African and European Addresses. Roosevelt Theodore
now and then with approval at some incisively expressed idea, or some phrase of interjected humor, or a characteristic gesture on the part of the speaker. In one respect the lecture was a tour de force. On account of a sharp attack of bronchitis, from which he was then recovering, it was not decided by the physicians in charge until the morning of the lecture that Mr. Roosevelt could use his voice for one hour in safety. Arrangements had been made to have some one else read the lecture if at the last moment it should be necessary; and the fact that Mr. Roosevelt was able to do it himself effectively under these circumstances indicates that he has some of the physical as well as the intellectual attributes of the practised orator.
Mr. Roosevelt's first public speech in England was made at the University of Cambridge on May 26th when he received the honorary degree of LL.D. His address on this occasion was not, like the Romanes lecture at Oxford, a part of the academic ceremony connected with the conferring of the honorary degree. It was spoken to an audience of undergraduates when, after the academic exercises in the Senate House, he was elected to honorary membership in the Union Society, the well-known Cambridge debating club which has trained some of the best public speakers of England. At Oxford the doctors and dignitaries cracked the jokes—in Latin—while the undergraduates were highly decorous. At Cambridge, on the other hand, the students indulged in the traditional pranks which often lend a color of gaiety to University ceremonies at both Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. Roosevelt entered heartily into the spirit of the undergraduates, and it was evident that they, quite as heartily, liked his understanding of the fact that the best university and college life consists in a judicious mixture of the grave and the gay. The honor which these undergraduates paid to their guest was seriously intended, was admirably planned, and its genuineness was all the more apparent because it had a note of pleasantry. Mr. Roosevelt spoke as a university student to university students and what he said, although brief, extemporaneous, and even unpremeditated, deserves to be included with his more important addresses, because it affords an excellent example of his characteristic habit of making an occasion of social gaiety also an occasion of expressing his belief in the fundamental moral principles of social and political life. The speech was frequently interrupted by the laughter and applause of the audience, and the theory which Mr. Roosevelt propounded, that any man in any walk of life may achieve genuine success simply by developing ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree, was widely quoted and discussed by the press of Great Britain.
Next in chronological order comes the Guildhall speech. In the picturesqueness of its setting, in the occasion which gave rise to it, in the extraordinary effect it had upon public opinion in Great Britain, the continent of Europe, and America, and in the courage which it evinced on the part of the speaker, it is in my judgment the most striking of all Mr. Roosevelt's foreign addresses.
The occasion was a brilliant and notable one. The ancient and splendid Guildhall—one of the most perfect Gothic interiors in England, which has historical associations of more than five centuries—was filled with a representative gathering of English men and women. On the dais, or stage, at one end of the hall, sat the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress, and the special guests of the occasion were conducted by ushers, in robes and carrying maces, down a long aisle flanked with spectators on either side and up the steps of the dais, where they were presented. Their names were called out at the beginning of the aisle, and as the ushers and the guest moved along, the audience applauded, little or much, according to the popularity of the newcomer. Thus John Burns and Mr. Balfour were greeted with enthusiastic hand-clapping and cheers, although they belong, of course, to opposite parties. The Bishop of London, Lord Cromer, the maker of modern Egypt, Sargent, the painter, and Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, were among those greeted in this way. In the front row on one side of the dais were seated the aldermen of the city in their red robes, and various officials in wigs and gowns lent to the scene a curiously antique aspect to the American eye. Happily, the City of London has carefully preserved the historical traditions connected with it and with the Guilds, or groups of merchants, which in the past had so much to do with the management of its affairs. Among the invited guests, for example, were the Master of the Mercers' Company, the Master of the Grocers' Company, the Master of the Drapers' Company, the Master of the Skinners' Company, the Master of the Haberdashers' Company, the Master of the Salters' Company, the Master of the Ironmongers' Company, the Master of the Vintners' Company, and the Master of the Clothworkers' Company. These various trades, of course, are no longer carried on by Guilds, but by private firms or corporations, and yet the Guild organization is still maintained as a sort of social or semi-social recognition of the days when the Guildhall was not merely a great assembly-room, but the place in which the Guilds actually managed the affairs of their city. It was in such a place and amid such surroundings that Mr. Roosevelt was formally nominated and elected a Freeman of the ancient City of London.
Mr. Roosevelt's speech was far from being extemporaneous; it had been carefully thought out beforehand, and was based upon his experiences during the previous March, in Egypt; it was really the desire of influential Englishmen in Africa to have him say something about Egyptian affairs that led him to make a speech at all. He had had ample time to think, and he had thought a good deal, yet it was plainly to be seen that the frankness of his utterance, his characteristic attitude and gestures, and the pungent quality of his oratory at first startled his audience, accustomed to more conventional methods of public speaking. But he soon captured and carried his hearers with him, as is indicated by the exclamations of approval on the part of the audience which were incorporated in the verbatim report of the speech in the London Times. It is no exaggeration to say that his speech became the talk of England—in clubs, in private homes, and in the newspapers. Of course there was some criticism, but, on the whole, it was received with commendation. The extreme wing of the Liberal party, whom we should call Anti-Imperialists, but who are in Great Britain colloquially spoken of as "Little Englanders," took exception to it, but even their disapproval, save in a few instances of bitter personal attack, was mild. The London Chronicle, which is perhaps the most influential of the morning newspapers representing the Anti-Imperialist view, was of the opinion that the speech was hardly necessary, because it asserted that the Government and the British nation have long been of Mr. Roosevelt's own opinion. The Westminster Gazette, the leading evening Liberal paper, also asserted that "none of the broad considerations advanced by Mr. Roosevelt have been absent from the minds of Ministers, and of Sir Edward Grey in particular. We regret that Mr. Roosevelt should have thought it necessary to speak out yesterday, not on the narrow ground of etiquette or precedent, but because we cannot bring ourselves to believe that his words are calculated to make it any easier to deal with an exceedingly difficult problem."
The views of these two newspapers fairly express the rather mild opposition excited by the speech among those who regard British control in Egypt as a question of partisan politics. On the other hand, the best and most influential public opinion, while recognizing the unconventionality of Mr. Roosevelt's course, heartily approved of both the matter and the manner of the speech. The London Times said: "Mr. Roosevelt has reminded us in the most friendly way of what we are at least in danger of forgetting, and no impatience of outside criticism ought to be allowed to divert us from considering the substantial truth of his words. His own conduct of great affairs and the salutary influence of his policy upon American public life … at least give him a right, which all international critics do not possess, to utter a useful, even if not wholly palatable, warning." The Daily Telegraph, after referring to Mr. Roosevelt as "a practical statesman who combines with all his serious force a famous sense of humor," expressed the opinion that his "candor is a tonic, which not only makes plain our immediate duty but helps us to do it. In Egypt, as in India, there is no doubt as to the alternative he has stated so vigorously: we must govern or go; and we have no intention of going." The Pall Mall Gazette's opinion was that Mr. Roosevelt "delivered a great and memorable speech—a speech that will be read and pondered over throughout the world."
The London Spectator, which is one of the ablest and most thoughtful journals published in the English language, and which reflects the most intelligent, broad-minded, and influential public opinion in the British Empire, devoted a large amount of space to a consideration of the speech. The Spectator's position in English journalism is such that I make no apology for a somewhat long quotation from its comment:
Perhaps the chief event of the week has been Mr. Roosevelt's