acted, not only in this particular case but throughout my
administration.

I received another gift which I deeply appreciated, an original copy
of Sully's "Memoires" of "Henry le Grand," sent me with the following
inscription (I translate it roughly):

PARIS, January, 1906.

"The undersigned members of the French Parliamentary Group of
International Arbitration and Conciliation have decided to tender
President Roosevelt a token of their high esteem and their sympathetic
recognition of the persistent and decisive initiative he has taken
towards gradually substituting friendly and judicial for violent methods
in case of conflict between Nations.

"They believe that the action of President Roosevelt, which has realized
the most generous hopes to be found in history, should be classed as a
continuance of similar illustrious attempts of former times, notably
the project for international concord known under the name of the 'Great
Design of Henry IV' in the memoirs of his Prime Minister, the Duke de
Sully. In consequence they have sought out a copy of the first edition
of these memoirs, and they take pleasure in offering it to him, with the
request that he will keep it among his family papers."

The signatures include those of Emile Loubet, A. Carnot, d'Estournelles
de Constant, Aristide Briand, Sully Prudhomme, Jean Jaures, A.
Fallieres, R. Poincare, and two or three hundred others.

Of course what I had done in connection with the Portsmouth peace
was misunderstood by some good and sincere people. Just as after the
settlement of the coal strike, there were persons who thereupon thought
that it was in my power, and was my duty, to settle all other strikes,
so after the peace of Portsmouth there were other persons--not only
Americans, by the way,--who thought it my duty forthwith to make myself
a kind of international Meddlesome Mattie and interfere for peace
and justice promiscuously over the world. Others, with a delightful
non-sequitur, jumped to the conclusion that inasmuch as I had helped to
bring about a beneficent and necessary peace I must of necessity have
changed my mind about war being ever necessary. A couple of days after
peace was concluded I wrote to a friend: "Don't you be misled by the
fact that just at the moment men are speaking well of me. They will
speak ill soon enough. As Loeb remarked to me to-day, some time soon I
shall have to spank some little international brigand, and then all the
well-mean