THE NATION'S CHIEF AT ST. PAUL

"Let children learn from experience to be strong and manly," said President Roosevelt in his St. Paul speech.

""This doctrine has nothing to do with the commercial relations of any American power, save that it in truth allows each of them to form such as it desires. * We do not guar

antee any state against punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any non-American power.'

"His Excellency the German Ambassador, on his recent return from Berlin, conveyed personally to the President the assurance of the German Emperor that His Majesty's Government had no purpose or intention to make even the smallest acquisition of territory on the South American continent or the islands adjacent. This voluntary and friendly declaration was afterwards repeated to the Secretary of State, and was received by the President and the people of the United States in the frank and cordial spirit in which is was offered. In the memorandum of the 11th of December, His Excellency the German Ambassador repeats these assurances as fol

lows:

'We declare especially that under no circumstances do we consider in our proceedings the acquisition or the permanent occupation of Venezuelan territory.'

"In the said memorandum of the 11th of December, the German Government informs that of the United States that it has certain just claims for money and for damages wrongfully withheld from German subjects by the Government of Venezeula, and that it proposes to take certain coercive measures described in the memorandum to enforce the payment of these just claims.

"The President of the United States, appreciating the courtesy of the German Government in making him acquainted with the state of affairs referred to, and not regarding himself as called upon to enter into the consideration of the claims in question, believes that no measures will be taken in this matter by the agents of the German Government which are not in accordance with the well-known purpose, above set forth, of His Majesty the German Emperor."

Sir Michael Herbert to the Marquis
of Lansdowne.

"WASHINGTON, November 13, 1902.

"I communicated to Mr. Hay this morning the substance of Your Lordship's telegram of the IIth instant.

"His Excellency stated in reply, that the United States Government, although they regretted that European powers should use force against Central and South American countries, could not object to their taking steps to obtain redress for injuries suffered by their subjects, provided that no acquisition of territory was contemplated."

Both powers assured us in explicit terms that there was not the slightest intention on their part to violate the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, and this assurance was kept with an honorable good faith which merits full acknowledgment on our part. At the same time, the existence of hostilities in a region so near our own borders was fraught with such possibilities of danger in the