The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

withdraw and settle instead for the Recordership of Deeds for the District of Columbia. McKinley had no desire to repeat history. Adams’ quest led to no comparable consolation prize, although he later became assistant register of the U.S. Treasury. Also unsuccessful was Bostonian C. H. Kemp Spurgeon, who sought a West Indies consular appointment from McKinley in 1897. Spurgeon’s favorable comments, however, on his treatment by State Department officials during his consultations were duly reported by the Evening Star : “I can say without fear of challenge, that the gentlemen I have met in the State Department and other public officials stand second to none for courteous and gentlemanly conduct. Such officials must cause the nation to be looked upon with respect. It makes one feel proud to be an American, either by birth or adoption.” But other candidates were successful in approaching McKinley and went on to prominence: Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823-1915) was an influential Arkansas politician and lawyer who served as U.S. consul in the Madagascar seaport city of Tamatave (now Toamasina) from 1898 until 1901. (Gibbs was just one of at least 10 black consuls appointed during McKinley’s first year in office.) The Oberlin College gradu- ate and longtime federal officeholder, 74 at the time of his appointment, was one of the oldest men ever to serve as consul, but remained energetic, at one point helping to trap wild animals on the island for shipment back to the U.S. national zoo. Gibbs resigned his consular commission in mid-1901, reportedly for reasons of ill health, but only after securing the appointment of vice consul William H. Hunt as his replacement. William Henry Hunt (1869-1951), a New York Republican, began as a secretary to Gibbs, became vice con- sul and succeeded his future father-in-law as consul in Tamatave in 1901 — the first post in a 31-year career, and one of McKinley’s last consular appointments before his death by assassination. In 1904, Hunt returned home on leave to marry Ida Gibbs, who had once urged her father to hire him, and the pair lived abroad for the next quarter-cen- tury. An accomplished horseman, Hunt had already gained some renown by reportedly teaching the Malagasy Queen Ranavalona III to ride. After their 1906 transfer to Saint-Étienne, the Hunts became popular social leaders for 20 years in the French community, before a final series of briefer postings in Guadeloupe, the Azores and Liberia. Hunt retired in 1932, living quietly thereafter with his wife in Washington, D.C. Richard Theodore Greener (1844-1922), a native of Phila- delphia, was the first black stu- dent to graduate from Harvard. He later became dean of the Howard University Law Department. Financial difficul- ties impelled him to seek a con- sular appointment in 1898, while living in New York. But he declined his first post —Bombay — as “not acceptable,” apparent- ly due to reports of a bubonic plague epidemic there. Re- assigned to Vladivostok, his original title as consul was adjust- ed to commercial agent at the Russians’ request. During a highly regarded seven-year stay, Greener oversaw the inter- ests of vacated diplomatic missions during the Russo- Japanese war and earned a decoration from the Chinese gov- ernment for famine relief efforts in North China after the Boxer Rebellion. Unsubstantiated charges of improper conduct forced his dismissal in 1905, however, and despite strenuous efforts to gain a formal hearing, Greener never managed to clear his name or return to service. Considered one of the most bril- liant black intellectuals of his generation, Greener wrote extensively in retirement, supporting women’s rights and Irish liberation, among other causes. Other McKinley appointees in 1897 and 1898 included Mahlon B. Van Horne (1878-1910) of Rhode Island, a Lincoln University graduate who served as consul for six years in St. Thomas, Danish West Indies; John N. Ruffin (dates not available) of Tennessee, consul for a decade in Asuncion, Paraguay; attorney Louis Addison Dent (1863- 1947) of Washington, D.C., named consul for a second time in Kingston, Jamaica, after a brief posting there late in the Harrison administration; and Dr. John Taylor Williams S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 73 Benjamin Justesen, a former Foreign Service officer, is the author of In His Own Words: The Writings, Speeches, and Letters of George Henry White (iUniverse, 2004) and George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Race of Life (Louisiana State Press, 2001). As soon as he took office, President McKinley was besieged by crowds of Republican applicants for consular positions and other federal patronage jobs. African-American office-seekers were especially persistent.