He annoyed many people in the South by inviting a very able and eminent Negro, Booker T. Washington, to eat luncheon with him. According to the curious way of thinking on this subject, Mr. Washington who had been good enough to eat dinner at the table of the Queen of England, was not good enough to eat at the White House. Shortly after being violently denounced for being too polite to a Negro, he was still more violently denounced for being too harsh to Negroes. He discharged from the Army some riotous and disorderly Negro soldiers. Persons with small natures had attacked him for showing courtesy to a distinguished man; other persons with equally small natures now attacked him for acting justly towards mutinous soldiers. What did he do while he was President? What laws were passed by Congress, which he advocated or urged, and which he approved by his signature? Here are some of them as they are given by Mr. Washburn,[16] a Congressman of that time: [16] Washburn, "Theodore Roosevelt," p. 128. The Elkins Anti-Rebate Law, to end unjust business dealings of the railroads. The creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor. The law for building the Panama Canal. The laws to prevent impure and poisonous food being sold under false labels; and the law to establish the proper inspection of meat. The creation of the Bureau of Immigration. The law limiting the working hours of employees and protecting them in case of injury in their occupations. The law against child-labor in the District of Columbia. The reformation of the Consular Service. The law to stop corporations from giving great sums of money for political purposes at election time. You will notice that these were not laws to enable a few rich men to get richer still at the expense of the many; neither were they designed to help dishonest labor leaders to plunder the employers. They were aimed to bring about justice between man and man, to protect the weak. There was, when Mr. Roosevelt became President, a long standing dispute between this country and England and Canada about the boundary of Alaska. This was quickly settled by arbitration; our rights were secured; and all possible causes of war were removed. The South American country, Colombia, made an attempt to block the building of the Panama Canal. This canal had been planned to run through the State of Panama, which was part of the Republic of Colombia. It was a part of that country, however, separated by fifteen days' journey from the capital city, Bogotá, and so separated in friendship from the rest of the country that it had made over fifty attempts in fifty years to revolt and gain independence. Our State Department, through Mr. Hay, had come to an understanding with the Minister from Colombia as to the canal, and the amount we were to pay Colombia for the privilege of building this important waterway, for the benefit of the whole world.