When America entered the world war Theodore Roosevelt stood among the
first of those who volunteered their services. He had dealt with the
grasping Prussian spirit in the Venezuelan incident in 1902, and made
the sword-clanking junkers back down. He was fervently anxious to help
do it again.
The Colonel announced that he had asked the War Department for
permission to raise a body of troops. “In such event, I and my four
sons will go,” he said, and added: “I don’t want to be put in the
position of saying to my fellow countrymen, ‘Go to war.’ I want to be
in the position of saying: ‘Come to the war; I am going with you.’”
Then, after a period of suspense in which the Colonel was a veritable
Paul Revere in urging the nation to prepare, war actually came. On this
momentous day the former President of the United States received the
news in about the same spirit that Bill Jones and Henry Brown and the
rest of his Oyster Bay neighbors greeted it. Colonel Roosevelt forgot
that he had been twice President of the United States. He remembered
only that America wanted men.
The Colonel felt himself to be fully equipped. Aside from the fact that
he was a retired Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, in the
Santiago campaign he had served in the first fight as commander, had
earned promotion to the rank of colonel in his regiment and had ended
the campaign in command of the brigade.
The Colonel followed up his previous application to the Secretary of
War, with the telegram from which these words are quoted:
“To the Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.
“In view of the fact that Germany is now actually engaged in war
with us, I again earnestly ask permission to raise a division for
immediate service at the front. My purpose would be, after some six
weeks’ preliminary training here, to take it direct to France for
intensive training, so that it could be sent to the front in the
shortest possible time to whatever point was desired. I should, of
course, ask no favors of any kind, except that the division be put
in the fighting line at the earliest possible moment.
“THEODORE ROOSEVELT.”
Meanwhile, while Colonel Roosevelt waited with the ardor of a boy
the answer to this appeal, applications for military service abroad
under him were pouring in from all sections of the country. News of
his desire to fight in France had spread like wildfire, and every man
who had served with the Colonel at Santiago, as well as every man
who wished that he had served with him, wired, wrote and telephoned
his application to serve now. Authors, artists, engineers, cowboys,
clerks, lawyers, ministers, wanted to go to France with “Teddy.”
“Battling” Nelson and “Kid” McCoy were among the applicants. North
Carolina offered to send a company. This evidence of the loyalty of the
red-blooded men who had fought his civic and military battles with him
touched the Colonel deeply and very naturally increased the anxiety
with which he awaited the answer from the War Department.
Interesting and enthusiastic was this comment of Colonel Henry
Watterson, the famous editor of “The Louisville Courier-Journal”:
“The proposal of Theodore Roosevelt to enlist in the world’s army of
freedom and to go to one of the fronts in Europe leading a body of
American soldiers may not be whistled lightly down the wind as a man
who has a positive genius for the spectacular. It should be considered
very seriously. Men are reached equally through their imagination and
their patriotism, and except for the sympathetic and emotional in man
there would be no armies. The appearance of an ex-President of the
United States carrying the Star-Spangled Banner over a body of American
soldiers to the battlefront would glorify us as will nothing else. It
will electrify the world.”
After further correspondence by letter and wire, through which the
Colonel pleaded with all the fervor of his patriotism and all the
strength of his convictions that he be allowed to muster for service
the older men of the country, who would not otherwise be called, the
Secretary of War forwarded him, with assurances of appreciation of
the Colonel’s patriotic spirit, the recommendation of the War College
Division of the General Staff to the effect that no American troops
be employed in active service in any European theatre until after an
adequate period of training and that only regular officers be put in
command of them.
Colonel Roosevelt’s unsuccessful effort to go to France with his
proposed volunteer division was undoubtedly the keenest disappointment
of his life. President Wilson, in his statement declining the offer of
the Roosevelt division, did not fail to pay tribute to the patriotism
and courage of the great volunteer.
The President said in part:
“I shall not avail myself, at any rate at the present stage of the war,
of the authority conferred by the act to organize volunteer divisions.
I understand that this section was added with a view to providing an
independent military command for Mr. Roosevelt and giving the military
authorities an opportunity to use his fine vigor and enthusiasm in
recruiting.”
Remarking further that it would be “very agreeable” to him to confer
this honor on the ex-President, the President added that “to do so
would seriously interfere with the carrying out of the chief and most
important purpose contemplated by this legislation, the prompt creation
and early use of an effective army, and would contribute practically
nothing to the effective strength of the armies now engaged against
Germany.”