In America the newspapers have made a great deal of
clamour about Mr. Roosevelt's want of diplomacy, courtesy, and so forth, but the wider American public is pleased, and rightly pleased, that the most representative citizen of the Republic has once again shown that he was not cast by nature for the role of a flatterer, whether at home or abroad. The barrel-organs, of course, grind out the old tune about Mr. Roosevelt's tactlessness. In reality, he is a very tactful as well as a very shrewd man. It is surely the height of tactfulness to recognise that the British people are sane enough and sincere enough to like being told the truth. His speech is one of the greatest compliments ever paid to a people by a statesman of another country. He could not have made such a speech to a touchy, vainglorious, or self-conscious race. He knew the people to whom he spoke.
