File:Diplomatic memoirs (1909) (14577671499).jpg

Identifier: diplomaticmemoir01fost (find matches)
Title: Diplomatic memoirs
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Foster, John Watson, 1836-1917
Subjects: United States -- Foreign relations 1865-1898 Mexico -- Description and travel
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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eath, as I was more intimatewith him than any other of our great men. He was truly oneof our greatest statesmen and patriots. Senator Hoar hasrecorded in his Autobiography that Morton as a greatparty leader had no superior in his time, save Lincoln alone.President Roosevelt, nearly thirty years after his death, in apublic address, said, When history definitely awards thecredit for what was done in the Civil War, she will put theservices of no other civilian, save alone those of Lincoln,ahead of the services of Governor Morton. As I now recall my hesitation to assume the duties of sucha responsible and untried position as the mission to Mexico,I see that I was not without some preparation, and that Ipossessed an experience of the world and of political affairswhich was second only in value to actual diplomatic serv-ice. I had the benefit of a worthy ancestry, which shouldalways exercise an important influence upon character andability. My paternal grandfather was an English farmer, who
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^^^h^^t^ I ENTER THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 7 during the industrial depression occasioned by the Napoleonicwars sold his small possessions and emigrated to Americaearly m the last century, bringing his family, among them myfather, then in his boyhood. The latter at the age of seven-teen left the temporary home in the Mohawk Valley, NewYork, and on foot and alone started for the great Westerncountry, in search of a suitable location where lands couldbe obtained from the Government, on which to provide ahome for his aged parents and build up his own career. After traversing, with knapsack on his back, the inter-vening country as far as St. Louis, Missouri, he decided upona location in southern Indiana, returned to New York, andbrought out the family to the new home, where he had se-cured an eighty-acre tract of land in the virgin wilderness.There in a log cabin built with their own hands the familybegan their new life. My father soon became a large farmer,and collecting together his product

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