Whether any better way can be devised remains to be seen, but in justice to the present system it must be said that it has secured many good officials—so many, indeed, that the American consular system, according to one writer[4], has become a subject of careful study by European nations. The same writer quotes from _La Revue Diplomatique_ as follows:
“The Americans are practical men and their instinct for business is marvelous. Nothing is more characteristic in this respect than the organization of their consular corps. Its duty is that of a sort of bureau of information at the expense of the state. It is recruited principally from journalists, who carry into their official career the trained instinct of observation, the quick grasp of passing events which belong to their former profession.
“The American consul does not understand that he has a commercial situation to maintain but always a commercial situation to conquer. His ingenuity is exercised to invent and find new markets, and in his study of ways and means, he descends to the most minute details. Despite their colonial conquests, the Americans have comprehended that the real struggle remains in the old markets—that there especially is the hard school that will force them to manufacture and sell better than all others”.
Francis B. Loomis, North American Review, Sept., 1899.
It appears from the above quotation, as well as others, that, in the judgment of Europeans, the peculiar excellence of the American consul is analogous to that of the American soldier—his ability to take the initiative, to be his own commander.
After all, the man is more important than the equipment and harder to discover.
Now let us watch our candidate get ready for business after he has received notice of his appointment. Every consular officer before entering upon his duties must take the prescribed oath of office and give bond for a sum of not less than one thousand nor more than ten thousand dollars. Then his commission is made out and given to the Diplomatic Bureau along with a special passport and an order on his predecessor to turn over the office to him. The commission is forwarded to the diplomatic representative in the country where he is to be stationed with instructions to procure from the government an exequatur.