He was impelled to do this, not merely by his instinct to bring
whatever he undertook up to the highest standard, but also
because he had a premonition that a crisis was at hand which
might call the country at an instant's notice to protect itself
with all the power it had. Two recent events aroused his
vigilance. In December, 1895, President Cleveland sent to England
a message upholding the Monroe Doctrine and warning the British
that they must arbitrate their dispute with Venezuela over a
boundary, or fight. This sledgehammer blow at England's pride
might well have caused war had not sober patriots on both sides
of the Atlantic, aghast at this shocking possibility, smoothed
the way to an understanding, and had not the British Government
itself acknowledged the rightness of the demand for arbitration.
So the danger vanished, but Roosevelt, and every other thoughtful
American, said to himself, "Suppose England had taken up the
challenge, what had we to defend ourselves with?" And we compared
the long roll of the great British Fleet with the paltry list of
our own ships, and realized that we should have been helpless.
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