Latin America and the United States / Addresses by Elihu Root

by Elihu Root

There is but one other subject that I want to speak to you about, one to which the convention that met here last year contributed very much, and that is representation abroad under the American consular system.

The American consular service, I had the honor to say here last year, has been an exceptionally uneven one. There have been many very good men in it, and there have been many men in it who were simply passing the remainder of their days in dignified retirement. That came along naturally enough when we did not have much foreign trade and we were not pushing much for foreign trade; but the strain on that machinery has of late years become rather great. We are pushing out in all the world for trade, and our people want information. Some of them need it—all want it—and they need to be well represented among the people of the other countries where they want to do business. And wherever there is a weak spot there is trouble and dissatisfaction. So that with changing times a change in method has become necessary.

Congress passed a law at the last session, the material parts of which had been hanging in Congress for over thirteen years, introduced years ago by men with foresight a little in advance of the practical requirements of the time. Their ideas did not receive endorsement and practical effect until the last session. The Congress in that law classified the consulates in different grades. They provided an inspection service, so that now we have inspectors who have been selected from among the most able and efficient consuls and whose business it is to see what consuls are doing and whether they are doing anything, so that now the State Department will not be the last place where information is received about the misdeeds of a consul.

They made provision that all fees should be turned into the Treasury and the sole compensation of consuls should be their salary, thus closing the door to temptation.

They did in that act a number of very good things for the consular service. There was a clause in the bill originally which provided that all appointments to the higher positions in the service should be by promotion from the lower positions, and that all appointments to the lower positions should be upon examination. That was stricken out because it was considered that Congress had no constitutional right to limit the President in that way. There is a good deal to be said for that view; but it is equally true of appointments to the army and to the navy, yet there have stood upon the statute books of the United States for many years provisions for the filling of higher grades in the army and navy by promotion, and for the appointment to the lower grades only upon a satisfactory examination. And those provisions, while doubtless the President could break over them with the consent of the Senate, nevertheless have constituted a kind of agreement between the President and the Senate, having the appointing power, and Congress which creates the offices and appropriates the money to pay them, as to how the offices are to be filled. I would like to see that kind of an agreement applied to the consular service, so that the method of selection could be settled, and permanently settled, as it has been in the army and the navy.

Immediately after the passage of the consular reorganization act with that clause omitted, the President made an order, known as the Order of June 27, 1906, in which he provided that all the upper grades should be filled by promotion and that the lower grades should be filled only upon examination, and prescribed the method of the examination, and also provided that as between candidates of equal merit the appointments should be made so as to equalize them throughout the United States, as they ought to be equalized so far as it is practicable, and also that the appointments should be made without regard to the political affiliations of the candidates.

Under that order we will have the opportunity, in filling all of the important consulates, to get the best possible evidence as to whether a man is fit for the important place by scanning the work of the young men in the lower places—better than a dozen examinations and better than ten thousand letters of recommendation.

Under that plan we will put in the young men who come along for the lower grades of places and bar out the lazy fellows that want to fall back on a living they are not energetic enough to get for themselves. And when we have seen how the young fellows work in the lower places we will pick out the men here and there who are born consuls and put them into the higher places.

Now, that is the law for this Administration. It is good until March 4, 1909. What will become of it then no one can tell. I should be very glad if the public opinion of the country would say to Congress: Agree to that in such a way that it will be permanent for all time.

Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention and again renew my expression of satisfaction at the intelligent public service you have rendered by leaving your homes and your occupations to come here and do the work of self-governing American citizens.