" So they
are; well behind him. The farther away from the position of duty
and honor and hazard he has backed, the farther behind him these
gentry have stood--or run.
Finally, Roosevelt stated with deadly clearness the position into
which Wilson's vacillating policy had driven us:
The United States has not a friend in the world. Its conduct,
under the leadership of its official representatives, for the
last five years and, above all, for the last three years, has
deprived it of the respect and has secured for it the contempt of
every one of the great civilized nations of mankind. Peace
treaties and windy Fourth-of-July eloquence and the base
materialism which seeks profit as an incident to the abandonment
of duty will not help us now. For five years our rulers at
Washington have believed that all this people cared for was easy
money, absence of risk and effort, and sounding platitudes which
were not reduced to action. We have so acted as to convince other
nations that in very truth we are too proud to fight; and the man
who is too proud to fight is in practice always treated as just
proud enough to be kicked.
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