The attitude of Roosevelt in foreign affairs as in domestic was frank, clear-cut and firm. He knew the involutions of inter national politics in the Old World as no American president before him had known them, and he countered and checked his subtle opponents in diplomacy with skill and relish. He was bold—startlingly bold at times—but never reckless, calculating costs in advance, saying unambiguously what he had to say and taking account of the human equation. His handling of the German emperor in the matter of Venezuela in 1902 was so firm and so courteous that the emperor became his devoted admirer even though he recalled the ambassador who had failed to warn him that the President meant what he said. His action in regard to an old dispute with Great Britain over the boundary of Alaska was equally friendly and effective.
Swift and vigorous was his action (1903) in sending a cruiser to Panama immediately following its secession from Colombia. He was one of the first Americans to apprehend the part which the Pacific was destined to play, both commercially and po litically, in world history. The long delay, moreover, during the Spanish War, in bringing one of the navy's greatest battleships, the Oregon, from the Pacific coast of the United States to the Atlantic, had convinced Roosevelt of the urgent need, if only for strategic reasons in the event of war, of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. When, therefore, after years of fruitless negotiations, the opportunity came to him to acquire for the United States the right to build the canal, he acted promptly, convinced that to do otherwise was to invite a new and dangerous succession of postponements.
The charge was made that President Roosevelt had encouraged or even fomented the revolution in Panama; but no evidence has been produced to give the accusation the slightest support. Roosevelt's boast (1911) "I took Panama," must, moreover, be considered in conjunction with a phrase he added at the semi jocose request of a French engineer who himself claimed the credit and the responsibility for the insurrection—"when Bunau Varilla handed it to me on a silver platter." Roosevelt's leader ship in the actual construction of the canal was of vital signifi cance. When private engineers failed in the task, he appointed an army engineer, Col. George W. Goethals, as head of the Canal commission with autocratic powers. He broke the precedent which was supposed to prevent an American president from leaving the territory of the United States during his term of office in order to inspect the work and encourage the workers.
Roosevelt approved and eloquently defended the policy of national expansion adopted by the Government under President McKinley. Aside from the acquisition of the Canal Zone, how ever, he made no move to acquire further territory for the United States. To the surprise of Europe, he carried out the provisions of the American pledge not to annex Cuba, and launched that long-oppressed people as an independent republic under the protection of the United States but not under its Gov ernment. By assuming supervision of the finances of San Do mingo, he put an end to controversies in that unstable republic which threatened to disturb the peace of Europe.
Roosevelt's action in bringing about peace between Japan and Russia in 1905 added greatly to his prestige at home and abroad. Portions of Roosevelt's papers, published since his death, reveal the extent to which international politics on the Continent were involved in a struggle which appeared to be localized in the Orient and indicate that it was Roosevelt's intervention which prevented in 1904 and again in 1906, during the Algeciras Conference, the outbreak of the World War which actually came in 1914. The Nobel Prize committee recognized his services in ending the Russo-Japanese War by conferring upon him its award for the promotion of international peace. In accepting the honour in an address at Christiania in 1910, he suggested the possibility of a League of Nations for the prevention of war. He was the first to send an international controversy for settlement to the Inter national Court of Arbitration at The Hague and was instrumental in having the Second Hague Conference called. He was opposed, however, to peace treaties which promised more than human nature could be counted upon to fulfil, and had no patience with any policy remotely resembling "peace at any price." His administration had a profound effect on the national prestige of his country. He found the Government of the United States, when he took up the reins, in the position among world powers of a new boy in school; he left it firmly established in the first rank, admired and feared, its favour sought after, its citizenship respected in the remotest corners of the globe.