“The supreme difficulty in connection with developing the peace work of The Hague arises from the lack of any executive power, of any police power to enforce the decrees of the court. In any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon actual or potential force; on the existence of a police, or on the knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are put into effect. “In new and wild communities where there is violence, an honest man must protect himself, and until other means of securing his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him to surrender his arms while the men who are dangerous to the community remain there. He should not renounce the right to protect himself by his own efforts until the community is so organized that it can effectively relieve the individual of the duty of putting down violence. “So it is with nations. Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations. As things are now, such powers to command peace throughout the world could best be assured by some combination between those great nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves of committing aggressions. The combination might at first be only to secure peace within certain definite limits and certain definite conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a combination would have earned his place in history for all time and his title to the gratitude of all mankind.” [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, WALTER SCOTT SHINN ROOSEVELT AS A GRANDFATHER] XV From White House to Jungle “Oh, our manhood’s prime vigor! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock to rock; The strong rending of boughs from the fir-trees; the cool, silver shock Of the plunge in a pool’s living water; the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is crouched in his lair. * * * * * How good is man’s life, the mere living! How fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!” These splendid lines of Browning were Roosevelt’s outdoor creed. His exploits as a hunter in Africa were merely a development of his life as a naturalist and out-of-door man. At Harvard Roosevelt had devoted himself to a study of natural science, and had even thought seriously of making it his lifework. Politics claimed him then, but always underlying Roosevelt the statesman was Roosevelt the naturalist.