Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning

The press, as a rule, would be against it, but the press in Denmark, though everybody reads, has not a very potent influence. I was sure of Politiken, a journal which most persons said was 'yellow,' but which appealed to people who liked cleverness. The press, I was sure, would be against the sale largely for reasons of internal politics. The farmers would not oppose the sale as a sale – in itself – the possession of a great sum of money, even while it remained in the United States, meant increased facilities for the import of fodder, etc., but J. C. Christensen, their leader, must be reckoned with. There were local questions. Politics is everywhere a slippery game, but in Denmark it is more slippery than anywhere else in the world, not even excepting in, let us say, Kansas.

J. C. Christensen had stubbed his toe over Alberti, who had, until 1908, been a power in Denmark, and who, in 1915, was still in the Copenhagen jail. He had been prime minister from 1905 until Alberti's manipulation of funds had been discovered in 1908. Under the short administration of Holstein-Ledreborg, he had been Minister of Worship, but he smarted over the accident which had driven him undeservedly out of office. Socialism, curious as it may seem to Americans, is not confined to the cities in Denmark. It thrives in the farmlands. In the country, the Socialists are more moderate than in the cities. In the country, Socialism is a method of securing to the peasant population the privileges which it thinks it ought to have. It is a pale pink compared with the intense red of the extreme urban Internationalists. J. C. Christensen represented the Moderates as against the various shades of Left, Radical and Socialistic opinions. Besides J. C. Christensen, though his reputation was beyond reproach, needed, perhaps, a certain rehabilitation, and he had a great following. A further complication was the sudden rise of violent opposition to the Government because of the decision made by the secular authorities in favour of retaining in his pulpit Arboe Rasmussen, a clergyman who had gone even further towards Modernism in his preaching than Harnack. However, as the Bishops of the Danish Lutheran Church had accepted this decision, it seemed remarkable that an opposition of this kind should have developed so unexpectedly.

In June 1915, my wife and I were at Aalholm, the principal castle of Count Raben-Levitzau. I was hoping for a favourable answer to my latest despatch as to the purchase of the Islands. A visit to Aalholm was an event. The Count and Countess Raben-Levitzau know how to make their house thoroughly agreeable. Talleyrand said that 'no one knew the real delights of social intercourse who had not lived before the French Revolution.' One might easily imitate this, and say, that if one has never paid a visit to Aalholm, one knows little of the delights of good conversation. Count Raben's guests were always chosen for their special qualities. With Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hagerup, Señor and Señora de Riaño, Count and Countess Szchenyi,¹⁶ Chamberlain and Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone, Mrs. Ripka, and the necessary additional element of young folk, one must forget the cares of life. During this visit, there was one care that rode behind me in all the pleasant exclusions about the estate. It constantly asked me: What is your Government thinking about? Will the President's preoccupations prevent him from considering the question of the purchase? Does Mr. Brun, the Danish Minister, fear a political crisis in his own country? It is difficult to an American at home to realise how much in the dark a man feels away from the centre of diplomacy, Washington, especially when he has once lived there for years and been in touch with all the tremulous movements of the wires.

One day at Aalholm, the telephone rang; it was a message from the Clerk of the Legation, Mr. Joseph G. Groeninger of Baltimore. I put Clerk with a capital letter because Mr. Groeninger deserved diplomatically a much higher title. During all my anxieties on the question of the purchase, he had been my confidant and encourager; the secretaries had other things to do. The message, discreetly voiced in symbols we had agreed upon, told me that the way was clear. Our Government was willing, – secrecy and discretion were paramount necessities in the transaction.

Returning to Copenhagen, I saw the Foreign Minister. The most direct way was the best. I said, 'Excellency, will you sell your West Indian Islands?'

'You know I am for the sale, Mr. Minister,' he said, 'but – ' he paused, 'it will require some courage.'

'Nobody doubts your courage.'

'The susceptibilities of our neighbour to the South – '

'Let us risk offending any susceptibilities. France had rights.'

'France gave up her rights in Santa Cruz long ago; but I was not thinking of France. Besides the price would have to be dazzling. Otherwise the project could never be carried.'

'Not only dazzling,' I said, 'but you should have more than money – our rights in Greenland; His Majesty might hesitate if it were made a mere question of money. He is like his grandfather, Christian IX. You know how he hated, crippled as Denmark was in 1864, to sell the Islands.'

'You would never pay the price.'

'Excellency,' I said, 'this is not a commercial transaction. If it were a commercial transaction, a matter of material profit, my Government would not have entrusted the matter to me, nor would I have accepted the task, without the counsel of men of business. Besides, commercially, at present, the Islands are of comparatively small value. I know that my country is as rich as it is generous. It is dealing with a small nation of similar principles to its own, and with an equal pride. Unless the price is preposterous, as there is no ordinary way of gauging the military value of these Islands to us, I shall not object. My Government does not wish me to haggle. And I am sure that you will not force me to do so by demanding an absurd price. You would not wish to shock a people prepared to be generous.'

He will ask $50,000,000, I thought; he knows better than anybody that we shall be at war with Germany in less than a year. I felt dizzy at the thought of losing the Gibraltar of the Caribbean! However, I consoled myself, while Mr. de Scavenius looked thoughtfully, pencil in hand, at a slip of paper. After all, I thought, the President, knowing what the Islands mean to us, will not balk at even $50,000,000. While Mr. de Scavenius wrote, I tried to feel like a man to whom a billion was of no importance.

He pushed the slip towards me, and I read:

'$30,000,000 dollars, expressed in Danish crowns.'

The crown was then equal to about twenty-six cents.

I said, 'There will be little difficulty about that; I consider it not unreasonable; but naturally, it may frighten some of my compatriots, who have not felt the necessity of considering international questions. You will give me a day or two?'

'The price is dazzling, I know,' he said.

'My country is more generous even than she is rich. The transaction must be completed before – '

Mr. de Scavenius understood. My country was neutral then; it was never necessary to over-explain to him; he knew that I understood the difficulties in the way.

It was agreed that there should be no intermediaries; Denmark had learned the necessity of dealing without them by the experience in 1902. I was doubtful as to the possibility of complete secrecy. What the newspapers cannot find out does not exist. 'There are very many persons connected with the Foreign Office,' he said thoughtfully.

'I may say a similar thing of our State Department. I wish the necessity for complete secrecy did not exist,' I said. 'The press will have news.'

A short time after this I was empowered to offer $25,000,000 with our rights in Greenland. As far as the Foreign Office and our Legation were concerned, the utmost secrecy was preserved. There were no formal calls; after dinners, a word or two, an apparently chance meeting on the promenade (the Long Line) by the Sound. Rumours, however, leaked out on the Bourse. The newspapers became alert. Politiken, the Government organ, was bound to be discreet, even if its editor had his suspicions. There were no evidences from the United States that the secret was out. In fact, the growing war excitement left what in ordinary times would have been an event for the 'spot' light in a secondary place.

In Denmark, as the whispers of a possible 'deal' increased in number, the opponents of the Government were principally occupied in thinking out a way by which it could be used for the extinction of the Council – President (Prime Minister) Zahle, the utter crushing of the Minister of War, Peter Munch, who hated war and looked on the army as an unnecessary excrescence, and the driving out of the whole ministry, with the exception of Erik de Scavenius and, perhaps, Edward Brandès, the Minister of Finance, into a sea worthy to engulf the devil-possessed swine of the New Testament. There are, by the way, two Zahles – one the Minister, Theodore, a bluff and robust man of the people, and Herluf Zahle, of the Foreign Office, chamberlain, and a diplomatist of great tact, polish and experience.

Mr. Edward Brandès and Mr. Erik de Scavenius, interviewed, denied that there was any question of the sale. 'Had I ever spoken to Edward Brandès on the subject of the sale?' I was asked point-blank. As I had while in Copenhagen, only formal relations with the members of the Government, except those connected with the Foreign Office, I was enabled to say No quite honestly. It was unnecessary for me to deny the possession of a secret not my own, too, because, when asked if I had spoken to the Foreign Minister on the subject of the sale, I always said that I was always hoping for such an event, I had spoken on the subject to Count Raben-Levitzau, Count Ahlefeldt-Laurvig and Erik de Scavenius whenever I had a chance. I felt like the boy who avoided Sunday School because his father was a Presbyterian and his mother a Jewess; this left me out. I trembled for the fate of Mr. de Scavenius and Mr. Edward Brandès when their political opponents (some of them the most imaginative folk in Denmark) should learn the facts. A lie, in my opinion, is the denying of the truth to those who have a moral right to know it. The press had no right whatever to know the truth, but even the direct diplomatic denial of a fact to persons who have no right to know it is bound to be – uncomfortable! I was astonished that both Mr. Brandès and Mr. Scavenius had been so direct; political opponents are so easily shocked and so loud in their pious appeals to Providence! For myself, I was sorry that I could not give Mr. Albert Thorup, of the Associated Press, a 'tip.' He is such a decent man, and I shall always be grateful to him, but I was forced to connive at his losing a great 'scoop.'

The breakers began to roar; anybody but the Foreign Minister would have lost his nerve. Two visiting American journalists, who had an inkling of possibilities of the truth, behaved like gentlemen and patriots, as they are, and agreed to keep silent until the State Department should give them permission to release it. These were Mr. William C. Bullitt, of the Philadelphia Ledger, and Mr. Montgomery Schuyler, of the New York Times. The newspaper, Copenhagen, was the first to hint at the secret, which, by this time, had become a secret de Polichinelle. Various persons were blamed; the Parliament afterwards appointed a committee of examination. On August 1st, 1916, I find in my diary, – 'Thank heaven! the secret is out in the United States, but not through us.' 'Secret diplomacy' is difficult in this era of newspapers. If we are to have a Secretary of Education in the cabinet of the future, why not a Secretary of the Press?

A happy interlude in the summer of 1916 was the visit of Henry Van Dyke and his wife and daughter. It was a red letter night when he came to dinner. We forgot politics, and talked of Stedman, Gilder and the elder days.

The first inkling that the secret de Polichinelle was out came from a cable in Le Temps of Paris. Mr. Bapst, the French Minister, who had very unjustly been accused of being against the sale, came to tell me he knew that the Treaty had been signed by Secretary Lansing and Mr. Brun in Washington. I was not at liberty to commit myself yet, so I denied that the Treaty had been signed in Washington. Mr. Bapst sighed; I knew what he thought of me; but I had told the truth; the Treaty had been signed in New York.

Sir Henry Lowther, the British Minister, was frankly delighted that the question of the Islands was about to be opened. Irgens, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs in Norway, and a good friend to the United States, shook his head. 'If Norway owned islands, we would never give them up,' he said; but he was glad that they were going to us. The other colleagues, including Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the German Minister, were occupied with other things. Count Rantzau was desirous of keeping peace with the United States. I think that he regarded war with us as so dangerous as to be almost unthinkable. I found Count Rantzau a very clever man; he played his game fairly. It was a game, and he was a colleague worth any man's respect. He is one of the most cynical, brilliant, forcible diplomatists in Europe, with liberal tendencies in politics. If he lives, he ought to go far, as he is plastic and sees the signs of the times. I found him delightful; but he infuriated other people. One day, when he is utterly tired of life, he will consciously exasperate somebody to fury, in order to escape the trouble of committing suicide himself.

The plot thickened. The ideas of the Foreign Office were, as a rule, mine – but here there was sometimes an honest difference. I was willing to work with the Foreign Office, but not under it. De Scavenius never expected this, but I think it was sometimes hard for him to see that I could not, in all details, follow his plans. Nothing is so agreeable as to have men of talent to deal with; and I never came from an interview with de Scavenius or Chamberlain Clan, even when, perhaps, de Scavenius did not see my difficulties clearly, without an added respect for these gentlemen.

The air was full of a rumour that the United States, suspected in Europe, in spite of the fair treatment of Cuba and the Philippines, of imperialism, had made threats against Denmark, involving what was called 'pressure.' Whether it was due to enemy propaganda or not, the insinuation that the Danish West Indies would be taken by force, because Denmark was helpless, underlay many polite conversations.

'The United States would not dare to oblige France or England or a South American Republic to give up an island. She does not attempt to coerce Holland; but in spite of the pretensions to altruism, she threatens Denmark.'

This was an assertion constantly heard. The charges of imperialism made in our newspapers against some of the 'stalwart' politicians who were supposed to have influenced President McKinley in older days, were not forgotten. Letters poured in, asking if it were possible that I had used threats to the Danish Government.

The Danish politicians were turning their ploughshares into swords. On August 4th the Rigstag went into 'executive session.' Chamberlain Hegermann-Lindencrone still heartily approved of the sale. He had, he said, tried to arrange it, under President McKinley's administration, through a hint from Major Cortelyon when he was in Paris. The attitude of the press became more and more evident. Mr. Holger Angelo, one of the best 'interviewers' in the Danish press, and very loyal to his paper, the National News (National Tidende), came to see me. Personally, he was desirous not to wound me or to criticise the conduct of my Government; but he was strongly against the sale, yet he could find no valid arguments against it. He was obliged to admit reluctantly that the only ground on which his paper could make an attack was the denial of the Cabinet Ministers that any negotiations had existed. This was the line all the opposition papers would follow.

Nobody would say that the purchase had been negotiated on any grounds unfavourable to the national sensibilities of the Danes. Even Admiral de Richelieu admitted that neither my Government nor myself had failed to give what help could be given to his plans for improving the economic conditions of the Islands.

On August 10th the debate in the Rigstag showed, as had been expected, that Mr. J. C. Christensen, who held the balance of power, would demand a new election under the New Constitution. A furious attack was made on Messrs. Brandès and de Scavenius for having denied the existence of negotiations. All this was expected. Nobody really wanted a new election. It was too risky under war conditions.

Suddenly the rumour was revived that the British Fleet would break the neutrality of Denmark by moving through the Great Belt, and that the United States was secretly preparing to send its fleet through the Belt to help the British. The reason of this was apparent: every rumour that corroborated the impression that the United States would become a belligerent injured the chances of the sale. Such delay, to my knowledge, was an evil, since the continued U-boat horror made a war imminent. In spite of all optimism, advice from the American Embassy at Berlin, direct and indirect, pointed that way. The crisis would no doubt be delayed – this was our impression – but it must come. Count Brockdorff-Rantzau hoped to the last that it might be avoided, and Prince Wittgenstein of his Legation, who knew all sides, seemed to believe that a conflict with the United States might yet be avoided. And there was still a dim hope, but it became dimmer every day, so that my desire to expedite matters became an obsession.

On August 12th, J. C. Christensen seemed to hold the Folkerting (the Lower House) in the hollow of his hand. He moved to appeal to the country, and to leave the question of a sale to a new Rigstag. This meant more complications, more delay, and perhaps defeat through the threatening of the war clouds. J. C. Christensen's motion was defeated by eleven votes.

On August 14th it was concluded that the quickest and least dangerous way of securing assent to the sale was by an appeal to the people, not through a general election, but through a plebiscite, in which every man and woman of twenty-nine would vote, under the provisions of the New Constitution.

The Landsting (the Upper House) held a secret meeting. If a coalition ministry should not be arranged and the motion for a plebiscite should fail, there would certainly be a general election. This would, I thought, be fatal, as it would probably mean a postponement of the sale until after the close of the war. In the meantime, we heard the German representatives of the Hamburg-American Line at St. Thomas were carrying on 'some unusual improvements.' These activities, begun without the knowledge of the Governor, who was then in Denmark, were stopped by the Minister of Justice, Mr. Edward Brandès, when the knowledge of them was brought to the Danish Government. On August 15th I was convinced that one of the most important men in Denmark, indeed in Europe, Etatsraad H. N. Andersen, of the East Asiatic Company, approved of the sale. This I had believed, but I was delighted to hear it from his own lips.

Political confusion became worse. In some circumstances the Danes are as excitable as the French used to be. It looked, towards the end of August, as if the project of the sale was to be a means of making of Denmark, then placid and smiling under a summer sun, a veritable seething cauldron. The gentlemen of the press enjoyed themselves. I, who had the reputation of having on all occasions a bonne presse, fell from grace. I had not, it is true, concealed the truth by diplomatic means, as had Mr. Edward Brandès and Mr. Erik de Scavenius, but I had talked 'so much and so ingenuously' to the newspaper men, as one of them angrily remarked, that they were sure a man, hitherto so frank, had nothing to conceal; and yet there had been much concealed.

The Opposition, which would have been pleasantly horrified to discover any evidence of bribery, or, indeed, any evidence of the methods by which our Legation had managed its side of the affair (they hoped for the worst), could discover very little; when they called on de Scavenius to show all the incriminating documents in the case, they found there was nothing incriminating, and the documents were the slightest scraps of paper.

Knowing how far away our Department of State was, how busy and how undermanned, owing to the attitude which Congress has hitherto assumed towards it, I acted as I thought best as each delicate situation arose, always arranging as well as I could not to compromise my Government, and to give it a chance to disavow any action of mine should it be necessary. I had found this a wise course in the Cook affair. I had resolved to take no notice of Dr. Cook, until the Royal Danish Geographical Society determined to recognise him as a scientist of reputation.

When Commander Hovgaard, who had been captain of the king's yacht, asked me to go with the Crown Prince, President of the Geographical Society, to meet the American explorer, I went; but my Government was in no way committed. In fact, President Taft understood the situation well; receiving no approval of Dr. Cook from me, he merely answered Dr. Cook's telegram, congratulating him on 'his statement.' I must say that, when the Royal Geographical Society received Cook, no word of disapproval from any American expert had reached our Legation or the Geographical Society itself. The Society, with no knowledge of the Mount McKinley incident, behaved most courteously to an American citizen who appeared to have accomplished a great thing. The only indication that made me suspect that Dr. Cook was not scientific was that he spoke most kindly of all his – may I say it? – step-brother scientists! But, as I had accompanied the Crown Prince, in gratitude for his kind attention to a compatriot, I felt sure that a wise Department would only, at the most, reprimand me for exceeding the bounds of courtesy.

Suddenly a crashing blow struck us; Edward Brandès, in the midst of a hot debate, in which he and de Scavenius were fiercely attacked, announced that the United States was prepared to exert 'friendly pressure.' Brandès is too clever a man to be driven into such a statement through inadvertence; he must have had some object in making it. What the object was I did not know – nobody seemed to know. Even de Scavenius seemed to think he had gone too far, for whatever were the contents of Minister Brun's despatches, it was quite certain that neither he nor our Government would have allowed a threat made to Denmark involving the possession of her legitimately held territory to become public.

Something had to be done to avoid the assumption that we were no more democratic than Germany. 'We wanted the territory from a weaker nation; we were prepared to seize it, if we could not buy it! We Americans were all talking of the rights of the little nations. Germany wanted to bleed France, and she took Belgium after having insolently demanded that she should give up her freedom. We, the most democratic of nations, prepared to pay for certain Islands; but if it was not convenient for a friendly power to sell her territory, we would take it.' This was the inference drawn from Mr. Edward Brandès' words in Parliament. I could not contradict a member of the Government, and yet I was called on, especially by Danes who had lived in the United States, to explain what this 'pressure' meant.

Many Danish women who approved of the social freedom of American women, but mistrusted our Government's refusing them the suffrage, took the question up with me. 'Pressure et tu Brute!' The women were to vote in the plebiscite. Some of their leaders balked at the word 'pressure,' but a country which had hitherto refused the suffrage to American women was capable of anything. Mr. Edward Brandès had performed a great service to his country in letting out some of the horrors of our secret diplomacy. Mr. Constantin Brun, whose loyalty to his own country I invoked in these interviews, was, they said, 'corrupted' in the United States; he was more American than the Americans! I should have much preferred to be put in the 'Ananias Society' so suddenly formed of Mr. Brandès and Mr. de Scavenius than to have myself set down as an imperialist of a country as arrogant as it was grasping, which not only threatened to seize Danish territory, but which, while pretending to hold the banner of democracy in the war of nations, deprived the best educated women in the world (Mrs. Chapman Catt had said so) of their inalienable right to vote!

Fortunately, I had once lectured at the request of some of the leading suffragists. Bread cast upon the waters is often returned, toasted and buttered, by grateful hands. Madame de Münter – wife of the Chamberlain – and Madame Gad, wife of the Admiral, were great lights in the Feminist movement.

Madame Gad is a most active, distinguished and benevolent woman of letters. There were others, too, who felt that there must be some redeeming features in a condition of society which produced a Minister who was so devoted to woman suffrage as I was (as my wife gave some of the best dinners in Denmark, nobody expected her to go beyond that!). To Madame de Münter I owed much good counsel and a circle of defenders; to Madame Gad (if we had an Order of Valiant Women, I should ask that she be decorated), I am told I owe the chance that helped to turn the women's vote in our favour, and induced many ladies, who were patriotic traditionalists, to abstain from voting. The general opinion, as far as I could gauge it – and I tried to get expert testimony – was that the women's vote would be against us.

The National News (National Tidende) had never been favourable to the United States, though personally I had no reason to complain of it. It was moderate in politics, not brilliant, but very well written. The virtue of its editor was outraged by the denial of the two Ministers that negotiations for the sale of the Islands had been in process. This position in defence of the truth edified the community. 'Truth, though the heavens fall!' was his motto; he kept up a fusillade against the sale. Except that one of my interviews had been unintentionally misquoted, I had hitherto been out of the newspapers – though I was no longer, in the opinion of the whole press, the sweet and promising young poet of sixty-five who had written sonnets – now I was forced in.

An interview appeared triumphantly in the National News. It was attributed to one of the most discreet officials of the State Department. It denied 'pressure,' which would have pleased me, if it had not also contradicted my repeated statement that the Senate of the United States would not adjourn without ratifying the treaty. It was a blow. I questioned at once the authenticity of the interview. The Senate, I had said, would ratify the treaty before the end of the session. The Danish Foreign Office and the public took my word for it. Unless I could get a disavowal of the interview by cable, it would seem that the Department of State was not supporting me. The Foreign Office itself, with the problem of our entering the war before it, was beginning to be disheartened. The authenticity of the interview meant failure, the triumph of the enemies of the sale! After a brief interval, a denial of the interview, which had been fabricated in London, came to our Legation. There was joy in Nazareth, but it did not last long.

With the permission of the Foreign Office, I prepared to give this very definite denial from our State Department to the press. It was a busy evening. The staff of the Legation was small, and the necessity of sending men to the Rigstag to watch the debate in the Landsting, where the treaty was being considered, of gathering information, and of translating and copying important documents relating to the Islands for transmission to the United States, strained our energies. Moreover, the Secretary of Legation, Mr. Alexander Richardson Magruder, had just been transferred to Stockholm. Mr. Joseph G. Groeninger, the Clerk, who knew all the details relating to the affair of the Islands, was up to his eyes in work. Mr. Cleveland Perkins, the honorary attaché, was struggling heroically with Danish reports, and I was at the telephone receiving information, seeing people, and endeavouring to discover just where we stood. A most trustworthy – but inexperienced – young man was in charge of the downstairs office, where Mr. Groeninger, the omniscient, usually reigned. I telephoned to him a memorandum on the subject of 'pressure' which the bogus interview had denied. It was a quotation from the 'interview,' to be made the subject of comment, and then the denial. Both of these were sent up on the same piece of typewritten paper, and O.K.ed by me, as a matter of routine. It was not until late in the night that the young man discovered that a mistake had been made. He was most contrite, though the mistake was my fault and due to thoughtlessly following the usual routine. He telephoned at once to the National News and to the other newspapers explaining that he had made a mistake. The National News preferred to ignore his explanation. The opportunity of accusing the Ministry of further duplicity was too tempting. De Scavenius had lied again, and I had connived at it. The denial of the Washington telegram was 'faked' by the American Minister in collusion with the Minister of Foreign Affairs! It must be admitted that Politiken, edited by the terribly clever Cavling, had driven the slower-witted National Tidende to desperation. I had a bad morning; then I resolved to draw the full fire of the National News on myself. I owed it to de Scavenius, who had become rather tired of being called a liar in all the varieties of rhetoric of which Copenhagen slang is capable. From the American point of view, after I had made my plan, it was amusing – all the more amusing, since, after the first regret that I had unwittingly added to the opera bouffe colour of the occasion, I saw that the National Tidende would become so abusive against me, that I should soon be an interesting victim of vituperative persecution. I repeated calmly the truth that the 'interview' was a fabrication, adding that I had no intention to attack the honour of the National Tidende; it had been deceived; I merely wanted it understood that my Government was not in the habit of contradicting its responsible representatives (Politiken kindly added that the National Tidende had received its information from the 'coloured door-keeper at the White House'). More fire and fury signifying nothing! The most elaborate frightfulness in print missed its mark, as nobody at the Legation had time to translate the rhetoric of the Furies, and besides, the National Tidende had no case. As I hoped, the diplomatic sins of the Foreign Office in keeping the secret were forgotten in the flood of invective directed against me. The result was expressed in my diary: – 'The row has proved a help to the treaty; I did not know I had so many friends in Denmark. My hour of desolation was when I feared that somebody in the State Department had permitted himself to be interviewed. It was a dark hour!' After this tempest in a tea-pot, all talk about 'pressure' ceased; the air was, at least, clear of that – and I thanked heaven.