One thing we are just
beginning to do that we ought to have done long ago: We ought long ago
to have had our Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. We ought long
ago to have sent the best eyes of the Government out into the world to
see where the opportunities and openings of American commerce and
American genius were to be found--men who were not sent out as the
commercial agents of any particular set of business men in the United
States, but who were eyes for the whole business community. I have been
reading consular reports for twenty years. In what I came to regard as
an evil day the Congressman from my district began to send me the
consular reports, and they ate up more and more of my time. They are
very interesting, but they are a good deal like what the old lady said
of the dictionary, that it was very interesting but a little
disconnected. You get a picture of the world as if a spotlight were
being dotted about over the surface of it. Here you see a glimpse of
this, and here you see a glimpse of that, and through the medium of some
consuls you do not see anything at all. Because the consul has to have
eyes and the consul has to know what he is looking for.
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