14 THE CUBA REVIEW 



The Duties of United States Consuls 



By Wilbtir J. Carr, Director of the Consular Service 



There is probably no class of officers of the Government whose functions are less 

 correctly understood by the public than Consuls. To one man a Consul is a convenienl 

 or inconvenient visaer of passports, depending entirely upon whether he did or did not 

 act as favorably as the individual desired him to do; to another the word Consul signifies 

 a glorified traveling salesman charged with the duty of marketing American goods in 

 foreign lands; and to still another the Consul is a protector of American lives and 

 property abroad. Many a wife remembers the Consul only as the official witness at her 

 marriage in a foreign country when, as the law permits, he gave her a consular certificate 

 as evidence that the marriage ceremony was performed in his presence. Many a mother 

 knows the Consul only as a good and kind friend in the far-away land who found and sent 

 her wayward son back to the old home in the United States. 



Since the contact of each of these persons has been solely through the channel in 

 which he or she was most interested, it is not unnatural that no broader conception of the 

 functions of the Consul should have been gained. It would hardly occur to any of these 

 individuals that their contact had been with an organization of trained officers gathering 

 information, extending protection, enforcing American laws and exerting American influ 

 ence in 400 cities in fifty countries in the world, an organization employing 2,500 men and 

 women, costing about $4,500,000 annually and returning to the Treasury of the United 

 States in the year 1921 the sum of $8,500,000, thus showing a net profit to the Government 

 for that year of over $4,000,000. Neither would it occur to any of them that the members 

 of that organization were serving daily ten departments and numerous independent estab 

 lishments of the Government in Washington and, through them or directly, many thousands 

 of individual citizens throughout the country. That is the fact, however. It is the 

 purpose of this article briefly to survey the most important of these activities. 



Inasmuch as the system of consular representation developed out of the necessity for 

 some international agency to follow the mariner and the trader and later the traveler 

 beyond the jurisdiction of his native country and to obtain for him in all parts of the 

 world the protection and intervention of his own Government, it is to be expected that 

 first and foremost of the functions of consular officers should be the protection of the lives 

 and property of Americans traveling or residing abroad and in many ways contributing to 

 their welfare. With the enormous expansion of our commerce in the last decade, the 

 large investment of American capital in foreign enterprises, and latterly the unparalleled 

 expansion of the American merchant marine, there has been a steady increase in the num- 

 ber of travelers, traders, students, seamen and others journeying to foreign lands and in 

 the appeals from them to their government for the protection of their interests, the 

 adjustment of their difficulties with the local foreign authorities or redress or indemnifica- 

 tion for injuries and losses sustained. 



A Difficult Rescue 



The Department of State and the Consular Service dealt with 48,078 cases of this 

 description last year. One, although typical in many respects, was of such an unusual 

 character as to justify a more detailed description. A merchant from New York was on 

 a business trip to the Russian Caucasus. While he was there a revolution occurred in the 

 district in which his business lay. His silence alarmed his relatives in the United States 

 and the aid of the Department of State was sought, which in turn learned through the 

 Consul at the place nearest the seat of the disturbance that the merchant was detained by 

 the revolutionists and was without means. Money was supplied by the relatives and trans- 

 mitted by the Department of State to the Consul. That resourceful officer succeeded in 

 employing an adventurous agent who found his way through the lines of the revolutionists, 

 obtained the merchant's release, after much difficulty, brought him back to the Consul and 

 started him on his way to America. 



