effect was almost as if he spoke extemporaneously. The notes, printed on sheets about 3 x 6 inches, and held in one hand, were completely lost sight of by the audience in those moments when Colonel Roosevelt became emphatic. In those moments he also interspersed extemporaneous remarks which brought out his arguments more vividly and forcefully.

"A DIABOLICAL PLAN"

During 1902 a number of public matters brought me into frequent consultation with President Roosevelt.

When Germany, backed perfunctorily by Great Britain, sought to hold Venezuela to certain agreements by blockading her ports, which constituted an infringement of the Monroe Doctrine. Roosevelt took prompt steps to prevent it. There was a disposition on the part of Germany to ask Roosevelt to arbitrate between her and Venezuela.

Secretary of State Hay seems to have favored this plan, but I advised against it. It was better not to become involved in the muddle, especially because the machinery of the Hague Tribunal provided for just such arbitration. By the terms of that treaty the signatory Powers were morally committed to arbitration. Roosevelt took my view and succeeded in having the subject referred to the Hague Tribunal.

During the same year I was able, by reason of my previous experience in Turkey, to advise the President regard ing a critical situation in the Philippines. An American soldier had been killed and several others wounded by

Mohammedans in the southern Philip pines. It was announced in the press that a punitive expedition of twelve hundred men was to be sent to the scene of the killing.

Negotiations which I had had with the Sultan during the McKinley Administration were instrumental in pacifying the Philippine Mohammedans after the Americans assumed control of the islands. Fearing that the good relations promoted through the agency of the Sultan might be disturbed and disrupted by a punitive expedition, I advised the President against resort to force of arms. Instead, I recommended that it would be wiser to send a commission to treat with the Moros.

Upon receipt of my letter, the President wrote me to come to Washington for a conference. I arrived after a Cabinet meeting. With the President in his study were Mr. Taft (newly appointed Governor-General of the Philippines), Adjutant-General Corbin, and Acting Secretary of War Sanger.

Again, and in fuller detail, I gave reasons why military force in this matter was inadvisable. After I stated my case, the President showed me a copy of a telegram despatched to General Chaffee the day before, instructing him to send a peaceful diplomatic mission to the Moros. As a result of the conference, Adjutant-General Corbin was directed to advise General Chaffee to use the offices of friendly datos to obtain the desired redress.

The investigation revealed that the disorders had been due, not to the Moros' aggressiveness, but to panic.

They had seen the soldiers laying a telegraph line, which in their ignorance they had regarded as some diabolica! plan to destroy them. The matter was adjusted. The slayers were surrendered and punished.

ROOSEVELT'S DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY IN REBUKING RUSSIA The Kishineff massacres in April, 1903, shocked the civilized world. In all countries and among all faiths meetings were called to express indignation and protest. On May 28, 1903, there was a notable mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall in New York, presided over by Paul D. Cravath and addressed by ex-President Grover Cleveland, Mayor Seth Low, President Jacob G. Schurman of Cornell University, and Edward M. Shepard The meeting was called by several hundred leading New Yorkers of the Christian faith. Resolutions were adopted that the United States "should exercise such influence with the Government of Russia as the ancient and unbroken friendship between the two nations may justify to stay the spirit of persecution, to redress the injuries inflicted upon the Jews of Kishineff, and to prevent the recurrence of outbreaks such as have amazed the civilized world."

Roosevelt's diplomatic tactics in bring ing the Kishineff subject to the attention of the Czar of Russia won the approval of all students of international affairs.

Members of the American Jewish fraternal order B'nai B'rith, under the leadership of their president, Leo N. Levi, presented Secretary Hay with a statement regarding the massacres, to

336

gether with a petition which they asked to be forwarded to the Government of the Czar. Secretary Hay made a speech expressing sympathy and accompanied the committee to the White House, where they presented the President with facts regarding the oppression of their coreligionists in Russia. The President made a lengthy reply, expressing the deepest interest and sympathy.

On July 8 I received a telegram from Oyster Bay, the President's summer residence, inviting me there for luncheon the following day, together with Simon Wolf, of Washington, and Mr. Levi, of the B'nai B'rith. Present also at Sagamore Hill were Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of the "Review of Reviews," and his friend Morris Sheldon Amos, an Englishman. After a discussion of the question during lunch, the President suggested that a note should be sent by Secretary Hay to John W. Riddle, American Chargé d'Affaires at Petersburg, and that this note should embody the entire petition Mr. Levi and the committee had drafted. Dr. Shaw added that the embodying of the petition to the Czar, together with full publicity for the note, would have all the effects of a presentation even if he should refuse to receive it.

St.

After lunch we went to the President's study. He said, "Now let us finish this thing up." Secretary Hay, he said, had been to see him the day before and had left a memorandum. Roosevelt took his pen and began drafting the note, incorporating part of Hay's memorandum.

The note, sent as a cable, was as follows:

Riddle

St. Petersburg.

You are instructed to ask an audience of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and to make to him the following communication:

Excellency:-The Secretary of State instructs me to inform you that the President has received from a number of prominent citizens of the United States of all religious affiliations and occupying the highest positions in both public and private life a respectful petition addressed to His Majesty the Emperor relating to the condition of the Jews in Russia and running as follows:

Here the petition is set out. The note concludes as follows:

I am instructed to ask whether the petition will be received by your Excellency to be submitted to the gracious consideration of His Majesty. In that case the petition will be at once forwarded to St. Petersburg.

The President wished the cable to be sent at once and was in a hurry to have it go from Washington. He stated as one of his reasons that the late Russian Ambassador, Cassini, who had been dismissed, had gone back to Russia, and he wanted the petition to reach the Russian Government before Cassini arrived at St. Petersburg. Mr. Wolf, who lived in Washington, was asked to take the

Brown Bros

John Hay, former Secretary of State, whom Mr. Straus provided with the "covenant running with the land" idea which Hay used effectively in the Panama dispute

draft of the cable to Secretary Hay, but, as he could not return there that night, the President asked me if I could take it.

At ten o'clock the next morning I placed the President's draft in Secretary Hay's hands. It was cabled immediately. Hay thought that, instead of embodying the petition in the cable, it would be better to ask first if it would be accepted, but this was precisely what the President did not want. He anticipated that the Russian Government I would not accept it, and yet by making the cable public it would for all intents and purposes be a presentation, not only to the Czar, but to the entire world.

The President was right. The Minister of Foreign Affairs informed our Chargé that he could not receive it.

On July 17 Secretary Hay wrote me that, as anticipated, the Russian Government declined to receive or consider the petition. However, the purpose in view had been accomplished. The officials of the Russian Government had read the petition, and through press despatches it was known throughout the civilized world. According to subsequent reports, it had a most salutary effect in bringing about the trial and punishment of some of the leaders of the massacres, and exerted a restraining influence in other places in the Empire where similar outrages were threatened. In addition, it was another notable instance of humanitarian diplomacy.

ALASKAN BOUNDARY SHOVED DOWN Reverting to the Sagamore Hill luncheon of the previous day, the President, Albert Shaw, and I conferred about

the Alaskan boundary question after the Russian note had been drafted. The President brought forward the maps showing the disputed boundary and explained that the six commissioners, three from the United States and three from Great Britain, would investigate. He said that they were not arbiters, as he refused to sign an arbitral agreement. If they did not agree, he would take the matter into his own hands.

The whole trouble, he said, arose from the fact that the Canadians had shoved down the boundary-line after the discovery of gold.

"It is just as if a man pitches a tent on my grounds and claims the grounds." Roosevelt explained. "I want him to get off. He says he will not get off, but will arbitrate the matter."

He then turned to me and said: "Straus, you are a member of the Hague Tribunal; don't you think I am right?"

I replied: "As a member of the Hague Tribunal, I must hear what the other side has to say, and therefore must reserve judgment," and we all laughed.

"IN THE TEETH OF OPPOSITION" After the historic anthracite coal strike of 1902, in which President Roosevelt opposed the autocratic, unreasonable attitude of the mine operators, he became the pivot in another controversy, in which he was obliged to reprimand organized labor for an unreasonable attitude. This was the Miller case. Miller was dismissed from the Government Printing Office because he did not belong to a union. Roosevelt reinstated him. This brought a protest from the American Federation of Labor.

Samuel Gompers and several members of the Federation's Executive Council appeared at the White House on September 29, 1903, and protested that Miller was a non-union man and incompetent.

This was a case that appealed to Roosevelt's innate sense of justice, and he liked to decide such questions regardless of political consequences. Miller's fitness, he told the delegation, was a matter of administrative routine that must be decided by his superiors. In no way could it be regarded as an issue for The real issue was such a protest. whether the Government should practice discrimination between union and non-union men, and on this issue the President's decision was final. The reinstatement stood. No further action would be taken.

I wrote him that his decision and statement were consonant in principle with the position he had taken in the anthracite coal strike. In answer he wrote me the following letter, which in a few lines presents clearly his determined stand to do justice to capital as well as to labor:

White House
Washington.

My dear Mr. Straus:

October 1, 1903.

I thank you heartily for your letter. When you can get on here I

should like to tell you for your own information some of my experiences in connection with this Miller case. I feel exactly as you do-that my action was a complement to my action, for instance, in the anthracite coal strike, and that I could no more hesitate in the teeth of opposition from the labor unions in one case than I could when the opposition came from the big monied men in the other case. Sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

THE PANAMA DISPUTE

Panama has been a subject for discussion and controversy for almost a score of years. The Panama Canal will ever be linked with Roosevelt's name. Roosevelt's handling of the Canal problem forms one of the most notable chapters in American history.

As with other problems, the President consulted members of his "kitchen cabinet." My first participation in the Panama conferences was on November 6, 1903. In the President's luncheon party, besides Mrs. Roosevelt, were Cornelius N. Bliss, former Secretary of the Interior; John Clark Davis, of the Philadelphia "Ledger;" Mr. Kohlsaat, of Chicago; Lawrence F. Abbott, of The Outlook; and the President's brother-inlaw, Lieutenant-Commander Cowles.

Panama had separated from Colombia. The indications were that we were about to recognize Panama. The President in his informal way, as was his custom at luncheons, opened discussion of the situation, referring to our treaty of 1846 with New Granada, afterwards the United States of Colombia and later the Republic of Colombia. In this treaty we had guaranteed to protect the transit route. One of the questions involved was whether the treaty still held us to that obligation notwithstanding these several changes of sovereignty.

The President, in his usual manner of indicating that he expected a reply from a certain individual, addressed his remarks to me. When he finished, I suggested that the change of sovereignty, according to my reading of the treaty, did not affect either our obligations or our rights. Our guaranties I regarded in the nature of "a covenant running with the land."

"That is fine! Just the idea!" exclaimed the President. "I want you to explain that idea to Hay after lunch."

At first he was for going to the office and telephoning the Secretary. Instead. he took a correspondence card and scribbled a note to Mr. Hay, asking him to discuss my suggestion with me and work into the treaty the "covenant with the land" interpretation.

Secretary Hay, with whom I conferred at his home that evening, seized upon the idea at once, and said he would make use of it in a general statement he was preparing for the press.

The next day it was announced that the President, following a meeting of the Cabinet, had decided to recognize the

(C) Underwood.

Andrew Carnegie, with whom Mr. Straus was closely associated for many years in the promotion of world

peace

de facto Government of Panama. I will not go into much further detail here, for the Panama Canal story is well known. Roosevelt in his Autobiography devotes considerable space to a presen

IN THE
CABINET

NHRISTMAS at the White

C

House and social life at the "Venetian Palace are described by Mr. Straus in next week's chapter of the Autobiog raphy. He recounts some of his memorable experiences in Roosevelt's Cabinet, as a colleague of Messrs. Root, Garfield, Cortelyou, Taft, Bonaparte, etc. Mr. Straus, who was Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, describes the scope and work of his Department, his trip to Hawaii, his efforts in connection with the Japanese question, his idea of harmonizing human and business interests.

tation of reasons for his official actions.

Secretary Hay's statement said in

part:

It must not be lost sight of that this treaty is not dependent for its efficacy on the personnel of the signers or the name of the territory it affects. It is a covenant, as lawyers say, that runs with the land. The name of New Granada has passed away; its territory has been divided. But as long as the isthmus endures, the great geographical fact keeps alive the solemn compact which binds the holders of the territory to grant us freedom of transit, and binds us in return to safeguard for the isthmus and the world the exercise of that inestimable privilege.

On November 12 I received the following letter from the President:

My dear Mr. Straus:

Your "Govenant running with the

land" idea worked admirably.

gratulate you on it.

With warm regards,
Sincerely yours,

I con

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Viewing the situation with his expert professional eye, John Bassett Moore. the distinguished authority on international law, derived considerable entertainment from the "covenant running" feature, and wrote me a few days later as follows:

So you had a finger in the pie! I find a great deal of amusement in reflecting on the end reached from the premise of my memorandum; and almost as much on the conclusion reached from your suggestion. Perhaps, however, it is only a question of words; that is to say, it is, indifferently, a question of the "covenant running with the land," or a question of the "covenant running 'away' with the land."

A NOTE FOR MY GRANDCHILDREN The President took occasion later to refer publicly to my interest in international activities. In January, 1904, a number of peace societies had a conference in Washington and passed resolutions urging enactment of treaties with Great Britain and other Powers providing for formal arbitration of disputes in the event of diplomatic negotiations failing. A delegation from the conference called upon President Roosevelt. The resolutions were presented by former Congressman Henry St. George Tucker, of Virginia, after which there were a few brief remarks by Andrew Carnegie and myself. The President, in reply, expressed himself very fully upon the subject. He greeted it cordially and spoke of the good work of the peace societies; then, referring to me, he said:

I have had from Mr. Straus aid that I cannot overestimate, for which I cannot too much express my gratitude, in so much of the diplomatic work that has arisen in this Administration-aid by suggestion, aid by actual work in helping me to carry out the suggestions; and Mr. Strau

was one of the two or three men who first set my mind, after I came in as President, in the direction of doing everything that could be done for the Hague Tribunal, as that seemed to be the best way to turn for arbitration.

When the President finished his remarks, we gathered around him. Mr.

Carnegie meanwhile had congratulated me upon receiving such compliments, and now in speaking to the President referred again to his remarks about me. Mr. Carnegie said to the President that he suggested I should get a copy of the President's remarks to preserve for my children and grandchildren.

Roosevelt immediately turned to his secretary, William Loeb, Jr., and instructed him to send a copy of the Presidential references to me. That is how I happen to have this extract, and I trust I may be pardoned for the egotism which induces me to incorporate it here.

VERBOTEN!

UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS ARE FORBIDDEN FROM ENTERING THESE PREMISES UNDER PENALTY OF FINE AND IMPRISONMENT

E

VERY pre-revolutionary

public

school in Germany had a notice

to this effect over its gate. Parents were the particular "unauthorized persons" whose presence was banned in the school building.

"Mothers must bear sons. for the Kaiser needs soldiers," was a dictum which even otherwise intelligent men and women repeated as though it were a truism. Parents were expected merely to provide the physical presence of children. Pastor, schoolmaster, policeman, and drill sergeant-all government employees-saw to it that youth trained in the way it had to go. schools were primarily intended to perpetuate established conditions and curb all progressive tendencies that might contaminate the budding intelligence.

was

The

There was a "Kultus" Ministry, in charge of education and public worship. whose chief function it was to throttle dangerous ideas in schools and churches. Heterodox opinions were jealously quarantined in the schools and universities.

It was taught and believed by high and low that republics were a failure everywhere. The Swiss were longing for annexation to the Empire, and were only being thwarted by the wicked French. A common question often raised by otherwise well-informed men was whether we of America could find no way to satisfy our national longing for a monarch. I was frequently asked whether I had completed my military service. My interlocutor would regard me with incredulous amazement when I told him that we had no compulsory military duties. How could such a thing be in a civilized state?

Such being the mental equipment of the better educated, the intellectual abasement among the masses was abysmal. In the rural schools the children of peasants and agricultural laborers were taught just enough to enable them to sign the muster rolls and decipher the numerous verboten notices that gladdened their lives.

In the vital statistics of Germany they were not classed as illiterates. Actually, they were less educated than

BY JOSEPH DANZIGER

the most illiterate hillbilly of Alabama. They demonstrated the truth of Josh Billings's philosophy: "It is better not to know so much than to know a great many things that ain't so."

The urban schools for the working classes were a shade better. A machinist or grocer's clerk had to know more arithmetic than a farm-hand. But in al! degrees of society pupils were taught just enough to equip them for their stations in life. Labor unions maintained continuation schools for their members, and in this way a bright, ambitious young mechanic was given a chance to study history, mathematics. science, and languages. The possibility of satisfying their thirst for knowledge created many self-educated men among the unionists. Their political and economic training was entirely along Marxian lines. It is no wonder, therefore, that the German workman is classconscious. The system made it inevitable. Young lads of nine or ten destined to be officers were thrust into uniforms and sent to cadet schools. Their education was very one-sided, and not so high as the standards set at West Point. Its fundamental purpose was to alienate the cadet's sympathy for other classes. The latter condition was likewise true of the Gymnasien where the civilian boys of the middle class and aristocracy received their education. These schools prepared for the universities, and graduation from one of them was a prerequisite to serving for one year as a volunteer, instead of two or three years as a conscript. This was a very valuable privilege. The volunteer for one year did not have to live in barracks, but had private quarters like an officer and was exempt from all policing duties Every family that could possibly afford it sent their sons to the Gymnasien. Pathetic stories are told of widowed mothers and their hard-working daughters making the utmost sacrifices in order to keep a son and brother in a school that would guarantee him exemption from the inhuman brutalities of the

garrison. Many a German boy who failed at graduation has preferred suicide to facing the degrading manhandlings of the notorious Prussian drill sergeant.

The Gymnasion included nine years of Latin, six of Greek, and four of French and English. Mathematics was taught

entirely by memorizing set rules. If a boy had no natural talent for mathematics, his case was hopeless so far as any practical application of the science was concerned. When properly taught, mathematics is sure to develop the logical faculties, and reason was anathema to the old system. I have watched boys above the average intelligence try to solve a problem in the third year of algebra. It was in simple equations, such as we have in about the first three months of high school or the last year of grammar school. When I tried to analyze the equation for them, they fell into utter confusion. Their analytical faculties had been deliberately atrophied.

A review of the old German school system is necessary to a correct estimate of the herculean task that faced the revolutionary reformers. One of the first acts of the revolution, even before the Constitutional Assembly was called, was to declare that all schools were free to the elective preference of all children, regardless of class. The Constitution abolished class privilege, but it could not abolish class spirit. The old system had implanted it too deep in the consciousness of the nation for the present generation to rid itself. The chief votary of class distinction was the university.

Professional men and Government officials were recruited exclusively from university graduates. Gymnasien teachers were likewise elected from these circles. They had all been held strictly aloof from any contact with workingmen from earliest childhood. As children, they even followed the mediæval custom of affecting a distinguishing dress to denote their classes. This alone served to segregate them in public, and under no circumstances were boys and girls of different social strata ever known to mix.

A democracy segregated into classes cannot stand, to paraphrase Lincoln. Germany is not a democracy-except on paper. It became apparent to all rea! democrats that the first essential to democratization was its application to the schools. Gymnasien and university faculties, saturated as they were with monarchistic and feudal sentiment, opposed any movement toward abolishing class distinction.

The mother of a six-year-old boy had

to start him to school at Eastertide. According to law, he was obliged to attend the common preparatory school for the first three years, after which he could elect between the Gymnasien or grammar schools. The only way to avoid sending him to the common school was by showing that his health would not stand it. However, this particular boy is a superb specimen, better grown than most German boys of ten or eleven. The mother bribed a doctor to certify that the child is neurotic and needed special attention. The school physician accepted the document, although when the boy was stripped before him he could not help remarking about his perfect physique. I asked the mother why she had gone to all of that trouble instead of sending the boy to a common school.

"What! And have him associate with children of the proletariat!" she cried. "Never! I would rather keep him out of school altogether!"

She sent the child to a private schoo! that is so overcrowded that the pupils are taught in three-hour shifts, beginning at seven in the morning and ending at 5 P.M. The last shift is compelled to work under artificial light all winter long. Parents submit to such discomforts rather than have their children "associate with the proletariat."

The school reformers put up a hard fight against such notions, and are slowly making headway. The first step was to abolish the autocratic rule of the principal. This functionary was always a man who was "right." A democrat need not apply. Under the new rules, a principal may not suspend a teacher without preferring charges. The teacher, therefore, has a chance to exercise his individuality, especially in teaching his tory. The perversion of history in the old German schools was, and often is now, notorious. German history particularly was confined chiefly to a list of battles and the names of the Prussian kings who fought in them or were responsible for them. Classical history was perverted from its true significance whenever the facts turned upon some fight against tyranny in ancient Rome or Greece. Although Prussia is a Protestant country, John Huss was pilloried as a scoundrelly traitor, not because of his relations to the Church, but for the real, but camouflaged, reason that he fought for the self-determination of his native Bohemia.

The severest fight for democratization turned on the question of religion in the public schools. Objections were not raised against teaching Christian doctrine. The fight was directed against the peculiar organization of the Prussian State Church, which was antagonistic to any democratic movement. Although nominally Christian, the Church was under the authority of the Kultus Minister, and actually constituted a powerful machine for sustaining the existing order. A pastor who was properly subservient

to the All-Highest-not the Supreme Being in this case-was sure of some desirable appointment and a magniloquent title, such as Supreme Councilor of the Consistory.

If some honest-thinking Christian layman, incensed .at the perversion of his faith to political ends, ventured to withdraw from the Church, he became a social outcast. His sons could never be appointed to any Government position nor even become reserve officiers in the army. So far as possible his business or professional career was ruined by machinations from above. Therefore only workingmen who had nothing to lose separated from the State Church, although since the revolution the desertions from its membership amount to a veritable exodus.

The Centrist or Catholic party is the chief opponent to dispensing with religious training. They favor free election or, at most, separate schools, and their influence is strong enough to put over one or the other plan.

The common-school teachers welcome the chance of teaching religion as Christ preached it and without any Hohenzol lern trimmings.

I attended a meeting where this sub ject was up for discussion. It was testified that the masses are in favor of some kind of religious instruction. It is believed that religion is needed now more than ever as an ethical rule to supplant the policeman's broadsword, which the revolution took from him. Most of the teachers held that the instruction should be confined to Bible readings or lectures. Old Testament stories are told the smaller children, or Luther's wonderfully devout and simple translation of the Bible is read from to them. The older pupils are given instructions from the Gospels with special

reference to the Saviour's teachings of brotherly love, peace, and kindness. All testified that this sort of instruction was much more suited to the imagination and conscience of children than the lessons they had been getting from the pastors of the State Church.

During a discussion as to the best answer to give to children of eight or ten in reply to questions regarding the origin of life one teacher said that he had found a satisfactory symbol in the egg. He told about a particularly inquiring mind who wanted to know how life got into the egg. "I explained that this was the great mystery of life which no sage had ever been able to understand. The child went away satis fied, and at the same time awed at having been brought face to face with the veil before the Holy of Holies."

It seemed to me as I sat among these public school teachers that they were well suited to teach the principles of Christ's doctrines. They are devoted to service and not salary. The latter is jnconceivably small. Most of them were obviously poor. Their clothes were made over from field-gray uniforms. They displayed none of the pride and supercilious contempt for the common herd that characterizes university professors and pastors of the established Church. They spoke humbly and with devout earnestness of the great task that lay before them of creating a new and better nation from amid the coming generation. There were only a few who favored the exclusion of the Bible and the substitution of abstract moral les

sons.

These gray-clad men are being assisted by some choice spirits from the Gymnasien and universities. The number of these is increasing, as pressure of public opinion enables democratic ne