by Mark Twain
Sir Julian Pauncefote, the English ambassador at Washington, has a veryfine house besides--at no damage to his salary.
English ambassadors pay no house rent; they live in palaces owned byEngland. Our representatives pay house-rent out of their salaries. Youcan judge by the above figures what kind of houses the United Statesof America has been used to living in abroad, and what sort ofreturn-entertaining she has done. There is not a salary in our listwhich would properly house the representative receiving it, and, inaddition, pay $3,000 toward his family's bacon and doughnuts--thestrange but economical and customary fare of the American ambassador'shousehold, except on Sundays, when petrified Boston crackers are added.
The ambassadors and ministers of foreign nations not only have generoussalaries, but their Governments provide them with money wherewith to paya considerable part of their hospitality bills. I believe our Governmentpays no hospitality bills except those incurred by the navy. Throughthis concession to the navy, that arm is able to do us credit in foreignparts; and certainly that is well and politic. But why the Governmentdoes not think it well and politic that our diplomats should be ableto do us like credit abroad is one of those mysterious inconsistencieswhich have been puzzling me ever since I stopped trying to understandbaseball and took up statesmanship as a pastime.
To return to the matter of house-rent. Good houses, properly furnished,in European capitals, are not to be had at small figures. Consequently,our foreign representatives have been accustomed to live ingarrets--sometimes on the roof. Being poor men, it has been the bestthey could do on the salary which the Government has paid them. Howcould they adequately return the hospitalities shown them? It wasimpossible. It would have exhausted the salary in three months. Still,it was their official duty to entertain their influentials after somesort of fashion; and they did the best they could with their limitedpurse. In return for champagne they furnished lemonade; in return forgame they furnished ham; in return for whale they furnished sardines;in return for liquors they furnished condensed milk; in return for thebattalion of liveried and powdered flunkeys they furnished the hiredgirl; in return for the fairy wilderness of sumptuous decorations theydraped the stove with the American flag; in return for the orchestrathey furnished zither and ballads by the family; in return for theball--but they didn't return the ball, except in cases where the UnitedStates lived on the roof and had room.
Is this an exaggeration? It can hardly be called that. I saw nearly theequivalent of it, a good many years ago. A minister was trying to createinfluential friends for a project which might be worth ten millionsa year to the agriculturists of the Republic; and our Government hadfurnished him ham and lemonade to persuade the opposition with. Theminister did not succeed. He might not have succeeded if his salaryhad been what it ought to have been--$50,000 or $60,00 a year--but hischances would have been very greatly improved. And in any case, heand his dinners and his country would not have been joked about by thehard-hearted and pitied by the compassionate.
Any experienced 'drummer' will testify that, when you want to dobusiness, there is no economy in ham and lemonade. The drummer takes hiscountry customer to the theatre, the opera, the circus; dines him, wineshim, entertains him all the day and all the night in luxurious style;and plays upon his human nature in all seductive ways. For he knows, byold experience, that this is the best way to get a profitable order outof him. He has this reward. All Governments except our own play the samepolicy, with the same end in view; and they, also, have their reward.But ours refuses to do business by business ways, and sticks to hamand lemonade. This is the most expensive diet known to the diplomaticservice of the world.
Ours is the only country of first importance that pays its foreignrepresentatives trifling salaries. If we were poor, we could not findgreat fault with these economies, perhaps--at least one could find asort of plausible excuse for them. But we are not poor; and the excusefails. As shown above, some of our important diplomatic representativesreceive $12,000; others, $17,500. These salaries are all ham andlemonade, and unworthy of the flag. When we have a rich ambassador inLondon or Paris, he lives as the ambassador of a country like ours oughtto live, and it costs him $100,000 a year to do it. But why should weallow him to pay that out of his private pocket? There is nothing fairabout it; and the Republic is no proper subject for any one's charity.In several cases our salaries of $12,000 should be $50,000; and all ofthe salaries of $17,500 ought to be $75,000 or $100,000, since we pay norepresentative's house-rent. Our State Department realises the mistakewhich we are making, and would like to rectify it, but it has not thepower.
When a young girl reaches eighteen she is recognised as being a woman.She adds six inches to her skirt, she unplaits her dangling braids andballs her hair on top of her head, she stops sleeping with her littlesister and has a room to herself, and becomes in many ways a thunderingexpense. But she is in society now; and papa has to stand it. There isno avoiding it. Very well. The Great Republic lengthened her skirts lastyear, balled up her hair, and entered the world's society. This meansthat, if she would prosper and stand fair with society, she must putaside some of her dearest and darlingest young ways and superstitions,and do as society does. Of course, she can decline if she wants to; butthis would be unwise. She ought to realise, now that she has 'come out,'that this is a right and proper time to change a part of her style. Sheis in Rome; and it has long been granted that when one is in Rome itis good policy to do as Rome does. To advantage Rome? No--to advantageherself.
If our Government has really paid representatives of ours on the ParisCommission $100,000 apiece for six weeks' work, I feel sure that it isthe best cash investment the nation has made in many years. For it seemsquite impossible that, with that precedent on the books, the Governmentwill be able to find excuses for continuing its diplomatic salaries atthe present mean figure.
P.S.--VIENNA, January 10.--I see, by this morning's telegraphic news,that I am not to be the new ambassador here, after all. This--well,I hardly know what to say. I--well, of course, I do not care anythingabout it; but it is at least a surprise. I have for many months beenusing my influence at Washington to get this diplomatic see expandedinto an ambassadorship, with the idea, of course th--But never mind. Letit go. It is of no consequence. I say it calmly; for I am calm. But atthe same time--However, the subject has no interest for me, and neverhad. I never really intended to take the place, anyway--I made up mymind to it months and months ago, nearly a year. But now, while I amcalm, I would like to say this--that so long as I shall continue topossess an American's proper pride in the honour and dignity of hiscountry, I will not take any ambassadorship in the gift of the flag ata salary short of $75,000 a year. If I shall be charged with wanting tolive beyond my country's means, I cannot help it. A country which cannotafford ambassador's wages should be ashamed to have ambassadors.
Think of a Seventeen-thousand-five-hundred-dollar ambassador!Particularly for America. Why it is the most ludicrous spectacle, themost inconsistent and incongruous spectacle, contrivable by even themost diseased imagination. It is a billionaire in a paper collar, a kingin a breechclout, an archangel in a tin halo. And, for pure sham andhypocrisy, the salary is just the match of the ambassador's officialclothes--that boastful advertisement of a Republican Simplicity whichmanifests itself at home in Fifty-thousand-dollar salaries to insurancepresidents and railway lawyers, and in domestic palaces whose fittingsand furnishings often transcend in costly display and splendour andrichness the fittings and furnishings of the palaces of the sceptredmasters of Europe; and which has invented and exported to the Old Worldthe palace-car, the sleeping-car, the tram-car, the electric trolley,the best bicycles, the best motor-cars, the steam-heater, the best andsmartest systems of electric calls and telephonic aids to laziness andcomfort, the elevator, the private bath-room (hot and cold water ontap), the palace-hotel, with its multifarious conveniences, comforts,shows, and luxuries, the--oh, the list is interminable! In a word,Republican Simplicity found Europe with one shirt on he
r back, so tospeak, as far as real luxuries, conveniences, and the comforts oflife go, and has clothed her to the chin with the latter. We are thelavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving people on the earth; andat our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flagthe world has ever seen. Oh, Republican Simplicity, there are many, manyhumbugs in the world, but none to which you need take off your hat!