Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/142

106 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS work out his duties and his aspirations. It was a day to be full of hope. The chief accomplishments of what Mr. Roose velt preferred to call his first administration, in stead of calling it the unexpired term of his prede cessor, are at present, in the general estimate, out weighed by certain steps more peculiarly and indi vidually his own; and it is likely they will be thus outweighed in the future also; for the accomplish ments ended some uncertainties, whereas the steps began some uncertainties. Among the accomplish ments should be named the final settlement of the troubles concerning the Alaskan boundary, an im portant controversy to see satisfactorily terminated. The establishing of the Cuban "reciprocity" is an other, not, perhaps, of equal, but of considerable dimensions. The Panama canal question is a third, and it would be difficult to overestimate the value of this. The circumstances under which it was achieved, the recognition, on the part of the United States, of the Panama government as an independ ent one, brought, not surprisingly, criticism from certain quarters. This place is not the place to answer, but merely to record, such criticism; but it may be said that much lay beneath the surface at that moment which has at no moment since come to public light, and which, if it should ever come, would go far toward changing for any ad verse (and honest) critics the unfavorable aspect of