The Kaiser cabled him to resign and take the next day's steamer home, alleging "chronic illness" as an excuse. He sailed from Hoboken obediently, and there were none so poor as to do him reverence. The sycophants who had fawned upon him while he was enjoying the Imperial favor as Ambassador took care not to be seen waving a farewell to him from the pier. Instead of that, they were busy telling over his blunders. He had served French instead of German champagne at a banquet for Prince Henry, and he had allowed the Kaiser's yacht to be christened in French champagne. How could such a blunderer satisfy the diplomatic requirements of the vain and petty Kaiser? And yet! Holleben was utterly devoted and willing to grovel in the mud. He even suggested to President Roosevelt that at the State Banquet at the White House, Prince Henry, as a Hohenzollern, and the representative of the Almightiest Kaiser, should walk out to dinner first; but there was no discussion, for the President replied curtly, "No person living precedes the President of the United States in the White House." Henceforth the Kaiser understood that the United States Government, at least as long as Roosevelt was President, would repel any attempt by foreigners to violate the Monroe Doctrine, and set up a nucleus of foreign power in either North or South America. He devoted himself all the more earnestly to pushing the sly work of peaceful penetration, that work of spying and lying in which the German people proved itself easily first. The diabolical propaganda, aimed not only at undermining the United States, at seducing the Irish and other hyphenate groups of Americans, but at polluting the Mexicans and several of the South American States; and later there was a thoroughly organized conspiracy to stir up animosity between this country and Japan by making the Japanese hate and suspect the Americans, and by making the Americans hate and suspect the Japanese. I alluded just now to the fact that German intrigue was working in Bogota, and influenced the Colombian blackmailers in refusing to sign the Hay Herran Canal Treaty with the United States, and peered about in the hope of snapping up the Canal rights for Germany.