I wish to make one last effort to bring about an agreement through the Com-mission....

But if there is a disagreement...

I shall take a position which will prevent any possibility of arbitration hereafter;...
will render it necessary for Congress to give me the authority to run the line as we claim it, by our own people, without any further regard to the attitude of England and Canada.

If I paid attention to mere abstract rights, that is the position I ought to take anyhow.

I have not taken it because I wish to exhaust every effort to have the affair settled peacefully and with due regard to England's honor." That is the way to do these things: not by a peremptory public letter, like Olney's to Salisbury, which enrages a whole people and makes temperate action doubly difficult, but thus, by a private letter to the proper persons, very plain, very unmistakable, but which remains private, a sufficient word to the wise, and not a red rag to the mob.
"To have the affair settled peacefully and with due regard to England's honor." Thus Roosevelt.