As my wife and youngest daughter, Ruth, could not accompany me, I took with me my daughter Helen, her husband, Mr. Mortimer J. Fox, and their two sons Henry and Mortimer. We Visited London, Paris, and Vienna on our way to Constantinople, and at each of these capitals I paid my respects not only to the American Ambassador, but to the resident Turkish plenipotentiary as well. In doing this I had in mind two things: first, to accustom myself to the looks of an embassy from within, as I had to that date never been in an embassy building in any country; and second, to secure some hints upon the character of the government to which I was accredited, in advance of my first formal contact with it. At last, on November 27, 1913, we rolled into the railroad station at Constantinople.
My first impression of the famous old capital of Asia-in-Europe was of a moving sea of silk hats. The station platform seemed populated entirely with frock-coated gentlemen buried under these chimney-like black headpieces. After some confusion, human personalities began to emerge from under them, and to individualize themselves as real people with proper names, and a rational relationship to myself as another human being. The first to greet me was Mr. Hoffman Phillip, who as Conseiller and First Secretary of the Embassy had acted as chargé d’affaires during Mr. Rockhill’s visit to the United States.
He introduced me to the others, and after a somewhat bewildering round of handshakings, Phillip, the Foxes, and I stepped into a carriage and were driven to the Pera Palace Hotel, where Phillip gave us a Thanksgiving dinner.
The Embassy at Constantinople is a handsome, marble, three-story structure, set in a garden surrounded by a high wall, and overlooking the Golden Horn. Often during my first days there I would find myself humming the old refrain, “I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls.” There were, to be sure, no “vassals and serfs by my side”; but I had more useful assistants in my official staff. Besides Mr. Phillip, there were second and third secretaries, and A. K. Schmavonian, the Turkish legal adviser of the Embassy. He was the permanent attaché--the interpreter--and was, besides, the custodian of the Embassy’s traditions. He knew every American interest in Turkey, had carried on for years the correspondence with the consuls and the missionaries, and hence was an invaluable storehouse of information. He knew, also, all the Turkish officials; the ramifications of the Turkish governmental departments; the names and characteristics of the leaders of the recent revolution; and, of course, he was versed in the niceties of diplomatic custom.