It would have been a dramatic adventure to accept Germany's assault on Belgium as a challenge to the humane interest of America, but the acceptance would have been only a gesture, for we were unable to transport armies to the theatre of war in time to check the outrage. Such action would have pleased some people in the East, but the President knew that this quixotic knight errantry would not appeal to the country at large, particularly the West, still strongly grounded in the Washingtonian tradition of non-interference in European quarrels. Colonel Roosevelt himself, who subsequently attacked so strongly the "pusillanimity" of the Administration's course, said on September 23, 1914: A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. What action our government can or will take I know not. It has been announced that no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality. It is certainly eminently desirable that we should remain entirely neutral and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. It was not the policy of a weakling or a timid man. It was the policy of a prudent leader and statesman, who was feeling his way amid dangers and who as an historian himself knew the difficulties of an imprudent or incautious move. I recall the day he prepared his neutrality proclamation. At the end of one of the most strenuous days of his life in Washington, he left the Executive offices where he was engaged in meeting and conferring with senators and congressmen, and I found him comfortably seated under an elm tree, serenely engaged with pad and pencil in preparing his neutrality proclamation, which was soon to loose a fierce storm of opposition and ridicule upon him. He and I had often discussed the war and its effect upon our own country, and one day in August, 1914, just after the Great War had begun, he said to me: "We are going through deep waters in the days to come. The passions now lying dormant will soon be aroused and my motives and purposes at every turn will soon be challenged until there will be left but few friends to justify my course. It does not seem clear now, but as this war grows in intensity it will soon resolve itself into a war between autocracy and democracy. Various racial groups in America will seek to lead us now one way and then another. We must sit steady in the boat and bow our heads to meet the storm."