Motoring leisurely through Algiers and Tunis with Mrs. Straus, I was now enjoying a delightful holiday, free from cares and responsibility. The drowsy tropical air invited complete relaxation, and the lazy African days ushered us into a world unbelievably remote from that of American politics. Graceful, luminous Algiers, with its brilliant European hotels, charming cafés, veiled women, and swarthy men, etched lasting impressions upon our minds. My defeat in the tense Progressive contest for the governorship of New York had afforded me this opportunity for another taste of freedom. It was in the spring of the year 1913, and the mountains through which we toured were full of unexpected and beguiling scenes. This region is not only rich in historic associations, but the engineering skill of the French has in turn modernized it with excellent motor roads. From Tunis we crossed to Sicily, where we visited the Carthaginian, Greek, and Roman remains of columns and temples that still bear tragic witness to the conflict between the armies of Hannibal and Scipio, and between the transplanted Asiatic and European civilizations.
We made our way to Rome, where Ambassador Thomas J. O'Brien showed us many attentions, and arranged for an audience on April 28th with Victor Emmanuel III. The King was most affable and agreeable, and spoke perfect English. He referred to my several missions to Turkey, and said he, too, was there frequently when he was in the navy. He spoke with an intimate knowledge of the men and affairs in the Near East that surprised me. We discussed Arabia and the unrest there due to the incompetency of the Sultan's Government, and soon the conversation turned to the Balkan situation. I said I feared that as soon as the treaty then being negotiated, which was to end the first Balkan War against Turkey, was signed, a fresh war would break out among the five Balkan Powers. That would not surprise him, he said, but considered that it might be best to let them fight it out. I answered that the trouble with that course was that the fight would involve the Great Powers, as the several Balkan States were attached to strings that led directly into the chancelleries of the Great Powers—with which the King did not disagree.
We talked of the Jews, and he said in Italy they were not made a separate element in the population. "We neither know nor care whether a man is a Jew or not," he remarked, adding that the only persons who took special notice of the subject at all were occasional clericals. Personally he was very fond of the Jews; nearly every ministry had contained one or more; and General Ottolenghi, a Jew who had been Minister of War a few years before, had been one of his most favored instructors. Altogether we had a fine talk of over an hour. The King's quick and vigorous mind, his clearness of vision and breadth of intellectual grasp I found very refreshing. Unlike some of the monarchs, he did not seem detached and weighted down by a sense of his own importance.
From my friend Isaac N. Seligman, since deceased, of New York, I had received a letter of introduction to Ernesto Nathan, Mayor of Rome, of whom I had heard much and whom I was therefore anxious to meet. I sent Mr. Seligman's letter, together with my card, to the Mayor. The next morning, when Mrs. Straus and I were leaving our hotel for a motor ride, a tall, prepossessing gentleman, who impressed me somewhat as a typical Englishman, came toward me with a look of recognition which I instinctively answered.
"Is this Mr. Straus? I am Mr. Nathan," he said, in perfect English.
His brother was with him, and we were glad to return to the hotel with them for a chat. We arranged for a little excursion the next day to the ancient Roman commercial city of Ostia, whose ruins were being excavated. In the midst of these plans the Mayor remarked that a friend of his, Georg Brandes, the Danish savant and critic, was in Rome, and if agreeable to us he would like to have him join us. Of course it was agreeable, and in our little party next day were Mayor Nathan, his brother, his daughter, Georg Brandes, a Signor Cena, editor of a leading Italian review, and ourselves. The Mayor acted as guide and showed an astonishing familiarity with things archæological in a most delightful way; even the occasional spells of rain in no way dampened our enjoyment of the trip. Upon our return, the Mayor took us to lunch in a typical Italian restaurant, where we spent two hours at a sociable repast.
My introduction to Mayor Ernesto Nathan led to a friendship which I prized highly and enjoyed until his death in April, 1921. He was born in England of Jewish parents. His father was a banker and a descendant of the Frankfort family of Nathans, a collateral branch of the Mayer family from whom is descended the great banking family of Rothschild. After his father died, his mother took the family to Pisa to live. Here their home became a refuge for Italian patriots, as it had been in London. At twenty-five Signor Nathan became business manager of "La Roma del Popolo," a paper started by Giuseppe Mazzini, a friend of the family, whose works he later edited. Nathan remained an editor and publisher until he entered politics. He became Mayor of Rome in 1907, elected by the anti-clerical party, and during the six years he remained Mayor he did much to modernize Rome, especially in the improvement of its street-car service and its sanitation, so that the city's death-rate became one of the lowest in Europe. He was highly esteemed, and even the clericals respected his uprightness and efficiency.
Brandes, when I met him, was nearly seventy years old, but intellectually vigorous and brilliant, although cynical, even if at times humorously and delightfully so.
Through David Lubin, American delegate to the International Institute of Agriculture, whom I had known for many years, we met Professor Luigi Luzzatti, Professor of International Law at the University of Rome, a leading member of the Italian Chamber, and a convincing orator and publicist. He was then in his seventies, a large, statesmanlike figure of distinguished appearance. We spent a pleasant hour in his apartment on the Via Veneto opposite our hotel. He said he was gratified to find my views, as expressed in my "Roger Williams" and in my chapter on the development of religious liberty in my "American Spirit," so much in accord with his own. He told me about his brochure, "Liberta di Consciensa e di Sciensa," which had been translated into German under the title "Freiheit des Gewissens und Wissens." In it he makes considerable reference to Roger Williams, and pays me the compliment of saying that he derived the inspiration for his book from mine. He also quotes extensively from Roosevelt's letter on religious liberty, which I have embodied in Chapter X of this volume.
I called on Professor Luzzatti a number of times thereafter, which in his charming way he had begged me to do because he was confined to the house with a cold and therefore could not call on me. In one of his notes he wrote that we were friends because our ideas and ideals were the same, and he wanted to be sure to see me again before I left Rome. He confirmed what the King had told me, that there was no anti-Semitic spirit in Italy. He said he was a Jew, but was not brought up religiously as such, although he was known to be ready on all necessary occasions to stand up for his people.