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Rh the United States, in return for a commercial and military protection advantageous to Panama, the right to build a canal and control it in perpetuity. His critics said that his course in this matter was unconstitutional, although the question of constitutionality has never been raised before any national or international tribunal. The fact remains that the construction of the Panama Canal was undertaken to the practical satisfaction to the civilized world. But for Mr Roosevelt's vigorous official action and his characteristic ability to inspire associates with enthusiasm the canal would still be a subject of diplomatic discussion instead of a physical actuality.

Colonial Policy.—Strictly speaking, the United States has no colonial policy, for the Philippine Islands and Porto Rico can scarcely be called colonies. It has, however, a policy of territorial expansion. Although this policy was entered upon at the conclusion of the Spanish War under the presidency of Mr McKinley it has been very largely shaped by Mr Roosevelt. He determined that Cuba should not be taken over by the United States, as all Europe expected it would be, and an influential section of his own party hoped it would be, but should be given every opportunity to govern itself as an independent republic; by assuming supervision of the finances of San Domingo, he put an end to controversies in that unstable republic, which threatened to disturb the peace of Europe; and he personally inspired the body of administrative officials in the Philippines, in Porto Rico and (during American occupancy) in Cuba, who for efficiency and unselfish devotion to duty compare favourably with any similar body in the world. In numerous speeches and addresses he expressed his belief in a strong colonial government, but a government administered for the benefit of the people under its control and not for the profit of the people at home. In this respect, for the seven years of his administration at Washington, he developed a policy of statesmanship quite new in the history of the United States.

No account of Mr Roosevelt's career is complete without a reference to his literary work, which has been somewhat overshadowed by his reputation as a man of public affairs. He was all his life an omnivorous reader of the best books in very varied fields of literature, and he developed to an unusual degree the faculty of digesting and remembering what he has read. His history of the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain, written when he was twenty-four years old, is still the standard history of that conflict, and his Winning of the West is probably the best work which has been written on American frontier life of the 19th century, a life that developed certain fundamental and distinctive American social and political traits. His African Game Trails, the record of his scientific hunting expedition in Africa in 1909-10, is much more than a narrative of adventures on a wild continent. It is a study of social and ethnological conditions, and contains many passages of literary charm, describing bird life, animal life and natural scenery. An appendix that gives some account of the “Pigskin Library” which he carried with him for daily reading in the heart of Africa is a surprising exposition of the wide range of his reading. As a public speaker his style was incisive, forceful and often eloquent, although he made no effort to practise oratory as an art. The volume of his African and European addresses, published in the autumn of 1910, not only presents an epitome of his political philosophy, but discloses the wide range of his interest in life and the methods by which he had striven to bring public opinion to his point of view.

Personally of great physical and mental vigour, his work was done at high pressure and he had the faculty of inspiring his colleagues or his subordinates with his own enthusiasm for doing things. The volume of his letters and his writings in books, articles for the press and speeches and official messages, is enormous, and yet this work was done in the midst of the executive labours of a long political career. Besides being famous as a hunter of big game, he was a skilful horseman and a good tennis player. Regular physical exercise in the open air contributed much to his abounding vitality. A man of decisive action when his mind was made up on any given question, his very decisiveness sometimes gave the impression that his judgments were hasty. On the contrary, few men were more deliberate in considering all sides of an important problem. His long experience, his wide reading and his thorough knowledge of all sorts and conditions of men, enabled him to act quickly at a time of crisis, but his important speeches,

or a course of political action that might be far-reaching in its effect, were not cast into their final form without careful consultation with the best advisers he could obtain. The first form of his written speeches was always painstakingly edited and revised, and not infrequently entirely rewritten. He expressed his own judgment of his success as a public man by saying that it was not due to any special gifts or genius, but to the fact that by patience and laborious persistence he had developed ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.
 * (L. F. A.)

The following is a list of his principal works:—The Naval Operations of the War between Great Britain and the United States—1812-1815 (1882), written to correct the history of James; Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888), both in the American Statesmen Series; New York City (1891; revised 1895) in the Historic Towns Series; Hero Tales, from American History (1895) with H. C. Lodge; Winning of the West (4 vols., 1889-96); a part of the sixth volume of the History of the Royal Navy of England (1898) by W. L. Clowes; The Rough Riders (1899); Oliver Cromwell (1901); the following works on hunting and natural history, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1886), Ranch Life and Hunting Trail (1888), The Wilderness Hunter (1893), Big Game Hunting in the Rockies and on the Plains (1899; a republication of Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter), The Deer Family (1902), with other authors, and African Game Trails (1910); and the essays, American Ideals (2 vols., 1897) and The Strenuous Life (1900); and State Papers and Addresses (1905) and African and European Addresses (1910). Several of his works have been translated into French and German. Uniform editions were published in 1900 and 1903. Early in 1909 he became a “contributing editor” of the Outlook.

The biographical sketches by Jacob A. Riis (New York, 1904), F. E. Leupp (ibid., 1904), G. W. Douglas (ibid., 1907), James Morgan (ibid., 1907), and Murat Halstead (Akron, 1902) are personal or political eulogies. John Burroughs's Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt (Boston, 1907) is an appreciation of Roosevelt as a naturalist. J. W. Bennett, Roosevelt and the Republic (New York, 1908), is bitterly hostile. There is a sketch by F. V. Greene in Roosevelt's American Ideals.  ROOT, ELIHU (1845-), American lawyer and political leader, was born at Clinton, New York, on the 15th of February 1845, the son of Oren Root (d. 1885), professor of mathematics at Hamilton College from 1849-81. He graduated at Hamilton College in 1864, taught at the Rome (N.Y.) Academy in 1865, and graduated at the University Law School, New York City, in 1867. As a corporation lawyer he soon attained high rank and was counsel in many famous cases. Politically, he became identified with the reform element of the Republican party. He was United States attorney for the Southern District of New York (1883-85), and a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of 1894, acting as chairman of its judiciary committee. From August 1899 until February 1904 he was secretary of war in the cabinets of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, and in this position reorganized the army and created a general staff, and in general administered his department with great ability during a period marked by the Boxer uprising in China, whither troops were sent under General A. R. Chaffee, the insurrection of the Filipinos, the withdrawal of the United States troops from Cuba, and the establishment of a government for the Philippines under a Philippine Commission, for which he drew up the “instructions,” in reality comprising a constitution, a judicial code and a system of laws. In 1903 he was a member of the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal. In July 1905 he re-entered President Roosevelt's cabinet as secretary of state. In the summer of 1906, during a visit to the Pan-American Conference at Rio de Janeiro, he was elected its honorary president, and during a tour through the Latin-American republics, brought about a better understanding between the United States and these republics. In general he did much to further the cause of international peace, and he concluded treaties of arbitration with Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and other countries. Upon his resignation from the cabinet he was elected, in January 1909, as United States senator from New York. In 1910 he was chief counsel for the United States before the Hague tribunal for the arbitration of the long-standing dispute concerning fisheries between his country and Great Britain (see ). He received the degree of LL.D. from