WHITE] DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF UNITED STATES 133 
would be under most powerful incentives to perfect his own training, 
widen his acquaintance, and deepen his knowledge—incentives 
which, under the old system—with its lack of appointment for ascer- 
tained fitness, lack of promotion for good service, and lack of any 
certainty of tenure—exist very rarely if at all. 
The system of promotion for merit throughout the service is no 
mere experiment; the good sense of all the leading nations of the 
world, except our own, has adopted it, and it works well. In our 
own service the old system works badly. For excellent men, both 
in its higher and lower grades, have been frequently crippled by 
want of proper experience or aid. We have, indeed, at this moment 
several admirable Secretaries—some of them fit to be Ambassadors 
or Ministers—but all laboring under conditions the most depressing 
—such as obtain in no good business enterprise. During my stay 
as Minister at St. Petersburg, the American Secretary of Legation, 
a man ideally fitted for his post, insisted on resigning. On my en- 
deavoring to retain him, he answered as follows: “I have been 
over twelve years in the American diplomatic service as Secretary ; 
I have seen the Secretaries from other countries, with whom I 
began my diplomatic career promoted until all of them still remain- 
ing in the service are in higher posts, several of them Ministers, and 
one an Ambassador. I remain as I was at the beginning, with no 
promotion and no probability of any. I feel that, as a rule, my 
present colleagues, as well as most officials with whom I have to do, 
seeing that I have not been advanced, look upon me as a failure. 
They cannot be made to understand how a man who has served so 
long as Secretary has been denied promotion for any reason save 
inefficiency. I can no longer submit to be thus looked down upon, 
and I must resign.” 
But here it ought to be acknowledged that various recent adminis- 
trations have taken steps toward a system of promotion in our diplo- 
matic service; and the present administration, more broadly and 
logically than any other. 
While thus adopting a system of promotion based upon efficiency, 
I would retain during good behavior, up to a certain age, the men 
who have done thoroughly well in the service. Clearly, when we 
secure an admirable man,—recognized as such in all parts of the 
world,—like Mr. Wheaton, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Charles Francis 
Adams, Mr. Marsh, Mr. Townsend Harris, Mr. Washburne, Mr. 
Lowell, Mr. Bayard, Mr. E. J. Phelps, Mr. Walter Phelps, and-others 
who have passed away, not to speak of many now living, we should 
