PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, THE KAISER, AND ALGECIRAS. ITO THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR."] Sia,—There appears to be a mis-statement of really historic interest in Mr. Thayer's life of Roosevelt, which you reviewed last week. Your reviewer writes: " Mr. Thayer reminds us that he (Roosevelt), by a direct appeal to the German Emperor, persuaded Germany to refrain from an open quarrel with France over Morocco, and instead to enter the Algeciras Con- ference." The facts are quite otherwise. It was the Kaiser who persuaded Roosevelt (and much to the subsequent regret, no doubt, of each of them) to send Mr. Harry White and an American delegation to Algeciras. The American President always felt that in yielding to the Kaiser's wish, expressed in two vehement letters, lie in some degree departed from the " Monroe doctrine." It is important, I think, to make this correction, for we are sure to hear more of this incident, although the letters that passed will no doubt ere long be public
[Mr. Thayer's point was that Plissident Roosevelt induced the Emperor to agree to the holding of the conference. There is not, we think, any contradiction between this statement and Mr. Moreton Frewen's reminder that the Emperor in turn persuaded the President to send an American envoy to the conference.—En. Spectator.]
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