The great Exhibition of Vienna, in 1873, found the New York “Tribune” unprovided in time for its correspondence, and the European manager, my friend G.W.  Smalley, proposed to me to go out for the paper.  There were three months still to the opening, but the preparation of the groundwork of a continuous correspondence, on an occasion to which the American public attached much importance, was a matter of gravity, and the time was not too long.  The editor had neglected the matter, owing to considerations which deluded him, and I was just in time to forestall the worst effects of a scandal which made its noise in its day.  The chief commissioner, General Van Buren, had had associated with him, through influences which need not be cited, several under-commissioners who were Jews, formerly of Vienna, and of course obnoxious to the society, official and polite, of the Austrian capital, and who were exercising a most unfortunate influence on the prospects of the American exhibitors.  In addition to this, they had entered into a system of trading in concessions for their personal advantage, the competition being very keen, especially in the department of American drinks, and their dealings with the competitors had excited great indignation in certain quarters.  One of the disappointed applicants, whose concession had been unjustly annulled in favor of a higher bidder, came to me for advice.  I at once instituted a rigorous though secret inquiry, and collected a body of evidence of corrupt practices, which I laid before the American minister, Mr. Jay, with a demand that it should be communicated to the government.  Mr. Jay at first declined to take cognizance of the matter, and accused me of doing what I did with political partisan bias, Van Buren being a prominent politician.  I assured him that I did not even know to which party Van Buren belonged; but, what probably moved him more was my assurance that the affair was not going to be whitewashed, that if it was not corrected quietly I was determined to make a public exposure, and that whoever tried to whitewash it would need a whitewashing himself, whereupon he decided to take, under oath, the evidence I had laid before him and send it to Washington, which he did.

The result was a cable dismissal of the entire commission and the nomination in their places of several American gentlemen who had come to Vienna to witness the opening of the Exhibition, amongst whom were two of my warmest personal friends.  They immediately offered me the official position of secretary to the commission, which I declined.  Having enlisted on the “Tribune,” and considering myself held “for the war,” I could not desert, though the inducement was very strong, for I should not only have been better paid than by the “Tribune,” but should have been practically director of the Exhibition, so far as the American department was concerned.  The exposure of the old commission which I sent the “Tribune” was printed reluctantly, for Van Buren was a personal friend of the editor-in-chief; but as I had taken the pains to make the substance of it common property so far as the other correspondents were concerned, it could not be suppressed.