it.

_On May 11, following the report of President Wilson's speech at
Philadelphia, Mr. Roosevelt stated the course which he considered that
this country should adopt, reported as follows in a Syracuse dispatch
to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Colonel Roosevelt announced today what action, in his opinion, this
country should take toward Germany because of the sinking of the
Lusitania. Colonel Roosevelt earnestly said that the time for
deliberation was past and that within twenty-four hours this country
could, and should, take effective action by declaring that all commerce
with Germany forthwith be forbidden and that all commerce of every kind
permitted and encouraged with France, England, and "the rest of the
civilized world."

Colonel Roosevelt said that for America to take this step would not mean
war, as the firm assertion of our rights could not be so construed, but
he added that we would do well to remember that there were things worse
than war.

The Colonel has been reading President Wilson's speech carefully, and
what seemed to impress him more than anything else was this passage from
it:

"There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such
a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince
others by force that it is right."

Asked if he cared to make any comment upon the speech of the President,
Mr. Roosevelt said:

"I think that China is entitled to draw all the comfort she can from
this statement and it would be well for the United States to ponder
seriously what the effect upon China has been of managing her foreign
affairs during the last fifteen years on the theory thus enunciated.

"If the United States is satisfied with occupying some time in the
future the precise international position that China now occupies, then
the United States can afford to act on this theory. But it cannot act on
this theory if it desires to retain or regain the position won for it by
the men who fought under Washington and by the men who, in the days of
Abraham Lincoln, wore the blue under Grant and the gray under Lee.

"I very earnestly hope that we will act promptly. The proper time for
deliberation was prior to sending the message that our Government would
hold Germany to a strict accountability if it did the things it has now
actually done. The 150 babies drowned on the Lusitania the hundreds of
women drowned with them, scores of these women and children being
Americans, and the Ame