MR. JOHN HAY AND PRINCE tIENRY OF PRUSSIA.
OUR alliance with America, and the efforts which are still being made by Pro-Germans in the United States and elsewhere to explain and justify German espionage and intrigue before and during the war, give me the right to make in these columns a disclosure of some historic and psychological interest. Readers of the Spet-tator in England, and still more in America, will remember the great interest which attached to Prince • Henry ob Prussia's visit to the United States in 1902. As we arc now learning, the Kaiser was alarmed at the good feeling growing up between Britain and the United States. He therefore made a special effort to capture American goodwill, largely in the hope of drawing off American sympathy from this country. Accordingly he sent his sailor brother to America to announce his august and Imperial satisfaction with the United States. The Americans—most kindly of hosts— gave him the best possible reception. At that time Mr. Roosevelt was President, and Mr. John Hay, one of the ablest and most far-seeing of diplomatists and statesmen, whether on this or the other side of the Atlantic, was Secretary of State. Writing of Prince Henry's reception on March 1st, 1902, the Spectator pointed out what delightful hosts the Americans had proved and were proving, but went on to ex- press very great doubt whether in the circumstances and with the men then at the helm the Kaiser would cut any political ice or gain any material advantage by the visit or the attempts at diplomatic bargaining sure to be connected with it. The article continued as follows :-- " American photographers are taking ' snapshots' of the Prince at every turn in his progress ; but the snapshots we would like to see would be those of the President and Mr. Hay just before and just after the Prince had made some political request. They would hardly look, if our view of the American temperament is correct, like the faces of the same persons. The infinitely courteous hosts will in a moment be hard business men, thinking not of the pleasant- est sentences to say, but of the permanent interests of the United States. Only the humour might linger a little in the eyes."
The article took some six days to get to America, but as soon as it was possible for a return of comments I received from Mr. John hay, whom I am proud to be able to call one of my closest and best friends, the following• characteristic and laconic note :-- " Spectator,' March 1, p. 817, 2,1d column, half- way down.
My dear Strachey, Your are a mind reader. J. H."
I turned eagerly to the passage, for I could not at the moment recollect what we had said, and found what I have given above. By a guess, or (shall I say ?) by a piece of thought transference, I had had the good luck to envisage exactly what had happened at Washington. Prince Henry was not merely a social but a political bagman. He had asked for something. He wanted a tangible " souvenir " of his visit. He had made proposals to the State Department of the usual Prussian type. By " usual Prussian type " I mean that he had asked for concessions of territory and engagements in which all the real, and most of the apparent, benefit was on the Prussian side.
I do not now remember their exact nature, though later I learnt something of their general scope and character from Mr. Hay. My only trustworthy recollection is that Mr. Hay referred to them with that patient, well-bred disgust with which he always received overtures of this kind. He was a man of a very fastidious sense of honour, and not amused by the low side of life, or by trickery even when foiled. And here I may perhaps be allowed to interpolate another personal recol- lection. I remember his telling me twenty years ago—that is, during the Spanish War—how a German diplomat in London had approached him officially with the request that a portion of the Philippine Islands should be ceded—Heaven knows why— to the Kaiser. I can well recall his contemptuous imitation of the manner of the request. " You haf so many islands ; why could you not give us some ? " I asked Mr. Hay what he had replied. With a somewhat grim smile he answered : " I told him : ' Not an island—not one ! ' " I shall perhaps be accused of indiscretion in what I have written, especially when I am dealing with a man so discreet, so punctilious in all official intercourse, as Mr. John Hay. I feel, however, that I am justified by the time which has elapsed, by the course of events, and still more by an instinctive feeling that at such a moment as this Mr. Hay himself would not have forbidden a disclosure which would help to enlighten his fellow-citizens upon the psychology of the Kaiser and those around him. Before America was at war with the Kaiser I felt that my lips were sealed. • I was then in honour bound not to say anything which might look like using the hand of a dead friend even to help my own country. Now, however, that Britain has nothing to gain from the disclosure, and that this tiny ray of new light will help America rather than us, I feel that my piece of secret history—the importance of which I do not wish in the least to exaggerate—may be given to the world. I am further emboldened to do this by the fact that Mr. Hay did not mark his letter " Private," and that I am therefore not giving to the world a document which he had specially directed should remain unpublished. Besides, in these matters time is of the essence of the contract.
J. ST. Lox STRACHEY.
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