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THE   LOGIC   OF   HIS CAREER

CHAPTER 3

ROOSEVELT AND  THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE His Foreign 
Policy. 
 The Army and Navy

I DISCUSS the Monroe Doctrine, foreign policy, and the army and navy in this order for the reason that the size of our army and navy is somewhat dependent upon the views held both of the Monroe Doctrine and of our foreign policy generally.

Roosevelt denned the Monroe Doctrine as a "declaration that there must be no territorial aggrandizement by any non-American power at the expense of any American power on American soil." He said: —

We have deliberately made our own certain foreign policies which demand the possession of a first-class navy.

The Monroe Doctrine should be treated as the cardinal feature of American foreign policy; but it would be worse than idle to assert it unless we intended to back it up, and it can be backed up only by a thoroughly good navy.

   As to which the London "Spectator" said: — If the Monroe Doctrine is not to be consigned to the waste-paper basket, it must rest in the last resource upon the naval and military power; and if America has not a fleet strong enough to say "Thus far, and no farther" to those who shall challenge the doctrine, that doctrine in the future will not prove worth the paper on which the Presidential Message of 1823 was written.
Commenting further upon the Monroe Doctrine and our duty to our sister American republics, Roosevelt said, in substance, in his message of December, 1905, that under no circumstances would the United States use the Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial aggression, nor should it be used by any nation on this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its own misdeeds against foreign nations, but that the punishment by the foreign nation must not take the form of territorial occupation; that it would be inadvisable to permit a foreign government to take possession, even temporarily, of the customhouses of an American republic, and hence we might have to intervene to bring about some arrangement under which the obligation should be met; that this would be the only possible way to insure us against a clash with some foreign power; and that this position is in the interest of peace as well as in the interest of justice.  He adds: —

This brings me to what should be one of the fundamental objects of the Monroe Doctrine. We must ourselves, in good faith, try to help upward toward peace and order those of our sister republics which need such help. Just as there has been a gradual growth of the ethical element in the relations of one individual to another, so we are, even though slowly, more and more coming to recognize the duty of bearing one another's burdens, not only as among individuals but also as among nations.

This he illustrates by reference to our policy toward San Domingo, when a foreign nation was about to seize her territory as security for debts incurred.

The President elsewhere described the arrangement as follows: —

It was agreed that we should put a man in as head of the custom-houses, that the collection of customs should be entirely under the management of that man, and that no one should be allowed to interfere with the custom-houses. Revolutions could go on outside them without interference from us; but the custom-houses were not to be touched. We agreed to turn over to the San Domingo Government forty-five per cent of the revenue, keeping fifty-five per cent as a fund to be applied to a settlement with the creditors. The creditors also acquiesced in what we had done, and we started the new arrangement. ... I was actually assailed, right and left, by the more extreme members of the peace propaganda in the United States for what I did in San Domingo; most of the other professional peace advocates took no interest in the matter, or were tepidly hostile; however, I went straight ahead and did the job. The ultra-peace people attacked me on the ground that I had "declared war" against San Domingo, the "war" taking the shape of the one man put in charge of the custom-house! ... I disregarded those foolish people, as I shall always disregard sentimentalists of that type when they are guilty of folly. At the present we have comparative peace and prosperity in the island, in consequence of my action, and of my disregard of these self-styled advocates of peace.

Our acquisition of the Philippines imposed obligations upon our Government which could not be discharged without the army and navy, and Roosevelt's position upon this subject may properly be discussed here. From the first he stood with the great majority of his party in favor of the acquisition of those islands, and said in 1899: —

Of course there are some anti-expansionists whose opposition to expansion takes the form of opposition to American interests, and with these gentry there is no use dealing at all. Whether from credulity, from timidity, or from sheer lack of patriotism, their attitude during the war was as profoundly un-American as was that of the "Copperheads" in 1861. Starting from the position of desiring to avoid war even when it had become unavoidable if our national honor was to be preserved, they readily passed into a frame of mind which made them really chagrined at every American triumph, while they showed very poorly concealed satisfaction over every American shortcoming; and now they permit their hostility to the principle of expansion to lead them into persistent effort to misrepresent what is being done on the Islands and parts of islands which we have actually conquered.

He always asserted that we occupied the Islands for the good we could do there, and speaking of the anti-imperialists said: "Those of our people here at home who have specially claimed to be the champions of the Filipinos have in reality been their worst enemies." And in commenting upon their desire to grant self-government to Luzon under Aguinaldo, he said that it "would be like granting self-government to an Apache Reservation under a local chief." He always said, however, that when the people should have shown their capacity for real freedom by their power of self-government, then it would be possible to decide whether they are to exist independently, but that he could not turn loose the Islands to be butchered.

    Roosevelt here speaks of the band of anti imperialists who continuously kept up their opposition to the policy of the Government toward the Philippines. I did not belong to that body, but I was strongly opposed to the policy of our Government and was in a very small and ill-thought-of minority in my own party.

There will never be recorded a more sudden and revolutionary change in a fundamental policy of a great nation than that manifested in our acquirement of the Philippine Islands. For over a hundred years we had adhered closely to our continental policy of keeping aloof from European politics and the entangling alliances against which Washington warned us in his Farewell Address. In a single night this policy was abandoned, and we placed our foreign relations at the mercy of the fortunes of island possessions on the other side of the globe, inhabited by people with whom we had no affiliations of race, language, creed, or color, and toward whom we had no responsibilities excepting those which we chose to assume or forcibly to acquire. This is not the place for any extended discussion of the subject, the great difficulties of which I appreciate. I only mention it here as having a bearing upon Roosevelt's views of our army and navy.

His foreign policy was based upon a very simple rule, which was, as he puts it, to behave toward other nations as a strong and self-respecting man should behave toward the other men with whom he is brought into contact. In other words, our aim is disinterestedly to help other nations where such help can be wisely given without the appearance of meddling with what does not concern us; to be careful to act as a good neighbor and at the same time in good-natured fashion to make it evident that we do not intend to be imposed upon. Or, as he put it in another way, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

With these views of our duties, it is less necessary to say that Roosevelt always favored preparedness for war, as the best means, however, for securing peace, than to say that he regarded war as something to be avoided if possible and honorable peace to be desired above all things. On one occasion he said: —
. . . Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!
And on another: —
A wanton or useless war, or a war of mere aggression, is to be condemned as a peculiarly atrocious crime against humanity. As the world is now, only that nation is equipped for peace that knows how to fight and that will not shirk from fighting if ever the conditions become such that war is demanded in the name of the highest morality.
He was continually preaching the necessity for cultivating the stern virtues always needed when a crisis comes to the nation or the individual. As he put it: —
One of the prime dangers of civilization has always been its tendency to cause the loss of virile fighting virtues, of the fighting edge. When men get too comfortable and lead too luxurious lives, there is always danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their manliness of fibre.
That there was need for such preachment, I think no thoughtful person will deny. This is and has been for some time an age of luxury in America. We have been free from any great catastrophe; and, as a nation, have been largely engaged in getting and spending. Until the national income tax was imposed, a man might go from the cradle to the grave without realizing that he had any relation with the National Government, much less that he owed it any duty. The national taxes were for the most part, as they affected the individual, indirect. There was no compulsory military service and our citizens came naturally to think of the nation as a benevolent institution from which much was to be expected and to which nothing should be given of treasure or service. That this is a dangerous attitude of mind, I think all will agree. Nor were the conditions surrounding the individual such as to develop the sterner virtues in those who were removed from the privations of poverty. The character of the early settler was hardened by the daily struggle with nature for a livelihood and with the savages to6 preserve life. This may have developed natures which were stern and forbidding, but it bred into our people some great qualities, and it was well for Roosevelt to call the attention of his countrymen to the fact that if we are to hold our own, these qualities must be preserved: well that in the days of personal indulgence and enervating influences there should be an apostle to preach and practice the doctrine of " the strenuous life."
Roosevelt's desire for peace was not confined to words. Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, the French pacifist, said: —
President Roosevelt has already given four striking lessons to Europe — first, in having brought before the Arbitration Tribunal at The Hague the question between Mexico and the United States over the Pious Fund claims, while Europe was scoffing at the peace court which it had created; second, in obliging Europe to settle pacifically the Venezuelan affair; third, in proposing a second Peace Conference at The Hague to complete the work of the first; and, fourth, in now intervening to put an end to the hecatombs in the Far East.
Of the negotiations undertaken by Roosevelt to bring about peace between Russia and Japan, the London "Times" said, in August, 1905: —

Whatever may be the outcome of the negotiations, civilized mankind will not forget or undervalue the part Mr. Roosevelt has played in bringing them about. The issue rests in other hands than his, but the efforts he has made in the cause of peace, whether followed by success or failure, have won for him the gratitude of the world. He has done his duty as peacemaker faithfully and with a single mind.

Because of these services, Roosevelt received the Nobel Prize of about $40,000, which he gave in support of a plan to establish at Washington, a permanent industrial peace committee — a plan which it has not been found practicable to carry out.

Roosevelt was not opposed to disarmament so far as it was a safe thing to do; but he said on one occasion: —
Nothing would more promote iniquity, nothing would further defer the reign upon earth of peace and righteousness than for the free and enlightened peoples which, though with much stumbling and many shortcomings, nevertheless strive toward justice, deliberately to render themselves powerless while leaving every despotism and barbarism armed and able to work their wicked will.
Roosevelt has been criticized for his opposition to some of the so-called " Arbitration Treaties," but his reasons seem sound: —
We, the people of the United States, cannot and will not surrender to outsiders the power to determine whether or not we are fit to decide for ourselves what are our vital needs, and what are the policies proper for meeting these needs. In other words, Uncle Sam does not intend to wrong any one, but neither does he intend to bind himself, if his pocket is picked, his house burglarized, or his face slapped, to "arbitrate" with the wrong-doer; and as long as he does not intend so to bind himself, it would be offensive hypocrisy for him to say that he will so bind himself.
He was not disposed to rest in any position of false security or to make or permit to be made promises that could not be kept. His course may not have been satisfactory to those who prefer to see things as they would have them and not as they are, but it was honest. He was continually commenting upon the national short-sightedness in failing to provide for the efficiency of the army in times of peace and had little patience with those who feared that this would tend to militarism. He said: —
Declamation against militarism has no more serious place than declamation against Baal or Astaroth.

The only way to have men ready in time of war, is to teach them in time of peace.
He believed in teaching men and boys to shoot straight. He said: —
We should establish shooting-galleries in all the large public and military schools; should maintain national target ranges in different parts of the country and should in every way encourage the formation of rifle clubs throughout all parts of the land. The little Republic of Switzerland offers us an excellent example in all matters connected with building up an efficient citizen soldiery.

The training of our young men in field maneuvers and in marksmanship, as is done in Switzerland, and to a slightly less extent in Australia, would be of immense advantage to the physique and morale of our whole population. It would not represent any withdrawal of our population from civil pursuits, such as occurs among the great military states of the European Continent.

Roosevelt was always impatient of humbug and "hifalutin'," particularly in connection with practical matters. For instance, when recently some Senator said that we needed no regular army, because in the event of war "ten million freemen would spring to arms, the equals of any regular soldiers in the world," Roosevelt, in his whimsical way said: —

If the Senator's ten million men sprang to arms at this moment, they would have at the outside some four hundred thousand modern rifles to which to "spring." Perhaps six hundred thousand more could "spring" to squirrel pieces and fairly good shotguns. The remaining nine million men would have to "spring" to axes, scythes, hand-saws, gimlets, and similar arms.

He was always particularly interested in the navy. He had written a book about it from which I have quoted, had been Assistant Secretary, and had much technical knowledge of the subject. He urged that the upbuilding of the navy, begun in 1882, be continued, and that a national naval reserve be established. During his Administration, we had naval maneuvers on a large scale for the first time in our history, with constantly increasing attention paid to gunnery. As Roosevelt tersely put the fact, "In battle the only shots that count are the shots that hit."

He took the very sensible view that our ships must be at sea in order that the men and equipment might be kept at the highest point of efficiency.

On one occasion he said: —
No fighting ship of the first class should ever be laid up save for necessary repairs; and her crew should be kept constantly exercised on the high seas, so that she may stand at the highest point of perfection.
No one can fairly dispute the soundness of this position. One might say that we should have no ships and make an argument, but no one could defend the position that we should have inefficient ships.

A battleship is a machine; not only that, but a very complicated machine. Every one knows, who knows anything of the subject, that a machine of any kind to be kept efficient must be run and run constantly, not intermittently. A machine which to the eye of the novice is complete is very far from being so; it is not completed until it is efficient, and that can only be when every part is working perfectly under the guidance of experienced and trained human intelligence. This requires constant use. A ship that is not efficient is worse than no ship, because it holds out the promise of offense or defense that cannot be kept, just as a battery that can't shoot straight might just as well be without ammunition. It was with this end in view — to keep our fleet efficient — that it was sent to the Pacific and then around the world. Both events were sharply criticized, but both were abundantly justified by those who apply the rules of ordinary common sense to a practical question. The fleet reached Hampton Roads, at the conclusion of its 42,ooo-mile cruise, on February 21, 1909. Upon this occasion President Roosevelt made the following speech:—
Admiral Sperry, officers and men of the battle fleet: Over a year has passed since you steamed out of this harbor, and over the world's rim, and this morning the hearts of all who saw you thrilled with pride as the hulls of the mighty warships lifted above the horizon. You have been in the northern and southern hemispheres; four times you have crossed the line; you have steamed through all the great oceans; you have touched the coast of every continent. Ever your general course has been westward; and now you come back to the port from which you set sail. This is the first battle fleet that has ever circumnavigated the globe. Those who perform the feat again can but follow in your footsteps.

The little torpedo flotilla went with you around South America, through the Straits of Magellan, to our own Pacific Coast. The armored cruiser squadron met you and left you again when you were halfway round the world. You have falsified every prediction of the prophets of failure. In all your long cruise not an accident worthy of mention has happened to a single battleship, nor yet to the cruisers or torpedo boats. You left this coast in a high state of battle efficiency, and you returned with your efficiency increased, better prepared than when you left, not only in personnel, but even in material.

During your world cruise you have taken your regular gunnery practice, and skilled though you were before with the guns, you have grown more skillful still and through practice you have improved in battle tactics, though here there is more room for improvement than in your gunnery. Incidentally, I suppose, I need hardly say that one measure of your fitness must be your clear recognition of the need always steadily to strive to render yourselves more fit; if you ever grow to think that you are fit enough, you can make up your minds that from that moment you will begin to go backward.

As a war machine, the fleet comes back in better shape than it went out. In addition, you, the officers and men of this formidable fighting force, have shown yourselves the best of all possible ambassadors and heralds of peace. Wherever you have landed you have borne yourselves so as to make us at home proud of being your countrymen. You have shown that the best type of fighting men of the sea knows how to appear to the utmost possible advantage when his business is to behave himself on shore and to make a good impression in a foreign land.
When I left the Presidency [said Roosevelt], there was not a cloud on the horizon — and one of the reasons why there was not a cloud on the horizon was that the American battle fleet had just returned from its sixteen months' trip around the world, a trip such as no other battle fleet of any power had ever taken, which it had not been supposed could be taken, and which exercised a greater influence for peace than all the peace congresses of the last fifty years. With Lowell I most emphatically believe that peace is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards; and the fool and the weakling are no improvement on the coward.
In his special message of April 14, 1908, Roosevelt again urged upon Congress the need of providing four battleships of the best and most advanced type — action which was recommended by the General Board and by the Secretary of the Navy. In this message Roosevelt said: —
. . . Prior to the recent Hague Conference it had been my hope that an agreement could be reached between the different nations to limit the increase of naval armaments, and especially to limit the size of warships. Under these circumstances I felt that the construction of one battleship a year would keep our navy up to its then positive and relative strength. But actual experience showed not merely that ic was impossible to obtain such an agreement for the limitation of armaments among the various leading powers, but that there was no likelihood whatever of obtaining it in the future within any reasonable time. Coincidentally with this discovery occurred a radical change in the building of battleships among the great military nations — a cjiange in accordance with which the most modern battleships have been or are being constructed, of a size and armament which doubles, or more probably trebles, their effectiveness. Every other great naval nation has or is building a number of ships of this kind; we have provided for but two, and therefore the balance of power is now inclining against us. Under these conditions, to provide for but one or two battleships a year is to provide that this nation, instead of advancing, shall go backward in naval rank and relative power among the great nations. Such a course would be unwise for us if we fronted merely on one ocean, and it is doubly unwise when we front on two oceans. ... I earnestly advise that the Congress now provide four battleships of the most advanced type. I cannot too emphatically say that this is a measure of peace and not of war. I can conceive of no circumstances under which this Republic would enter into an aggressive war; most certainly, under no circumstances would it enter into an aggressive war to extend its territory or in any other manner seek material aggrandizement. I advocate that the United States build a navy commensurate with its powers and its needs, because I feel that such a navy will be the surest guaranty and safeguard of peace. 
... It is idle to assume, and from the standpoint of national interest and honor it is mischievous folly for any statesman to assume, that this world has yet reached the stage, or has come within measurable distance of the stage, when a proud nation, jealous of its honor and conscious of its great mission in the world, can be content to rely for peace upon the forbearance of other powers. It would be equally foolish to rely upon each of them possessing at all times and under all circumstances and provocations an altruistic regard for the rights of others. . . .

. . . To any public man who knows of the complaints continually made to the State Department there is an element of grim tragedy in the claim that the time has gone by when weak nations or peoples can be oppressed by those that are stronger without arousing effective protest from other strong interests. Events still fresh in the mind of every thinking man show that neither arbitration nor any other device can as yet be invoked to prevent the gravest and most terrible wrong-doing to peoples who are either few in numbers or who, if numerous, have lost the first and most important of national virtues — the capacity for self-defense.

When a nation is so happily situated as is ours — that is, when it has no reason to fear or to be feared by its land neighbors — the fleet is all the more necessary for the preservation of peace. Great Britain has been saved by its fleet from the necessity of facing one of the two alternatives — of submission to conquest by a foreign power or of itself becoming a great military power. The United States can hope for a permanent career of peace on only one .condition, and that is, on condition of building and maintaining a first-class navy; and the step to be taken toward this end at this time is to provide for the building of four additional battleships. I earnestly wish that the Congress would pass the measures for which I have asked for strengthening and rendering more efficient the army as well as the navy; all of these measures as affecting every branch and detail of both services are sorely needed, and it would be the part of far-sighted wisdom to enact them all into laws, but the most vital and immediate need is that of the four battleships.
I cannot recommend to your notice measures for the fulfillment of our duties to the rest of the world without again pressing upon you the necessity of placing ourselves in a condition of complete defense and of exacting from them the fulfillment of their duties toward us. The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other nation abounds. There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be. known that we are at all times ready for war.
This recommendation of four battleships was not adopted by Congress. I voted to sustain the committee which favored two, and the views then expressed by Roosevelt excited only languid interest among the people of the country — excepting where they aroused sharp condemnation. As one paper expressed it, "The sober part of this nation is not inclined to the reckless policy of building enormous fleets." But be it observed, the arguments used by Roosevelt in 1908 are the arguments which in 1915 are being urged from every platform where "national defense" is discussed and by those who have been very recent converts to the cause. The policy now advocated by Roosevelt is what it has always been.

Perhaps the time is at hand when we should diminish the zone of our responsibilities. To accomplish this would make necessary our relinquishment of the Philippines and the restriction of the Monroe Doctrine to an area essential to the protection of our own territory. We could then confine our efforts to an army and navy best adapted for purposes of defense and feel certain that we were undertaking a task we might expect adequately to perform. We might, too, then feel that we were more strictly following in the pathway marked out by Washington in his Farewell Address; which is read annually in both Houses of Congress for our guidance.

Roosevelt always showed great interest in the restoration and development of our merchant marine, so essential to the permanent prosperity of the country.

In his first message to the Fifty-seventh Congress, in 1901, the President called attention to the condition of the American merchant marine, and said that it called for immediate remedial action to the end that it might be restored to the ocean. In his message to the Fifty-eighth Congress, at the second session, in December, 1903, he recommended the appointment of a commission to report to the next session of Congress "what legislation is desirable or necessary for the development of the American merchant marine and American commerce, and incidentally of a national ocean mail service of adequate auxiliary naval cruisers and naval reserves."

In his message at the opening of the Fifty-ninth Congress, the President referred to the report of this commission, made at the previous session, and expressed the hope that the views therein expressed or a major part of them might be enacted into law, and said: —
If it prove impracticable to enact a law for the encouragement of shipping generally, then at least provision should be made for better communication with South America, notably for fast mail lines to the chief South American ports. It is discreditable to us that our business people, for lack of direct communication in the shape of lines of steamers with South America, should, in that great sister continent, be at a disadvantage compared to the business people of Europe.

A bill passed the Senate, and then the House with some modifications. It then went back to the Senate for concurrence, and was talked to death by two Democratic Senators whose terms of office expired with that Congress on March 4, 1907.

In his message of December, 1907, the President referred to the "unfortunate failure of the shipping bill at the last session of the last Congress," and called attention to the fact that it "was followed by the taking off of certain Pacific steamships." Later in this message, he recommended "the extension of the ocean mail act of 1891," upon the theory "that it is the duty of a first-class power, so far as practicable, to carry its ocean mails under its own flag; that the fast ocean steamships and their crews, required for such mail service, are valuable auxiliaries to the sea power of a nation." Legislation based upon this recommendation also failed of enactment.
The Tariff
Speaking of his study of political economy in college, Roosevelt said in his autobiography: "As regards political economy, I was, of course, while in college, taught the laissez-faire doctrines — one of them being free trade — then accepted as canonical." He was one of the original members of the Finance Club at Harvard, organized when we were students to promote the discussion of financial and kindred questions. He took courses in political economy under the late Professor Charles F. Dunbar and Professor J. Laurence Laughlin, now of Chicago University. His principal textbooks were "Principles of Political Economy," by John Stuart Mill, and "Some Leading Principles of Political Economy," by J. E. Cairnes. Like most college graduates, he was disposed to be a free trader. As he has never engaged in any business affected by the tariff, the practical considerations involved in the subject have never been brought home to him.

When he wrote the "Life of Benton," in 1886, he said, speaking of the tariff: —
Free traders are apt to look at the tariff from a sentimental standpoint; but it is in reality a purely business matter, and should be decided solely on grounds of expediency. Political economists have pretty generally agreed that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in practice; but if the majority of the people in interest wish it, and it affects only themselves, there is no earthly reason why they should not be allowed to try the experiment to their hearts' content.
His position on this question when he was President was that he did not believe that the question of lowering or raising the duties as proposed by the two parties, in any way approached in importance the trust or labor problems, so called. He believed that those who urged upon him the necessity for taking up the tariff knew that'the tariff would be a red herring across the path of moral and industrial reform. He believed in a protective tariff, administered under a tariff commission like that in Germany, a plan which neither party would support. He believes that the Taft and Woodrow Wilson tariffs both did damage and that the result demonstrates that he was right in thinking that if he had taken up the tariff no good would have followed, and that he would have played into the hands of those who wished the tariff thrown open to discussion merely to avoid action on matters which he regarded as of infinitely greater importance.

I think that in his political life he had very little interest in the subject, very likely because there was no revision of the tariff while he was President, which was perhaps fortunate. He accepted the party position and stated it forcibly in his various messages. Had the need arisen I do not doubt that he would have dealt with the matter with his customary vigor and intelligence, and he would, I am sure, have listened patiently to the great variety of views so tenaciously held on this most perplexing subject.
We have not had a President in recent times who so generously invited opinions from every quarter as did Roosevelt. He did not assume in advance that he knew everything about a subject and was quick to admit his lack of knowledge. What I have said is well illustrated by the following correspondence. I wrote him as follows : —
worcester, mass., August 31, 1911.

I 'fear that we are in for a very discouraging year in politics; the evil day of tariff revision is merely postponed, and I fear that too much is expected of the Tariff Board. It sounds well to talk about scientific revision of the tariff, but it is an idle dream. The difference in cost of production varies from day to day, and cannot be definitely ascertained. It will vary in our own cotton mills from time to time, sometimes as much as one half a cent a yard, or more, depending upon the variation in the price of cotton due to natural causes. The 1908 tariff plank was most unhappily phrased, and the guarantee of a reasonable profit was almost a crime. A tariff high enough to insure the home market to the home producer at reasonable prices is as near as we can ever get to an enunciation of the protective policy, and where this point is can be better ascertained by studying our imports than by trying to ascertain difference in cost of production. I do not see any escape from a prolonged and perhaps acrimonious discussion in the next session of Congress. One discouraging condition is the utter lack of candor in discussing the matter. We hear much of the "Woolen Trust," the "Worsted Trust,"   "Cotton   Trust," — all   creations   of  the imagination, but creative of much unrest with the people. The people do not seem to realize that what manufacturers want is a big output at small margins. A man who wears a fifty-cent shirt would not complain if he knew what is the fact — that the manufacturer of the cloth is happy to make half a cent on the two and a half yards it takes to make the shirt. The unhappy man who wears the shirt probably has an idea that the "trust" pockets forty-nine cents. If the Tariff Board performs any valuable service, it will not be in discovering the difference in cost of production between here and "abroad," but in putting before the people some facts in regard to the conditions under which our staples are produced which will convince the public that, take them as a whole, the manufacturers are not making unduly large profits, and which will lead our people to see that, in order to insure low cost of production, we must keep for ourselves the home market.  Otherwise our mills will run on short time, our people will be idle, and our cost of production will be high.   I had the curiosity last autumn to have computed the difference in the cost of a certain kind of cotton goods running the mill twelve months in the year and running it nine months, and found that the difference would be about three-tenths of a cent per yard, which is quite a good profit. In other words, if the Lancashire spinners send goods enough into New England to keep our mills running three fourths of the time, we will not only have our streets full of the idle and suffering poor, but the cost of the goods we do make will be very considerably increased. I am not deceived at all by the popular delusion touching wages here and abroad. I know very well that the most efficient labor is the cheapest and that the lowest cost of production is sometimes accompanied by the highest rate of wages, so that in some lines of business, — for example, the manufacture of steel rails, — no tariff at all is needed because of the labor cost, but it is very important to protect our markets against the importation of large quantities of foreign goods when the foreign demand may be small, because that utterly disarranges the running of our own mills and puts them on short time, which, as I have suggested above, not only means suffering for our people, but high cost of production. I doubt myself the wisdom of the reciprocity arrangement at this time with Canada, and for the reason that politically it seems to me a very unwise thing for a Republican President to force through a proposition which splits his own party in two. I think the proposition is, for the moment, popular with the people, but I fear that the interests affected or thought to be are likely to resent the discrimination which has been made, manifested in a willingness to legislate upon them before any investigation by the Tariff Board, when other interests are very jealously protected until they shall have been investigated by the Tariff Board. I earnestly hope that the party will not suffer, but profit by the policy which has been pursued, but I have my doubts about it. 
To which Roosevelt made the following reply:
September 2d, 1911.
That is a most interesting letter of yours. It gave me some totally new ideas; and when missionary work is needed for me, it must be needed for some other people too. As regards Canadian Reciprocity, the trouble is, as you say, that to push it through at the expense of the farmers, who are restive about the tariff anyhow, tends to make them ready to favor any cut at the expense of the manufacturers.
Upon this point of his willingness to receive suggestions, Secretary Hay wrote in his Diary, November 20, 1904: —

I read the President's message in the afternoon. . . . Made several suggestions as to changes and omissions. The President came in just as I had finished and we went over the matter together. He accepted my ideas with that singular amiability and open-mindedness which form so striking a contrast with the general idea of his brusque and arbitrary character.'
In his message of December, 1907, he said that the country was committed to the system of protection, but that every dozen years, or so, the tariff should be scrutinized and should compensate for the difference in labor cost; a view which, as I have said, I consider rather superficial.

   Some of his other comments on the tariff will not stand the test of analysis; for example, he once said: "I am for a protective tariff that gets past the mill offices down into the pockets of the workingman." Now, the only way that the tariff can benefit the workingman is to provide him with employment. The rate of wages is determined by other influences, and in the long run must be substantially the market rate for labor of the same sort in the same locality. To say, as Roosevelt once did, — "If the wage rate is not proper, if the conditions of life among laboring people are not proper, then we recommend that the tariff be taken off entirely," —• is merely another way of saying that low wages are worse than lower wages, or no wages at all. I do not know of any great protected product in the manufacture of which there is not present the element of competition. Where this is true, domestic competition insures the sale of the product at as low prices as are possible under conditions prevailing here. Roosevelt distinctly repudiated the erroneous doctrine that the trusts could be destroyed by removing the tariff.
Conservation
There is no great movement championed by Roosevelt and urged by him upon Congress and the nation which will be of more lasting benefit to his countrymen than that for the conservation of our national resources, which, up to almost the present time, have been used with reckless prodigality.

Roosevelt's interest in this subject was roused when he was Governor of New York and had under consideration the Adirondack forests, in connection with which he consulted Gifford Pinchot. In January, 1900, an agreement was made between New York State and the Federal Government by which the latter began systematic measurement of the streams of the State.

The beginnings of the conservation movement are recorded in a book on the "Arid Lands of the West," written, about 1880, by Major John W. Powell, then Director of the Geological Survey. Frederick H. Newell, Director of the Reclamation Service, printed the results of his investigation under the title of "The Public Lands and their Water Supply,"in the i6th Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey.

When Roosevelt became President, he requested Newell and Pinchot to prepare memoranda for his use in writing his first message to the Fifty-seventh Congress.

In that message he recommended that additions be made to the forest reserves and that their protection be transferred from the General Land Office to the Bureau of Forestry. The President said: —

The water-supply itself depends upon the forest. In the arid region it is water, not land, which measures production. The western half of the United States would sustain a population greater than that of our whole country to-day if the waters that now run to waste were saved and used for irrigation. The forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal questions of the United States.
He suggested that great storage works were necessary to save the flood waters and that irrigation works would open up to homestead settlement great areas of the public land. He also recommended preserves for the wild forest creatures. In October, 1903, Roosevelt designated Pinchot and Newell, together with W. A. Richards, the Land Commissioner, as a Public Lands Commission, to report to him. This was the beginning of the movement. The problem, as Roosevelt once put it, was one "of utilizing the natural resources of the nation in a way that will be of the most benefit to the nation as a whole."

The subject was again referred to in the message of December, 1904; and in that of 1906, the President recommended the withdrawal of coal lands, which should be owned by the Government, but worked by private individuals under a royalty system; and elsewhere he favored the preservation of the forests of the White Mountains and of the Southern Appalachians, a project which was subsequently undertaken by the Government. In his message of December, 1907, he favored the development of reclamation work and the stopping of unlawful fencing of public lands. He uttered a warning that the country was in danger of a timber famine and that the forests should be conserved. Again, in January, 1908, he spoke of the effort to secure equality of opportunity: —
' In the interest of the small settlers and landowners, and against the embittered opposition of wealthy owners of huge wandering flocks of sheep, or of corporations desiring to rob the people of coal and timber, we strive to put an end to the theft of public land in the West.
In his message of March, 1908, he repeats a recommendation for the development of our inland waterways and the appointment of a permanent Waterways Commission, speaks of the conservation of our natural resources as vital for the future of the nation, and states that he "will veto any water-power bill not providing for time limit and for the right of the President or Secretary concerned to fix and collect such a charge as he may find just and reasonable in each case."

In December, 1908, he urges short-time franchises for corporations getting power from water rights and recommends national as well as state guardianship of mines and forests. He insists that "we should leave our national domain to our children increased in value and not worn out," and by pictorial illustrations graphically shows the results in China of deforestation. He recommends that the national parks be placed under the control of the Forest Service of the Agricultural Department.

   In March,  1907, he added sixteen million acres to the forest reservations just before he signed an act of Congress forbidding such reservations hereafter to be made except by Congress itself. Roosevelt's explanation of this incident is somewhat amusing. In speaking of the attacks upon the Forest Service, he said: —
While the Agricultural Appropriation Bill was passing through the Senate, in 1907, Senator Fulton, of Oregon, secured an amendment providing that the President could not set aside any additional national forests in the six Northwestern States. This meant retaining some sixteen million of acres to be exploited by land-grabbers and by the representatives of the great special interests, at the expense of the public interest. But for four years the Forest Service had been gathering field notes as to what forests ought to be set aside in these States, and so was prepared to act. It was equally undesirable to veto the whole Agricultural Bill, and to sign it with this amendment effective. Accordingly, a plan to create the necessary national forests in these States before the Agricultural Bill could be passed and signed was laid before me by Mr. Pinchot. I approved it. The necessary papers were immediately prepared. I signed the last proclamation a couple of days before, by my signature, the bill became law; and when the friends of the special interests in the Senate got their amendment through and woke up, they discovered that sixteen million acres of timberland had been saved for the people by putting them in the national forests before the land-grabbers could get at them. The opponents of the Forest Service turned handsprings in their wrath, and dire were their threats against the Executive; but the threats could not be carried out, and were really only a tribute to the efficiency of our action.

Roosevelt vetoed a bill authorizing the construction of a dam across the James River in Missouri, for the reason that it gave to the grantee a valuable privilege which by its very nature is monopolistic and does not contain the conditions essential to protect the public interest. The bill was similar to the Rainy River Dam Bill of the previous spring, April 13, 1908, vetoed by the President, which ultimately became a law because the company then agreed in writing to submit to such conditions as might be imposed by the Secretary of War, including a time limit and a reasonable charge. In May, 1908, and again in December, 1908, there was, at the request of the President, a convention in Washington of the governors of the different States upon the subject of conservation, which did much to stimulate national interest in the subject. This suggested a North American Conservation Conference, and in January, 1909, the President, through Gifford Pinchot, asked Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and President Diaz of Mexico to send representatives to a conference on the conservation of the natural resources of North America, to be held in Washington in February, 1909. This meeting suggested a conference of all the nations on the subject of "world resources," and an invitation was sent by our Secretary of State to forty-five nations to a conference to be held at The Hague. The project, however, lapsed with the Roosevelt Administration.

Some doubt was expressed as to the right of the President to withdraw public lands from location. Touching this question it was decided, by the Supreme Court, in United States vs. The Midwest Oil Company, February 23, 1915, that the long-continued practice, the acquiescence of Congress, as well as the decisions of the court, all show that the President had the power.

I happened to pick up, some time ago, an Arizona paper. My eye fell on the following statement:'—

Ten years ago farm land in the Salt River Valley was worth from thirty-five to a hundred dollars per acre. It is now worth from seventy-five to five hundred dollars. . . .
What effected the change?

The credit should be given to the Roosevelt Reservoir. . . . The Roosevelt Reservoir right now has more water in it than it ever had before, giving positive insurance of crops in the Salt River Valley for years to come. It is three fourths full, and will be entirely filled before the snow stops melting this spring.
, A reservoir in the desert which insures constant and increasing benefit to mankind is a much finer memorial than the great pyramid of Cheops, likewise in the desert, but serving no useful purpose excepting to remind us of an ancient superstition.
Relations with Congress

I shall now speak briefly of Roosevelt's relations with Congress. His first message was entirely characteristic. He gave adequate consideration to the great tragedy that made him President, but he was from the outset his own master. His messages were always addressed quite as much to the people as to Congress, and in time it came to be generally accepted that whenever he thought it necessary he went over the heads of Congress to the people.

In speaking of the President's power, Mr. Bryce says, in the "American Commonwealth" (vol. i, p. 223):—•
An individual man has some great advantages in combating an assembly. His counsels are less distracted. His secrets are better kept. He may sow discord among his antagonists. He can strike a more sudden blow. Julius Csesar was more than a match for the Senate, Cromwell for the Long Parliament, even Louis Napoleon for the French Assembly of 1851. Hence, when the President happens to be a strong man, resolute, prudent, and popular, he may well hope to prevail against a body whom he may divide by the dexterous use of patronage, may weary out by inflexible patience, may overawe by winning the admiration of the masses, always disposed to rally round a striking personality.
His Administration, speaking now of his service of seven and a half years, was fruitful of legislation by a Republican House and a Republican Senate. The following were among the principal acts passed: The Elkins Anti-Rebate Law applying to railroads; the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor and the Bureau of Corporations; the law authorizing the building of the Panama Canal; the Hepburn Bill amending and vitalizing the Interstate Commerce Act; the Pure-Food and Meat Inspection laws; the law creating the Bureau of Immigration; the Employer's Liability and Safety Appliance laws, that limited the working hours of employees; the law making the Government liable for injuries to its employees; the law forbidding child labor in the District of Columbia; the reformation of the Consular Service; prohibition of campaign contributions from corporations; the Emergency Currency Law, which also provided for the creation of the Monetary Commission. This was a part of the legislative accomplishment of these years, stimulated by the aggressiveness of the Executive. It will be observed that most of these acts are to insure justice of treatment between man and man, to protect the weak, to curb the strong.

The passage of the Hepburn Bill, amending the Interstate Commerce Act, was attended by more or less friction. The President at first favored giving to the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to make railroad rates independent of review by the courts. This was resisted by Congress, and finally the bill passed, embodying the three principles laid down in the President's message of December, 1905: Power in some administrative body to decide whether a railway rate complained of is reasonable and just; and, if not, to prescribe a maximum rate, the decision to go into effect within a reasonable time; and subject to review by the courts.

The Meat Inspection Law was the result of the revolting conditions shown in the Chicago stockyards in a report made by James B. Reynolds and Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill, which the President sent to Congress with a special message. Considerable friction developed between the President and the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture before this bill became a law.

It has been said, and is no doubt true, that in the openness and the directness of his dealing with Congress, Roosevelt surpassed all of his predecessors, and that no President ever equaled him in the amount of legislation he asked of Congress.

Entirely characteristic of Roosevelt's methods was his action in the case of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company. The Senate passed a resolution calling on the Attorney-General to state to the Senate why he had not prosecuted the Steel Trust, under the Anti-Trust Law, for the purchase of the Tennessee Coal Company in the fall of 1907. The President instructed the Attorney-General not to answer the question, and then answered the question himself. He said that Mr. Gary and Mr. Frick called on him in November, 1907, in regard to the matter, and asked if the acquisition of the Tennessee Coal Company would be regarded by the President as a violation of the law. " They asserted that they did not wish to do this if I stated that it ought not to be done. I answered that, while, of course, I could not advise them to take the action proposed, I felt it no public duty of mine to interpose any objection." It appears that the President was subsequently advised in writing by the Attorney-General that there was no legal ground for proceedings against the Steel Corporation, and the purchase of the Tennessee Coal Company would constitute no ground for such prosecution.

Roosevelt's action was abundantly vindicated in the opinion of the Court in the case of the United States vs. United States Steel Corporation, decided June 3, 1915, in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, in which, referring to the purchase by the Steel Corporation of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, the court said: —

We shall next consider the purchase by the Steel Company of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, which was made in November, 1907. On the one hand, it is alleged the Tennessee Company was a competitor of great power and that its purchase was for the purpose of suppressing competition and effecting monopoly and restraint of trade. On the other hand, it is contended that the competition of the Tennessee Company was of relatively small extent, that its purchase was practically forced upon the Steel Company as a means of averting a threatening financial crisis during the panic of 1907, and that such purchase neither did nor tended to monopolize or restrain the steel and iron industry of the United States. . . .
[We] have arrived at the following conclusions: — At the time the Steel Company bought the Tennessee Company, the latter's production of iron and steel was 1.7 per cent of the production of the country; that up to that time the Tennessee Company had not been a business success; that it was making rails, which was its principal steel product, at a loss; that its ultimate success was problematic; that such success involved an outlay of upward of $25,000,000 to put it upon a dividend basis; that it had never really earned any dividends up to the time of its sale; that the whole testimony shows its relation as a successful, substantial competitor with the Steel Company in the volume of its business, the character of its product, and the breadth of its market was negligible. We are warranted by this testimony and find the fact to be that its purchase by the Steel Company in no way tended to monopolize the steel and iron trade, and that it was not bought with the purpose or intent of monopolizing, or attempting to monopolize, or restrain that trade. Such negative conclusions and findings are confirmed by the affirmative proofs showing just how the purchase was made, namely, as a necessary part of comprehensive plans of bankers and business men, sanctioned by President Roosevelt, to check the panic of 1907, which was then at its height. Without entering into details> we may say the situation was summed up in the letter of President Roosevelt to Attorney-General Bonaparte, as follows: —

" November 4, 1907.

"My dear mr. attorney-general: —

"Judge E. H. Gary and Mr. H. C. Frick on behalf of the Steel Corporation have just called upon me. They state that there is a certain business firm (the name of which I have not been told, but which is of real importance in New York business circles), which will undoubtedly fail this week if help is not given. Among its assets are a majority of the securities of the Tennessee Coal Company. Application has been urgently made to the Steel Corporation to purchase this stock as the only means of avoiding a failure. Judge Gary and Mr. Frick inform me that as a mere business transaction they do not care to purchase the stock; that under ordinary circumstances they would not consider purchasing the stock, because but little benefit will come to the Steel Corporation from the purchase; that they are aware that the purchase will be used as a handle for attack upon them on the ground that they are striving to secure a monopoly of the business and prevent competition, not that this would represent what could honestly be said, but what might recklessly and untruthfully be said. They further inform me that, as a matter of fact, the policy of the company has been to decline to acquire more than sixty per cent of the steel properties, and that this purpose has been persevered in for several years past, with the object of preventing these accusations, and, as a matter of fact, their proportion of steel properties has slightly decreased so that it is below this sixty per cent, and the acquisition of the property in question will not raise it above sixty per cent. But they feel that it is immensely to their interest, as to the interest of every responsible business man, to try to prevent a panic and general industrial smash-up at this time, and that they are willing to go into this transaction, which they would not otherwise go into, because it seems the opinion of those best fitted to express judgment in New York that it will be an important factor in preventing a break that might be ruinous, and that this has been urged upon them by the combination of the most responsible bankers in New York who are now thus engaged in endeavoring to save the situation. But they asserted they did not wish to do this if I stated that it ought not to be done. I answered that while, of course, I could not advise them to take the action proposed, I felt it no public duty of mine to interpose any objection.
"Sincerely, yours,
"theodore roosevelt."

When called by the Government as a witness, President Roosevelt testified as to this letter as follows: —

"I was dealing with a panic and a situation where not merely twenty-four hours, but one hour might cause widespread disaster to the public. . . .

"I ought to say that from New York I had been told by banker after banker that the Tennessee Coal and Iron securities were valueless as securities that counted in that panic. . . .

"There were two matters to which my attention was especially directed. One was the condition of things in New York, the relief that the action would bring, not merely to New York, but throughout the entire country — just as much in Louisiana and Minnesota and California as in New York. That was one thing. The other thing to which my attention was particularly directed was the percentage of holdings the Steel Corporation had, and had had and would have after the Tennessee Coal and Iron properties were acquired. . . .

"The knowledge that I had was that the Steel Corporation had some years previously possessed nearly sixty per cent of the holdings of the steel industry in the country; that its percentage had shrunk steadily; that the addition of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, which was something in the nature of four per cent, — somewhere between two and four per cent, I have forgotten the exact amount, somewhere around there, — did not bring up the percentage of holdings of the Steel Corporation to what it had been a few years previously. . . .

   "My knowledge was simply this, that it was a matter of general opinion among experts that the Tennessee Coal and Iron people had a property which was almost worthless in their hands, nearly worthless to them, nearly worthless to the communities in which it was situated, and entirely worthless to any financial institution that had the securities the minute that any panic came, and that the only way to give value to it was to put it in the hands of people whose possession of it would be a guaranty that there was value to it. ...

"I believed at the time that the facts in the case were as represented to me on behalf of the Steel Corporation, and my further knowledge has convinced me that this was true. I believed at the time that the representatives of the Steel Corporation told me the truth as to the change that would be worked in the percentage of the business which the proposed acquisition would give the Steel Corporation; and further inquiry has confirmed to me that they did so. I was not misled. The representatives of the Steel Corporation told me the truth as to what the effect of the action at that time would be, and any statement that I was misled, or that the representatives of the Steel Corporation did not thus tell me the truth as to the facts of the case, is itself not in accordance with the truth."

An examination of the testimony shows that the matter was as stated by the President and that the Steel Corporation's chairman absolutely refused to purchase unless the matter was submitted to the government authorities, his testimony in that regard being: —

   "While the President of the United States could not say that we might purchase this, or that we should not purchase this property, yet I believed, inasmuch as he had the general direction of the law department of the United States, certainly we ought to know what would be the attitude of the Administration in case we did buy this property."
The Court goes on to say: —
Indeed, as to this purchase as well as the others which we have discussed above, sales made under different circumstances and for various reasons, we cannot but feel in the light of proofs that they were made in fair business course; and were, to use the language of the Supreme Court in the Standard Oil case, "The honest exertion of one's right to contract for his own benefit, unaccompanied by a wrongful motive to injure others."
Toward the end of his term, the relations between Roosevelt and Congress became somewhat strained. This was due to a variety of causes. The President was, very properly, constantly pressing an elaborate programme of legislation. Congress could never meet his expectations or the expectations of the people, and the legislative body came to feel that its efforts were not properly appreciated and that the Executive held a place in the confidence of the people that properly belonged to Congress. The President prefered pretty direct methods to the arts of diplomacy. I think that the country rather enjoyed his controversies with Congress, and, as a rule, sided with him.

Senator Lodge, in his admirable address upon "The Constitution and its Makers," in speaking of Congress, said: —
Yet whatever praise history accords to the Congress of the United States in the past, the Congress of the moment and the members of that body in either branch receive but little commendation from their contemporaries. This is perhaps not unnatural and it certainly has always been customary. . . . The men who fight by land and sea, rouse immediate popular enthusiasm, but a body of men engaged in legislation does not and cannot offer the fascination or the attraction which are inseparable from the individual man who stands forth alone from the crowd in any great work of life, whether of war or peace.

It was early suggested to the President that the most powerful members of his party did not like his ways and that if he asserted his independence he would get no favors from Congress and no renomination by the party; that he had trodden on "many gouty, Senatorial toes." The relations were so "strained" at one time that a resolution was in preparation requiring the President to file a copy of every executive order with a citation of the law following it, and also for the creation of a committee of distinguished lawyers to report on the President's acts and orders. In spite of all the criticism of Roosevelt by the party managers before 1904, he was reflected by such a majority as to leave no doubt as to his strength, and went out of office with his great popularity with the people unimpaired.
End of his Term

As the end of Roosevelt's Administration approached, his friends became solicitous as to his future. He was a comparatively young man, little over fifty, possessed of unbounded energy, and by inclination and habit of untiring industry. In what direction could his energies be best directed to secure the greatest results and at the same time not impair his prestige ? The first year was provided for by the African trip; but after that, what? Three months before the end of his term, I called at the White House to talk with him about a matter of legislation. It was in the afternoon of December 9, 1908.

After I had finished my business, Roosevelt asked me to stay, and then told me what he was going to do when he left the White House. He said that he had received a number of offers, one the presidency of a large corporation with a salary of $100,000, but that he was determined to make no commercial use of his name; another the associate editorship of the "Outlook" at $12,000 salary, which he had accepted because that would enable him to reach the people he wanted to reach. As I was leaving, I said, "Mr. President, I want to say one thing to you. Never, under any circumstances, become a candidate for any political office — unless, perchance, you should sometime be called back here — because, if you do, your prestige will be ruined, and it is the greatest asset the American people possess." As I recall it, the exact expression I used was, "Do not let any friend persuade or any enemy coerce you into becoming a candidate for office." " Do you mean the senatorship ?" said he, for he had been considered for Platt's place. "I had not thought of that at present." "I mean any political office," said I.

I remember that at this time a member of Roosevelt's family asked me what I would have him do after he left the Presidency. I replied that I thought it would be a great misfortune for him to engage in any kind of business or have anything to do with politics. I said that after he returned from his projected African trip, I would have him settle at Sagamore Hill, and, for his serious occupation, write the history of his Administration. Parts of it could be published during his lifetime, and it could be published as an entirety after his death. For his bread-winning occupation, I would have him write for the magazines, as he had always done. I said that his house would become a Mecca for distinguished men from all over the world, and that, acting in an advisory capacity and with his great prestige, he would continue a very potent force in our national life. I further suggested that perhaps he might deliver four addresses a year at the great universities, — North, South, East, and West, — and thus continue to be a great inspiration for young American manhood. I do not assert that the course I would have had him follow was the best one, or possible for him, but these are the views which I held at the time and which I expressed.

The period covered by Roosevelt's service had been, generally speaking, one of great industrial prosperity, of a singularly honest and efficient administration of the Government, and one in which the conscience of the people—and here was Roosevelt's most conspicuous accomplishment — had been wonderfully quickened. Several years ago I happened to be sitting next President Eliot at a public dinner—Roosevelt was then President. Mr. Eliot said to me that a certain prominent banker had told him that the banking fraternity would not then do things which they would have done two years before—fine testimony to the changed feeling in commercial circles; it was a feeling very different in 1907 from that which prevailed in 1897, and one which has continued to the present time. We grew better in that decade; we were not bad at the beginning, but we were better at the end. For this Roosevelt was largely responsible. His great power was a moral power. As to his popularity, the New York "Times" said, in an editorial, at a little later period: "They who dislike Colonel Roosevelt, or think they do, scarcely count in the census."

The Administration of Theodore Roosevelt ended on March 4, 1909, when his successor, William H. Taft, was inaugurated. It will be remembered that Washington was swept by a blizzard which seriously interfered with the ceremonies of the day. The usual preparations had been made for the delivery of the inaugural address on the east portico of the Capitol. The snow forbade and at the last moment it was decided that it should be delivered in the Senate Chamber where all of the dignitaries assembled. In accordance with custom, President Roosevelt had driven from the White House to the Capitol with his successor, but contrary to custom he did not return with him. Immediately after President Taft delivered his address, the ex-President left the Chamber and went directly to the railway station. The man, who for seven years had been the most prominent and talked-about person in the world, became a private citizen. There was a hush over the Chamber as he left, and one could almost hear the unexpressed but common thought of that great assemblage, "He has gone.".'"