Education
Having prepared for college at Phillips Andover Academy, he entered Harvard and was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1890 and acquired the degree of A. M. a year later.
He studied at the University of Berlin during the academic year 1891-92, then returned to Harvard as a graduate student, 1892-93, and as assistant in history in 1893-94.
After another year of study at the University of Berlin he was instructor in history at Adelbert College, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, from 1895 to 1898.
Career
When the commission sailed for home in July, after an arduous but successful series of conferences and investigations, Morgan had chosen his vocation.
His rise in the diplomatic service was rapid.
He was not to enjoy the post long, however, for as the ninth and last of the American ministers to Korea it was his duty to close the legation in November 1905, when jurisdiction passed to the American legation at Tokyo, the last vestige of Korean sovereignty having been lost to Japan.
On Nov. 29, 1905, Morgan was appointed minister to the youthful Republic of Cuba, the second to hold this position.
Most of his four years at Havana were spent under circumstances which were unusual and perhaps not too easy for a diplomatic official, for it was during this period that the United States, at the request of President Palma of Cuba and under the powers granted by the Platt Amendment, intervened and established a provisional government under Gov. Charles E. Magoon [q. v. ].
Two brief diplomatic assignments followed the Cuban post.
He became minister to Paraguay and Uruguay on Dec. 21, 1909, and left Montevideo to serve as minister to Portugal on May 24, 1911.
Soon afterward there came to him the appointment which marked the beginning of a mission so congenial to his tastes and abilities that he left it only when he retired from the diplomatic service.
He devoted himself whole-heartedly to the promotion of friendship between Brazil and the United States.
With such intense earnestness did Morgan identify himself with the legation that it was with reluctance that he delegated any of its work to assistants.
He was decorated with the Brazilian order of the Cruzeiro do Sul in recognition of his twenty-one years of diplomatic service.
On his retirement he bought a home in Petropolis, the Brazilian summer capital.
Less than a year later he died suddenly of angina pectoris.
He was buried with high honors, the Brazilian Government taking full charge of the ceremonies.
Morgan was made chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 1902 in appreciation of services rendered the Rochambeau Commission.
He never-married.
V, 1891) and of "The Samoan Islands, " which appeared in the National Geographic Magazine, November 1900.
[Who's Who in America, 1932-33; U. S. Dept. of State, Register, July 1, 1933; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S. 1899, 1905-07, 1913, 1916-19, 1922, 1923; N. Y. Times, Apr. 17, 1934; Bull.
of the Pan-Am.
Union, Oct. 1912, June 1934; Harvard Coll.
Class of 1890; Fiftieth Anniversary Report (1940). ]
Personality
He was impatient of "red tape" and "paper work, " and his relations with Brazilian officials were direct and personal.
