One of the great attractions of Philadelphia is its park, through which we were taken on a drive. It really resembles a landscape rather than a park, so enormous, so extensive are all its dimensions. Where we have only a clump of trees, there they have a grove; where we have a grassplot, they have a prairie. At the same time it is carefully tended and richly adorned with flower beds, fountains, and statues, like a prince’s beautiful castle garden. Washington was not included in the schedule of cities where lectures were to be given; but I ran over there for two days in order to get some idea of the capital city, and especially to meet the President. Washington has a character very different from that of the other cities of the Union. It is not a city exuberant with trade and business; it has no skyscrapers, no elevated or subterranean railways, no bank or trade palaces,—only very quiet, very broad streets, planted with trees and bordered by villa-like houses. Even the embassies and legations are not housed in palaces but in similar elegant villas. On the other hand, that part of the city where the Capitol, the Congressional Library, and the obelisk rise from amidst wide-stretching grassplots, is of overpowering magnificence. You might think yourself transported to an antique world. But no—it is the new world, the world of the future. The Public Library is unquestionably one of the most splendid edifices in the world. The private citizen who goes thither to read after his day’s work is accomplished can give himself up to the feelings that are quickened by an environment of harmonious splendor. You seem to be in fairyland, and the paintings and marble columns and stairways have an especially imposing effect when the lofty dome of the central hall is illuminated with electric lights. On the seventeenth of September I had the honor of being received by the President of the United States, and of having a private talk with him about the cause which is so dear to my heart. Friendly, sincere, evidently thoroughly impressed with the seriousness and the importance of the matter discussed,—so seemed Theodore Roosevelt to me. Gallant _Soldatentum_—even more, adventure-loving _Roughridertum_—is in his blood, but he has a far-seeing social good will in his spirit; and this last makes him the pioneer of a new era. He was the first to put into action the tribunal of The Hague; he is now going to call a new Hague Conference. “Universal peace is coming,” he said to me; “it is certainly coming—step by step.” It would be unbecoming in me to repeat what was said in an unconstrained conversation; only the following I might be permitted to state here. I had mentioned the Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty that came so near being concluded in 1897, and suggested that the present would be an appropriate moment for taking it up again.