THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

The Romanes lecture at Oxford University was the last of Mr. Roosevelt’s transatlantic speeches.  I can think of no greater intellectual honor that an English-speaking man can receive than to have conferred upon him by the queen of all universities, the highest honorary degree in her power to give, and in addition, to be invited to address the dignitaries and dons and doctors of that university as a scholar speaking to scholars.  There is no American university man who may not feel entirely satisfied with the way in which the American university graduate stood the Oxford test on that occasion.  He took in good part the jokes and pleasantries pronounced in Latin by the Chancellor, Lord Curzon; but after the ceremonies of initiation were finished, after the beadles had, in response to the order of the Chancellor, conducted “Doctorem Honorabilem ad Pulpitum,” and after the Chancellor had, this time in very direct and beautiful English, welcomed him to membership in the University, he delivered an address, the serious scholarship of which held the attention of those who heard it and arrested the attention of many thousands of others who received the lecture through the printed page.

The foregoing review of the chief public addresses which Mr. Roosevelt made during his foreign journey, I think justifies the assertion that, for variety of subject, variety of occasion, and variety of the fields of thought and action upon which his speeches had a direct and manifest influence, he is entitled to be regarded as a public orator of remarkable distinction and power.

By way of explanation it may perhaps be permissible to add that I met Mr. Roosevelt in Khartum on March 14, 1910, and travelled with him through the Sudan, Egypt, the continent of Europe and England, to New York; I heard all his important speeches, and most of the occasional addresses; much of the voluminous correspondence which the speeches gave rise to passed through my hands; and I talked with many men, both in public and private life, in the various countries through which the journey was taken about the addresses themselves and their effect upon world-politics.  If there is a failure in these pages to give an intelligent or an adequate impression of the oratorial features of Mr. Roosevelt’s African and European journey, it is not because there was any lack of opportunity to observe or learn the facts.

LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT.

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PEACE AND JUSTICE IN THE SUDAN

An Address at the American Mission[2] in Khartum, March 16, 1910

  [2] The American Mission at Khartum is under the auspices of the
  United Presbyterian Church of America.  The Rev. Dr. John Giffen
  introduced Mr. Roosevelt to the assembly.—­L.F.A.