ose itself to the contempt of lesser peoples, giving them excuse for
speaking lightly of it as of a nation which does not keep faith. It does
not conduce to increase the illuminating power of the example of America
for the enlightenment of the world.

It might be well also if Americans would ask themselves what they would
do if a number of American citizens were subjected to outrage (whether
they were murdered as in New Orleans, or merely forced to submit to
indignities and inconvenience as in California) in some South American
republic, which put forward the plea that under its constitution it was
unable to control the people or coerce the administration of the
particular province in which the offences were committed. Would the
United States accept the plea? Or if the outrages were perpetrated in
one of the self-governing colonies of Great Britain and the British
Government repudiated liability in the matter? The United States, if I
understand the people at all, would not hesitate to have recourse to
force to endeavour to compel Great Britain to acknowledge her
responsibility.

In the matter of the relation of the general government to the several
States the most important factor to be considered at the present moment
is undoubtedly the personality of President Roosevelt, and any attempt
to make intelligible the change which has come over the United States of
recent years would be futile without some recognition of the part which
he has played therein. Mr. Roosevelt has been credited with being the
author of "a revival of the sense of civic virtue" in the American
people. Certainly he has been, by his example, a powerful agent in
directing into channels of reform the exuberant energy and enthusiasm
which have inspired the people since the great increase in material
prosperity and the physical unification of the country bred in it its
quickened sense of national life. In the period of activity and
expansiveness--one is almost tempted to say explosiveness--which
followed the Cuban war, such a man was needed to guide at least a part
of the national energy into paths of wholesome self-criticism and
reformation. He set before the youth of the country ideals of patriotism
and of civic rectitude which were none the less inspiring because easily
intelligible and even commonplace.[293:1] The ideals have, it is true,
since then, perhaps inevitably and surely not by his will, been dragged
about in the none too clean mud of party