A second impression of the book was issued in 1887, and in 1901 a second and revised edition was published. A French edition had appeared simultaneously in Paris and Brussels, 1890, translated by M. Emile de Laveleye, eminent Belgian publicist and professor at the University of Liége, and containing an introductory essay by him. This essay was translated into English and embodied in the 1901 American edition. Since then additional impressions of this revised edition have appeared. I might mention that on the strength of this book I was admitted to membership in the Authors' Club, in 1888.
In the fall of the year following the original publication of my first book I chanced to meet Senator Gorman of Maryland in the Palmer House, Chicago, where we both happened to be stopping—he on his return from a trip to the Far West, and I on an important business errand. He told me he and his son had read my book on their trip, and that he had not in a long time read a book with so much valuable information in it and giving such a clear view of the sources and early growth of our form of government. We naturally talked of matters political, and he reminded me of an earlier conversation he had had with me since Cleveland's election, stating that Mr. Cox—S.S. Cox—our minister to Turkey, had or was about to resign, and that he would like to recommend me to President Cleveland for appointment in Cox's place. He thought at the same time it might enable me to make further studies along the lines of my book.
The idea was a complete surprise to me. As I have mentioned, I had no thought of entering public life. My political activities had been limited to the part I took in the re-election of Mayor Grace and the Cleveland-Blaine, campaign. Even had I been ambitious for a political position I should never have ventured application for a diplomatic post, for I had never given much attention to our foreign relations. Besides, I had been in business only a few years, I was married and had two small daughters; everything considered, I felt I could not afford to leave my affairs to go abroad.
Upon returning to New York I conferred with my father and brothers, and their attitude changed my views somewhat. They generously offered to see that my interests should not suffer, and gave me every encouragement to entertain Senator Gorman's suggestion. I could not possibly have further considered the subject without this generosity on their part. My obligations to my family did not permit the expenditure of several times my salary, required in a position of this kind. The salary of minister to Turkey had been reduced to seven thousand five hundred dollars, though it was subsequently restored to ten thousand; and in order to live properly he had to rent a winter house in the capital and a summer house outside, or live in hotels as Mr. Cox, and his predecessor, General Lew Wallace, did. General Wallace was restricted to his salary and felt compelled to decline the invitations of his colleagues because he was not in position to reciprocate. (His "Ben Hur," by the way, he had written before his sojourn in the East, and not afterward as is often supposed.)
Senator Gorman was not finally able to make the recommendation he had proposed. His relations with the President became strained, so that recommendations for appointments coming from him were not regarded with favor by Cleveland. Gorman told me as much when we met subsequently, but advised me to use such influence as I might command in other directions.
I presently spoke of it to an old friend of my days in the law, B. Franklin Einstein, who was counsel for the "New York Times" and the personal adviser of George Jones, its proprietor. Einstein suggested that I speak with Jones about it, and this I did. Jones encouraged me and said he would be glad to help. He said he had read my book and felt sure I would give a good account of myself and be a credit to the administration; that he had never asked any favor of the administration and felt justified in asking Cleveland to make the appointment. The "Times" had been an independent Republican paper, but in the campaign of 1884 it came out for Cleveland.
I also conferred with Carl Schurz, with whom I stood on intimate terms, and with John Foord, another friend. In the early eighties we used to have a lunch club that met about once in two weeks at a little French restaurant, August Sieghortner's, at 32 Lafayette Place, now Lafayette Street, in a house that had been a former residence of one of the Astors. We used to discuss various political and reform matters—the "mugwump" movement, the Cleveland campaigns, or what not. There were ten or twelve of us, and Carl Schurz was one; the late Charles R. Miller, who was for many years the leading editorial writer of the "Times," was another; and John Foord, whose death by accident occurred in Washington only a few days ago as I write, was another. Foord was then editor-in-chief of the "Times." He took up my appointment with both President Cleveland and Secretary of State Bayard. Schurz encouraged me and said he would speak to Oswald Ottendorfer about having me appointed. Ottendorfer, proprietor of the "New Yorker Staatszeitung," was a client of our law firm and knew me well. Subsequently I saw him and he wrote to Cleveland strongly recommending the appointment.
Cleveland was favorably enough impressed, but he hesitated. He said our chief concern in Turkey was the protection of American missionary interests, and he would not like to appoint any one to this particular mission who might be objected to by the two principal missionary bodies—the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Presbyterian Board of Missions.
It happened that on a return trip from Washington about this time my brother Isidor met A. S. Barnes, prominent textbook publisher and a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to whom also I was quite well known. He had been in frequent consultation with our law firm when we represented the City of Brooklyn in its suit against the Atlantic Avenue Railroad to compel the road to sink its tracks, in which suit, as one of Brooklyn's public-spirited citizens, he was much interested. He was sympathetic toward me and brought the subject of my appointment before his missionary board, with the result that its Prudential Committee wrote a letter to the President expressing fullest approval of my appointment, suggesting only that I be asked not to hold receptions on the Sabbath, as one of my predecessors had done to the great disapproval of the missionaries and all Protestant Christians in Constantinople. Even without this intimation I would quite naturally have refrained from offending the religious sensibilities of my nationals at that post.