At the end of my Administration Mr.
Bryce, the British Ambassador, told me that in a long life, during which he had studied intimately the government of many different countries, he had never in any country seen a more eager, high-minded, and efficient set of public servants, men more useful and more creditable to their country, than the men then doing the work of the American Government in Washington and in the field.

I repeat this statement with the permission of Mr.Bryce.
At about the same time, or a little before, in the spring of 1908, there appeared in the English _Fortnightly Review_ an article, evidently by a competent eye witness, setting forth more in detail the same views to which the British Ambassador thus privately gave expression.

It was in part as follows: "Mr.Roosevelt has gathered around him a body of public servants who are nowhere surpassed, I question whether they are anywhere equaled, for efficiency, self-sacrifice, and an absolute devotion to their country's interests.

Many of them are poor men, without private means, who have voluntarily abandoned high professional ambitions and turned their backs on the rewards of business to serve their country on salaries that are not merely inadequate, but indecently so.

There is not one of them who is not constantly assailed by offers of positions in the world of commerce, finance, and the law that would satisfy every material ambition with which he began life.