November 12, 1917 - (continued) The building of the American Embassy at Tokyo is a shabby frame affair. The entrance is a narrow, awkward bare hole with white painted doors opening onto a small room for visitors, with a few chairs and no decorations. Like a bar room in appearance. The main office of the Ambassador is little better and an equal disgrace to the U.S.A. Being quite broke, I took the electric for Tokyo this morning and called on Roland Morris¹⁴ our new Ambassador to Japan. His secretary, Mr. Spencer, met me and was very cordial. He is an acquaintance of Percy Maderas, George Harrison, and other Philadelphia sportsmen from which town he comes. The minister, Mr. Morris, finally endorsed a check for $200 after looking over T.R.'s letter, but was not at all pleasant about it, and even wanted to know whether a smaller amount would not do, as if he were actually going to be defrauded out of the money. Passing Hibiya Park, I saw the chrysanthemum show and went in and looked them over. The flowers were arranged in long rows under covered sheds or stalls. There was great variety in size from diminutive daisy-like sorts to a great spreading one 8 inches across. Colors ranged from white, yellow, red and plum color - no blues were seen. Some of the largest plants spread out 6 feet and bore some 50 blossoms, trained in a great dome. At the Imperial, where I lunched, I met Cole of the Standard Oil, who is a director in N.Y.C., but formerly lived out in Yokohama for the company. He said he had witnessed cormorant fishing at Gifu at night by burning torch flames.