Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Neeufeld and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. The carat character in Nov. 1^{st} indicates that the following letters inside the curly brackets are superscripted. * * * * * [Illustration: Oscar S. Straus with signature] Under Four Administrations FROM CLEVELAND TO TAFT RECOLLECTIONS OF OSCAR S. STRAUS, LITT.D., LL.D. _Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague Three Times Minister and Ambassador to Turkey Former Secretary of Commerce and Labor_ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS [Illustration: Publisher's Mark] Boston and New York HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY OSCAR S. STRAUS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SECOND IMPRESSION The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE.MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A DEDICATED TO MY GRANDCHILDREN AND THEIR CONTEMPORARIES OF EVERY RACE AND CREED PREFACE I am drawing these memories to a close in my log cabin in the primitive Maine woods, where my wife and I have been coming for rest and for fishing for the past twenty years. Here we renew our youth, and far from tumult and crowds, near to nature, we realize anew how little is required in order to be contented and happy. Here I am taken back to the memories of my childhood in the little town in Georgia where too our home was a log house, but for appearances had the luxurious outer and inner dressing of clap-boarding painted white. The logs of the upper story where we children played and slept had no covering, which pleased us all the more. In a highly organized society, we are often attracted by pomp and circumstance, rather than by qualities of heart and mind, which after all are the true measure of enlightenment. Here in these woods, fair dealings and human relations are not regulated by statutes, but by the golden rule of conduct. We need not hide our possessions behind locked doors, honesty is the accepted rule of life; there are no treasures to hide and no bars to break. It has been permitted me to do useful work and to have interesting experiences. Privileged opportunities have been afforded me for public service. Of these I write. Perhaps in chronicling the experiences of a life which at many points touched vital affairs and the most interesting personalities, I may be able to add something to the record of men, movements, and events during those decades still absorbing to us because they are so near. The story is one of service at home and abroad, of personal relations with six of our Presidents, with diplomats, labor leaders, foreign rulers, leaders of industry, and some plain unticketed citizens who were the salt of the earth and certainly not the least of those whom it was a pleasure to know.