We regret to record the death of Mr. Whitelaw Reid,
the United States Ambassador, which occurred after a short illness last Saturday. Mr. Whitelaw Reid, who was born in Ohio in 1835 and came of old Scots Covenanter stock, made his mark as a journalist before the war, in which he served both as a war correspondent and aide-de-camp. The record of his activities from that date is indeed remarkable. He was Librarian to the House of Representatives and a cotton planter in Louisiana before joining the Tribune, of which he became chief editor and proprietor. He was Minister to France and twice Special Ambassador to Great Britain before his appointment by Mr. Roosevelt in 1905, and was continued in his post by Mr. Taft in 1909. He was one of the five Special Commissioners sent by President McKinley to make a treaty with Spain in 1898, when his arguments turned the scale in favour of annexing the Philippines. This brief out- line of a long, honourable, and distinguished career makes no mention of the active part he played in American University Education. Of the services he rendered his country as a diplomatist it is enough to say that, while the political condi- tions in which he assumed his ambassadorship were far more propitious than in the case of his predecessors, he laboured assiduously not only to keep the friendship between the two countries in good repair but to heighten and enhance its cordiality. Without the oratorical gifts of some of his fore- runners, he was second to none in devotion to duty, hospitality, and good-will.
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