peace, is simply a cowardly country, bent on making money, and afraid to fight.  So when,—­during Roosevelt’s administration, the biggest swaggering “gun-man” of the world, the Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, made a threat against the peace of America, Roosevelt no more read him pretty lectures about his love of peace, than he would have recited poetry to that other gun-man in the hotel in Dakota years before.  He simply told the Kaiser in a few words, just what would happen if Germany didn’t drop it.  It was so quietly done that nobody knew anything at all about it until years afterward.  There was no delay; there was no endless note-writing; there was no blustering; the Kaiser climbed down; and there was no war.

This, I am inclined to think, was one of the most important events of Roosevelt’s seven years in the White House.  If we wish America to live henceforth in peace and in honor, there is no incident of the past thirty years which should be studied by every American with more care.  Germany began her attack on the world long before 1914.  She bullied here, and she schemed and plotted there, but she was at work for years.  In 1898 she tried to range the countries of Europe against us, as we went to war with Spain.  England stood our friend and kept her off.  Germany sent a fleet meddling into Manila Harbor to annoy and threaten Admiral Dewey.  He refused to be frightened by them however and as an English squadron which was also there played the part of a good friend, the German admiral had his trip for nothing.

Later, about a year after Mr. Roosevelt became President, the German Kaiser discovered a way, as he thought, to grab some territory in South America.  Our Monroe Doctrine, which insures peace in the Western Hemisphere, by forbidding European nations to seize land here, was an obstacle to the Kaiser.  He disliked it.  But taking as pretext the fact that some people in Venezuela owed money to various Europeans, including Germans, he induced England and Italy to join in sending a fleet for a blockade of the Venezuelan coast.  The English and Italians agreed, before long, to arbitrate their difficulty with Venezuela, and moreover they had no intention of seizing land.  The German plan was quite different.  They threatened to bombard Venezuelan towns, and we know enough now of their methods to say that they were hoping for something which might serve as an excuse for landing troops and taking possession of towns and territory.  This was in defiance of our Monroe Doctrine; it aimed at setting up an Emperor’s colonies in South America, and putting the peace of both South and North America into danger.  Mr. Roosevelt did not mean to allow it.  But consider the situation.  Germany was the foremost military power of the world.  Her army was almost the greatest; probably the best trained and equipped.  Ours was one of the smallest.  Germany was not engaged in difficulties elsewhere.  She faced us across no barriers but the sea.