w office as a student. He was admitted to the
bar, and shortly after went to Toledo, Ohio, to practice. In eight years
he had established himself as a successful lawyer, and something more.
He was recognized as a man of high executive ability, and as being
absolutely "square." Such men are none too common, and Toledo decided
that it needed him in the mayor's chair. Without a political machine,
without a platform, and without a party, he was elected mayor in 1905,
reelected in 1907, again in 1909, again in 1911--and could probably have
had the office for life if he had been willing to accept it. In the
meantime he had written several successful novels; he wanted more time
for writing, and when in 1913 he was offered the post of United States
Minister to Belgium, he accepted, thinking that he would find in this
position an opportunity to observe life from a new angle, and leisure
for literary work. In August 1914 he was on his vacation, and had begun
work on a new novel. In his own words:

I had the manuscript of my novel before me.... It was somehow just
beginning to take form, beginning to show some signs of life; at
times some characters in it gave evidence of being human and alive;
they were beginning to act now and then spontaneously, beginning to
say and to do things after the manner of human beings; the long
vista before me, the months of laborious drudging toil and pain,
the long agony of effort necessary to write any book, even a poor
one, was beginning to appear less weary, less futile; there was the
first faint glow of the joy of creative effort.

and then suddenly the telephone bell rang, and announced that the
Archduke of Austria had been assassinated at Sarajevo.

The rest of the story belongs to history. How he went back to Brussels;
how when the city seemed doomed, and all the government officials left,
he stayed on; how when the city was preparing to resist by force, he
went to Burgomaster Max and convinced him that it was useless, and so
saved the city from the fate of Louvain; how he took charge of the
relief work, how the King of Belgium thanked him for his services to the
country; how the city of Brussels in gratitude gave him a picture by Van
Dyck, a priceless thing, which he accepted--not for himself but for his
home city of Toledo; how after the war, he went back, not as Minister
but as Ambassador,--all these are among the proud memories of America'