estion. That was just what he expected. He
knew human nature thoroughly; and from long experience he had learned
to be humorously philosophical about such manifestations of man's
ingratitude.

In the next year the influence of Roosevelt's personality was again
felt in affairs outside the traditional realm of American international
interests. Germany was attempting to intrude in Morocco, where France by
common consent had been the dominant foreign influence. The rattling of
the Potsdam saber was threatening the tranquillity of the status quo. A
conference of eleven European powers and the United States was held
at Algeciras to readjust the treaty provisions for the protection of
foreigners in the decadent Moroccan empire. In the words of a historian
of America's foreign relations, "Although the United States was of all
perhaps the least directly interested in the subject matter of dispute,
and might appropriately have held aloof from the meeting altogether,
its representatives were among the most influential of all, and it
was largely owing to their sane and irenic influence that in the end a
treaty was amicably made and signed." * But there was something behind
all this. A quiet conference had taken place one day in the remote
city of Washington. The President of the United States and the French
Ambassador had discussed the approaching meeting at Algeciras. There
was a single danger-point in the impending negotiations. The French must
find a way around it. The Ambassador had come to the right man. He
went out with a few words scratched on a card in the ragged Roosevelt
handwriting containing a proposal for a solution. ** The proposal went
to Paris, then to Morocco. The solution was adopted by the conference,
and the Hohenzollern menace to the peace of the world was averted for
the moment. Once more Roosevelt had shown how being wise in time was the
sure way to peace.

* Willie Fletcher Johnson, "America's Foreign Relations",
vol. II, p. 376.

** The author had this story direct from Mr. Roosevelt
himself.

Roosevelt's most important single achievement as President of the United
States was the building of the Panama Canal. The preliminary steps which
he took in order to make its building possible have been, of all his
executive acts, the most consistently and vigorously criticized.

It is not our purpose here to follow at length the history of American
diplomatic relations with Colombia and Pana