CHAPTER I

MY FIRST YEAR IN GERMANY

The second day out on the _Imperator_, headed for a summer's
vacation, a loud knocking woke me at seven A. M. The radio, handed
in from a friend in New York, told me of my appointment as Ambassador
to Germany.

Many friends were on the ship. Henry Morgenthau, later Ambassador
to Turkey, Colonel George Harvey, Adolph Ochs and Louis Wiley
of the _New_York_Times_, Clarence Mackay, and others.

The _Imperator_ is a marvellous ship of fifty-four thousand
tons or more, and at times it is hard to believe that one is
on the sea. In addition to the regular dining saloon, there is
a grill room and Ritz restaurant with its palm garden, and, of
course, an Hungarian Band. There are also a gymnasium and swimming
pool, and, nightly, in the enormous ballroom dances are given,
the women dressing in their best just as they do on shore.

Colonel Harvey and Clarence Mackay gave me a dinner of twenty-four
covers, something of a record at sea. For long afterwards in
Germany, I saw everywhere pictures of the _Imperator_ including
one of the tables set for this dinner. These were sent out over
Germany as a sort of propaganda to induce the Germans to patronise