That was just what he expected. He knew human nature thoroughly;
and from long experience he had learned to be humorously
philosophical about such manifestations of man's ingratitude.

In the next year the influence of Roosevelt's personality was
again felt in affairs outside the traditional realm of American
international interests. Germany was attempting to intrude in
Morocco, where France by common consent had been the dominant
foreign influence. The rattling of the Potsdam saber was
threatening the tranquillity of the status quo. A conference of
eleven European powers and the United States was held at
Algeciras to readjust the treaty provisions for the protection of
foreigners in the decadent Moroccan empire. In the words of a
historian of America's foreign relations, "Although the United
States was of all perhaps the least directly interested in the
subject matter of dispute, and might appropriately have held
aloof from the meeting altogether, its representatives were among
the most influential of all, and it was largely owing to their
sane and irenic influence that in the end a treaty was amicably
made and signed."* But there was something behind all this. A
quiet conference had taken place one day in the remote city of
Washington. The President of the United States and the French
Ambassador had discussed the approaching meeting at Algeciras.
There was a single danger-point in the impending negotiations.
The French must find a way around it. The Ambassador had come to
the right man. He went out with a few words scratched on a card
in the ragged Roosevelt handwriting containing a proposal for a
solution. ** The proposal went to Paris, then to Morocco. The
solution was adopted by the conference, and the Hohenzollern
menace to the peace of the world was averted for the moment. Once