AS AMBASSADOR TO GERM ANY -1897-1903 153 



It was fortunate, indeed, that at this period the Ameri 

 can Secretary of State was Mr. John Hay and the German 

 minister of foreign affairs Count von Billow. Both at 

 Washington and Berlin the light of plain common sense 

 was gradually let into this jungle of half truths and whole 

 falsehoods; the appointment of an excellent special com 

 mission, who supplanted all the officials in the islands by 

 new men, solved various preliminary problems, so that 

 finally a treaty was made between the three nations con 

 cerned which swept away the old vicious system, parti 

 tioned the islands between the United States and Germany, 

 giving Great Britain indemnity elsewhere, and settled all 

 the questions involved, as we may hope, forever. 



Among my duties and pleasures during this period was 

 attendance upon important debates in the Imperial Parlia 

 ment. That body presents many features suggestive of 

 thought. The arrangement under which the Senate, rep 

 resenting the various states of the empire, and the House, 

 representing the people as a whole, sit face to face in joint 

 deliberation, strikes an American as especially curious; 

 but it seems to work well, and has one advantage in bring 

 ing the most eminent servants of the various states into 

 direct personal relations with the rank and file from the 

 country at large. The German Parliament has various 

 good points. Some one has asserted that the United States 

 Senate is as much better than the British House of Lords 

 as the British House of Commons is better than the Ameri 

 can House of Representatives. There is much to be said 

 for this contention, and there are some points in which 

 the German Parliament also struck me as an improvement 

 upon our Lower House : they do less than we in committee, 

 and more in the main assemblage ; German members are 

 more attentive to the work in hand, and spread-eagleism 

 and speeches to the galleries which are tolerated at Wash 

 ington are not tolerated at Berlin. On the other hand, 

 the members at Berlin, not being paid for their services, 

 absent themselves in such numbers that the lack of a suffi 

 cient deliberating body has been found, at times, a serious 

 evil. 



