President Roosevelt
interpreted Mr. Hay's arbitration contract much as the Republican
National Convention interpreted Mr. Hay's treaty, by appointing
American arbitrators who promised beforehand, in giving a fair and
impartial hearing to the Canadian claims, always to vote for the
American position and to resign and be succeeded by others if they
found that they could not do so.
Why, then, the prevailing distrust of Mr. Root? His public morals
regarding the Hay-Pauncefote treaty were better than those of his
party, even if we accept the view that they were dictated by
nothing more than a certain mental integrity, a certain consistency
with himself. He was as virtuous in the taking of the Panama Canal
as the virtuous Mr. Roosevelt. He had the advocate's honesty of
being true to his client, whether his client was the public or the
great corporations. Mentality was uppermost in him, so that he took
primarily a logical rather than a moral view of all questions; but
also so much that he could not pretend, could not act, and thus he
was more honest than the politicians.
His statesmanship was discontinuous, being an interesting avocation
rather than a career. Of it little has been permanent. His General
Staff soon lapsed into incompetence; if it had not, it might have
been the danger to American national life that the German General
Staff was to German national life.
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