ches of the
harge. In

concerns

h Lincoln

of a rare he could light on e of the glishman possible nly that --- often utherner

with the Black. Perhaps it should be confessed that the greatest shock which Roosevelt ever gave his English admirers was when, having invited Mr. Booker Washington to meet his wife and family at luncheon, and having set the South in a blaze by so doing, he failed to repeat his offense. But cowardice cannot be suggested in his case; he became sincerely convinced that the sensation, so astonishing to him, which he had thus aroused, was hurtful to the Negro. The matter is but one of the illustrations which he gave of a simple principle, surely incontrovertible (I am not saying that no Englishmen need to learn it), that the racial inferiority of a people, however marked, is no reason but the contrary for failure to give fair play to those who individually rise above the general level, or for failure to meet every man, irrespective of class or race, unaffectedly on his merits as a man.

To this slight sketch of a career in office comparable, in its record of solid achievement, to that of any great Minister for a hundred years past (say, for example, to that of Gladstone in his first Ministry), one thing must be added. It is evident that Roosevelt set his mark, in heightened capacity and devotion more conscientious and unselfish, on every branch of the service under him, naval, military,

or civil, with which he had any close contact. He himself took especial pride in the testimony of a first-rate witness, Lord Bryce, who declared that in his intimate studies of government in many countries he had "never seen a more eager, highminded, and efficient set of public servants than the men doing the work of the American Government'' under Roosevelt. It is characteristic that this so especially pleased him. The quality which creates good subordinates is a quality mainly of the heart.

ELT

close contact. e testimony of

› declared that

lent in many eager, highants than the

Government' that this so hich creates of the heart.

VI

THE INHERITED FOREIGN POLICY

ALIKE in his triumphant career as President and
in the somewhat tragic course of his after-life,
Roosevelt's distinction as a great Liberal at home
was eclipsed by the part which he played in inter-
national affairs. That part was in its main effects
greatly beneficent, while he was in power. But
events followed in presence of which, whatever
he might do as a father and as a citizen, his public
action, still conspicuous, could only be that of a
critic - some would say of a prophet. And those
events were the greatest of his own or of a long
preceding time. So, strangely enough, the very
definite deeds of this very practical person interest
us to-day far less than the principles for which he
may be supposed to have stood, or rather the
temper
which from first to last he breathed. There
was something in that temper which was faulty,
there was also much that was inspiring. I make no
apology here for lingering, as I shall do, over
affairs which arose before he became President, and
in which he was at the most a subordinate actor,
though they enlisted his sympathies very keenly.
His Presidency began shortly after the commence-

ment of a new period, in which the once isolated United States found that their interests though to an extent which even yet an outsider should not judge hastily - -were overlapping those of neighbors across the Atlantic and the Pacific. There was a rather mysterious little alarm concerning, in the first instance, Venezuela. It also was becoming obvious by now that questions about Asiatic labor would be a difficulty

perhaps a menace one day to them, as also to most of the nations of the British Empire. The long agony of Cuba at their doors had drawn them into a war with Spain, which left them in possession of Spanish colonies. There was further a movement — evil in its very inception, whoever set it going - for the portioning-out of China among other Powers. To this America could not be indifferent, and the matter was complicated by the Boxer rising and the grave peril of all the Legations, including the American, besieged in Peking. Thus American public opinion was compelled, and has been so more or less ever since, to envisage from its fresh point of view questions of policy and of principle which, through the existence of the British Empire and of British trade, had long been recurrent causes of controversy in England, and to which (among us) newly awakened sympathy

h the once isoheir interests yet an outsider erlapping those nd the Pacific.

tle alarm conzuela. It also

hat questions Ity — perhaps

to most of the ong agony of

into a war possession of movement

set it going mong other

indifferent,

the Boxer
Legations,
ing. Thus

and has
from

sage
cy and of
e of the

ong been

and to

mpathy

with the peoples of the Dominions overseas had
added zest. Here at any rate it was the fashion then
to obscure such discussion by fallacious catch-
words, such as "Imperialism," whether used as a
term of pride or of reproach, and by general maxims
to which the complex and shifting conditions of
this world, with its actual needs and duties, do not
adapt themselves. Nor does it seem to have been
less so in America. In all other great countries
it should never be forgotten - the presence, con-
stantly felt by every man and woman, of possibly
dangerous neighbors, gives a different cast to cur-
rent phrases and ideas.

What has been called the Expansion of Europe the long but intermittent process, actuated sometimes by direct pressure of population but more often by the fear of exclusion from a market, and resulting in the annexation by strong Powers of uncivilized or weakly governed countries had proceeded with increasing vigor after 1870; and, more recently, the passing away of Bismarck and his policy had added Germany to the list of claimants for territory overseas. Let it be granted at once that the collective proceedings of the European Powers in this respect presented at this time an unedifying spectacle, and that none of them stood above reproach. No Englishman, whatever his