"My dear Senator Cullom:
"Having reference to the letter which Secretary Root wrote you yesterday about the Algeciras Convention, I can only add that I earnestly hope this matter will receive favorable report from the committee at this session. I am literally unable to understand how any human being can find anything whatever to object to in this treaty; and to reject it would mean that for the first time since the adoption of the Constitution this Government will be without a treaty with Morocco. It seems incredible that there should be a serious purpose to put us in such a position.
"Sincerely yours,
"(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt."
The General Act would probably not have been ratified by the Senate had we not agreed on the form of the resolution of ratification. That resolution provided:
"Resolved further, that the Senate, as a part of this act of ratification, understands that the participation of the United States in the Algeciras Conference and in the formation and adoption of the general Act and Protocol which resulted therefrom, was with the sole purpose of preserving and increasing its commerce in Morocco, the protection as to life, liberty, and property of its citizens residing and travelling therein, and of aiding by its friendly offices and efforts in removing friction and controversy which seemed to menace the peace between powers signatory with the United States to the treaty of 1880, all of which are on terms of amity with this Government, and without purpose to depart from the traditional American foreign policy which forbids participation by the United States in the settlement of political questions which are entirely European in their scope."
After this form of resolution had been agreed to by those favoring and those opposing the treaty, I showed it to President Roosevelt. He expressed his satisfaction with it, and the Act was ratified by the Senate.
I have endeavored to cover only a very few of the more important matters which have come before the Committee on Foreign Relations since I have been its chairman. The treaties before the committee have embraced almost every subject of contact between two independent Nations. Numerous treaties involving extradition, boundaries, naturalization, claims, sanitation, trade-marks, consular and diplomatic friendship, and commerce, and many other subjects, have been before the committee and have been acted upon and ratified by the Senate. During the period of which I am now writing, I believe that we have ratified treaties with almost every independent Nation of the world. The many important matters now pending, or of more recent date, I am not at liberty to refer to, the injunction of secrecy not yet having been removed.
The Foreign Relations Committee will continue in the future, as it has in the past, one of the Senate's foremost committees.
CHAPTER XXXI CONGRESS UNDER THE TAFT ADMINISTRATION
It had been my intention to close these recollections with the beginning of the Taft Administration, but their publication has been deferred until the Administration extended so far that it seems proper to bring my observations up to date. I am especially impelled to this course by the fact that the present era has developed a very marked change in the character of the Senate, and, to a limited extent at least, in the trend of political thought in the country at large—a change which should be noted in any permanent writing dealing with the period. Still, I have no intention of entering upon a detailed consideration of men or of conditions. My only purpose is to make brief mention of these conditions and to refer in very general terms to some who have given direction to recent public affairs.