It must not be lost sight of that this treaty is not dependent for its efficacy on the personnel of the signers or the name of the territory it affects. It is a covenant, as lawyers say, that runs with the land. The name of New Granada has passed away; its territory has been divided. But as long as the isthmus endures, the great geographical fact keeps alive the solemn compact which binds the holders of the territory to grant us freedom of transit, and binds us in return to safeguard for the isthmus and the world the exercise of that inestimable privilege.
A few days thereafter I received a short note from the President reading: "Your 'covenant running with the land' idea worked admirably. I congratulate you on it." And from my friend John Bassett Moore I received an amusing letter:
So you had a finger in the pie! I find a good deal of amusement in reflecting on the end reached from the premise of my memorandum; and almost as much on the conclusion reached from your suggestion. Perhaps, however, it is only a question of words—that is to say, it is, indifferently, a question of the "covenant running with the land" or a question of the "covenant running (away!) with the land"!!
Those luncheons at the White House were always pleasant and interesting occasions. One met there all kinds of people, of every station in life, but always people who stood for something and who interested the President. At the table Roosevelt would speak without apparent reserve and free from all official restraint, and I doubt whether these confidences were ever abused. By this means, too, he received the frank, unreserved statements and criticisms of his guests.
As an illustration of the range of personalities one would meet at the Roosevelt luncheons, I remember one day when Seth Bullock, a former sheriff of the Black Hills district and an intimate friend of Roosevelt during his cowboy days, sat next to Seth Low at the table. And in his "Autobiography" Roosevelt himself says:
No guests were ever more welcome at the White House than these old friends of the cattle ranches and the cow camps—the men with whom I had ridden the long circle and eaten at the tail-board of a chuck-wagon—whenever they turned up at Washington during my Presidency. I remember one of them who appeared at Washington one day just before lunch, a huge, powerful man who, when I knew him, had been distinctly a fighting character. It happened that on that day another old friend, the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce, was among those coming to lunch. Just before we went in I turned to my cow-puncher friend and said to him with great solemnity, "Remember, Jim, that if you shot at the feet of the British Ambassador to make him dance, it would be likely to cause international complications"; to which Jim responded, with unaffected horror, "Why, Colonel, I shouldn't think of it, I shouldn't think of it!"
Mrs. Roosevelt is a most charming and cultured woman, typically the wife and mother. Literary and intellectual matters appeal to her, though her dominant note is the domestic one. I am sure she would have been just as happy as the mistress of a private household as the leading lady of the land in the White House, despite her great tact, sweetness, and simple dignity in filling the latter position.
The President was an omnivorous reader. He could read faster and remember better than any one I have ever known. On one occasion he recommended to me Ferrero's "Greatness and Decline of Rome," which he had just finished in the original Italian, and which had been brought out in English by the Putnam house. Subsequently, too, I met this author at the White House, where he and his wife were the guests of the President for several days.
In January, 1904, a large conference was held in Washington of representatives of the various peace societies and other persons prominently interested in the calling of an international peace congress. George F. Seward, of New York, was chairman, and others connected with it were the Reverend Edward Everett Hale and Robert Treat Paine, of Boston; Henry St. George Tucker, of Virginia, Andrew Carnegie, and myself. Resolutions were adopted recommending the negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain whereby all differences between us which might fail of adjustment through diplomatic channels were to be submitted for arbitration to the Permanent Court at The Hague. It was further recommended that we enter into like treaties with other powers as soon as practicable. We called on the President and the resolutions were presented by Mr. Tucker; Mr. Carnegie and I each made a few remarks, which the President in turn answered with a brief address. When he had finished and we were all standing around him, Mr. Carnegie said to him, "I have just been congratulating Mr. Straus on the compliments you paid him, and suggested that he get a copy of that portion of your remarks to preserve for his children and grandchildren." Roosevelt immediately turned to Mr. Loeb, his secretary, and instructed him to send to me that portion of his remarks, adding: "And I meant every word I said." I trust I may be pardoned for the egotism which prompts me to incorporate it in these memoirs:
I have had from Mr. Straus aid that I can not over-estimate, for which I can not too much express my gratitude, in so much of the diplomatic work that has arisen in this administration—aid by suggestion, aid by actual work in helping me to carry out the suggestions; and Mr. Straus was one of the two or three men who first set my mind, after I came in as President, in the direction of doing everything that could be done for the Hague Tribunal, as that seemed to be the best way to turn for arbitration.