Roosevelt and Taft Praise the Kaiser as an Agent of Peace.—Theodore Roosevelt in1913: “The one man outside this country from whom I obtained help in bringing about the Peace of Portsmouth was His Majesty WilliamII. From no other nation did I receive any assistance, but the Emperor personally and through his Ambassador in St.Petersburg, was of real aid in helping induce Russia to face the accomplished fact and come to an agreement with Japan. This was a real help to the cause of international peace, a contribution that outweighed any amount of mere talk about it in the abstract.”

William H.Taft, 1913: “The truth of history requires the verdict that, considering the critically important part which has been his among the nations, he has been, for the last quarter of a century, the greatest single individual force in the practical maintenance of peace in the world.”