The Foreign Service Journal, May 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2014 27 clerk in 1892. Through talent and hard work, he rose to become chief of the Consular Bureau in 1902; seven years later, he became director of the Consular Service. Under his leadership, the Con- sular Service became better organized and more effectively managed than its stodgy diplomatic counterpart. Carr’s forward-looking ideas about administra- tion and management caught the attention of Elihu Root, President Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State. In 1906 Secretary Root worked with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, R-Mass., to pass the first bill to restructure the Consular Service along merit-based lines. Drafted almost entirely by Carr, the Act of April 5, 1906, reorganized the Consular Service in almost every way. Among other things, it classified officers by salary, increased the overall pay scale, and provided for the creation of a corps of consular inspectors who were to report on the operation of each consular post at least once every two years. These reforms did not address State’s larger structural problems, however. The Diplomatic Ser- vice was clearly not equipped to meet its growing responsibilities in the post-World War I world. No inspection system supervised diplomatic posts. The State Department lacked the authority to support disabled officers, fund sick or home leave, provide for a retirement systemwith benefits or allow offi- cers to serve in positions outside of their specialty. And neither service possessed legal authority for officer training; post, representational or cost-of- living allowances; or the dismissal or retirement of ineffective officers. While executive orders promulgated by Presi- dents Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and WilliamHow- ard Taft had introduced some merit principles to both services, leading Progressives realized that effective reform required com- prehensive legislation. But how could an increasingly isolationist and economy-minded Congress enact such legislation? Luckily, Rep. John Jacob Rogers, R-Mass., rose to the chal- lenge. Enter John Jacob Rogers Born in 1881 in Lowell, Mass., Rogers graduated fromHarvard University and Harvard Law School. In 1912 he was elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives for the state’s Fifth Congressional District. A fervent supporter of institutional reform, Rogers well deserved his eventual nickname, “the father of the Foreign Service.” With Wilbur Carr as his legislative ghostwriter, Rogers introduced a series of reform bills beginning in 1919. Generally, changes were made to the bills either when Rogers and Carr wanted to incorporate improvements, or when a new Congress required a new bill to replace one that had died with the previous session. Despite occasional variations in content and language, all were precursors to the Foreign Service Act of 1924. Carr also ensured that the consuls maintained a united front in support of passage of the bills. The Diplomatic Service was another story. William Castle, Wilbur John Carr, shown here in a portrait taken in 1924, was a master bureaucratic tactician and administrator who served a total of 47 years with the Department of State. Born near Taylorsville, Ohio, in 1870, he entered State in 1892 as a clerk. In 1902, he became chief of the Consular Bureau, which he almost single-handedly reconstructed as a merit-based system. He served as director of the Consular Service from 1909 to 1924. Carr worked with Representative John Rogers to craft the language that went into the Rogers Act and, with its 1924 passage, became the first Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs. He served in that position until appointed to Czechoslovakia in 1937. He was present at the German occupation of that country in 1939. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division