Baron Speck von Sternburg, the German Ambassador at Washington, died
on Sunday last at Heidelberg. Bore at Leeds of a German father and an English mother, Baron Speck von Sternburg married an American wife, and his later diplomatic career was nothing less than a triumph in shrewdly serving Germany, while keeping the good opinion, and even the affection and admiration, of Americans. He followed Dr. von Holleben at Washington, who had dealt clumsily with the Venezuelan crisis, and had crowned his failure by attributing certain motives to the British Ambassador at Washington, Lord Pauncefote. Baron Speck von Sternburg at once dis- played a -frankness, an accessibility, and we might add an ingenuousness, which fitted the circumstances of American life, greatly improved American and German relations, and exalted the prestige of the German Embassy. He was, indeed, a very "modern" diplomatist. He satisfied the definition of Prince Billow, who, as the Times correspondent reminds us, once said that a diplomatist should be like Alcibiades, who was intellectual with the Athenians, ate black broth with the Spartans, and wore flowing robes with the Persians. Mr. Roosevelt, on hearing of his death, tele- graphed "He was not only my intimate personal friend, and one of the most fearless, sincere, and loyal men I ever met, but he was also a diplomatist of signal ability, who served Germany with a fervent patriotism, yet who showed such intelligent goodwill for America that it would be difficult to overestimate the value of what he did in strengthening and bringing closer the ties of friendship and goodwill between the two countries."
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