Part 3 (1/2)

I cabled to the Department of State asking permission to make the indors.e.m.e.nts (a thing hitherto expressly forbidden by the instructions to diplomatic officers), and explaining that I would take in each case the best security obtainable, whether in the form of a draft on a letter of credit or a personal note of hand with satisfactory references, and that no money should be drawn except for necessary living expenses and the cost of the journey home. The answer came promptly: ”You have the authority to indorse.”

So a system of international banking between two Governments was introduced. I believe it was absolutely a new plan. But it worked.

Then another idea occurred to me. The letters of credit were usually drawn on London or Paris. In both cities a moratorium was on. Why not make the drafts directly on New York? Why not call on the signer of the letter of credit for the money instead of calling on the addressee? This would cut out any possibility of difficulty from the moratorium.

This also was a new method. But it seemed reasonable. We tried it. And it worked. A visiting committee of New York bankers to whom I related this experience later laughed immensely. They also made some remarks about ”amateurs” and ”audacity” which I would rather not repeat. But upon the whole they did not seem shocked beyond recovery.

So it happened, by good fortune, that there was never a day in The Hague when an American fugitive from the war, homeward bound, could not obtain what cash he needed for him to live and to get to the United States. But not money to buy souvenir spoons, or old furniture and pictures. ”Very sorry,” we explained, ”but our Government is not dealing in antiquities at present. It is simply helping you to get home as quickly and comfortably as possible. Please tell us how much money you need for board and pa.s.sage-money and you shall have it.”

Except three or four chronic growlers and a few pa.s.sionate antiquarian ladies, everybody took it good-humoredly and cheerfully. I think they understood, though not always clearly, that our Government was doing more for its citizens caught out in a tempest than any other government in the world would have done.

When the Tennessee arrived in the latter part of August with $2,500,000 in gold for the same purpose, it was another ill.u.s.tration of our Government's parental care and forethought. We received our share of this gold at The Hague. The first use we made of part of it was to take up the American checks and drafts on which the Bank of the Netherlands had advanced the money. Then we sent the paper to America for collection and repayment to the National Treasury. I have not the accounts here and cannot speak by the book, but I think I am not far out in saying that our loss on these transactions was less than five per cent of the total amount handled. And we banked for some very poor people, too!

I never had any idea, before the war broke out, how many of our countrymen and countrywomen there are roaming about Europe every summer, and with what a cheerful trust in Providence and utter disregard of needful papers and precautions some of them roam! There were young women travelling alone or in groups of two or three. There were old men so feeble that one's first thought on seeing them was: ”How did you get away from your nurse?” There were people with superfluous funds, and people with barely enough funds, and people with no funds at all. There were college boys who had worked their way over and couldn't find a chance to work it back. There were art-students and music-students whose resources had given out.

There was a very rich woman, plastered with diamonds, who demanded the free use of my garage for the storage of her automobile. When I explained that, to my profound regret, it was impossible, because three American guest cars were already stored there and the place could hold no more, she flounced out of the room in high dudgeon.

There was a lady of a different type who came to say, very modestly, that she had a balance in a bank at The Hague which she wanted to leave to my order for use in helping people who were poor and deserving.

”Please make as sure as you can of the poverty,” said she, ”but take a chance, now and then, on the deserts. We can't confine our kindness to saints.” This gift amounted to two or three thousand dollars, and was the foundation of the Minister's private benevolence fund, which proved so useful in later days and of which a remnant has been left for my successor.

An American wrote to us from a little village in a remote province of the Netherlands saying that his remittances from home had not arrived and that he was penniless. He added by way of personal description: ”My social position is that of a Catholic priest with nervous prostration.”

We helped him and he proved to be all right.

A rising comic-opera star, of engaging appearance and manners (American), who was under a temporary financial obscuration because her company in Holland had broken up, came to ask us to a.s.sist her in getting to Germany, where she had friends and hoped to find work. We did it with alacrity. Then she wrote asking us to forward certain legal papers in connection with a divorce which she contemplated. We did it.

Then she sent us some of her newspaper articles and a lot of clippings from German journals, requesting us to transmit them in the Legation pouch to America. This we politely declined, with the plea of ”non possumus”. Whereupon she was furious and denounced us to the German authorities and the German-American press.

An American lady whose husband was dying in Hamburg came in desperate distress with her daughter, to beg us to aid them in getting to him. We found the only way that was open, a little-known route through the northeast corner of Holland, procured the necessary permits, and enabled the wife and daughter to reach his bedside before he died.

A poor woman (with a nice little baby), husband, a naturalized American, was ”somewhere in Argentina,” wanted to go to his family in one of the northwestern States. She had no money. We paid her expenses in The Hague until we could get into communication with the family, and then sent her home rejoicing.

These are a few examples of the ever-recurring humor and pathos which touched our incessant grind of peace work in war times at The Hague.

Thousands and thousands of Americans, real or presumptive, pa.s.sed through the Legation--all sorts and conditions of men, asking for all kinds of things.

Our house was transformed into an Inquiry Office and a Bureau for First Aid to the Injured. There was often a dense throng outside the front door, filling the street and reaching over into the park. Two Dutch boy scouts, capital fellows in khaki, volunteered their a.s.sistance in keeping order, and stood guard at the entrance giving out numbered tickets of admission so that the house would not be choked and all the work stopped.

You see, Holland was the narrow neck of the bottle, and the incredible mult.i.tudes of Americans who were scattered about in Germany, Austria, Russia, and parts of Switzerland, came pouring out our way. There was no end to the extra work. Many a night I did not get my clothes off, but took a bath and breakfast in the morning and went ahead with the next day's business. No eight-hour day in that establishment!

It would have been impossible to hold on and keep going but for the devotion and industry of the entire Legation staff, and the splendid aid of the volunteers who came to help us through. Professor George Grafton Wilson, of Harvard, was our Counsellor in International Law. Professor Philip M. Brown, of Princeton, former Minister to Honduras, gave his valuable service. Professor F. J. Moore, of the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, took charge of the registration bureau. Hon. Charles H.

Sherrill, former Amba.s.sador to the Argentine, and Charles Edward Russell, the Socialist, and his wife, were among our best workers.

Alexander R. Gulick was at the head of the busy correspondence department. Van Santvoord Merle-Smith, Evans Hubbard, and my son ran the banking department. These are only a few names among the many good men and women who helped their country for love.

My library was the Diplomatic Office, to which the despatches and the pa.s.sports came; the Conference Chamber, where all vexed questions were discussed and decided; the Court of Appeal, where people who thought they had not received fair treatment could present their complaints; and the Consolation Room, where the really distressed, as well as the slightly hysterical, came to tell their troubles. Some of them were tragic and some comic. The most agitated and frightened persons were among the fat commercial men. The women, as a rule, were fine and steady and cheerful, especially the American-born. They met the adventure with good sense and smiling faces; asked with commendable brevity for the best advice or service that we could give them; and usually took the advice and were more grateful for the service than it deserved.

So the days rolled on, full of infinitely varied cares and labors; and every afternoon, about five o'clock, the whole staff with a dozen or a score of our pa.s.sing friends, went out under the spreading chestnut-tree in the back garden for a half-hour of tea and talk. It was all very peaceful and democratic. We were in neutral, friendly Holland. The big, protecting s.h.i.+eld of ”Uncle Sam” was over us, and we felt safe.

III

Yet how near, how fearful, was the fierce reality of the unpardonable war! Belgium was invaded by the Germans, an hour or two away from us. At any moment their troops might be tempted to take the short cut through the narrow strip of Dutch territory which runs so far down into Belgium; and then the neutrality of Holland would be gone! The little country would be part of the battle-field. Holland has always been resolved to fight any invader.