WHITE] DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF UNITED STATES pez 
evolution of right reason, of mercy, and of a higher civilization 
which has been urged by American diplomatists steadily and on 
every possible occasion, from the days of our famous treaty with 
Frederick the Great, down to these times, when the American Dele- 
gation at the Hague Peace Conference has secured a place for dis- 
cussion of this great subject on the programme of the next general 
conference of the civilized world. 
In view of these great possibilities for a better future to the 
various nations and to universal humanity, there is no more prom- 
ising field for fruitful effort than the American diplomatic service ; 
—when it shall have been properly reorganized. 
Hence it is, especially, that every thinking lover of his country 
must look with longing to the day when there shall be in all our 
leading universities young men in training for that service. 
The first argument of those who declaim against any permanent 
diplomatic service or who would keep it in its present state of ar- 
rested development is that it is costly. But I think that you will see 
in it, really, “the cheap defense of nations.” The loss by a misun- 
derstanding, which would bring injury upon American commerce, or 
by a failure to secure speedy information which would enable us to 
protect our interests in a foreign war, might be greater than the 
cost of our diplomatic establishment for many years. The loss by a 
war, which might have been averted by a well trained diplomatist on 
the ground, might be far more than enough to maintain the whole 
diplomatic corps of the United States for decades if not for centuries. 
As a matter of fact, the entire annual appropriation for the 
diplomatic service of the United States during each of several recent 
years has been about $500,000, but the cost of military and naval 
operations during our Civil War was, to the United States, between 
one and two millions for each day. The cost of military opera- 
tions during the Franco-Prussian War, if divided equally between the 
two nations, would have amounted each day, for each, to considerably 
more than $3,000,000. It is clear then that, even if war, with 
all its improved methods, should cost no more than it did thirty 
years ago,—which is a decidedly violent supposition,—the entire 
expenditure for our diplomatic corps for one year would be only 
about the expenditure for war during four hours; and if, which 
may Heaven forbid, we should be so unfortunate as to have a war 
break out with any foreign power, our diplomatic service would pay 
for itself during about six years, if it shortened the war by a single 
day. It is altogether probable that Mr. Charles Francis Adams, 
by his timely words to Earl Russell, prevented a prolongation of 
