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President Roosevelt explains the complex reasons he cannot appoint Senator Hale’s nominee, James Edmund Dunning, to the American Consulate in Milan, Italy, after all.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-06
President Roosevelt did not realize how interested Senator Platt was in the career of Aaron Homer Byington, United States Consul in Naples when he acted to assign Senator Matthew Stanley Quay’s brother to that post. Roosevelt offers to assign Byington to a choice of other Mediterranean posts. In a postscript, Roosevelt asks Platt to “let up on that delegate bill,” allowing Alaska a delegate.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-02-28
President Roosevelt directs Assistant Secretary of State Loomis to inform Ambassador Charlemagne Tower he is to stay put in Berlin. He encloses a note from Senator Philander C. Knox and feels they must do something for Jerome A. Quay.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-01-31
Professor John C. Freeman writes President Roosevelt regarding former Ambassador Bellamy Storer’s recent defense of the dismissal of Consul Carlton Bailey Hurst. Freeman shares a number of stories about what he has seen and heard—particularly in terms of nefarious behavior—among five U.S. diplomats in Europe. The letter largely focuses on the behavior of Hurst, who was appointed by McKinley as Consul General at Vienna in 1897 and later removed from office. Freeman notes that Hurst and his wife attended one particularly outrageous drunken party during their tenure in Vienna that ended with a “certain” attendee dancing the Can-Can while kicking out the room’s lightbulbs. Freeman closes by saying that he believes “all five bad consuls are now out of the service,” and again notes his extreme distaste for Hurst.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-14
First Assistant Secretary of State Loomis summarizes for William Loeb the situation regarding the removal of Aaron Homer Byington from the Consulship at Naples, Italy, and how Jerome A. Quay came to be appointed there, including the influence of Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt and friends of the late Senator Matthew Stanley Quay in the matter. Loomis suggests alternate posts for Byington.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-02-28