• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL BANKING AND INVESTMENT SERVICE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD The National City Bank of New York and Affiliated Institutions THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK CAPITAL, SURPLUS AND UNDIVIDED PROFITS $242,409,425.19 (AS OF MARCH 27, 19,10) HEAD OFFICE FORTY ONE BRANCHES IN 55 WALL STREET. NEW YORK GREATER NEW YORK Foreign Branches in ARGENTINA . BELGIUM . BRAZIL . CHILE . CHINA . COLOMBIA . CUBA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC . ENGLAND . INDIA . ITALY . JAPAN . MEXICO . PERU . PHILIPPINE ISLANDS . PORTO RICO . REPUBLIC OF PANAMA . STRAITS SETTLEMENTS . URUGUAY . VENEZUELA. THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK (FRANCE) S. A. Paris 41 BOULEVARD HAUSSMANN 44 AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES Nice: 6 JARDIN du Roi ALBERT ler INTERNATIONAL BANKING CORPORATION (OWNED BY THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK) Head Office: 55 WALL STREET, NEW YORK Foreign and Domestic Branches in UNITED STATES . SPAIN - ENGLAND and Representatives in The National City Bank Chinese Branches BANQUE NATIONALE DE LA REPUBLIQUE D’HAITI (AFFILIATED WITH THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK) Head Office: PORT AU-PRINCE, HAITI CITY BANK FARMERS TRUST COMPANY (AFFILIATED WITH THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK) Head Office: 22 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK Temporary Headquarters: 43 EXCHANGE PLACE THE NATIONAL CITY COMPANY (AFFILIATED WITH THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK) HEAD OFFICE 66 WALL STREET, NEW YORK Foreign Offices: LONDON . AMSTERDAM . GENEVA . TOKIO . SHANGHAI Canadian Offices: MONTREAL . TORONTO The National City Company, through its offices and affiliations in the United States and abroad, offers a world-wide investment service to those interested in Dollar Securities. FOREIGN S JOURNAL PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION VOL. VII. No. 8 WASHINGTON. D. C. AUGUST, 1930 The Victory By JOSEPH EMERSON HAVEN, Consul, Florence, Italy The Consul pushed his way through the small A chair, a “cloudy” mirror, an almost empty crowd gathered around the doorway of the mean suitcase, a pile of nondescript clothing on the floor little pension on the back street and went up the at the foot of the bed, a washstand, a pitcher narrow stairs. against which had been placed a letter, a passport Small doubt could exist that the basement of and a tiny American flag, completed the brief in¬ the building was used as a storehouse for virulent ventory of the room from which had so recently forms of Italian cheese and that next door, prob¬ slipped a soul into the Great Beyond. ably a cabman and certainly his horse had lodg¬ The Consul shivered slightly for while scenes ings. Up through these fundamentals and into of tragedy were not unknown to him in his career, the more aristocratic regions of garlic, yesterday’s the chill earliness of the hour, the pitiful sur¬ cabbage soup and the myriad of musty smells roundings, and the presence of that which repre¬ which only a mean little pension on a back street sented a futile struggle against circumstances, can yield, the Consul climbed until, nearing the made him heartsick. His eyes took in the hideous third floor, a new odor assailed his nostrils and and soiled wallpaper, greasy near the wall over the answer to his first question of “How,” was all the bed where countless heads of uncomfortable too evident. but tired “guests” had left their record; farther By the door of the room at the rear of the cor¬ along, many mute testimonials of battles waged ridor stood a police officer and the slattern figure with mosquitoes (and probably other insects), in of the “padrona” who in hushed but emphatic which the two-footed warrior had conquered the phrases called on the Saints to bear witness that six-footed invaders; and still farther along the such as this had never before happened in her same wall, the hopeless and bewildered blend of house which had always been law-abiding—and color where dirty water had splashed when thrown now the reputation of her pension was ruined and too hurriedly into the slop bucket. God alone could say what was to come of it all. Saluting the officer, who stepped aside, and The sordidness and the symbol of mute protest pushing by the excited pension keeper, who had on the bed beneath the sheet, the smell of stale begun anew her recital for the edification of a food, the echo of the “padrona’s” continued wail gallery of awed faces, peering over the railings which had by now reached a sniveling stage, and from the floor above, the Consul entered the little the accusing odor of gas made the Consul’s head room that showed grim and sullen in the gray swim and it was not until he felt a hand on his light of early morning which filtered in through arm that he realized he was not alone but that what remained of the dirty window pane, broken the Commissario had returned with the police by the police in the first vain effort to save that surgeon whose duty it was to certify that one which now lay so still on the sagging and dis¬ more feeble flame had flickered out before the couraged looking iron bed. cold wind of adversity. 277 At a nod from the Commissario, the Consul THE HALL MARK picked up the passport and turned to compare the photograph therein with the face now exposed By THOMAS D. BOWMAN, Consul General, by the police surgeon as lie gently drew back the Belfast, Northern Ireland sheet. I am not one who relishes being always an out- The face seemed to hold a tired little smile but lander. In most posts where I have been stationed it told nothing beyond age, suffering, loneliness it has not been possible to conceal foreign na¬ and perhaps—hunger. The passport picture (as tionality. Therefore, I looked forward to my resi¬ all such travesties are), told even less. But the dence in the British Isles with the hope that I name ! should be able to mingle with the public undis¬ This time the Consul started in earnest for his tinguished as an alien. mind leapt backward over a period of 40 years when as a little boy, he and his chum, with I harbored no doubts regarding my pronouncia- blistered necks and breaking backs had valiantly tion, but it never occurred to me that my appear¬ striven for several hot Saturday afternoons, ance could betray my nationality, particularly in digging out dandelion roots from a neighbor’s a city where such names as Carr, Johnson, Daw¬ lawn in order that each might secure a promised son and—aye, even my own, occupy generous “quarter.” spaces in the directory. What a sum that had been to boyish eyes but But disillusionment came before I reached Bel¬ what a glimpse of pure romance it symbolized for fast. A London barber, before I had spoken a it still cast its spell over the Consul and brought word, inquired if I had just arrived from Amer¬ back the darkened upper gallery of the Opera ica. Even after I had acquired a suit made by a House, two intent faces pressed against the pro¬ local tailor, a tram—oh, you know, street-car tecting iron rail, and far, far below in the magic conductor, not being otherwise occupied, remarked aura of the footlights, a FIGURE which person¬ to me: “I’ve been in America, lived in Hoboken ified to boyish imagination, all that was heroic. five years.” What an afternoon that had been and how cold I was perplexed. I studied the faces about me. waves had crept up their spines, alternating with In nearly every individual I saw a counterpart exciting heart thrills as their hero fought his vic¬ of a familiar face back home, corresponding to torious way against adversity through three acts. the general similarity of names already mentioned. And was ever a moment more surcharged with What then was peculiar about me that stamped emotion than when at the supreme climax, with me as “American?” upraised shining sword and eyes to Heaven, the shining embodiment had proclaimed in that deep, The explanation came from an unexpected thrilling voice, “The WORLD is mine.” quarter. An eccentric individual, who daily rides the same tram—I beg pardon, street car, that 1 The Consul was interrupted in his musing by do, sat down beside me one morning and engaged the voice of the Commissario, “Forse il Signor in a friendly conversation during which he re¬ Console conosce ” marked : Yes, the Signor Console did know but how “I suppose you Americans find those glasses could he make the functionary of the law com¬ very comfortable?” prehend that the ashes which lay before him had I suppose Harold Lloyd is to blame. once been the glowing fire in which his boyish eyes had seen visions of the great world—visions which had led him eventually from his prosaic home in the Middle Western town to the ranks THE OLIVER BISHOP HAR- of the Foreign Service. RIMAN FOREIGN SERVICE Taking the little American flag from the wash- SCHOLARSHIP stand, the Consul advanced quietly to the bedside and slipped it into the wrinkled hand which lay The Advisory Committee of the Oliver Bishop above the stilled heart. “The world was yours, Harriman Foreign Service Scholarship announces Maestro,” he said, “you made it better for having that the scholarship for the scholastic year 1930- lived therein, and you have left it for greater 31 has been awarded to Messrs. Edgar W. Lakin worlds to conquer.” and Tyler G. Kent. 278 PRIMO DE RIVERA AN APPRECIATION WRITTEN ON THE DAY OF HIS FUNERAL By MARGUERITE AULD EDWARDS (MRS.

Load more

  44

Copy Link