under his own roof. On his arrival he is expected to visit the Emperor and the princes of his family, the imperial chancellor, and the minister of foreign affairs, but all others are expected to visit him; hence the most pressing duty on my arrival was to secure a house, and, during three months following, all the time that I could possibly spare, and much that I ought not to have spared, was given to excursions into all parts of the city to find it. No house, no ambassador. A minister plenipotentiary can live during his first year in a hotel or in a very modest apartment; an ambassador cannot. He must have a spacious house fully furnished before he can really begin his duties; for, as above stated, one of the first of these duties is to make the acquaintance of the official world,—the ministers of the crown, the diplomatic corps, the members of the Imperial Parliament, the members of the Prussian legislature, the foremost men in the army and navy, and the leaders in public life generally,—and to this end he must give three very large receptions, at which all those personages visit him. This is a matter of which the court itself takes charge, so far as inviting and presenting the guests is concerned, high court officials being sent to stand by the side of the ambassador and ambassadress and make the introductions to them; but, as preliminary to all this, the first thing is to secure a residence fit for such receptions and for entertainments in connection with them.
Under the rules of European nations generally, these receptions must be held at the ambassador's permanent residence; but, unfortunately, such a thing as a large furnished apartment suitable for a foreign representative is rarely to be found in Berlin. In London and Paris such apartments are frequently offered, but in Berlin hardly ever. Every other nation which sends an ambassador to Berlin—and the same is true as regards the other large capitals of Europe—owns a suitable house, or at least holds a long lease of a commodious apartment; but, although President Cleveland especially recommended provision for such residence in one of his messages, nothing has yet been done by the American Congress, and the consequence is that every ambassador has to lose a great amount of valuable time, effort, and money in securing proper quarters, while his country loses much of its proper prestige and dignity by constant changes in the location of its embassy, and by the fact that the American representative is not infrequently obliged to take up his residence in unfit apartments and in an unsuitable part of the town.
After looking at dozens of houses, the choice was narrowed down to two; but, as one was nearly three miles from the center of the city, selection was made of the large apartment which I occupied during nearly four years, and which was bought from under my feet by one of the smallest governments in Europe as the residence for its minister. Immediately after my lease was signed there began a new series of troubles. Everything must be ready for the three receptions by the eighth day of January; and, being at the mercy of my landlord, I was at a great disadvantage. Though paying large rent for the apartment, I was obliged, at my own expense, to put it thoroughly in order, introducing electric light, perfecting heating apparatus, getting walls and floors in order, and doing a world of work which, under other circumstances, would have been done by the proprietor himself. As to furnishing, a peculiar difficulty arose. Berlin furnishers, as a rule, have only samples in stock, and a long time is required for completing sets. My former experience, when, as minister, I had been obliged to go through a similar ordeal, had shown me that the Berlin makers could never be relied upon to get the apartment furnished in time; and therefore it was that, having secured what was possible in Berlin, I was obliged to make large purchases at Dresden, London, and Paris, and to have the furniture from the last-named city hurried on to Berlin in special wadded cars, with attendants to put it in place. It was a labor and care to which no representative of the United States or of any other power ought to be subjected. The vexations and difficulties seemed unending; but at last carpenters, paper-hangers, electric-light men, furniture men, carpet-layers, upholsterers, and the like were driven from the house just five minutes before the chancellor of the empire arrived to open the first of these three official receptions. Happily they all went off well, and thereby began my acquaintance with the leaders in various departments of official life.
On my settling down to the business of the embassy, it appeared that the changes in public sentiment since my former stay as minister, eighteen years before, were great indeed. At that time German feeling was decidedly friendly to the United States. The Germans had sided with us in our Civil War, and we had come out victorious; we had sided with them in their war of 1870-1871, and they had come out victorious. But all this was now changed. German feeling toward us had become generally adverse and, in some parts of the empire, bitterly hostile. The main cause of this was doubtless our protective policy. Our McKinley tariff, which was considered almost ruinous to German manufactures, had been succeeded by the Dingley tariff, which went still further; and as Germany, in the last forty years, had developed an amazing growth of manufactures, much bitterness resulted.