John Bassett Moore to Woodrow Wilson

John Bassett Moore to Woodrow Wilson

Moore, John Bassett, 1860-1947

WWP17671

1913 April 14

John Bassett Moore writes to Woodrow Wilson about activities and chain of command in the Department of State.

Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

To the President,Washington, DC
My dear Mr. President:

I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 12th inst. referring to my conversation with you on Thursday last, the 10th of April, and to the letter addressed on the same day to the Secretary of State and communicated by copy to yourself, relating to the form of a permanent order to authorize the Counselor of the Department of State to act as Secretary in the latter’s absence.
The question whether the order should be immediately published had not occurred to me, such publication being, so far as I am aware, the only way of making it effective; for, as was pointed out in my letter of the 10th instant, the authority to act is to be considered not so much an end in itself, as the means, and the only means, of fixing the position of the Counselor in his intercourse with the diplomatic corps, as well as with others who may have business with the Department. In other words, the office and its powers must publicly correspond.
You are justified, however, in assuming that I would not willingly do anything that you would consider “neither kind nor wise;” and I am, I trust, equally incapable of doing anything that might cause mortification or a sense of humiliation to anyone. On the other hand, I can conceive of no greater mortification to an official than to have the powers of his office habitually exercised by a person holding an inferior position.
It was for this reason that, before my name should be sent to the Senate, I presented both to yourself and to the Secretary of State the form of an order by which all possibility of misunderstanding was to be removed, by giving to the office of Counselor the position which I understood we were all agreed that it should have. In the absence of such an order, the occasional but habitual authorization of the Counselor to act as Secretary of State, in the absence of the Secretary, must necessarily bear the appearance of a reflection upon the competency of the Assistant Secretary. Still greater, it seems to me, would be the mortification to the Assistant Secretary, if, because of the non–publication of the order, his occasional but habitual supersession should be the cause of public surmise and comment. In these circumstances, I feel that I must, in justice to you, to the Secretary of State, to Governor Osborne, and to myself, as well as in the interest of a harmonious public service, withdraw myself, as I now do, from a situation which, having already given rise to forebodings of personal disappointment, manifestly can be relieved only by such action on my part. It is needless to say that to me it would be unendurable to figure either as having excluded Governor Osborne from the public service, or as having inflicted upon him a personal mortification in it.
Permit me in conclusion to say that if I can be of any service to the Department, out of office, I shall be glad to place myself at its disposal.

Believe me to be, my dear Mr. President,Your sincere friend and most obedient servant,
John B. Moore.

Letter

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924