The Writings of Carl Schurz/To President Roosevelt, September 21st, 1905
TO PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
I was exceedingly glad to find in your letter of September 18th an assurance that your active sympathy may be looked for in the matter of gradual disarmament. You will build up a monumental record in history.
Your interview with Baron Rosen was indeed comical enough. It shows to what straits the luckless Czar, after the terrible breakdown of his military absolutism, is reduced in trying to recover some of his prestige. What poor comedians some of those high potentates are! As if any one person in the world would now believe the Czar to be the true initiator of the Conference! Of course, his pretension to that effect is received with an ironical smile all round. The way you treated the matter was, I think, exactly right. It will entitle you in the Conference, and before the world generally, to all the more consideration. The real leadership will easily fall to you as it should, and I trust you will take it resolutely. Quod bonum, felix, faustumque sit.