He did not seem to realize
how great an evil it is, and in how many ways, fascinated as he
was by the virtues which it sometimes called out; but in this
respect, also, I think his views expanded and mellowed as time
went on. His mind was so capacious as to take in Old-World
affairs in a sense which very few people outside Europe, since
Hamilton, have been able to do."
Now the truth is that neither the eminent person who wrote this
letter, nor many others among us, saw as clearly during the first
decade of this century as Roosevelt saw that war was not a remote
possibility, but a very real danger. I think that he was almost
the first in the United States to feel the menace of Germany to
the entire world. He knew the strength of her army, and when she
began to build rapidly a powerful navy, he understood that the
likelihood of her breaking the peace was more than doubled; for
with the fleet she could at pleasure go up and down the seas,
picking quarrels as she went. If war came on a great scale in
Europe, our Republic would probably be involved; we should either
take sides and so have to furnish a contingent, or we should
restrict our operations to self-defense.
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