AMERICAN Photo submitted by W. W. Schott THE TWELFTH CENTURY CATHEDRAL AT PALERMO Vol. VI SEPTEMBER. 1924 No. 9 FEDERAL-AMERICAN NATIONAL BANK NOW IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION IN WASHINGTON, D. C. W. T. GALLIHER, Chairman of the Board JOHN POOLE, President RESOURCES OVER $13,000,000.00 LLETIN JSlUn.; PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE AMERICAN CONSULAR ASSOCIATION VOL. VI. No. 9 WASHINGTON, D. C. SEPTEMBER, 1924 Speech By Mr. Grew THE day on which I took my first bath before I can assure you that the new Association will a Diplomatic or Consular officer and pro¬ receive the very warm and hearty support of the ceeded to my post (with apologies to the members of the diplomatic branch of the Service. last number of the BULLETIN) I experienced two I have always taken particular satisfaction in distinct feelings; one of pleasure and satisfaction the fact that my first post was a consular one and at entering this great service of ours and the other that I spent two years gaining familiarity with the of something bordering on consternation at the work of that branch of the Service. I shall never prospect of the ordeal of the bath. I find my¬ forget the youthful pride with which I first saw self today experiencing much the same feelings—- a report of mine on Egyptian cotton published in great pleasure and satisfaction in the enjoyment the Trade Bulletins: true, several nights of work of your very kind and courteous hospitality, which and many pages were boiled down to five or six I highly appreciate and for which I warmly thank lines of print, but I felt then that I had become you, and the other feeling of trepidation at the at least a modest member of the great army of prospect of trying to justify my presence here by experts who keep our country informed of com¬ telling you something of interest. However, Mr. mercial opportunities abroad. Young was good enough to ask me to say a few On entering the Service, I was about as vague words to you and I shall consequently try in an as to its duties as was the lady in Switzerland who, entirely informal way to speak on a subject which upon my being introduced to her as the American I think lies very near to the hearts of all of us: Minister, asked me what church I was a minister the Foreign Service. in. I replied that technically speaking I supposed I have always admired the Consular Associa¬ my denomination was Legational. But I very tion as I admire any organization that tends to soon found out one of its main duties. About contribute to the esprit de corps of a great public one-half of the miscellaneous letters we received service, and I know that your Association together were addressed not to the American Consul, but with its official organ THE BULLETIN, has done to the American Counsel. There was the secret that in full measure. I am extremely glad that in a nutshell: the citizen at home and abroad turns the proposal has now been made to broaden the to that service for counsel and assistance in a scope of your Association to include the whole thousand different matters; counsel and assistance Foreign Service. This is a subject in which I in trade, commerce, industry and shipping; in have been much interested and two or three years legal and financial difficulties; in travel and resi¬ ago I had considerable correspondence with De dence ; in shipwreck and sickness; in poverty and Witt Poole in the Department with regard to the distress. And when it is within the bounds of matter. At that moment the time did not appear human possibility, the Consul never fails to to be ripe, but under our new organization, the respond. From the vast store of his experience, proper time for the Association to broaden its information and knowledge, and often from the scope now appears to have arrived and I think vast store of his human sympathy as well, he 313 gives out his counsel and assistance, whether it some have contributed much, some a little, while be to the individual, the business house, or the the plans of others have been discarded. But the country at large. master architect, whose plans have been developed When a great permanent public building is to and tested during these fifteen years and more, be erected there are many steps who saw clearly when others in the process. First of all, the doubted and steadily pushed the ground has to be levelled off great undertaking to a conclu¬ and the foundations sunk and sion, is the man who perhaps given firm stability before the above all others in the service structure can stand against the commands our admiration, our effect of shifting sands beneath affection and our respect, Wil¬ and storms above. Then the bur J. Carr. Another man architects, with close accuracy raised the funds, concluded the as to detail but broad vision as contract and laid the corner to general conception, must stone, without which the build¬ plan an edifice that will be ing could not proceed: in tbe serviceable, durable and withal face of opposition he worked well balanced in proportion. unceasingly until finally his Finally the corner stone is laid public-spirited efforts met with and then the builders, choosing full success. His name is the sound material that is at permanently engraved on that hand while discarding that stone and it will always be held which has flaws and doubtful in grateful appreciation and re¬ seams, proceed little by little to spect by those who know and develop the great superstruc¬ ©Harris & Ewing understand the great work that ture, stage by stage, until it C. C. EBERHARDT he accomplished—John Jacob stands proudly forth, complete, Chairman of the Executive Com¬ Rogers. unassailable, an inspiration to mittee of the Foreign Service And now I come to the the community and a service¬ Personnel Board builders, working under the able asset to the nation. master builder, Charles Evans I like to think of our Foreign years ago, if I may inter¬ Hughes, whose determination that Service as such an edifice. Twenty pret the simile, the ground the building shall prove both was bare above, and be¬ neath the shifting sands moved with every incoming Administration and ren¬ dered perilous any attempt to build upon that barren waste. Then came the foundation layers, Roose¬ velt, Root and Taft. They dug deep and laid the great blocks of granite upon which some day the hoped- for building could l>e firmly established. Meanwhile the architects were not idle. They saw visions and dreamed dreams and they planned with foresight and ©Harris & Ewing accuracy against the time ©Underwood, & Underwood H. R. WILSON when the work could pro¬ E. J. NORTON Member of the Executive Com¬ ceed. There have been Member of the Executive Com¬ mittee many architects at work; mittee 314 AMERICAN r^QNSHLAJR.J^ULLEXm durable and efficient is an inspiration to us all. And here I leave our simile and get down to plain but mighty inter¬ esting facts, the facts concerning the feature of our Foreign Service. Your Personnel Board has not been idle. At its very first meeting I took occasion to empha¬ size to my colleagues on the Board the primary importance of our work because on the policies adopted and followed with regard to the move¬ ments of personnel, including transfers, pro¬ motions and interchanges, would depend in a large measure the morale and spirit and esprit de corps of the whole Foreign Service, which in turn would affect the general efficiency of the Service. We all realized that the greatest wisdom, fore¬ sight and cooperative spirit would be needed to deal with these prob¬ lems. I have been asso¬ ciated with a good many different commissions and committees and Photo from O. S. Heizer boards, but I do not STREET SCENE IN BAGDAD know of any on which I have found a more genuine cooperative important work with such a body of men as now spirit and a more wholehearted effort to reach compose the Board. the high results we are aiming at than on I need not deal in detail with the steps which this Personnel Board of the Foreign Service. the Board has already taken nor with the general There is plenty of determination among its mem¬ policy which it proposes to follow. This has all bers and no difficulty has been found in taking been set forth in a circular instruction to the firm decisions, even disagreeable ones, when they officers of the Foreign Service which will shortly were called for. Those who do not maintain the be available to everyone. required standard must go down or go out. But There is one phase of our proposed policy, how¬ this spirit has been tempered by a degree of ever, which I should like to touch upon as it human sympathy and understanding of the per¬ may materially affect future assignments in the sonal equation in every individual case dealt with, Service. which has guaranteed and will continue to Since beginning my duties here there has come guarantee a square deal to every man and the forcibly and strikingly to my notice, the volume elimination of red tape and bureaucratic methods and importance of our work in Latin America. which so often stultify the work of such a body. Our material interests in that section of the world I may say that it is a high privilege and a pro¬ are immense and are constantly increasing, while found satisfaction to me to be associated in this (Continued on page 349) 315 Consular Association Meets ON August 4, 1924, after the close of busi¬ between the Executive Committee of the Associa¬ ness in the Department of State, the tion and an informal committee representing the Consular officers in Washington met in Diplomatic branch of the Foreign Service respect¬ Room 109 and unanimously adopted the following ing the organization of an' American Foreign resolution: Service Association, embracing both branches of WHEREAS the Act of May 24, 1924, which the Service.