Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/134

98 98 HARVARD LAW REVIEW TTT'ESTENGARD'S life work was in Siam. There opportunity '^' was afforded to bring out his true greatness. Whatever influence he may have exerted as a teacher in the Law School was limited to two periods of five and three years. Twelve years of his life were devoted continuously and exclusively to the service of Siam, and even after his final departiure he kept in close touch with that country's administrative affairs. As the representative of the Siamese government he was to have sat at the coming Peace Conference. His intimate knowledge of European politics, his thorough understanding of the working of the foreign departments of the Great Powers, the respect with which he was regarded in the chancelleries of Europe, his lack of prejudice, clear vision and sure judgment, would have proved of the highest value, not to Siam alone but to all the twenty-four allied and associated countries which have been sacrificing and fighting these four years long to make a better world. Death intervened at a time when opportunity was opening for his truly great qualities; when international tasks for which his training and experience had so admirably equipped him awaited his sure hand. Whatever impress he may have made on the Law School, no appreciation of his greatness and no proper estimate of his capacities for the future can be arrived at without a thorough understanding of the magnitude and dijEculty of the work he accomplished during twelve years of service in Asia. Westengard's devotion to his work in Siam was such that for the first seven years he took no leave except for a seven months' tour of Europe, in the company of the late king. For ten years of the twelve he was separated from his family. His one iong period of leave in 191 2 he improved to visit the foreign ofl&ces of the European powers. In the fall of 1913 Mrs. Westengard and his son Aubrey joined him in Siam for the first time. The next June, 1914, he and his family came to America on leave, but he returned again to Siam late in the year and there remained until his final resignatior in June, 191 5. At first he bore the title of Assistant General Adviser, but during