WHITE] DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF UNITED STATES I19 
Whether this alleged method really existed or not among the 
Turks, it is certainly the sort of thing contemplated in the proposal 
I have just mentioned, regarding the beginnings of international 
conflagrations. 
As a matter of historical fact, this system of special and tem- 
porary diplomatic agents was fully tried during the Middle Ages, 
with the result that for hundreds of years Europe was furrowed 
and harrowed with perpetual war, whereas the modern system, with 
all its defects, has come into existence by an evolution due to 
the environment of an ever increasing civilization, has certainly 
prevented very many germs of international trouble from develop- 
ing, and has given the world long periods of peace. 
Many examples might be mentioned, showing what can be done 
by the right man, saying the right word, at the right time, and in the 
right place, but I will remind you of just one, well known, as 
typical—that of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, our Minister to Great 
Britain during the most trying period of our Civil War. He was 
a very capable man, and was especially known as a very cool man. 
You may remember that one very hot summer, in Kansas, when 
great injury was done to cattle and crops by drought, various news- 
papers proposed that he should be sent for and asked to travel 
through the State in order to reduce its temperature. 
A crisis had come in the relations of the United States and Great 
Britain. It looked much as if a number of additional cruisers, 
nominally American but really British, were to be let loose to prey 
upon our commerce. The British Minister of Foreign Affairs at 
that time was Earl Russell, a man whom Carlyle would have called 
“a solemnly constituted impostor ” ; and as he had not prevented the 
sailing of the previous cruisers, it did not seem likely that he would 
prevent the sailing of these. But, just as they were ready to depart 
on their mission of devastation, Mr. Adams wrote Earl Russell, 
stated the case very simply, and used these memorable words, “ It 
would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this 
is war.” 
This cool, plain, straightforward statement, made in the right 
manner, to the right man, at the right moment, stopped the cruisers, 
and war was prevented—immensely to the advantage of American 
commerce and of all the interests of our country. 
For, of all the calamities to the world which one can imagine, 
there can hardly be anything more fearful than a war between the 
two great English speaking nations. Indeed, nothing could be 
worse, unless it were the relinquishment of international righteous- 
