ten for nearly
half a century. Delay is the rule of foreign offices.

Perhaps Mr. Hay's treaty was not so generous as it seemed on first
reading, a suspicion which seems to have been justified by the
interpretation put upon it by the final authority upon international
engagements, the Republican National Convention at Chicago. And if
it was as generous as it seemed let not America think Great Britain
too eager in accepting it, let America pay a little to overcome the
reluctance of Great Britain in setting her approval upon the new
contract.

At last, after much apparent hesitation, the foreign office agreed
to the new treaty in consideration of America's throwing in, with
it an arbitration of the Bering Sea dispute. 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. Recently it was merged with the
high command. As Secretary of State he was not creative, Mr.
Harding turning back to the solid ground of American international
policy, rested upon John Hay's open door and Knox's dollar
diplomacy. Root in foreign relations merely succeeded with the
Senate where Hay had failed. Always the advocate, he takes other