ent as the corporation.]

Senator La Follette, in the issue of his magazine immediately following
my leaving the Presidency in March, 1909, wrote as follows:

"Roosevelt steps from the stage gracefully. He has ruled his party to a
large extent against its will. He has played a large part in the
world's work, for the past seven years. The activities of his remarkably
forceful personality have been so manifold that it will be long before
his true rating will be fixed in the opinion of the race. He is said to
think that the three great things done by him are the undertaking of the
construction of the Panama Canal and its rapid and successful carrying
forward, the making of peace between Russia and Japan, and the sending
around the world of the fleet.

"These are important things, but many will be slow to think them his
greatest services. The Panama Canal will surely serve mankind when in
operation; and the manner of organizing this work seems to be fine.
But no one can say whether this project will be a gigantic success or
a gigantic failure; and the task is one which must, in the nature of
things, have been undertaken and carried through some time soon, as
historic periods go, anyhow. The Peace of Portsmouth was a great thing
to be responsible for, and Roosevelt's good offices undoubtedly saved
a great and bloody battle in Manchuria. But the war was fought out, and
the parties ready to quit, and there is reason to think that it was
only when this situation was arrived at that the good offices of the
President of the United States were, more or less indirectly, invited.
The fleet's cruise was a strong piece of diplomacy, by which we informed
Japan that we will send our fleet wherever we please and whenever we
please. It worked out well.

"But none of these things, it will seem to many, can compare with some
of Roosevelt's other achievements. Perhaps he is loath to take credit as
a reformer, for he is prone to spell the word with question marks, and
to speak disparagingly of 'reform.'

"But for all that, this contemner of 'reformers' made reform respectable
in the United States, and this rebuker of 'muck-rakers' has been the
chief agent in making the history of 'muck-raking' in the United States
a National one, conceded to be useful. He has preached from the White
House many doctrines; but among them he has left impressed on the
American mind the one great truth of economic justice couched in the
pithy and stinging phr