Arthur Matthias Beaupre was an American diplomat who served as ambassador to Colombia (1903); Argentina (1904-1908); the Netherlands and Luxembourg (1908-1911); Cuba.
Background
Arthur Beaupre was born on July 29, 1853, in Oswego township, Kendall County, Illinois, his father, Matthias Beaupré, a French Canadian, having migrated in 1838 from Canada to Joliet, Illinois, where he married Sarah J. Patrick, a native of Ontario, subsequently moving to Oswego.
Education
Arthur's youth was spent in Kendall County and his education was procured in the public schools at Oswego and De Kalb, to which latter place the family moved in 1865. On leaving school in 1869 he entered the office of the De Kalb County News, learning the printing business and supplementing his education by individual study. A Republican, he became interested in politics at an early age, and on his removal to Aurora in 1874 was elected city clerk and commenced to study law.
Career
Arthur Beaupre was appointed deputy clerk of Kane County and having been admitted to the Illinois bar commenced practise in Aurora. In 1886 he received the Republican nomination for clerk of Kane County and, being elected by a large majority, retained the position for eight years. Both as lawyer and official he showed marked ability and his prominence in local and state politics induced President McKinley to appoint him consul general and secretary of the United States legation to Guatemala and Honduras, October 7, 1897. In this position he met with unqualified success, his urbane, dignified manners and courtly demeanor making a deep impression on the temperamental Guatemalans. He also attracted the confidence of his foreign colleagues to such an extent that in March 1899 he was invited by Great Britain and Honduras to act as sole arbitrator in the dispute respecting the detention of the British schooner Lottie May and the arrest and imprisonment of her captain by the government of Honduras in 1892.
Beaupré was transferred to Bogota as consul general and secretary of the legation to Colombia, October 27, 1899. At that period the question of a trans-isthmian canal was being vehemently debated, and the conclusion of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in 1901 left the United States free to negotiate with Colombia relative to the cession of rights over territory in Panama. Though Beaupré was only in a subordinate position at Bogota, he enjoyed the confidence of President Roosevelt, and on February 12, 1903, three weeks after the signing of the Hay-Herren Treaty the President appointed him minister to Colombia and entrusted to him the delicate task of inspiring the ratification of the treaty by the Colombian Congress. His promotion from consul to minister was almost unprecedented, the records of the State Department affording but one other instance of such an appointment.
Deceived at first as to the good faith of the Colombian government, Beaupre later realized its intention to extort better financial terms, and in striking dispatches he kept Secretary Hay au fait with the tortuous policy pursued by President Marroquin, which ultimately resulted in the rejection of the treaty. The revolution which immediately followed in Panama, and the prompt recognition by President Roosevelt of the new government, produced intense excitement in Bogota. Enraged mobs menaced the United States legation, and Beaupré was threatened with personal violence. His position had been a difficult one and this was accentuated by the cutting of the cables, thus severing his communications with Washington. His conduct throughout, however, met with the cordial approval of the President and Secretary of State.
In 1904 he was appointed minister to the Argentine Republic, remaining at Buenos Aires four years, and becoming minister to the Netherlands and Luxemburg in 1908. While at The Hague President Taft appointed him a member of the administrative council of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and he was also a delegate to the International Exchange Conference. In August 1911 he was appointed minister to the Republic of Cuba and held this position till June 1913. The last months of his residence in Havana were signalized by scurrilous attacks upon him and Hugh S. Gibson, secretary of legation, in the newspaper Cuba, wherein they were accused of enriching themselves by blackmail and graft. The author of the libels was ultimately forced to make a complete retraction.
Beaupré's last diplomatic appointment was as chief of the special mission to represent President Wilson at the inauguration of Menocal as President of Cuba, May 14, 1913. Six weeks later he retired from the service, his diplomatic career having extended over a period of sixteen years. On returning to the United States he took up his residence in Chicago. Stricken with paralysis in June 1915, he was a confirmed invalid during the last four years of his life.
Achievements
Connections
Arthur Beaupre was married, on October 20, 1880, to Mary F. , daughter of C. W. Marsh of De Kalb, the inventor of the "Marsh harvester. "