In the gradual march of the United States towards its destiny, it was perhaps inevitable that certain European footholds on the Western Hemisphere would be in jeopardy. Sympathy with the plight of Cuba, dated back for at least a half a century, and in 1897, the year before the Spanish-American war, Mr. F. G. Alvoad, wrote Porter: "The indifference of this (United States) government (towards Cuba) is, I agree with you, disgraceful. History is going to deal harshly with somebody; it will be the harshness of justice." The sons of the South, themselves victims of a temporary despotism, were in close sympathy with the struggles of the Cubans, and in the war that followed, one of the outstanding military leaders at the front was General Joseph Wheeler, ex-Confederate officer, who is reported to have ordered his men in one of the attacks on the Spanish troops to "charge those damned Yankees". Both Joseph H. Choate, and John Bassett Moore, wrote Porter in that decade, that they appreciated his excellent suggestions concerning international questions which would be of much service to them; and that they were glad to find him fighting at the old notion that diplomacy necessarily meant trickery, evasion, and injustice.

Some years before, Princeton had conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D.

Nantucket Island lies off the south shore of Massachusetts, and had among its earliest settlers, Tristram Coffin, close friend and associate of Anthony Morse. Some 250 years later, Porter, a descendant of Anthony found it an ideal spot for relaxation and rest from his arduous law practice. And, still not unmindful of his early war years he had pasted in his notebook the following lines attributed to P. Y. Black:

"The days of peace and days of pleading
Have been with me for many a year;

And further ever are receding

The daring days of blow and cheer;

Then days and laurels alike were near;

The victor's sword, and the hasty spade,

When the sweetest music to the ear

Was the clang and clatter and clash of blade."

Chapter VIII.

GENERATIONS NINE AND TEN

All we have in freedom, all we use or know,

These our fathers bought for us, long and long ago."

-Kipling.

Ten, in all, of the ninth and tenth generations in America, spent much of their early lives at "Valley View", on Ridge Road; from the galleries of which the Washington Monument and "forks of the Potomack" were in constant view beyond the dense woodland and foliage. This forty-two acre summer home of Porter's father-in-law, Doctor Clarke, was the "land-heir", of his earlier estate further down the river, itself a part of "St. Margaret's", -- an early plantation of his ancestor of the same surname who came from London in 1637 to the Maryland shores of this historic stream. Almost an hour's drive in the earlier days, from the cares of business, "Valley View" was ever an isolated spot, and especially so, when the customary spring rains would wash away whole sections of the new cut Seventh Street road, into serpentine walks of the Jesuit College at Georgetown. Well beyond the turn of the century, "Valley View" retained much of the general atmosphere of a country place of the past: -boxbushes, rose gardens, a wealth of vegetables, berries, and fruit trees; a stable full of horses, and a herd of jersey cattle, to say nothing of a great and vain peacock and his mate; and always - dogs. Among the latter was "Toots", a reddish wiry haired Irish Terrier, remarkably intelligent, whose death was succeeded, so it is said, by a phantom likeness 'Valley View'", encountered more than once, it has been claimed, at irregular intervals in the years that followed.

"The red dog of

Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, both in their time, not infrequently chose Ridge Road for their afternoon ride or drive, and were often observed to stop at the gate, to receive, perhaps, a bit of repose and contentment that even a view of that forest-clad place afforded. Here, in the summer of 1898, the youngsters of the ninth generation played at war, and would liken the thunderous blasting on the palisades of the Potomac, to a Cuban bombardment; and "Beware, Spaniards are hear", in crude pencilling on the attic door, remained undisturbed for decades. But a visit to the rows upon rows of the tented Camp Alger, across the river in Virginia, was the closest this group ever got to the fighting front of the Spanish-American War.

"Valley View", after telephones, electricity, and good roads

*

came about in that quarter, became the all-year-round family residence, and its sturdy oaks of some two hundred years growth, witnessed more than one family wedding, birth, christening and death. They still shelter the present residence of one of Porter's grandchildren. Dr. Clarke was a genial host, and it was not uncommon for twelve to fourteen to be seated for Sunday dinner, and in this spacious house, resided for brief or long periods, many members of the Doctor's family, which, besides the Morses, included many Janins, Waggamans, Spauldings and Clarkes. There was, for instance, "Cousin Mae" Clarke on her return from Havana, where Dr. Findlay had unsuccessfully urged her to become a volunteer for his yellow fever experiment. And there was "Cousin Dick" Clarke, a member of a volunteer infantry regiment enroute to the Cuban front in 1898, and for some weeks in camp in nearby Virginia.

Although the effort to settle the Cuban controversy between Spain and the United States by Arbitration was unsuccessful, nevertheless there had been for decades past, many steps taken to set up a proper tribunal for the settlement of such international discussions. Two years before the Spanish-American War, Porter, in association with Henry E. Davis, Calderon Carlisle, S. E. Hackett, and J. H. Astor all members of the Washington Bar Association -- were appointed a Committee to act with a similar Committee in New York, to endeavor to bring about a "Perpetual system of Arbitration, primarily with England". Porter was always a great believer in the inherent fairness of the people of the land of his English ancestors.* About this time, Porter was also active in attempting to obtain the neutralization of the cables throughout the world. This also was not effected; and on a hot May morning in 1898, "Williams", the negro gardener at "Valley View awoke the family, in the early hours of the morning, to announce in great excitement the victory of Admiral Dewey, over the Spanish fleet at Manila.

Following the War, Porter was the author of leading articles in the "Harvard Law Review", and the "American Law Register" concerning the bearing of International Law on the inhabitants of the Philippines and Porto Rica, and in 1902 he resigned as an attorney in the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission to accept the post as Counsel of the Americans in their Fiji Islands claims against Great Britain. Perhaps one of the most important occurrences in our government in the beginning of the 20th century, was the question of our Island expansion, the proper disposition of the political status of the Philippines and Insular possessions. In May of 1901, the U. S.

11

See Appendix 148

See Appendix 149

See Appendix 150