Bowen's Plucky Stand

How Our Minister to Venezuela Defied a Mob.

Herbert Wolcott Bowen, American minister to Venezuela, has been qualified by twelve years in the diplomatic service of the nation and experience in trying circumstances for any contingencies which may arise at Caracas. He went to his post there in the summer of 1901, succeeding Francis B. Loomis, who went to Portugal, but whose policy was carried out by his successor. Minister Bowen went to Venezuela from Persia, where he had been minister for two years, having been appointed in 1899 to succeed his brother-in-law, Arthur Sherburne Hardy, the novelist, who went to Athens as minister.

But it was in Spain, before the outbreak of hostilities between that country and the United States, that minister Bowen gained the especial experience which will stand him in good stead in the Venezuela imbroglio. He first went to that country in 1890, being appointed consul at Barcelona by President Harrison. In 1895 President Cleveland made him consul general. Barcelona was the scene of manifestations of hostility toward the United States in March, 1896. The feeling was aroused by the passage by the senate of the Morgan resolution which recognized the Cuban insurgents. A mob of several thousand persons gathered in front of the United States consulate in Barcelona  and with shouts and execrations demanded the destruction of the building and the death of the occupants. Consul General Bowen appeared at the entrance and defied the mob, which dispersed in a short time without harming any one and doing little damage to the edifice.