THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, 

December 2, ipo6 

MY DEAR MR. ROOT: 

In view of the fact that Mr. Bellamy Storer has 
sent to each member of my Cabinet, as well as to 
myself, a pamphlet under date of November, 
1906, purporting to give an account of those 
relations of his with me which led up to his removal 
from the position of ambassador at Vienna, I 
think it as well that you and the other members 
of the Cabinet should know certain facts which he 
either suppresses or misstates. As to the necessity 
for removing him from this position, I suppose 
there is no need of discussion. An ambassador 
who refuses to answer the letters of the President 
can not remain an ambassador. His statement 
that my letters to him were of a character such 
that he could not answer them needs no further 
comment than to point out that in such case it 
was his clear duty instantly to resign. His publi 
cation of the various private letters between his 
wife and himself and me would furnish any addi 
tional justification, were such needed, for his 
summary separation from the service. He does 
not give the State Department s final letter to him, 
which runs as follows : 

"September 10, 1906 
"HoN. BELLAMY STORER, 
Paris, France. 

"SiR: Your letter of August 3 does not 
require any comment as a whole, but by di- 
rection of the President I answer it as re 
gards one point. 

"You assume that in the letter of December n 
the President wrote you not as one official of the 
United States to another, but a purely personal 
and private letter, and you state that this letter 
shows on its face that no answer from you was 
asked for, suggested, or expected. 

"It is hard to understand your making such a 
statement, in view of the fact that the letter you 
quote derives its entire importance from the ac 
companying letter, which you were asked to read 
and hand to Mrs. Storer, in which Mrs. Storer was 
informed that unless she took certain definite action 
your connection with the diplomatic service would 
have to be severed. It is, of course, unnecessary 
to discuss, and it ought to be unnecessary even to 
allude to, any proposition so absurd as that this 
severance of you from the service would be asked 
for, not by the President as President, but in his 
private capacity. The President was anxious to 
treat both you and Mrs. Storer with the utmost 
gentleness and consideration, and it seemed to him 
that his end could be achieved in the way easiest 
for you by following the course which he actually 
did follow. The letter to Mrs. Storer, of course, 
became part of the matter of which you were re 
quired to take cognizance. In it Mrs. Storer was 
asked to fulfil certain conditions, failure to fulfil 
which would require, she was informed, your 
severance from the service, which conditions she 
never fulfilled. You were requested to read this 
letter and hand it to her. It is difficult to stig 
matize merely as folly the proposition that under 
these conditions the President s letter required no 
answer. 

"I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient 
servant, 

"ROBERT BACON, 

"Acting Secretary." 



It is never pleasant to have to discuss personal 
affairs, or to quote or explain from personal corre 
spondence ; which is one reason why it is held to be 
a peculiarly ungentlemanly thing to publish private 
correspondence. But as Mr. Storer in his extraor 
dinary pamphlet prints various letters written by 
himself, by me, and by Mrs. Storer, I shall set 
forth briefly the facts of the case, giving certain 
letters which are necessary in order to understand 
clearly those which he prints. 


I first met the Storers while I was civil service 
commissioner and he had come to Washington as 
a congressman. They were then kind and friendly 
in their relations with me and my family. I re 
tained a lively recollection of this kind and friendly 
attitude, and because of the affection it inspired 
I submitted to conduct from Mr. and Mrs. Storer 
to which I would have submitted from no other 
ambassador and his wife; and I did not resent 
their actions until it became evident that they were 
likely to damage American interests. Mrs. Storer 
insisted to me often that their change of creed had 
proved a deadly blow to her husband s career, 
and that they were suffering for conscience sake. 
I accepted this statement as true, and it gave me 
a certain chivalric feeling that I ought to do what 
I could to help them, and be as patient as possible 
with them. 

Under President McKinley Mr. Storer was 
made minister first to Belgium and then to Spain. 
About the time of my accession to the Vice-Presi 
dency I wrote at President McKinley s request to 
Mr. or Mrs. Storer that the President desired me 
to say that Mr. Storer was ultimately to be made 
an ambassador. Mr. and Mrs. Storer were greatly 
interested in securing the promotion of Archbishop 
Ireland to be a cardinal. I had, and have, a sincere 
respect and admiration for Archbishop Ireland, a re 
spect and admiration which I have often publicly 
expressed. The letters from me to Mr. and Mrs. 
Storer quoted in Mr. Storer s pamphlet give with 
precision my views both upon Archbishop Ireland 
and upon the possibility or propriety of my taking 
in his behalf the steps which the Storers asked, and 
I can add nothing to what these letters themselves 
show. When they first wrote to me on the subject 
I was governor of New York. Not being Presi 
dent myself, and not having thought out with clear 
ness the exact situation, I asked President McKinley 
whether he could properly do anything to help 
Archbishop Ireland. He responded that it was not 
a matter with which we could with propriety 
interfere, although he expressed himself as having the 
same high opinion of the archbishop that I had. I 
had a further conversation with the President on 
the subject, either just before or just after my 
election as Vice-President, in which he stated what 
he felt was the proper position; a position with 
which I absolutely agreed. Following this con 
versation, in my letter to Mrs. Storer of November 
23, 1900, quoted by Mr. Storer in his pamphlet, I 
stated with absolute clearness my position and why 
it was out of the question for the President to try 
to get any archbishop made cardinal; and all the 
letters quoted by Mr. Storer as having been subse 
quently written by me to him or to his wife take pre 
cisely the same position. I explained repeatedly that 
my friendship and admiration for Archbishop 
Ireland (which is like my friendship and admira 
tion for Bishop Lawrence, of the Episcopal Church, 
and Bishop Cranston, of the Methodist Church, 
like my friendship and admiration for many clergy 
men of many denominations Baptists, Lutherans, 
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and others) 
would make me pleased to see any good fortune 
attend him, or any churchman like him, of any 
creed; but that I could not interfere for his 
promotion, or indeed in any way in the ecclesiasti 
cal affairs of any church. This was also the posi 
tion I took in all private conversations, and the 
assertion that in any private conversation I took an 
opposite position from that which I was thus 
repeatedly expressing in writing is not only an 
untruth, but an absurd untruth; for I would of 
course not say privately to any one the opposite 
of what I was repeatedly writing to that same 
person. Mr. Storer asserts that he and Mrs. Storer 
and various other people, after conversations with 
me, put down memoranda as to what they remem 
bered I had said. If such action was taken, it was 
of course simply dishonorable. No one of them 
ever showed me or would have ventured to show 
me any such memoranda, and it is nonsense to 
expect to bind me by a memorandum the existence 
of which was concealed from me. The Storers 
were my guests at the time when, as they assert, 
they made these memoranda of private conversa 
tion with me. As a matter of fact, the statements 
they allege me to have made were not made, save 
in so far as what they allege me to have said agrees 
with what, before and after, I wrote to them. In this 
connection, I call your attention to the following 
statement issued from The White House on Novem 
ber 9, 1906, eleven days before I received the Storer 
pamphlet or had any knowledge whatever of it: 

"For many years it has been the invariable 
practice never to attempt to quote a private con 
versation with the President. It has been found 
that as a matter of fact the man who quotes such 
a conversation usually misquotes it, whether con 
sciously or unconsciously; and such an alleged 
conversation is under no circumstances to be held 
as calling for either explanation or denial by the 
President. The President is responsible only for 
what he himself says in public ; for what he writes, 
or for what he explicitly authorizes the proper 
Government officials to state in his behalf." 

Mrs. Storer wrote me with great freedom, and 
sometimes it was difficult to know quite how to 
answer her. Both she and Mr. Storer continually 
made attacks upon all sorts of people, especially 
dignitaries of her own church. At one time she 
wrote me with great bitterness against the Protes 
tant missionaries who were being sent to the 
Philippines, at the same time requesting me to 
champion Archbishop Ireland because he had been 
loyal to the United States during the war with 
Spain, which she asserts was not true as to another 
Catholic archbishop whom she named. While I 
was always reluctant to write in a way that would 
hurt the feelings of either of the Storers, on this 
occasion I thought it necessary to write just what 
my position was; and accordingly replied as 
follows : 



May 18, ipoo 
"My DEAR MRS. STORER: 

"Your letter of the 4th has just come to hand; 
also that of the 6th. I am very, very fond of you, 
and that is the reason your letters put me in a 
quandary. You want me to do all kinds of things 
that I can not possibly do, and that I ought not to 
do ; and you say things which I do not want to con 
tradict, and yet it makes me feel hypocritical if I 
seem to acquiesce in them. You must remember 
that there are many other people who feel about 
their religion just as you feel about yours. They 
can no more understand your turning Catholic than 
you can understand Catholics turning Protestant. 
Some of the best people I have ever met were 
Protestants who had originally been Catholics. I 
can not stop, and I can not urge the stopping of, 
missionaries going anywhere they choose. I em 
phatically feel, as I have always told you, that the 
chance for bettering the Catholic inhabitants of 
the tropic islands lies by bringing them up to the 
highest standard of American Catholicism. The 
worst thing that could happen both for them and 
the Catholic Church would be for the Catholic 
Church to champion the iniquities that have un 
doubtedly been committed, not only by lay, but by 
clerical, should-be leaders in the Philippines and 
elsewhere. One incident, which I actually can not 
put on paper, came to my personal knowledge in 
connection with a high Catholic ecclesiastic in Cuba, 
which was of a character so revolting and bestial 
that it made one feel that the whole hierarchy in 
the island needed drastic renovation. Now, I 
very earnestly wish that Archbishop Ireland, and 
those who are most advanced among our Catholic 
priests men like the Paulist Fathers, for instance 
should be given a free hand in these islands, and 
should be advanced in every way. . . . But 
you must remember how hampered I am in writing, 
from the fact that I do not like to see any one admit 
for a moment the right of a foreign potentate to 
interfere in American public policy. For instance 
you speak of the Pope being angry with Arch 
bishop Ireland for not stopping the war with 
Spain. As far as I am concerned, I would resent 
as an impertinence any European, whether Pope, 
Kaiser, Czar, or President, daring to be angry with 
any American because of his action or nonaction 
as regards any question between America and an 
outside nation. No pretension of this kind should 
be admitted for one moment. If any man, clerical 
or lay, bishop, archbishop, priest, or civilian, was 
in any way guilty of treasonable practices with 
Spain during our war, he should be shot or hung, 
and it is an outrage on justice that he should be at 
large. But I can not write in a way that will seem 
to defend a man for not averting war with Spain, 
for I can not recognize for a single moment the 
right of any European to so much as think that 
there is need of defence or excuse in such a case. 

"As you know, I always treat Catholic and 
Protestant exactly alike, as I do Jew or Gentile, 
as I do the man of native American, German, 
Irish or any other kind of parentage. Any dis 
crimination for or against a man because of his 
creed or nativity strikes me as an infamy. Men like 
Bishop Keane, like the late Father Casselly, like 
Father Belford, the parish priest of my own town 
of Oyster Bay, and like scores of other priests 
whom I could name, are entitled to receive from 
me the same measure of affectionate respect and 
loyal support that I have given to men like Phillips 
Brooks, like Mr. Devine, and like so very many 
other Protestant clergymen whom I could name. 
Moreover, my dear Mrs. Storer, whatever I could 
do for you and Bellamy, would be done; but 
I simply do not see how I can do anything in this 
particular matter. 

"With real regret, very sincerely yours." 

As soon as I became President I began to receive 
letters from Mrs. Storer asking for the promotion of 
Mr. Storer, and letters from both of them complain 
ing that the work in Madrid was uncongenial, and 
complaining also of the character and standing of 
various people in the public service. On September 
22, 1901, eight days after President McKinley died, 
Mrs. Storer wrote me urging that I should appoint 
Mr. Storer to the Cabinet, and specifying as a de 
sirable place the War Department, of which you 
were the head ; the letter running, "Please give him 
either the Navy or War. ... I pray that Bellamy, 
who so richly deserves it, shall have a chance for 
honorable service at home to his country." When 
I explained that I did not intend to remove any one, 
or make any changes in the Cabinet at the time, she 
wrote me on October 17, suggesting the embassies 
at London and Paris as fit places for her husband, 
and stating that Mr. Choate and General Porter 
were not proper persons to be ambassadors. In 
view of the intense indignation of Mr. and Mrs. 
Storer at his being removed from office now, there 
is a certain element of the comic in their attempt 
thus to get me to remove either you or Mr. Choate 
or Mr. Porter for the purpose of giving Mr. Storer 
either a Cabinet position or the embassy in Eng 
land or France. I received many letters of the gen 
eral tenor of those mentioned, enumerating their 
hardships and services and enemies. As Mr. Storer 
in his pamphlet quotes a letter of November 24 
from me, marked personal, in which I told his wife 
that he should be made special ambassador at the 
marriage of the King of Spain, alleging that this 
was a fresh mark of my approval of his conduct, 
I may mention that the letter containing this state 
ment on my part was in answer to one from Mrs. 
Storer in which she begged for the appointment of 
her husband, her letter running in part as follows : 
"Please, please send us to Madrid as special envoys 
to the wedding. It would be very appropriate, and 
I would love it." It is hard to find the exact words 
in which to criticise Mr. Storer s effort to twist the 
meaning of my granting such a request, couched in 
such a style. 

There remains for me to discuss but one matter, 
and that is Mr. Storer s assertion in his pamphlet 
that although in my letters I persistently refused 
to ask the Pope to promote Archbishop Ireland to 
be a cardinal, I nevertheless gave him a verbal mes 
sage commissioning him to make the request, on 
my behalf, of the Pope. Mr. Storer also asserts 
that President McKinley took a similar course, 
commissioning a gentleman whom he names to ask 
the appointment of Archbishop Ireland as cardinal 
"as a personal favor to him," the President, and as 
"an honor to the country." This is the direct con 
trary of what President McKinley told me was his 
attitude in the matter, and Mr. Cortelyou, who was 
then his private secretary, writes me as follows : 

"OFFICE OF THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL, 
Washington, D. C., December i, 1906 

"My DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: 

"In the pamphlet, Letter of Bellamy Storer to 
the President and the members of his Cabinet, 
November, 1906, are several statements referring 
to the late President McKinley, among them the 
following : 

" President McKinley heartily furthered the 
efforts made by Mr. Roosevelt, myself, and others to 
promote the appointment of Archbishop Ireland (as 
cardinal), and in the spring of 1899 he commis 
sioned Bishop O Gorman to say to the Pope that 
"that appointment would be considered a personal 
favor to him, the President, as well as an honor 
to the country." And this the bishop did, speaking 
in the President s name, in a personal audience 
with the Pope. 

"This statement of Mr. Storer distorts what was 
evidently an expression of deep personal regard 
and respect for an individual into what is in sub 
stance a request for his advancement as a member 
of an ecclesiastical organization. The late Presi 
dent never made such a request, never furthered 
the efforts of any one to bring about such an 
appointment, nor would he permit any official of 
his Administration to do so. He was scrupulously 
particular in this regard, and he made no compro 
mise with his convictions on the subject. 

1 Speaking from personal knowledge of 
President McKinley s attitude concerning Archbishop 
Ireland, I wish to say that he had the highest regard 
for the Archbishop and believed that while devoted 
to his Church he was in full sympathy with Ameri 
can ideals, and that because of this he was able to 
render immeasurable service both to his Church and 
to his country. But if Bishop O Gorman made any 
such representation as that alluded to by Mr. Storer 
he did so under an absolute misapprehension. I 
have repeatedly heard President McKinley state 
that in all such matters he could not divorce himself 
from his position as President, and that he would 
not under any circumstances interfere with or at 
tempt to influence the action of any religious organ 
ization here or abroad looking to the preferment 
of any of its members. 

"In following this course he was true to 
fundamental principles of the American 
Government, as you have been. 

"What I have said regarding the particular quota 
tion above referred to applies to any other similar 
reference to the late President in this pamphlet. 
"Very sincerely yours, 

"GEO. B. CORTELYOU/ 

As for Mr. Storer s assertion that I authorized 
him to make such a statement as he says he was 
authorized to make to the Pope, it is untrue. I 
gave him no such authorization. Mr. Storer pro 
ceeds to say that he at once wrote me a letter giving 
a full account of his visit to the Vatican, and of the 
message he personally gave the Pope. A careful 
search of the files in my office fails to show any 
such letter from him; and neither I nor my Secre 
tary, Mr. Loeb, who receives and examines all my 
correspondence, have any remembrance of ever re 
ceiving such a letter; and had it been received we 
could not fail to remember it. I never received 
from him any letter giving any such account of his 
visit to the Vatican and his conversation with the 
Pope as he now says he sent me ; and this is evident 
from the letters which he gives as written by me to 
him on December 27 and December 30, in which, 
as you will see, I specifically state that I did not 
know whether or not he had even called at the Vati 
can, and that he might "merely have seen some 
Cardinal privately" a statement wholly incom 
patible with my having received such a letter as 
that which he says he sent. In his answer to this 
letter he never traversed or in any way alluded to, 
this statement of mine; which he could hardly have 
failed to do had he already written me such a letter 
as he now describes. 

On December 19 I had written him, anent a ver 
bal request made to me by an ecclesiastical friend 
that I should write a letter for Archbishop Ireland : 

"I told him of course that I could not interfere 
in such a matter, as it was none of my business 
who was made cardinal; that personally I had a 
very strong friendship and admiration for the 
Archbishop, and that individually it would please 
me greatly to see him made cardinal, just as it 
pleased me when Doctor Satterlee was made 
Bishop of Washington; but that I could no more 
interfere in one case than in the other in short, 
that my feeling for the Archbishop was due to my 
respect for him as a useful and honorable man 
just such a feeling as I have had for Phillips Brooks 
and for many other clergymen of various denomi 
nations; but that I could not as President in any 
way try to help any clergyman of any denomination 
to high rank in that denomination." 

I say that I never received such a letter as that 
which Mr. Storer alleges he wrote me. I may add 
that I am by no means certain he ever sent me such 
a letter ; my doubt being due to the facts I am about 
to set forth, which show that when he now attempts 
to describe the letters he sent me, Mr. Storer s 
memory becomes marvelously treacherous. 

On pages 23 to 25 of his pamphlet, Mr. Storer 
writes as follows (he having first stated that from 
my letters he gathered that I had resolved to repu 
diate all authority for his action, and to appear 
ignorant of it) : 

"Shortly after writing this I received another 
letter from the President. I quote the portions re 
ferring to this matter : 

" Let me repeat to you that in reference to mat 
ters affecting the Catholic Church events have abso- 
lutely (and conclusively) shown that while you are 
ambassador you must keep absolutely clear of any 
deed or word in Rome or elsewhere which would 
seem to differentiate your position from that of 
other ambassadors. The mere fact of a (the) re 
port in the newspapers about your calling at the 
Vatican (has) had a very unfortunate effect. I 
dare say you did not call. You may merely have 
seen some cardinal privately, but the unpleasant 
talk over the affair emphasizes the need of extreme 
circumspection while you are in your present posi 
tion. While I am President and you are ambas 
sador neither of us in his public relation (s) is to 
act as Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, and 
we have to be careful not merely to do what is 
right, but so to carry ourselves as to show that we 
are doing what is right. I shall ask you not to 
quote me to any person in any shape or way in con 
nection with any affair of the Catholic Church and 
yourself not to take action of any kind which will 
give ground for the belief that you as an American 
ambassador are striving to interfere in the affairs 
of the Church. 

"This letter, with its virtual assertion that my 
visit to the Vatican was not only unauthorized, but 
was so contrary to what could have been expected 
that the President hardly then believed that it had 
occurred, was unintelligible except on the theory 
that he had resolved to repudiate all authority for 
my action, and to appear ignorant of it, and was 
now writing a letter which would be serviceable if 
needed later as evidence to support that position, 
In fact, this was the use to which the letter was 
afterward actually put by him in quoting it to per 
sons not informed of the facts, as will appear later. 
I felt that the only thing for me to do in this situa 
tion was to tender my resignation at once, and that 

I immediately did, accompanying it by a letter to 
the President of which I regret to say that I can 
find no copy. To this I received the following 
reply: 

" THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, 
January 29, 1904 

MY DEAR BELLAMY : 

" I have your letter. It is absolutely all right: 
we will treat the incident as closed. Nothing would 
persuade me to accept your resignation, old fellow, 
and I am sure John Hay feels as I do, When I see 
you I shall explain, as I do not like to do on paper, 
both how full had been the steps taken by Hay in 
investigating the matter, and the use that was made 
against me of your letter. I shall give Hay your 
note. Faithfully yours. 

"With this the incident closed. I had followed 
exactly the President s request in seeing Pope Pius 
X. I had reported to him in detail my interview; 
I had put it squarely to him that I had done noth 
ing beyond what he had asked me to do, and he 
had thereupon left the subject, not disavowing his 
authority nor dissenting from any statement. I 
accordingly accepted as sincere the cordial expres- 
sions with which he refused to accept my resigna 
tion, as it was apparent that his irritation had been 
caused, not by my acts, but by the publicity which 
had unfortunately been given to things which he 
wished to have done, but wished to be kept secret." 

Fortunately, I have the original of the letter of 
which Mr. Storer says he kept no copy, and it 
shows that Mr. Storer s statement is false. This 
letter was in answer to a letter of mine which he 
quotes in part, but which in its entirety is as 
follows : 

"THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, 

December 30, 1903 
"MY DEAR BELLAMY : 

"In my last letter to you I wrote you as to a 
report I had heard about your writing a letter con 
cerning the dismissal of Hurst. This came to me 
from an outside source, and I did not credit it. 
Since then Secretary Hay has sent me over a letter 
(of yours) to Senator Hanna, which the latter put 
before the Department with a request that he be 
given information in order to answer you. Secre 
tary Hay feels, of course, exceedingly indignant 
over your having written in such a manner to any 
outsider, and feels that there should be some official 
rebuke. Because of our personal relations I write 
in this way to you instead. 

"I hardly think you could have thought exactly 
what you were writing. You say, for instance, 
about the dismissal of Hurst, 1 do know the 
manner of his removal, in a way I should be ashamed 
to employ with a common servant. ... I have 
never known, if what I hear is the case, of a more 
sudden or unexpected action of any Administration. 
... It may be none of your business nor mine, but 
I know you do not like injustice. 

"Of course, this amounts to a bitter attack upon 
the Administration, of which you are a part. You 
make charges of a grave nature against the 
Secretary of State and the President under whom you 
are serving. If these charges were true, that would 
not, in my opinion, justify you in writing to the 
Senator in such fashion. As it happens, they are 
absolutely without foundation. No case was gone 
into more carefully than this. I have reports be 
fore me from Ambassador McCormick and from 
a special and trusted agent of the Department a 
man in whose judgment the Department has abso 
lute confidence. No other action was possible in 
view of these reports. 

"I know, my dear Bellamy, that you have not 
intended to do anything disloyal or improper, but 
surely on thinking over the matter you will see that 
there would be but one possible construction to be 
put upon such a letter from you. Think of the 
effect if your letter were made public ! 

"Let me repeat to you that, in reference to matters 
affecting the Catholic Church, events have conclu 
sively shown that while you are ambassador you 
must keep absolutely clear of any deed or word in 
Rome or elsewhere which would seem to 
differentiate your position from that of other ambassadors. 
The mere fact of the report in the newspapers about 
your calling at the Vatican has had a very unfor 
tunate effect. I dare say you did not call ; you may 
merely have seen some cardinal privately; but the 
unpleasant talk over the affair emphasizes the need 
of extreme circumspection while you are in your 
present position. While I am President and you are 
ambassador neither of us in his public relations is 
to act as Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile ; and 
we have to be careful, not merely to do what is 
right, but so to carry ourselves as to show that we 
are doing what is right. I shall ask you not to 
quote me to any person in any shape or way in con 
nection with any affair of the Catholic Church, and 
yourself not to take action of any kind which will 
give ground for the belief that you, as an American 
ambassador, are striving to interfere in the affairs of 
the Church. 

"With love to Maria. Faithfully yours." 

In response to this Mr. Storer wrote me a letter 
tendering his resignation, not as he asserts because 
of anything in connection with his visit to the Vat 
ican, but solely because of his conduct in the Hurst 
matter. In this letter, in answer to mine of Decem 
ber 30, he makes absolutely no allusion whatever 
to what I said in that letter as to his call at the 
Vatican; this letter of mine shows that I had then 
never heard from him that he called at the Vatican; 
and his absolute silence at the time shows that what 
he says now on the subject is a pure afterthought. 
He never in any way dissented from the statements 
I made in these three letters of December 19, 27, 
and 30; and in this letter of January 16, in which 
he tendered his resignation, his whole concern was 
over his conduct in the Hurst affair. His letter runs 
in part as follows (all the omitted parts referring 
also exclusively to the Hurst matter) : 

"16 January, 1904 
"My DEAR THEODORE : 

"I find in answering your letter of December 
that I made an error of date. The letter I wrote 
Hanna, as also the writing to yourself on the 
consul-general matter, was after 22d February, 
1903, instead of in January, as I inadvertently 
stated. Since then I have received your second 
letter of 30 December. 

"My writing any letter in the terms I did was in 
excusable, and that I admit fully and with the deep 
est regret. ... If in your judgment it would clear 
me in Mr. Hay s eyes, will you hand him the en 
closed note of personal apology? But I beg you 
will do this or not as you think wise, as I must not 
appear to try to escape official censure by personal 
repentance. Therefore, give or burn this note, as 
you deem best. Not to justify my writing at all, 
or in using the language I did, but to explain the 
affair, I must call attention to the difference of pro 
cedure in this consular case as to what I had sup 
posed was precedent. . . . All this is no excuse for 
a public officer writing as I did outside of the 
Department. If in weighing the matter it seems as if 
I by my own act have lost the confidence of the 
Secretary of State, you must, without regard to me, 
treat me as you would any other public officer for 
the good of the service. Without the confidence of 
the Department the work can not go on. But for 
your own sake I should wish that my leaving the 
service might be made to appear a voluntary one, 
in the spring or early summer. As also I think it 
would be better to have it known after June. In 
spite of everything, it might make political gossip 
which I should wish to postpone until the din of the 
campaign is on. I thank you, my dear Theodore, 
loyally and sincerely, for your letter. I never 
doubt your absolute loyalty in friendship to me 
and mine. 

"Faithfully yours." 

There could be no fuller confession of wrong 
doing or more absolute throwing himself upon the 
mercy of his superior. It was this letter which I 
answered saying, as he has himself quoted, that I 
would treat the incident as closed and would not 
accept his resignation, and that I was sure that 
John Hay felt as I did. With peculiar perfidy, Mr. 
Storer now seeks to turn this act of cordial, and I 
think I may add generous, friendship on my part, 
into an attack upon me by treating my refusal to 
accept his resignation as an endorsement of his 
position in the matter of the Vatican, to which there 
was absolutely no allusion whatever of any kind or 
sort in his letter of resignation. 

This bare recital of facts is in itself the severest 
possible condemnation of Mr. Storer's 
disingenuousness. Very truly yours, 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



HON. ELIHU ROOT, Secretary of State.