He was well respected in London's diplomatic circles, and had a wide network of influential friends in the United States and Britain. The diplomat Sir Malcolm Robertson described Spring Rice as "one of the two or three really brilliant ambassadors whom I have met in thirty years of diplomatic life." However, Spring Rice's success in turning the earlier close links to the US administration to a relationship of use to his government is debatable. By the end of his appointment, Spring Rice had earned the enmity of his government after becoming paranoid about the threat posed by German spies, and also because of his immense dislike of the many British delegations to Washington that were not under the control of his embassy. Furthermore, Spring Rice's personal connections to many notable Republican politicians was well known, so some members of the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson were dubious about trusting him. He was damaged by his association with Roosevelt following the former President's attacks on Wilson for his policy of neutrality and for a lack of military preparedness. Spring Rice found William Jennings Bryan, the Secretary of State, hard to take seriously and disliked having to deal with Edward M. House, Wilson's confidential adviser, who held no official post in the US government. Even so, after his death the British government publicly recognised Spring Rice's extraordinary contribution to the war effort. His untiring attempts to get the United States to join the Allies were evident as well as his success in frustrating the work of the German ambassador, von Bernstorff. In a speech in the House of Commons in 1919, Lord Robert Cecil said:  Spring Rice was a poet throughout his adult life. In 1918, he rewrote the words of his most notable poem, "Urbs Dei (The City of God)" or "The Two Fatherlands", to become the text for the hymn "I Vow to Thee My Country". The hymn was first performed in 1925, after Spring Rice's death and has since become a widely recognised British anthem. His poetry was published in the 1922 edition of "Poems of Today", and has since been published in several other poetry collections. He became acquainted with Theodore Roosevelt on a trans-Atlantic crossing from New York in 1886, and the two men quickly became close friends and confidants. He has been described as "one of President Theodore Roosevelt's most ardent and loyal admirers" and acted as Roosevelt's best man in Roosevelt's wedding to Edith Carow. Roosevelt became the godfather of Spring Rice's son in 1908. Spring Rice memorably remarked about Roosevelt: "You must always remember that the president is about six".