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Balance of Peace. "I am more concerned over the Japanese situation than almost any other," T.R. said after the Treaty of Portsmouth. "Thank heaven we have the Navy in good shape." Into the White House trickled a stream of intelligence reports that Japan was preparing to attack the Philippines, or Panama, or both, indicating, too, that many European powers were not averse to balancing off new Japan against the emergent might of T.R.'s new U.S.
What T.R. now did was the greatest single act of his presidency. He sent the U.S. fleet around the world. T.R. did it to show Japan, and Europe as well, that the U.S. was not only a world power but a great world power, able to defend its interests and deter war anywhere. He did it to show the people of the U.S. that from then on out the U.S. was part of the world. Around a narrowing world fraught with fear of a world war the 16 U.S. battleships steamed, all painted gleaming white, making good-will stopovers at such places as Japan and Australia, keeping up with target practice at sea, losing not a vessel from mechanical failure, missing not one planned landfall. The Great White Fleet was the unmistakable American word to the world that the American Dream had come to stay. Such was the meaning of the Great White Fleet that T.R.'s last significant act as President of the U.S. was to go down to Virginia to cheer the ships as they steamed homeward into Hampton Roads in a seven-mile line, belching black smoke, crashing out the presidential salute.
The Yankee Prince. When T.R. left the White House he was 50 years old, and the nation was on course for the century. Far behind was the dark day of Sept. 14, 1901 when, according to the New York World, "the U.S. was never closer to a social revolution than at the time Roosevelt became President." Around T.R. in his last year in the White House, their productivity racing ahead of population, surged 88 million Americans, men in derbies in the new Model Ts, women in the new sheath gowns and Merry Widow hats, teen-agers shouting Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay and Take Me Out to the Ball Game and taking in George M. Cohan in The Yankee Prince.
In the midst of the pageant Yankee Prince Teddy presided over all. indestructible, a mixture, according to one visiting British statesman, "of St. Vitus and St. Paul ... a great wonder of nature." T.R.'s own overall judgment of his Administration: 1) ''The most powerful men in this country were held to accountability before the law"; 2) "It was clear to all ... that the labor problem in the country had entered upon a new phase"; 3) "We were at absolute peace, and there was no nation from whom we had anything to fear." The loyal opposition's point of view, put by Historian Henry Adams, personal friend and gadfly: "Theodore is never sober, only he is drunk with himself and not with rum." But when T.R. stepped out of the White House by choice —he could have been re-elected—Adams paused. Said Adams: "I shall miss you very much."
In a note of political advice to his chosen successor. War Secretary William Howard Taft. T.R. added a last touch of the political virtuosity that had made him his enemies but had got his results. Said T.R.: "About your playing golf ... I have received literally