320 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE -XXIH 



United States will yet stand with the majority on the 

 record. 



I stated afterward in a bantering way to Captain 

 Mahan, as well as others, that while I could not support 

 any of the arguments that had been made in favor of 

 allowing asphyxiating bombs, there was one which some 

 what appealed to me namely, that the dread of them 

 might do something to prevent the rush of the rural 

 population to the cities, and the aggregation of the poorer 

 classes in them, which is one of the most threatening 

 things to modern society, and also a second argument 

 that such bombs would bring home to warlike stay-at- 

 home orators and writers the realities of war. 



At noon received the French translation of our me 

 morial to De Staal, but found it very imperfect through 

 out, and in some parts absolutely inadmissible; so I 

 worked with Baron de Bildt, president of the Swedish 

 delegation here, all the afternoon in revising it. 



At six the American delegation met and chose me for 

 their orator at the approaching Grotius festival at Delft. 

 I naturally feel proud to discharge a duty of this kind, 

 and can put my heart into it, for Grotius has long been 

 to me almost an object of idolatry, and his main works 

 a subject of earnest study. There are few men in his 

 tory whom I so deeply venerate. Twenty years ago, 

 when minister at Berlin, I sent an eminent American 

 artist to Holland and secured admirable copies of the 

 two best portraits of the great man. One of these now 

 hangs in the Law Library of Cornell University, and 

 the other over my work-table at the Berlin Embassy. 



June 23. 



At work all the morning on letters and revising final 

 draft of memorial on immunity of private property at 

 sea, and lunched afterward at the &quot; House in the Wood&quot; 

 to talk it over with Baron de Bildt. 



At the same table met M. de Martens, who has just 

 returned by night to his work here, after presiding a 



