The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-09-21

NEW YORK H)-Joseph BuCklln Bishop, for 30 years personal friend of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, and who, five years before the former Presidents death, was commissioned
 by him "to write the history of th"
 period which covered his public
 career" presents in the September
 issue of Scribner's Magazine, the
 first of series of papers which gives for the first time many inter
 cstng sidelights on the life of the famous American.
 The paper. entitled "Roosevelt"-
 Peacemaker.' selected and arranged
 from the former Presidents public
 and private correspondence, amount
 ing to more than 10000 letters, deals with MT Roosevelt's efforts
 Japan and which resulted in the | Portsmouth peace conference of 1905. For the first time, apparently, k
 revealed the fact that Japan made | the initial Overtures for peace. Four
 days after the great Japanese naval victory over RojestVensky's fleet in the sea of Japan on May 2, 1905, | the minister of foreign affairs of
 Japan, the letters show, cabled Min
 istcr Takahira, in Washington, to
 invoke Rooseyelt's aid as d mediator
 ''l was amused" wrote the Presi-
 dent, by the way in which they ask
 ed me tp invite the two belligerents
 together directly on my own motion
 and initiative. II reminded me of the
 request for contributions sent by
 campaign committees to office hold
 CTS wherein they were asked to make | d voluntary contribution of ten per cent of their salary. lt showed a certain naiyetc on the part of the Japanese" According to his biosrapher, every step in the negotiations, extending over a period of three months, was taken by MT Roosevelt without the aid of any of his most trusted cOun sellors, John Hay, his secretary of state, being critically ill, Secretary Root having resigned from the cabinet many months earlier and Secretary Taft being absent in the Philippines.
 "One reads the thick volumes of his spondence with amazement | bordering on incredulity," writes MT, Bishop. "It is incredible that one man could do so much and so we'll | In no other task of his life was the abnormal energy mental and phySlC~ | al, of Theodore Roosevelt put to a | serVerer test and from none did he | emerge more triumphantly. His ac- tivity was as tireless as his resource fitness was inexhaustible."
 The Presidents activity was di- | reCted, he said, to mot only steadily | and irresistibly forcing the two war ring nations into d conference * but bringing other nations like Eng | land, France and Germany to the | support of his efforts. If Russia | baked and showed signs of refusal, | he persuaded the kaiser to bring | pressure upon the cZar in the inter | est of peace If Japan showed simi- | lar signs, England was appealed to, to bring pressure upon her. In the end Germany alone really helped, and Roosevelt gave unstinted praise to the kaiser ever afterWard for what he did then"
 In all of this correspondence the Colonel wrote without restraint or reservation" In a confidential let | ter to Secretary Hay he referred to the kaiser as a mOnomaniac and "a jumpy creature who has had another fit" In another missiVe he thus | characterizes the former emperor Of Russia: "The czar is preposterous | little creature as the absolute auto crat of l5O,OOO.OO0 people"
 Every day, and, often several times day, he urged the emperors Of Russia and Japan to agree upon | terms of peace. Once he wrote friend "The more l see of the czar the kaiser and the mikado, the bet | ter l am content with democracy, | even if we have to include the Amer ican newspapers as one of its assets | liability would be a better term" While the conference was in ses- sion. the President had occasional doubts of ultimate success. "l have led the horses to water" he wrote, but heaven only knows whether