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CHAPTER XXIV

A NEW GIANT IN THE WORLD

HE campaign of 1904 was a whirlwind victory for Roosevelt. In all our history he was the first Vice President raised to power by the death of his superior to succeed himself in office. A picturesque incident in the convention that nominated him was the cry to rescue Ion H. Perdicaris, an American citizen, from the Moroccan bandit, Raizuli. Hay telegraphed our consul in Morocco this laconic message: "We want Perdicaris alive or Raizuli dead." The slogan swept the convention, contributing as much enthusiasm, possibly, as the more solid achievements of the administration.

The Secretary who penned this message had served his generation. He died July 1, 1905, and the vacant post fell to Elihu Root, who previously was Secretary of War, but some months earlier had retired to private life. Root was called too late to aid materially in the Russo-Japanese peace negotiations, whose initial stages had been so interesting to Hay. And though Roosevelt felt the utmost confidence in his new Secretary, with Root as with his predecessor, the President maintained his leadership. The broad outline of policy continued as before to be the President's

own.

As a matter of fact, the difficult preliminaries of the negotiations were conducted by the President in Hay's lifetime while the weary statesman was making a last desperate effort to recover health at European resorts. Throughout it all, the President acted a disinterested part, though it was difficult at times to persuade the belligerents of this. He regarded himself as the representative of civilization, which in his opinion was gravely jeopardized by the levity and incapacity of the Tsar's government in confronting an overwhelming catastrophe.

MEDIATION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND JAPAN

The President advised Russia to make peace before Japan occupied Sakhalin or other Russian territory. He urged this when Port Arthur fell. He was even more insistent after the great disaster at Mukden. But Russia wanted one more chance at victory, and risked the fleet which Admiral Rodjestvensky had piloted from the Baltic. The result was the Battle of the Sea of Japan, where Admiral Togo won immortal laurels. As Roosevelt remarked to Baron Kaneko, official representative of Japan in the United States, "No wonder you are happy! Neither Trafalgar nor the defeat of the Spanish Armada was as complete-as overwhelming." Yet even after this supreme defeat, it was not Russia but Japan that made the overtures for peace.

1

Japan invited Roosevelt to take the initiative personally. Whereupon the President informed Count Cassini, the Russian ambassador, that if the Tsar consented to a peace, he thought he could persuade Japan to do the same. Roosevelt doubted, though, whether Cassini had the courage to propose anything so disagreeable to the Tsar. He therefore approached the Tsar directly through the American ambassador at St. Petersburg, who was instructed to inform His Majesty that "If Russia will consent to such a meeting the President will try to get Japan's consent, acting simply on his own initiative and not saying that Russia has consented, and the President believes he will succeed." 2 It will be noted that the wording of this message loyally conformed to the wishes of Japan.

In this summer of 1905 the Kaiser Wilhelm II rendered Roosevelt invaluable assistance in bringing Nicholas to the point of making peace. With so considerable a portion of the responsibility for the World War on his shoulders, it is pleasant to discover the Kaiser in the rôle of peacemaker. Moreover the secret letters of the Kaiser to the Tsar show that William sincerely admired and esteemed the character who so recently had blocked his Venezuelan scheme. He

1 Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, Theodore Roosevelt and his Time, I, 382. 2 Ibid. I, 385-386.

particularly urged the Tsar to trust the peace initiative to the United States, for "If anybody in the world is able to influence the Japanese and to induce them to be reasonable in their proposals, it is President Roosevelt." The Kaiser's helpfulness was heartily appreciated then and afterwards by Roosevelt.

After many vexations and uncertainties the President, on June 8, 1905, addressed each belligerent an identical note stating his conviction that the time was ripe "to see if it is not possible to bring to an end the terrible and lamentable conflict now being waged." The suggestion was adopted, but forestalled by more delays. Japan refused The Hague but accepted Washington as a place of meeting. Russia accepted Washington as her second choice, but then proposed The Hague. Roosevelt issued peremptory notice that the Russians must abide by their earlier decision. To this they finally assented, but their diplomatic methods seemed to Roosevelt as feebly futile as the Japanese were certain and determined. The Russian ambassador, Count Cassini, he trusted not at all."

Throughout the negotiations, Roosevelt received more active help from the Kaiser operating on the Tsar than from England acting on Japan. The Anglo-Japanese alliance should have entitled the European partner to proffer some advice, but the opportunity was not utilized. The Kaiser, on the contrary, so actively coöperated that Ambassador Meyer quotes the Tsar as saying at their last interview before peace was signed that he could not fail to notice the coincidence that every time an emphatic telegram came from Roosevelt, another from the Kaiser followed suit. The explanation for this lay in the fear which William felt of the Russian revolutionary movement as possibly contagious.

The negotiations opened formally when Count Witte and Baron Rosen representing Russia, and Baron Komura and Mr. Takahira representing Japan, repaired to Oyster Bay

3 Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, Theodore Roosevelt and his Time, I, 385. 4 Ibid. I, 388.

5 Ibid. I, 392. • Ibid. I, 415.

and were welcomed by the President on his yacht the Mayflower. Their host felt it a matter of the utmost importance to treat both delegations with impartiality. In taking them to luncheon, he maneuvered so that no one noticed who entered the cabin first. He avoided seating them at table so that no question of precedence could arise. And for a toast, to be drunk in silence, standing, he pledged "the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and peoples of the two great nations whose representatives have met one another on this ship. It is my most earnest hope and prayer, in the interest of not only these two great powers, but of all mankind that a just and lasting peace may speedily be concluded between them." 7

This meeting was on August 5, 1905. At its conclusion, the delegations, each on a separate warship of the United States, accompanied by the Mayflower for such uses as they might require, continued on to Portsmouth, where discussions were begun. With these the President kept intimately informed, and when they reached a deadlock, his influence tided it across. The special task of Roosevelt was to convince the Russians that they were the vanquished party and to urge the Japanese to magnanimity. In the latter he was more successful. The Tsar's reluctance to bring home his defeated army and to face its result on Russian politics nearly wrecked the Conference, and it was here that the Kaiser's services proved particularly valuable.

Conflict raged about the word "indemnity." The President warned the Japanese against continuing the war for the sake of an indemnity. The more complete her ruin, the less capable would Russia be of payment. The word itself savored of humiliation, and Roosevelt impressed upon the Japanese the importance of the substance rather than the form. While declining to pay any sum whatever as indemnity, he thought the Russians, who resented Japan's encroachment on Sakhalin, might be induced to surrender nominally the entire island and then repurchase at a reasonable price its northern half.8

7 Ibid. I, 405.

8 Ibid. I, 405-408.

The crisis came on August 27, 1905. Neither side would yield, and hope of peace seemed gone. The President then turned to William as a last resort. He presented him the minimum which Japan would possibly accept, adding that "As this situation is exceedingly strained and the relations between the plenipotentiaries critical to a degree, immediate action is necessary. Can you not take the initiative by presenting these terms at once to him? Your success in the matter will make the entire civilized world your debtor." " The Emperor accepted the commission and deserves great credit for success, though the luster of Roosevelt's own efforts is not dimmed thereby. For the moment the policies of Roosevelt and William II coincided.

Success came on the twenty-ninth, when the impasse was broken. On September 5, 1905, the Peace of Portsmouth was signed. The belligerents reaped benefits; Roosevelt personally and the United States as a nation reaped glory. (For Roosevelt it was the high-water mark of a .great career. For the United States, it was recognition of our eminence in the affairs of nations.) Perhaps the most intelligent appreciation of this eminence was voiced by Dr. F. F. De Martens, a world authority on international law, and adviser to the Russian envoys. Praising the President's tact and intuition, he declared that the Conference at Portsmouth "will surely mark in the history of the world the first effort made by the United States to stand as an equal at the side of the great nations of other continents." 10 And this movement, so significant for the future of the nation, owed its success, in De Martens' estimation, to the personality of the President. For, as he adds, "We Russians had come to Portsmouth without taking anything that he had said seriously, and yet when we left the United States it was with the knowledge that all through our stay there we had been brought in close proximity with one of the most powerful personalities now alive in the whole of the world." 11

9 Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, Theodore Roosevelt and his Time, I, 411. 10 Ibid. I, 421.

11 Ibid. I, 422.