No Secretary of State ever did more to bring his country to the front than John Hay. A number of most difficult foreign questions requiring prompt decision—Cuba and the Philippines, Japan and China—came to the forefront during his term of office; and the position, maintained in the world of diplomacy by the United States, was, at the time of his death, totally different from that existing when he first entered her service in the Senate at Washington.
Napoleon may have merely boasted when he declared that every French soldier carried a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack. The saying would be literally true if applied to those who march in the ranks of industry and politics in America. There is no office in the State which is not open to the man of brains and grit.
If asked for a type of the go-ahead American who is making his mark, I should be inclined to name John Barrett. I have run across him in several quarters of the globe.
Keen and shrewd, with a Gargantuan appetite for work, Barrett, at the age of some forty years, had already been United States Minister to Siam, Argentina, Panama, and Colombia; he was Commissioner General to Foreign Nations of the St. Louis World’s Fair, and a year or two later held the important post of Director of the International Bureau of American Republics, towards the establishment of which in Washington, Carnegie gave a million sterling. One of his most marked characteristics is his readiness to act in sudden emergency.
An open-air gathering in a very small New England town was being held in support of Mr. Roosevelt. From the platform a man with a high forehead and intellectual features was making a speech; clearly and logically he dealt with the manner in which his country was fulfilling its obligations in the Philippines and Panama. The speaker showed remarkable personal familiarity with America’s Far Eastern possessions, and with Central American affairs. Many farmers were in the audience. Seeing this, the orator emphasised one of his points with a homely illustration from farm life, adding:
“I know what it is to work on a farm myself.”
That was too much for a stalwart young Democratic rustic, who, with others of the same party, had been attracted to the meeting by curiosity. He eyed the speaker’s faultless frock coat, immaculate shirt front and grey striped trousers, likewise the shining hat on the table behind him. Then he arose in his place and blustered out:
“What bluff are you giving us? You never worked on a farm! Bet yer never milked a cow in your life!”
“Not only have I milked cows,” replied the orator quietly, “but, what is more, I will put up a hundred dollars against the same amount to be put up by you and your party friends—the sum to go to local charity—that I can milk a cow faster than you can. Appoint a committee and produce the cows.”