As for the men under me in executive office, I could not overstate the debt of gratitude I owe them.  From the heads of the departments, the Cabinet officers, down, the most striking feature of the Administration was the devoted, zealous, and efficient work that was done as soon as it became understood that the one bond of interest among all of us was the desire to make the Government the most effective instrument in advancing the interests of the people as a whole, the interests of the average men and women of the United States and of their children.  I do not think I overstate the case when I say that most of the men who did the best work under me felt that ours was a partnership, that we all stood on the same level of purpose and service, and that it mattered not what position any one of us held so long as in that position he gave the very best that was in him.  We worked very hard; but I made a point of getting a couple of hours off each day for equally vigorous play.  The men with whom I then played, whom we laughingly grew to call the “Tennis Cabinet,” have been mentioned in a previous chapter of this book in connection with the gift they gave me at the last breakfast which they took at the White House.  There were many others in the public service under me with whom I happened not to play, but who did their share of our common work just as effectively as it was done by us who did play.  Of course nothing could have been done in my Administration if it had not been for the zeal, intelligence, masterful ability, and downright hard labor of these men in countless positions under me.  I was helpless to do anything except as my thoughts and orders were translated into action by them; and, moreover, each of them, as he grew specially fit for his job, used to suggest to me the right thought to have, and the right order to give, concerning that job.  It is of course hard for me to speak with cold and dispassionate partiality of these men, who were as close to me as were the men of my regiment.  But the outside observers best fitted to pass judgment about them felt as I did.  At the end of my Administration Mr. Bryce, the British Ambassador, told me that in a long life, during which he had studied intimately the government of many different countries, he had never in any country seen a more eager, high-minded, and efficient set of public servants, men more useful and more creditable to their country, than the men then doing the work of the American Government in Washington and in the field.  I repeat this statement with the permission of Mr. Bryce.

At about the same time, or a little before, in the spring of 1908, there appeared in the English Fortnightly Review an article, evidently by a competent eye witness, setting forth more in detail the same views to which the British Ambassador thus privately gave expression.  It was in part as follows: