It was believed in a large number of circles that Mr. Bryan would not accept the post of Secretary of State, for even at that time everybody who was in the know was already aware that Mr. Wilson could only tolerate subordinates and not men with opinions of their own. Mr. Bryan, however, felt the moral obligation, at least to attempt to give his radical views a chance of succeeding, and declared, as he took over the post, that so long as he was Secretary of State the United States would never go to war. He even wanted this principle to be generally accepted by the rest of the world, and with this end in view, submitted to all foreign Governments the draft of an Arbitration and Peace-Treaty, which was to make war utterly impossible in the future. As is well known, the German Government, unlike all the others, refused to fall in with Mr. Bryan's wishes. The Secretary of State was a little mortified by this, even though he still hoped that we should ultimately follow the example of the other Powers. Every time we met, he used to remind me of his draft Arbitration Treaty, which I had forwarded to Berlin. Later on I often regretted that we did not fall in with Mr. Bryan's wishes; who, by the by, during the war, again returned to the question, but in vain. If the treaty had been signed by us, it would most probably have facilitated the negotiations about the U-boat campaign.
The diplomatic corps in Washington thus found itself confronted by an entirely new situation. The Republican Party had been at the helm for sixteen years, and had now to vacate every one of the administrative posts. Even our personal intercourse with the President was governed by different formalities from those which existed in the days of his predecessors. Mr. Roosevelt liked to maintain friendly relations with those diplomats whose company pleased him. He disregarded the old traditional etiquette, according to which the President was not allowed to visit the Ambassadors or any private houses in Washington. The friendly relations that existed between Mr. Roosevelt and Baron Speck von Sternburg are well known. When in the year 1908, after this gentleman's decease, I assumed his post at Washington, Mr. Roosevelt invited me to the White House on the evening after my first audience, to a private interview, in which every topic of the day was discussed. Invitations of this kind were of frequent occurrence during the last two months of Roosevelt's administration, which, at the time of my entering office, was already drawing to its close. For instance, Mr. Roosevelt showed me the draft of the speech which after his retirement he delivered at the University of Berlin.