Among his other activities, Mr.Straus had played an important part in the peace movement of the preceding quarter of a century and he had been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

Mr.Straus was on excellent terms with the German, the British, and the French ambassadors at Washington.

As far back as 1888, when he was American Minister at Constantinople, Bernstorff, then a youth, was an attache at the German Embassy; the young German was frequently at the American Legation and used to remind Mr.Straus, whenever he met him in later years, how pleasantly he remembered his hospitality.

With Sir Cecil Spring Rice, the British Ambassador, and M.
Jules Jusserand, the French Ambassador, Mr.Straus had also become friendly in Constantinople and in Washington.

This background, and Mr.
Straus's well-known pro-British sentiments, would have made him a desirable man to act as a liaison agent between the Germans and the Allies, but there were other reasons why this ex-ambassador would be useful at this time.