[12][13] His adamant praise of Custer contributed to the officer's popular image as a tragic hero who furthered the "manifest destiny" of the United States.

[19] When U.S. Army Captain Henry Ware Lawton and Major William F. Tucker claimed 800 acres overlapping a traditional Zuni farming village – omitted from the 1877 reservation borders – for cattle ranching, Cushing urged Curtis and Boston Herald reporter Sylvester Baxter to begin a press campaign on behalf of the Zuni land claim.

[21] Starting from 1903, Curtis' letters on foreign locales and contemporary issues received wider circulation in regional newspapers throughout the United States.

Although Arthur's campaign was unsuccessful and never in serious contention,[23] the lame duck President rewarded Curtis' partisanship with his first diplomatic appointment as Secretary of the Latin American Trade Commission.

[3] The nomination encountered opposition from Illinois Senator John A. Logan, the unsuccessful Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1884 election, who blamed the pro-Arthur effort for needlessly fracturing the party.

[26][27] Some of Curtis' contemporaries publicly criticized his political machinations, such as when The Nation asserted in October 1889 that it was "a well known fact that his pen has long been for hire.

"[3] In 1896, Curtis was employed as a "special agent" by the Subcommittee on Reciprocity and Commercial Treaties of the United States House Committee on Ways and Means.

In January 1902, Curtis wrote to the President to compare the American occupation of the Philippines to instability in the Bosnia Vilayet prior to the 1878 Austro-Hungarian invasion.

He suggested that then-Governor William Howard Taft visit the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina to observe how this situation was purportedly resolved.

[28] In January 1903, Curtis recommended that Roosevelt remove Victor E. Nelson, the US consul at Bergen, Norway, who had become unpopular due to allegations of corruption.

[30] In February 1905, Curtis gave Roosevelt advance notice of a month-long tour of five Southern states, offering to interview any person or cover any topic that the President desired.

[32] Curtis ardently supported regular and friendly relations, as well as eventual economic and political integration, between all countries of The Americas, earning the nickname "The Patagonian".

[33] From late 1884 until he returned in the fall of 1885, Curtis held the title "envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the republics of Central and South America" in his capacity on the Latin American Trade Commission.

[5] The group visited various capital cities throughout the region, laying the groundwork for hemispheric multilateralism, researching local economies, and advancing the interests of US exports.

[3] A notable exception was Cuban nationalist José Martí's favorable review of Curtis' 1887 Harper's Monthly commentary on Argentine industry.

Martí felt that Curtis was proposing symbiotic trade relations, and considered this a welcome alternative to continued exploitation by the Spanish Empire.

[15] Curtis' lobbying secured the "reciprocity provision" within the 1890 McKinley Tariff, enabling the president to place duties on certain food and animal products only if other countries raised taxes on American goods first.

[43] To emphasize the connection of the Spanish monarchy to the discovery of the Americas, Curtis wrote extensively about the life and family of Cristóbal Colón, 14th Duke of Veragua, a direct descendant of Columbus and Spain's representative at the World's Fair.

[47] Longtime secretary of agriculture James Wilson, naturalist and surgeon H.C. Yarrow, newspaper publisher H. H. Kohlsaat, U.S. Army colonel Alexander Rodgers, and farm equipment manufacturer Charles M. Russell II were among the pallbearers at Curtis' funeral.