Last and most important of all, politically, is the Diplomatic Bureau. Its dealings are with our own diplomatic officials at foreign capitals, and with foreign diplomats at Washington. It is chiefly concerned, as we are told, with the “examination, consideration and discussion of diplomatic subjects, such as treaties, claims, questions of international law, and policy, etc.” So this last sentence is the only tantalizing peep we are allowed to have within the sanctuary of the State Department. This Bureau with which the Secretary and his three Assistants are chiefly concerned shares its secrets with very few. The expediency of observing secrecy in international politics was noticed before; but there is another side to the question which most of us see and perhaps some of us talk about, and that is the point in negotiations at which the government may take the public into its confidence. For the public feels, and has a right to feel, that it has a proprietary interest in public affairs. More than this, it is in an unhealthy state when it doesn’t feel such an interest. The public, at least the enlightened public, knows that secrecy is apt to be troublesome anywhere, especially in government. It knows of many a historic instance of corruption fostered by secrecy, of intrigue, cabal, plot and counterplot, until the whole fabric of the state became vitiated. The public,—that is, the American public,—may have some reason to dread secrecy in local government, for many an alderman wants nothing better than to be let alone, and many a “convention boss” with a few “ring” associates would prefer to “fix the ticket” without any inspection by the public whom he expects in a few days to browbeat into supporting it. Granting that we haven’t been watchful enough as to local politics, how is it nationally? How about the Department of State—for that alone is the place where secrecy is justifiable?