Panama and let Congress debate after the act. In the stunning clash of militant imperialistic nations, a clash which was the "inevitable" goal of his lifelong policy, as it is that of every imperialist, he towered above his fellow-citizens, constantly and heroically calling to arms. His countrymen rose, but not for his battle. They fought, but not for his victory. Time and events with remorseless irony made him the standard-bearer and rallying point for an American host dedicated to the destruction of his policy of militant imperialistic nationalism abroad and at home. He said "Belgium," he mentioned Germany's transgressions of law; and his countrymen cheered and buckled on their armor. But if, during the war, he had dared to exhort them, as in the earlier time, "to face the life of strife for the domination of the world," they were in a mood to have torn him in pieces. In that mood they fought and won their war. Highly as they valued his instrumental services, the principles on which they waged it and the objects which they sought drew them away from Roosevelt and towards Lincoln and Washington.
At the present time it is obvious to everyone that a faction of his old friends, incorrigibly born and bred in militant imperialistic nationalism, are making a fight over his body to wrest from the simple-hearted idealistic plain people the fruits of victory. Gloomy observers—too gloomy, I think—declare that the fruits are already gone. The exponents of
