Good on ya, TR! Only a man of your "chutzpah" would declare Rudyard Kipling to be a "marginal" poet.
I love it!
You can read about it in Kipling's autobiographical Something of Myself.
Now John Hay, one of the very few American Ambassadors to England with two sides to their heads, had his summer house a few hours north by rail from us. On a visit to him, we discussed the matter. His explanation was convincing. I quote the words which stayed textually in my memory. ‘America’s hatred of England is the hoop round the forty-four (as they were then) staves of the Union.’ He said it was the only standard possible to apply to an enormously variegated population. ‘So—when a man comes up out of the sea, we say to him; “See that big bully over there in the East? He’s England! Hate him, and you’re a good American.”’But how thoroughly the doctrine was exploited I did not realise till we visited Washington in ’95, where I met Theodore Roosevelt, then UnderSecretary (I never caught the name of the Upper) to the U.S. Navy. I liked him from the first and largely believed in him. He would come to our hotel, and thank God in a loud voice that he had not one drop of British blood in him; his ancestry being Dutch, and his creed conforming-Dopper, I think it is called. Naturally I told him nice tales about his Uncles and Aunts in South Africa—only I called them Ooms and Tanties—who esteemed themselves the sole lawful Dutch under the canopy and dismissed Roosevelt’s stock for ‘Verdomder Hollanders.’ Then he became really eloquent, and we would go off to the Zoo together, where he talked about grizzlies that he had met. It was laid on him, at that time, to furnish his land with an adequate Navy; the existing collection of unrelated types and casual purchases being worn out. I asked him how he proposed to get it, for the American people did not love taxation. ‘Out of you,’ was the disarming reply. And so —to some extent — it was. The obedient and instructed Press explained how England — treacherous and jealous as ever —only waited round the corner to descend on the unprotected coasts of Liberty, and to that end was preparing, etc. etc. etc. (This in ’95 when England had more than enough hay on her own trident to keep her busy!) But the trick worked, and all the Orators and Senators gave tongue, like the Hannibal Chollops that they were. I remember the wife of a Senator who, apart from his politics, was very largely civilised, invited me to drop into the Senate and listen to her spouse ’twisting the Lion’s tail.’ It seemed an odd sort of refreshment to offer a visitor. I could not go, but I read his speech. [At the present time (autumn ’35) I have also read with interest the apology offered by an American Secretary of State to Nazi Germany for unfavourable comments on that land by a New York Police Court Judge.] But those were great and spacious and friendly days in Washington which—politics apart—Allah had not altogether deprived of a sense of humour; and the food was a thing to dream of.