have just described and Mr. Roosevelt replied
under date of January 24, 1916, as follows:
My memory agrees with yours about Dr. Arthur H. Smith.
I had forgotten his name; but I know that it was through
your father that I first became interested in using that in-
demnity for educational purposes. The idea was suggested
to me as you describe it; and then I asked Root to take it up
and put it in operation.
Of course the remission of the Boxer indemnity
established Chinese friendship for the American
people on the firmest kind of basis. But this was
not the only effect of this action on foreign affairs.
There is another aspect of the achievement which
seems worth bearing in mind.
It is said by many publicists that governments
cannot have altruistic qualities and motives. In
two cases, at least, the history of the United
States shows that governments can, in practice,
be altruistic. We were empowered to take £25,-
000,000 from China in accordance with the best
standards of international action and we volun-
tarily gave up half that sum in order to promote
FOREIGN AFFAIRS 147
a moral idea. We took Cuba, a rich possession,
in the course of a war which, at the very least,
was a war carried on in accordance with common
international procedure. Europe, especially Ger-
many, said it was cant to assert that we made
war for the benefit of the Cubans, and that our
chief motive was to gain the splendid prize of
Cuba. But we gave Cuba back to the Cubans,
only asking that they keep it in order.
If there are in history any other two similar
instances of national altruism, I do not know of
them. These two historical facts, it seems to
me, should be kept before the coming generations
in their studies of the structure of government,
not in order that we may plume ourselves upon
our virtue, but in order to show that the moral
law may be made to work in international practice
just as it works in the individual practice of the
citizens of a community.
These two acts of national morals are in a very real
sense the acts of President Roosevelt and a product
of his philosophy of statesmanship. He did not
merely preach about national morals but somehow
or other he got national things done on a distinctly
moral basis; and he was not a mollycoddle, either!
His satisfaction in practical altruism appears
in the following exchange of notes which I find
i 4 8 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
among my papers. On February 10, 1917, 1 wrote
Roosevelt as follows:
Everett P. Wheeler, who, as you know, is an old-line Demo-
crat — and therefore, I suppose, naturally one of your critics —
has just published a book called "Sixty Years of American
Life." In looking it over, at the head of Chapter XII, which
deals with New York City politics, I find the following quota-
tion ascribed to you: "Aggressive fighting for the right is
the noblest sport the world knows." Do you remember
where and when you said it ? It is delightful to think of doing
good as a high-class sport.
To this query Roosevelt replied:
I remember perfectly using that sentence, but I cannot tell
you the exact date. It was when I was Police Commissioner
and, I think, in connection with an address to some college
boys.
THE GUILDHALL SPEECH.— Roosevelt took
a sporting chance in making his Guildhall speech,
which had a more far-reaching, if less direct, effect
on foreign affairs than the remission of the Chinese
indemnity.
Of all the public addresses that Roosevelt made
during his tour through Egypt and Europe in the
summer of 1910 — a trip which I shall describe more
fully in the next chapter — the Guildhall speech
was, in my judgment, the most striking and nota-
ble. The occasion was the ceremony in the ancient
and noble Guildhall, one of the most perfect Gothic
FOREIGN AFFAIRS H9
interiors in England, which has historical associa-
tions of more than five centuries, when he was
presented by the Corporation of the City, of
London (the oldest corporation in the world) with
the freedom of the city. In this speech he praised
the colonial administration of Great Britain in
Africa and frankly criticized the course of the Brit-
ish Government then in power in its conduct of the
protectorate of Egypt. In order to appreciate the
furore that this speech aroused, his criticism must
be read in its entirety:
Now as to Egypt. It would not be worth my while to
speak to you at all, nor would it be worth your while to listen,
unless on condition that I say what I deeply feel ought to be
said. I speak as an outsider, but in one way this is an ad-
vantage, for I speak without national prejudice. I would
not talk to you about your own internal affairs here at home,
but you are so very busy at home that I am not sure whether
you realize just how things are, in some places at least,
abroad. At any rate, it can do you no harm to hear the view
of one who has actually been on the ground, and has informa-
tion at first hand; of one, moreover, who, it is true, is a sincere
well-wisher of the British Empire, but who is not English by
blood, and who is impelled to speak mainly because of his
deep concern in the welfare of mankind and in the future of
civilization. Remember also that I who address you am not
only an American, but a Radical, a real — not a mock — demo-
crat, and that what I have to say is spoken chiefly because I
am a democrat, a man who feels that his first thought is
bound to be the welfare of the masses of mankind, and
his first duty to war against violence and injustice and
ISO IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
wrong-doing, wherever found; and I advise you only in
accordance with the principles on which I have myself acted
as American President in dealing with the Philippines.
In Egypt you are not only the guardians of your own in-
terests; you are also the guardians of the interests of civiliza-
tion; and the present condition of affairs in Egypt is a grave
menace to both your empire and the entire civilized world.
You have given Egypt the best government it has had for at
least two thousand years — probably a better government
than it has ever had before; for never in history has the poor
man in Egypt — the tiller of the soil, the ordinary labourer —
been treated with as much justice and mercy, under a rule
as free from corruption and brutality, as during the last
twenty-eight years. Yet recent events, and especially what
has happened in connection with and following on the assas-
sination of Boutros Pasha three months ago, have shown
that, in certain vital points, you have erred; and it is for you
to make good your error. It has been an error proceeding
from the effort to do too much and not too little in the inter-
ests of the Egyptians themselves; but unfortunately it is
necessary for all of us who have to do with uncivilized peoples,
and especially with fanatical peoples, to remember that in
such a situation as yours in Egypt weakness, timidity, and
sentimentality may cause even more far-reaching harm than
violence and injustice. Of all broken reeds, sentimentality
is the most broken reed on which righteousness can lean.
In Egypt you have been treating all religions with studied
fairness and impartiality; and instead of gratefully acknowl-
edging this, a noisy section of the native population takes
advantage of what your good treatment has done to bring
about an anti-foreign movement, a movement in which, as
events have shown, murder on a large or a small scale is
expected to play a leading part. Boutros Pasha was the
best and most competent Egyptian official, a steadfast up-
holder of English rule, and an earnest worker for the welfare
of his countrymen; and he was murdered simply and solely
FOREIGN AFFAIRS 151
because of these facts, and because he did his duty wisely,
fearlessly, and uprightly. The attitude of the so-called
Egyptian Nationalist party in connection with this murder
has shown that they were neither desirous nor capable of
guaranteeing even that primary justice, the failure to supply
which makes self-government not merely an empty but a
noxious farce. Such are the conditions; and where the effort
made by your officials to help the Egyptians toward self-
government is taken advantage of by them, not to make
things better, not to help their country, but to try to bring
murderous chaos upon the land, then it becomes the primary
duty of whoever is responsible for the government in Egypt
to establish order, and to take whatever measures are neces-
sary to that end.
It was with this primary object of establishing order that
you went into Egypt twenty-eight years ago; and the chief
and ample justification for your presence in Egypt was this
absolute necessity of order being established from without,
coupled with your ability and willingness to establish it.
Now, either you have the right to be in Egypt or you have
not; either it is or it is not your duty to establish and keep
order. If you feel that you have not the right to be in Egypt,
if you do not wish to establish and to keep order there, why,
then, by all means get out of Egypt. If, as I hope, you feel
that your duty to civilized mankind and your fealty to your
own great traditions alike bid you to stay, then make the fact
and the name agree and show that you are ready to meet in
very deed the responsibility which is yours. It is the thing,
not the form, which is vital; if the present forms of govern-
ment in Egypt, established by you in the hope that they
would help the Egyptians upward, merely serve to provoke
and permit disorder, then it is for you to alter the forms;
for if you stay in Egypt it is your first duty to keep order, and,
above all things, also to punish murder and to bring to justice
all who directly or indirectly incite others to commit murder
or condone the crime when it is committed. When a people
152 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
treat assassination as the corner-stone of self-government,
it forfeits all right to be treated as worthy of self-govern-
ment. You are in Egypt for several purposes, and among
them one of the greatest is the benefit of the Egyptian people.
You saved them from ruin by coming in, and at the present
moment, if they are not governed from outside, they will
again sink into a welter of chaos. Some nation must govern
Egypt. I hope and believe that you will decide that it is
your duty to be that nation.
These frank words aroused more opposition
in the United States than they did in England.
His political antagonists at home attacked him
severely. In effect they said: "This is just like
the impetuous, impulsive Roosevelt. On an oc-
casion when the British have arranged to do him
honour he 'butts in' and presumes to tell them
how to run their own government!"
Whatever else the speech may have been, it was
not impetuous and impulsive. It was the pre-
meditated result of careful, considerate, and pain-
staking preparation. The story is an interesting
one and throws as much light as any incident in
his career that I know of upon his methods of
thought and action, and I shall therefore relate
it in some detail.
Just before Roosevelt arrived at Khartum in
March, 1910, Boutros Pasha, the Prime Minister —
a Copt, that is an Egyptian Christian, and one of
FOREIGN AFFAIRS i S3
the best native officials that Egypt has ever pro-
duced—was openly and foully assassinated by an
agent of the so-called Egyptian Nationalist party.
That party consisted of extreme Radicals, mostly
young, who professed to wish to free Egypt from
British rule and to establish an independent repub-
lic. They were the "Sinn Feiners" of the Near East.
Perhaps "Bolshevists" of the Near East would be
a better term to apply to them, although the word
"Bolshevik" had not yet been invented. They
were both dangerous and foolish; dangerous, be-
cause they proposed to establish liberty on violence
and assassination, and foolish, because they did
not seem to realize that if the British were driven
out of Egypt that unhappy country would im-
mediately fall back into the hands of the Turk
who did not care a fig about the vague and gran-
diloquent aspirations of the half-baked young
Nationalists.
The assassination of Boutros Pasha caused
almost a panic among the civil and military rep-
resentatives of Great Britain in Egypt, a panic
which was augmented by the fact that the Liberal
Government in London appeared to be shilly-
shallying about the matter as the Gladstonian
Government in the eighties shillyshallied over the
Gordon Relief Expedition which resulted in the
154 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
death of that heroic soldier and the plunging of
the Sudan into twelve years of savagery. Lord
Cromer, one of the greatest colonial administrators
in British history, had only recently retired from
the position of British diplomatic agent in Egypt
and had been succeeded by Sir Eldon Gorst who
proved to be wholly incapable of dealing with the
crisis.
By a curious coincidence I arrived at Khartum
on the very day, March fourteenth, when Roosevelt
came into that remarkable tropical city from the
upper reaches of the Nile. Khartum is a veritable
British capital, a beautifully appointed modern
city in the midst of the desert. That evening, or
possibly the following evening, a dinner was given
in Roosevelt's honour at the palace of the Gov-
ernor-General, Sir Reginald Wingate. Sir Reginald
was absent in Cairo, owing to a temporary illness,
and his place, both as Governor-General and as
host, was filled by Slatin Pasha, the famous author
of " Fire and Sword in the Sudan/' who knew as
well as any man living the horrors of the period
when Gordon was assassinated and Khartum fell.
The subject of general discussion at the dinner,
for it was uppermost in everyone's mind, was the
murder of Boutros Pasha. Roosevelt was asked
what he would do. He said: "It is very simple.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS 155
I would try the murderer at drumhead court
martial. As there is no question about the facts,
for his own faction do not deny the assassination,
he would be found guilty. I would sentence him to
be taken out and shot; and then if the home govern-
ment cabled me, in one of their moments of vacil-
lation, to wait a little while, I would cable in reply:
'Can't wait; the assassin has been tried and shot.'
The home government might recall me or impeach
me if they wanted to, but that assassin would have
received his just deserts."
I happened to be sitting next to Colonel Asser,
a British officer who held a very high and import-
ant post under the Governor-General. He was a
tall, blond, red-cheeked Englishman, a type of those
splendid men who in the awful first weeks of the
Great War made the British Expeditionary Force
in Flanders — the immortal "Contemptibles" — the
most heroic force that the world has known since
the days of Thermopylae. When Colonel Roosevelt
finished speaking Colonel Asser turned to me, and,
bringing his fist down on the palm of his hand,
said, with very deep feeling: "By heaven! I
wish that man were my boss!" Similar senti-
ments were expressed by others at the table and
Roosevelt was actually implored to state his
views of the necessity of strong action in Egypt
i 5 6 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
to the people at home; home, being, of course, Lon-
don. All the way down the Nile civil and military
officers urged him to support their cause when he
reached London. At Cairo he was asked to make
a public address before the University of Cairo.
By this time Egypt was literally aflame with the
threatening controversy excited by the murder
of Boutros Pasha. A few of the more timid felt
that the affair should be allowed to "blow over" —
if possible. Their feelings were like those of a
man who has an ulcerated tooth and who is about
equally reluctant either to let the tooth stay in
or to go to the dentist and have it out. Some of
these reluctant ones urged Roosevelt to omit all
reference to the murder of Boutros Pasha in his
speech at the University. He replied: "Gentle-
men, I am perfectly willing not to speak at all,
if you so prefer, but if I do speak I assure you I
shall speak frankly and openly about this assas-
sination which seems to me to strike at the very
roots of law, order, and justice in Egypt."
He spoke; and in the course of his address he
said*
All good men, all the men of every nation whose respect
is worth having, have been inexpressibly shocked by the
recent assassination of Boutros Pasha. It was an even
greater calamity for Egypt than it was a wrong to the in-
FOREIGN AFFAIRS 157
dividual himself. The type of man which turns out an
assassin is a type possessing all the qualities most alien to
good citizenship — the type which produces poor soldiers in
time of war and worse citizens in time of peace. Such a man
stands on a pinnacle of evil infamy; and those who apologize
for or condone his act; those who, by word or deed, directly
or indirectly, encourage such an act in advance, or defend it
afterward, occupy the same bad eminence.
The result was electrical. He was cheered to
the echo by his audience. His fearlessness strength-
ened the hands of those officials who wanted to be
backed up in maintaining law and order, and he
was again urged by influential and important men
to carry this message of upholding the moral law,
by force if necessary, to the home government
in London. Thanked on every hand for the help
he had given to the force of strong and good gov-
ernment in Egypt and implored on every hand to
present the needs of the British representatives
in Egypt to the English people, he consented to do
so. He wrote his Guildhall speech during his
journey of six or eight weeks through Europe.
He literally brooded over it. He consulted per-
sonal friends and British statesmen about it, and
before it was delivered, men like Lord Cromer,
Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, and, I think, Lord
Kitchener, knew what he was going to say. He
sought and accepted suggestions as to form and
1 58 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
phraseology. This I know, because at Roosevelt's
request I read the speech two weeks before it was
delivered and ventured some minor suggestions of
my own.
The stage setting of the Guildhall speech was a
brilliant one. On the dais at one end of the hall
sat the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress.
The special guests of the occasion were conducted
by ushers, in robes and carrying maces, down a
long aisle, flanked with spectators on either side,
and up the steps of the dais where they were pre-
sented. Their names were called out at the begin-
ning of the aisle and the audience applauded little
or much, as the ushers or guests moved along,
according to the popularity of the newcomer.
Thus John Burns and A. J. Balfour were greeted
with enthusiastic hand-clapping and cheers, al-
though they belonged of course to opposite parties.
The Bishop of London; Lord Cromer, who deserved
to be called the maker of modern Egypt; Sargent,
the painter; and Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, were among those greeted
in this way. In the front row on one side of the
dais were seated the Aldermen of the City, in their
red robes; and various officials, in wigs and gowns,
lent to the scene an aspect curiously antique to the
American eye.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS 159
My seat was on the dais, from which I could
easily observe the great audience. At the outset
of Mr. Roosevelt's address it was obvious that the
frankness of his utterance, his characteristic at-
titude and gestures, and the pungent quality of
his oratory startled his audience, accustomed to
the more conventional methods of public speaking,
but he soon captured and carried his hearers with
him, as was indicated by the marks of approval
printed in the verbatim report of the speech in
the London Times. It is no exaggeration to say
that the speech for a week or more was the talk
of England — in clubs, in homes, and in the news-
papers. There was some criticism, especially in
the papers supporting the Liberal party then
in power. But the best and most influential
public opinion, while recognizing the unconven-
tionally of Roosevelt's course, heartily approved
of both the matter and the manner of the speech.
The London Times said :
Mr. Roosevelt has reminded us in the most friendly way of
what we are at least in danger of forgetting, and no impatience
of outside criticism ought to be allowed to divert us from con-
sidering the substantial truth of his words.
The Daily Telegraph (after referring to Mr.
Roosevelt as " a practical statesman who combines
160 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
with all his serious force a famous sense of hu-
mour") expressed the opinion that:
His candour is a tonic which not only makes plain our
immediate duty but helps us to do it. In Egypt as in India
there is no doubt as to the alternative he has stated so
effectively: we must govern or go; and we have no intention
of going.
The Pall Mall Gazette's view was that :
Mr. Roosevelt delivered a great and memorable speech —
a speech that will be read and pondered over throughout the
world.
The London Spectator, calling the speech the
chief event of the week, remarked :
Timid, fussy, and pedantic people have charged Mr. Roose-
velt with all sorts of crimes because he had the courage to
speak out, and had even accused him of unfriendliness to this
country because of his criticism. Happily the British people
as a whole are not so foolish. Instinctively they have recog-
nized and thoroughly appreciated the good feeling of Mr.
Roosevelt's speech. . . . His speech is one of the greatest
compliments ever paid to a people by a statesman of another
country. . . . He has told us something useful and
practical and has not lost himself in abstraction and plati-
tude. . . . We thank Mr. Roosevelt once again for
giving us so useful a reminder of our duty.
These sentiments of approval were repeated
in a great number of letters which Mr. Roosevelt
FOREIGN AFFAIRS 161
received from men and women in all walks of life.
As I was in charge of his affairs at the time this
correspondence came under my eye. There were
some abusive letters, chiefly anonymous, but the
predominating tone of the correspondence is
fairly illustrated by the following:
Allow me, an old colonist in his eighty-fourth year, to thank
you most heartily for your manly address at the Guildhall
and for your life work in the cause of humanity. If I ever
come to the great republic I shall do myself the honour of
seeking an audience of your excellency. I may do so on my
iooth birthday! With best wishes and profound respect.
The envelope of this letter was addressed: "His
Excellency Govern-or-Go Roosevelt." That the
Daily Telegraph and "the man in the street" should
independently seize upon this salient point of the
address — the "govern-or-go" theory — is significant.
The effect of the Guildhall speech upon the
Government was quite as marked as upon the
people at large. The Asquith Government then
in power was inclined to be anti-imperialistic,
but in 191 1, as a direct result of the public senti-
ment aroused by Roosevelt's Guildhall speech,
the Government sent Lord Kitchener to Egypt
as Consul-General, and with his well-known vigour
of action he suppressed the bolshevist tendencies
of the young Nationalist party and reestablished
162 IMPRESSIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Great Britain's authority and prestige. If some
such man as Kitchener had not accomplished this
during the years 1911-14 it is highly probable that,
taking advantage of Egypt's disorganization, the
Turks and Germans might have captured the
Suez Canal thus cutting off one of the main arteries
of British military existence in the war. It may,
therefore, be said that Roosevelt, by his Guildhall
speech, made a great contribution to the final
success of the Allies.
THE SORBONNE SPEECH.— On his way to
London, from Egypt, Mr. Roosevelt passed
through Paris, where on April 23, 1910, he gave
a lecture at the Sorbonne, by invitation of the
officials of the University of Paris. It was an
appeal for the highest type of citizenship based
upon the simple but eternal and universally recog-
nized laws of individual and social morality. Said
Mr. Roosevelt:
The success of republics like yours and like ours means the
glory, and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you
and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen
is supreme. . . . I speak to a brilliant assemblage; I speak
in a great university; which represents the flower of the high-