Washburn

The late President Harding, whose road was paved with good intentions, was not always forced to take inferior advice. First-class and frequently-taken was the advice of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, at whose motion three men against whom the breath of scandal never blew (before or since) were sent by President Harding to represent the U. S. in the former enemy countries.

For almost eight years and under three presidents (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover), Albert Henry Washburn served with outstanding, remarkable success as U. S. Minister to Austria. Death came to him last week in Vienna and all Austria mourned a potent friend, the champion who had fought to put through the League of Nations' International Loan ($126,000,000) which saved Austria from fiscal collapse in 1922.

A rich man, a man of exceedingly slow and ponderous speech masking deep, deliberate mental operations, Mr. Washburn (Cornell '89) began his career as a U. S. consul at Magdeburg. Germany. Then he became secretary to the late, great Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. From this he passed through two U. S. appointeeships to a well-paid legal practice in New York. He was ready (like John North Willys whom President Hoover has just sent to Poland) to retire from money-making when President Harding sent him to Austria.

To the north in Germany was Glass Man Alanson Bigelow Houghton, to the south in Hungary was Judge Theodore Brentano, the other two excellent Harding appointees to the "enemy countries." Mr. Washburn survived them both in diplomacy, though they survive him in life.

Minister Washburn considered it his duty and made it his hobby to obtain a profound grasp of all the secret machinations and counter-machinations of the Socialist and Reactionary irregular armies in Austria: the Schutzbund and the Heimwher. During Vienna's "Red Revolution" in 1927, when the capital was cut off by railway and telegraph strikes from the world, and when Italy was itching to use the excuse of "revolution" to intervene, Mr. Washburn saw that such a coup could best be prevented by smuggling out of the facts, the news. He and another U. S. Minister in an adjoining country somewhat exceeded their authority, ran a dare-devil courier service, kept the world informed, kept what they had done from the knowledge of all but a few grateful correspondents.

It was Mr. Washburn's well-pondered opinion that: "The irregular armies of Austria can mobilize more rapidly, with a superior armament and a greater striking power than is possessed by the lawful forces of the Republic."

Rich, Mr. Washburn did not stint himself in Vienna, one of the cheapest capitals in the world. He lived in almost regal style, butlered, footmanned, flunkied. Mrs. Washburn's balls were of a character to make her the uncrowned queen of the Diplomatic Corps.

President Hoover replaced Mr. Washburn three months ago with the present U. S. Minister to Austria. Gilchrist Baker Stockton, a quiet, young Floridan who was the No. 1 Hoover administrator of food relief in Austria after the War. At the White House the death of Mr. Washburn was followed by an announcement that President Hoover would have appointed him Ambassador to Japan had he lived.

While the Washburns were preparing to leave Vienna, he scratched his leg, thought nothing of it at the time. Blood poisoning set in, plus influenza, plus erysipelas. While he lay in the hospital, prayers were said for his recovery in the Anglo-American churches up to the moment of Death.

Said Neue Freie Presse, leading Vienna daily: "Always he did his best to ease our difficulties for us. . . . It was to the universal regret of the Viennese that we learned of the recall of Mr. Washburn in consequence of a change in the administrations of the U. S. last year. . . . All Austria sorrows at the loss of this distinguished gentleman."

In 1928 Mr. Washburn negotiated for the U. S. a document which in fact marked the completion of the task President Harding had placed in his hands. This, the definitive Austro-U. S. "Treaty of Amity," was the crown of his stewardship. Two months ago in New York, Mr. Washburn said: "Vienna leads, and in my judgment will continue to be the centre of European music. In many of the arts she remains the arbiter of good taste."

The view was taken in Vienna that Mr. Washburn died of a "contagious disease," and therefore according to Austrian law he was "provisionally buried" in the Hitzing Cemetery. As soon as the U. S. Navy Department can make suitable arrangements he will be disinterred, brought home on a warship.

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