In January the New York delegation in Congress gave a dinner to Vice-President-elect Sherman at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. There were present all the New York Congressmen, Speaker Cannon, the junior Senator from New York, Depew, and Senator-elect Root. Along about ten o'clock the President arrived. As usual on such occasions, there was informal speaking, and of course the President was called upon. His offhand remarks that evening were so inspiring that I regretted they were not taken down that they might have been preserved. In my random notes I have incorporated the substance of some of them; to the effect that our highest purpose should be to perform the duties before us. He said he had been in public life twenty-six years (as I understood), and nearly eight years of that as President, and he had enjoyed it all; adding, humorously, "even the scraps I have had."
Referring to the presidential duties, it was not always possible to spell out from the words of the Constitution what those duties imposed upon the occupant of the office. He instanced the anti-Japanese outbreak in California. There was nothing in the Constitution that either permitted or conflicted with his taking the position he had in his communications to the Governor of California. It was his purpose to call the attention of the people at large in that State and throughout the country to the dangers of the situation if the contemplated legislation were put through. He referred to the impractical attitude of the peace societies and other peace advocates in objecting to all appropriations for naval expenditures. They could render a better service by agitating to prevent a condition of international irritation that had all the possibilities of war; the good effect of the well-considered "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Japan had been negatived by the unreasonable legislation proposed in California.
Making reference in a general way to the work of the Administration, he said it was important to look to the future, but to fix one's eyes on the future and neglect the present was as unwise as to limit one's view entirely to the present. He hoped the people would not trouble themselves as to what to do with the ex-President; so far as he was concerned he was able to take care of himself; upon his return from Africa they would find him working not as an ex-President, but as a private citizen in the ranks, and coöperating with his party representatives for the best interests of the country.
He closed by saying that what may become of one's personal reputation, one's fame as an individual, is of no consequence. The individual disappears. Oblivion will engulf us all. Only results count. In order to achieve results there must be coöperation. He was always ready to coöperate with men whose tendencies were forward, even if such coöperation led only one step forward where he would have liked ten; but he would refuse to coöperate with men whose tendencies were backward.
In my Department I continued to push matters forward without allowing the approaching close of the Administration to influence me. Under date of January 22d I received a letter from President-elect Taft, in answer to my inquiry, indicating that in all probability I should not be retained in the Cabinet. He said he would have written sooner, but had not decided in what capacity he wished me to serve his Administration, though he thought perhaps I might be willing to accept an embassy. However, he had not definitely decided not to retain me in the Cabinet. He found Cabinet-making quite a difficult job.
Three days later I received another note from him mentioning the embassy to Japan. He hoped to suit whatever preference I might have in the matter after he had had a chance to talk it over with me in Washington.
At the last Cabinet meeting there was very little business transacted. The President talked to us informally and very impressively, saying he wished to repeat, what he had said before, that a President usually receives credit for all the good work done in his Administration, but, speaking for himself, his co-workers had an equal share in that credit; no President, he said, had had a more effective, able, and coöperative Cabinet than he. Then he added humorously that he wanted no response to modify that statement. Some of us, however, could not resist expressing in brief the sentiments we felt, and I answered him: If we have performed our duties to your satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the country, it is due in no small degree to the fact that around this table we have caught the contagion of your fine spirit which has enabled each of us to rise to our highest level of efficiency because we felt we were coöperating in furthering those moral issues which you have vitalized in our economic and national life, I wish to add that our President in his boundless generosity has always given to each one of us not only the fullest credit for what we have done, but a recognition far beyond our individual merits.