your article in the “North American."[77] I am not allowed to say in my present fix how much I agree with you.  The only question on my mind is how far it is now possible for us to withdraw from the Philippines.  I am rather thankful it is not given to me to solve that momentous question.[78]

[Footnote 77:  The reference is to an article by Mr. Carnegie in the North American Review, August, 1898, entitled:  “Distant Possessions—­The Parting of the Ways.”]

[Footnote 78:  Published in Thayer, Life and Letters of John Hay, vol.  II, p. 175.  Boston and New York, 1915.]

It was a strange fate that placed upon him the very task he had congratulated himself was never to be his.

He stood alone at first as friendly to China in the Boxer troubles and succeeded in securing for her fair terms of peace.  His regard for Britain, as part of our own race, was deep, and here the President was thoroughly with him, and grateful beyond measure to Britain for standing against other European powers disposed to favor Spain in the Cuban War.

The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty concerning the Panama Canal seemed to many of us unsatisfactory.  Senator Elkins told me my objections, given in the “New York Tribune,” reached him the day he was to speak upon it, and were useful.  Visiting Washington soon after the article appeared, I went with Senator Hanna to the White House early in the morning and found the President much exercised over the Senate’s amendment to the treaty.  I had no doubt of Britain’s prompt acquiescence in the Senate’s requirements, and said so.  Anything in reason she would give, since it was we who had to furnish the funds for the work from which she would be, next to ourselves, the greatest gainer.

Senator Hanna asked if I had seen “John,” as he and President McKinley always called Mr. Hay.  I said I had not.  Then he asked me to go over and cheer him up, for he was disconsolate about the amendments.  I did so.  I pointed out to Mr. Hay that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty had been amended by the Senate and scarcely any one knew this now and no one cared.  The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty would be executed as amended and no one would care a fig whether it was in its original form or not.  He doubted this and thought Britain would be indisposed to recede.  A short time after this, dining with him, he said I had proved a true prophet and all was well.

Of course it was.  Britain had practically told us she wished the canal built and would act in any way desired.  The canal is now as it should be—­that is, all American, with no international complications possible.  It was perhaps not worth building at that time, but it was better to spend three or four hundred millions upon it than in building sea monsters of destruction to fight imaginary foes.  One may be a loss and there an end; the other might be a source of war, for

    “Oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
    Make deeds ill done.”