liver; and {220} in view of the known critical attitude
which the former took towards the administration Wood asked two other
army officers to go over the proposed speech with him and help him to
eliminate anything which might be questioned upon such an occasion.
The address was delivered at about five o'clock in the afternoon at
the camp and when it was finished Roosevelt was heartily congratulated
personally by many men of both political parties, among them two
distinguished Democrats--John Mitchel, Mayor of New York, and Dudley
Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York.

After dinner Roosevelt left in the evening to go into the city of
Plattsburg, a mile or two away from the camp, to take the midnight
train for New York. As he stood on the platform of the railway station
some time after eleven in the evening he was interviewed by the
newspaper reporters. No military person was present. What he said was
given out on territory not under military jurisdiction and it had
nothing to do with the Plattsburg speech. Roosevelt spoke to the
newspaper men in his usual forcible fashion:

"In the course of his speech he remarked that {221} for thirteen
months the United States had played an ignoble part among the nations,
had tamely submitted to seeing the weak, whom we had covenanted to
protect, wronged; had seen our men, women and children murdered on the
high seas 'without action on our part,' and had used elocution as a
substitute for action. 'Reliance upon high sounding words unbacked by
deeds,' said he, 'is proof of a mind that dwells only in the realm of
shadow and of sham.' Under the Hague Convention it was our duty to
prevent, and, if not to prevent, then to undo, the hideous wrong that
was done in Belgium, but we had shirked this duty. He denounced
hyphenated Americans, professional pacifists and those who would
substitute arbitration treaties for an army, or the platitudes of
peace congresses for military preparedness."

The next day Wood received a telegraphic reprimand from the Government
in Washington. "In this telegram of disapproval. Secretary Garrison
said it was difficult to conceive of anything which could have a more
detrimental effect than such an incident. The camp, held under the
{222} Government auspices, was conveying its own impressive lesson in
its practical and successful operation and results. 'No opportunity
should have been furnished to any one to present to the men any matter
except that w