Egypt has ever produced, had been brutally assassinated by a Nationalist.  The murder was discussed everywhere with many shakings of the head, but in quiet corners, and low tones of voice.  Military and civil officers complained in private that the home government was paying little heed to the assassination and to the spirit of disorder which brought it about.  English residents, who are commonly courageous and outspoken in great crises, gave one the impression of speaking in whispers in the hope that if it were ignored, the agitation might die away instead of developing into riot and bloodshed.

Now this way of dealing with a law-breaker and political agitator is totally foreign to Mr. Roosevelt; even his critics admit that he both talks and fights in the open.  In two speeches in Khartum, one at a dinner given in his honor by British military and civil officers, and one at a reception arranged by native Egyptian military men and officials, he pointed out in vigorous language the dangers of religious fanaticism and the kind of “Nationalism” that condones assassination.  Newspaper organs of the Nationalists attacked him for these speeches when he arrived in Cairo.  This made him all the more determined to say the same things in Cairo when the proper opportunity came, especially as officials, both military and civil, of high rank and responsibility, had persistently urged him to do what he properly could to arouse the attention of the British Government to the Egyptian situation.  The opportunity came in an invitation to address the University of Cairo.  His speech was carefully thought out and was written with equal care; some of his friends, both Egyptian, and English, whom he consulted, were in the uncertain frame of mind of hoping that he would mention the assassination of Boutros, but wondering whether he really ought to do so.  Mr. Roosevelt spoke with all his characteristic effectiveness of enunciation and gesture.  He was listened to with earnest attention and vigorous applause by a representative audience of Egyptians and Europeans, of Moslems and Christians.  The address was delivered on the morning of March 28th; in the afternoon the comment everywhere was, “Why haven’t these things been said in public before?” Of course the criticisms of the extreme Nationalists were very bitter.  Their newspapers, printed in Arabic, devoted whole pages to denunciations of the speech.  They protested to the university authorities against the presentation of the honorary degree which was conferred upon Mr. Roosevelt; they called him “a traitor to the principles of George Washington,” and “an advocate of despotism”; an orator at a Nationalist mass meeting explained that Mr. Roosevelt’s “opposition to political liberty” was due to his Dutch origin, “for the Dutch, as every one knows, have treated their colonies more cruelly than any other civilized nation”; one paper announced that the United States Senate had recorded its disapproval of the speech by taking away Mr. Roosevelt’s