When the Great War broke out in August, 1914, Roosevelt instantly
stiffened to attention. He immediately began to read the lessons that
were set for the world by the gigantic conflict across the sea and it
was not long before he was passing them on to the American people. Like
every other good citizen, he extended hearty support to the President
in his conduct of America's foreign relations in the crisis. At the same
time, however, he recognized the possibility that a time might come when
it would be a higher moral duty to criticize the Administration than to
continue unqualified support. Three weeks after war had begun, Roosevelt
wrote in "The Outlook":
"In common with the immense majority of our fellow countrymen, I shall
certainly stand by not only the public servants in control of the
Administration at Washington, but also all other public servants, no
matter of what party, during this crisis; asking only that they with
wisdom and good faith endeavor to take every step that can be taken to
safeguard the honor and interest of the United States, and, so far
as the opportunity offers, to promote the cause of peace and justice
throughout the world. My hope, of course, is that in their turn the
public servants of the people will take no action so fraught with
possible harm to the future of the people as to oblige farsighted and
patriotic men to protest against it."
One month later, in a long article in "The Outlook", Roosevelt
reiterated this view in these words:
".... We, all of us, without regard to party differences, must stand
ready loyally to support the Administration, asking nothing except that
the policy be one that in truth and in fact tells for the honor and
interest of our Nation and in truth and in fact is helpful to the cause
of a permanent and righteous world peace."
In the early months of the war, Roosevelt thus scrupulously endeavored
to uphold the President's hands, to utter no criticism that might
hamper him, and to carry out faithfully the President's adjuration to
neutrality. He recognized clearly, however, the price that we must pay
for neutrality, and he set it forth in the following passage from the
same article: "A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to
invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. What action
our Government can or will take I know not. It has been announced that
no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality.
It is certainly eminently desirable that we should remain entirely
neutral, and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our
neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. Our first duty is to
hold ourselves ready to do whatever the changing circumstances demand
in order to protect our own interests in the present and in the future;
although, for my own part, I desire to add to this statement the proviso
that under no circumstances must we do anything dishonorable, especially
toward unoffending weaker nations. Neutrality may be of prime necessity
in order to preserve our own interests, to maintain peace in so much of
the world as is not affected by the war, and to conserve our influence
for helping toward the reestablishment of general peace when the time
comes; for if any outside Power is able at such time to be the medium
for bringing peace, it is more likely to be the United States than any
other. But we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for
ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, by forfeiting our
right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians in the present.
We can maintain our neutrality only by refusal to do anything to aid
unoffending weak powers which are dragged into the gulf of bloodshed
and misery through no fault of their own. Of course it would be folly
to jump into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably
nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We have not
the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her, and I am sure
that the sympathy of this country for the men, women, and children of
Belgium is very real. Nevertheless, this sympathy is compatible with
full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of
official protest unless we are prepared to make that protest effective;
and only the clearest and most urgent national duty would ever justify
us in deviating from our rule of neutrality and noninterference. But
it is a grim comment on the professional pacifist theories as hitherto
developed that our duty to preserve peace for ourselves may necessarily
mean the abandonment of all effective efforts to secure peace for other
unoffending nations which through no fault of their own are dragged into
the War."
The rest of the article concerned itself with the lessons taught by the
war, the folly of pacifism, the need for preparedness if righteousness
is not to be sacrificed for peace, the worthlessness of treaties
unsanctioned by force, and the desirability of an association of
nations for the prevention of war. On this last point Roosevelt wrote as
follows:
"But in view of what has occurred in this war, surely the time ought to
be ripe for the nations to consider a great world agreement among all
the civilized military powers TO BACK RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FORCE. Such an
agreement would establish an efficient World League for the Peace of
Righteousness. Such an agreement could limit the amount to be spent on
armaments and, after defining carefully the inalienable rights of
each nation which were not to be transgressed by any other, could also
provide that any cause of difference among them, or between one of them
and one of a certain number of designated outside non-military nations,
should be submitted to an international court, including citizens of
all these nations, chosen not as representatives of the nations, BUT
AS JUDGES and perhaps in any given case the particular judges could
be chosen by lot from the total number. To supplement and make this
effectual it should be solemnly covenanted that if any nation refused to
abide by the decision of such a court the others would draw the sword on
behalf of peace and justice, and would unitedly coerce the recalcitrant
nation. This plan would not automatically bring peace, and it may be too
soon to hope for its adoption; but if some such scheme could be adopted,
in good faith and with a genuine purpose behind it to make it effective,
then we would have come nearer to the day of world peace. World peace
will not come save in some such manner as that whereby we obtain
peace within the borders of each nation; that is, by the creation
of reasonably impartial judges and by putting an efficient police
power--that is, by putting force in efficient fashion--behind the
decrees of the judges. At present each nation must in the last resort
trust to its own strength if it is to preserve all that makes life
worth having. At present this is imperative. This state of things can be
abolished only when we put force, when we put the collective armed power
of civilization, behind some body which shall with reasonable justice
and equity represent the collective determination of civilization to do
what is right."
From this beginning Roosevelt went on vigorously preaching preparedness
against war; and the Great War had been raging for a scant seven months
when he was irresistibly impelled to utter open criticism of President
Wilson. In April, 1915, in The Metropolitan Magazine, to which he had
transferred his writings, he declared that "the United States, thanks
to Messrs. Wilson and Bryan, has signally failed in its duty toward
Belgium." He maintained that the United States, under the obligations
assumed by the signature of The Hague Conventions, should have protested
to Germany against the invasion of Belgium.
For two years thereafter, while Germany slapped America first on one
cheek and then on the other, and treacherously stabbed her with slinking
spies and dishonored diplomats, Roosevelt preached, with growing
indignation and vehemence, the cause of preparedness and national honor.
He found it impossible to support the President further. In February,
1916, he wrote:
"Eighteen months have gone by since the Great War broke out. It needed
no prescience, no remarkable statesmanship or gift of forecasting the
future, to see that, when such mighty forces were unloosed, and when it
had been shown that all treaties and other methods hitherto relied upon
for national protection and for mitigating the horror and circumscribing
the area of war were literally 'scraps of paper,' it had become a vital
necessity that we should instantly and on a great and adequate scale
prepare for our own defense. Our men, women, and children--not in
isolated cases, but in scores and hundreds of cases--have been murdered
by Germany and Mexico; and we have tamely submitted to wrongs from
Germany and Mexico of a kind to which no nation can submit without
impairing its own self-respect and incurring the contempt of the rest
of mankind. Yet, during these eighteen months not one thing has been
done.... Never in the country's history has there been a more stupendous
instance of folly than this crowning folly of waiting eighteen months
after the elemental crash of nations took place before even making
a start in an effort--and an utterly inefficient and insufficient
effort-for some kind of preparation to ward off disaster in the future.
"If President Wilson had shown the disinterested patriotism, courage,
and foresight demanded by this stupendous crisis, I would have supported
him with hearty enthusiasm. But his action, or rather inaction, has
been such that it has become a matter of high patriotic duty to
oppose him.... No man can support Mr. Wilson without at the same time
supporting a policy of criminal inefficiency as regards the United
States Navy, of short-sighted inadequacy as regards the army,
of abandonment of the duty owed by the United States to weak and
well-behaved nations, and of failure to insist on our just rights when
we are ourselves maltreated by powerful and unscrupulous nations."
Theodore Roosevelt could not, without violating the integrity of his
own soul, go on supporting either positively by word or negatively by
silence the man who had said, on the day after the Lusitania was sunk,
"There is such a thing as a nation being too proud to fight," and who
later called for a "peace without victory." He could have nothing but
scorn for an Administration whose Secretary of War could say, two months
after the United States had actually entered the war, that there was
"difficulty. .. disorder and confusion... in getting things started,"
and could then add, "but it is a happy confusion. I delight in the fact
that when we entered this war we were not like our adversary, ready for
it, anxious for it, prepared for it, and inviting it."
Until America entered the war Roosevelt used his voice and his pen with
all his native energy and fire to convince the American people of three
things that righteousness demanded that the United States forsake its
supine neutrality and act; that the United States should prepare itself
thoroughly for any emergency that might arise; and that the hyphenated
Americanism of those who, while enjoying the benefits of American
citizenship, "intrigue and conspire against the United States, and do
their utmost to promote the success of Germany and to weaken the
defense of this nation" should be rigorously curbed. The sermons that he
preached on this triple theme were sorely needed. No leadership in
this phase of national life was forthcoming from the quarter where the
American people had every right to look for leadership. The White House
had its face set in the opposite direction.
In August, 1915, an incident occurred which set the contrast between
the Rooseveltian and Wilsonian lines of thought in bold relief. Largely
through the initiative of General Leonard Wood there had been organized
at Plattsburg, New York, an officers' training camp where American
business men were given an all too brief course of training in the art
and duty of leading soldiers in camp and in the field. General Wood was
in command of the Plattsburg camp. He invited Roosevelt to address the
men in training. Roosevelt accepted gladly, and in the course of his
speech made these significant statements:
"For thirteen months America has played an ignoble part among the
nations. We have tamely submitted to seeing the weak, whom we have
covenanted to protect, wronged. We have seen our men, women, and
children murdered on the high seas without protest. We have used
elocution as a substitute for action.
"During this time our government has not taken the smallest step in the
way of preparedness to defend our own rights. Yet these thirteen months
have made evident the lamentable fact that force is more dominant now
in the affairs of the world than ever before, that the most powerful of
modern military nations is utterly brutal and ruthless in its disregard
of international morality, and that righteousness divorced from force is
utterly futile. Reliance upon high sounding words, unbacked by deeds, is
proof of a mind that dwells only in the realm of shadow and of sham.
"It is not a lofty thing, on the contrary, it is an evil thing, to
practise a timid and selfish neutrality between right and wrong. It is
wrong for an individual. It is still more wrong for a nation.
"Therefore, friends, let us shape our conduct as a nation in accordance
with the highest rules of international morality. Let us treat others
justly and keep the engagements we have made, such as these in The Hague
conventions, to secure just treatment for others. But let us remember
that we shall be wholly unable to render service to others and
wholly unable to fulfill the prime law of national being, the law of
self-preservation, unless we are thoroughly prepared to hold our own.
Let us show that a free democracy can defend itself successfully against
any organized and aggressive military despotism."
The men in the camp heard him gladly and with enthusiasm. But the next
day the Secretary of War sent a telegram of censure to General Wood in
which he said:
"I have just seen the reports in the newspapers of the speech made
by ex-President Roosevelt at the Plattsburg camp. It is difficult to
conceive of anything which could have a more detrimental effect upon the
real value of this experiment than such an incident.... No opportunity
should have been furnished to any one to present to the men any matter
excepting that which was essential to the necessary training they were
to receive. Anything else could only have the effect of distracting
attention from the real nature of the experiment, diverting
consideration to issues which excite controversy, antagonism, and ill
feeling and thereby impairing if not destroying, what otherwise would
have been so effective."
On this telegram Roosevelt's comment was pungent: "If the Administration
had displayed one-tenth the spirit and energy in holding Germany and
Mexico to account for the murder of men, women, and children that it is
now displaying in the endeavor to prevent our people from being taught
the need of preparation to prevent the repetition of such murders in the
future, it would be rendering a service to the people of the country."
Theodore Roosevelt could have little effect upon the material
preparedness of the United States for the struggle which it was
ultimately to enter. But he could and did have a powerful effect upon
the spiritual preparedness of the American people for the efforts, the
trials, and the sacrifices of that struggle. No voice was raised more
persistently or more consistently than his. No personality was thrown
with more power and more effect into the task of arousing the people
of the United States to their duty to take part in the struggle against
Prussianism. No man, in public or private life, urged so vigorously and
effectively the call to arms against evil and for the right. His was
the "voice crying in the wilderness," and to him the American spirit
hearkened and awoke.
At last the moment came. Roosevelt had but one desire and one thought.
He wanted to get to the firing-line. This was no impulse, no newly
formed project. For two months he had been in correspondence with the
Secretary of War on the subject. A year or more before that he had
offered, in case America went into the war, to raise a volunteer force,
train it, and take it across to the front. The idea was not new to
him, even then. As far back as 1912 he had said on several different
occasions, "If the United States should get into another war, I should
raise a brigade of cavalry and lead it as I did my regiment in Cuba." It
never occurred to him in those days that a former Commander-in-Chief of
the United States Army, with actual experience in the field, would be
refused permission to command troops in an American war. The idea
would hardly have occurred to any one else. But that is precisely what
happened.
On February 2, 1917, Roosevelt wrote to the Secretary of War reminding
him that his application for permission to raise a division of infantry
was already on file in the Department, saying that he was about to sail
for Jamaica, and asking the Secretary to inform him if he believed there
would be war and a call for volunteers, for in that case he did not
intend to sail. Secretary Baker replied, "No situation has arisen which
would justify my suggesting a postponement of the trip you propose."
Before this reply was received Roosevelt had written a second letter
saying that, as the President had meanwhile broken off diplomatic
relations with Germany, he should of course not sail. He renewed his
request for permission to raise a division, and asked if a certain
regular officer whom he would like to have for his divisional Chief of
Staff, if the division were authorized, might be permitted to come to
see him with a view to "making all preparations that are possible in
advance." To this the Secretary replied, "No action in the direction
suggested by you can be taken without the express sanction of Congress.
Should the contingency Occur which you have in mind, it is to be
expected that Congress will complete its legislation relating to
volunteer forces and provide, under its own conditions, for the
appointment of officers for the higher commands."
Roosevelt waited five weeks and then earnestly renewed his request.
He declared his purpose to take his division, after some six weeks of
preliminary training, direct to France for intensive training so that
it could be sent to the front in the shortest possible time. Secretary
Baker replied that no additional armies could be raised without the
consent of Congress, that a plan for a much larger army was ready for
the action of Congress when ever required, and that the general officers
for all volunteer forces were to be drawn from the regular army. To
this Roosevelt replied with the respectful suggestion that, as a retired
Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, he was eligible to any
position of command over American troops. He recounted also his
record of actual military experience and referred the Secretary to his
immediate superiors in the field in Cuba as to his fitness for command
of troops.
When war had been finally declared, Secretary Baker and Roosevelt
conferred together at length about the matter. Thereafter Mr. Baker
wrote definitely, declaring that he would be obliged to withhold his
approval from an expedition of the sort proposed. The grounds which he
gave for the decision were that the soldiers sent across must not be
"deprived... of the most experienced leadership available, in deference
to any mere sentimental consideration," and that it should appear from
every aspect of the expeditionary force, if one should be sent over (a
point not yet determined upon) that "military considerations alone had
determined its composition."
To this definite refusal on the part of the Secretary of War Roosevelt
replied at length. In his letter was a characteristic passage commenting
upon Secretary Baker's reference to "sentimental considerations":
"I have not asked you to consider any "sentimental value" in this
matter. I am speaking of moral effect, not of sentimental value.
Sentimentality is as different from morality as Rousseau's life from
Abraham Lincoln's. I have just received a letter from James Bryce urging
"the dispatch of an American force to the theater of war," and saying,
"The moral effect of the appearance in the war line of an American
force would be immense." From representatives of the French and
British Governments and of the French, British, and Canadian military
authorities, I have received statements to the same effect, in even more
emphatic form, and earnest hopes that I myself should be in the force.
Apparently your military advisers in this matter seek to persuade you
that a "military policy" has nothing to do with "moral effect." If so,
their militarism is like that of the Aulic Council of Vienna in the
Napoleonic Wars, and not like that of Napoleon, who stated that in war
the moral was to the material as two to one. These advisers will do
well to follow the teachings of Napoleon and not those of the pedantic
militarists of the Aulic Council, who were the helpless victims of
Napoleon."
Secretary Baker replied with a reiteration of his refusal. Roosevelt
made one further attempt. When the Draft Law passed Congress, carrying
with it the authorization to use volunteer forces, he telegraphed the
President asking permission to raise two divisions, and four if so
directed. The President replied with a definite negative, declaring that
his conclusions were "based entirely upon imperative considerations
of public policy and not upon personal or private choice." Meanwhile
applications had been received from over three hundred thousand
men desirous of joining Roosevelt's volunteer force, of whom it was
estimated that at least two hundred thousand were physically fit, double
the number needed for four divisions. That a single private citizen,
by "one blast upon his bugle horn" should have been able to call forth
three hundred thousand volunteers, all over draft age, was a tremendous
testimony to his power. If his offer had been accepted when it was first
made, there would have been an American force on the field in France
long before one actually arrived there. It was widely believed, among
men of intelligence and insight, not only in America but in Great
Britain and France, that the arrival of such a force, under the command
of a man known, admired, and loved the world over, would have been a
splendid reinforcement to the Allied morale and a sudden blow to the
German confidence. But the Administration would not have it so.
I shall never forget one evening with Theodore Roosevelt on a speaking
tour which he was making through the South in 1912. There came to our
private car for dinner Senator Clarke of Arkansas and Jack Greenway,
young giant of football fame and experience with the Rough Riders in
Cuba. After dinner, Jack, who like many giants, is one of the most
diffident men alive, said hesitatingly:
"Colonel, I've long wanted to ask you something."
"Go right ahead," said T. R., "what is it?"
"Well, Colonel," said Jack, "I've always believed that it was your
ambition to die on the field of battle."
T. R. brought his hand down on the table with a crash that must have
hurt the wood.
"By Jove," said he, "how did you know that?"
"Well, Colonel," said Jack, "do you remember that day in Cuba, when you
and I were going along a trail and came upon ____ [one of the regiment]
propped against a tree, shot through the abdomen? It was evident that he
was done for. But instead of commiserating him, you grabbed his hand
and said something like this, 'Well, old man, isn't this splendid!' Ever
since then I've been sure you would be glad to die in battle yourself."
T. R.'s face sobered a little.
"You're right, Jack," he said. "I would."
The end of Theodore Roosevelt's life seemed to come to him not in action
but in quietness. But the truth was other than that. For it, let us turn
again to Browning's lines:
I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
On the fifth of January in 1919, after sixty years of life, full of
unwearied fighting against evil and injustice and falseness, he "fell on
sleep." The end came peacefully in the night hours at Sagamore Hill.
But until he laid him down that night, the fight he waged had known no
relaxation. Nine months before he had expected death, when a serious
mastoid operation had drained his vital forces. Then his one thought
had been, not for himself, but for his sons to whom had been given the
precious privilege, denied to him, of taking part in their country's
and the world's great fight for righteousness. His sister, Mrs. Corinne
Douglas Robinson, tells how in those shadowy hours he beckoned her to
him and in the frailest of whispers said, "I'm glad it's I that lie here
and that my boys are in the fight over there."
His last, best fight was worthy of all the rest. With voice and pen he
roused the minds and the hearts of his countrymen to their high mission
in defense of human rights. It was not given to him to fall on the field
of battle. But he went down with his face to the forces of evil with
which he had never sought a truce.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The reader who is primarily interested in the career and personality
of Roosevelt would do well to begin with his own volume, "Theodore
Roosevelt, An Autobiography". But it was written in 1912, before the
great campaign which produced the Progressive party.
"Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen" (1904), by Jacob A. Riis, was published
just after Roosevelt became President. It is an intimate and naively
enthusiastic portrait by a man who was an intimate friend and an ardent
admirer.
There are two lives written since his death that are complete and
discriminating. They are "The Life of Theodore Roosevelt" (1919), by
William Draper Lewis, and "Theodore Roosevelt, an Intimate Biography"
(1919), by William Roscoe Thayer.
"Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt" (1919) is a volume of first-hand
experiences, written by Lawrence F. Abbott of "The Outlook". The author
was closely associated with Roosevelt on "The Outlook"; and after the
African hunting trip met him at Khartum and went with him on his tour of
the capitals of Europe.
A small volume by Charles G. Washburn, "Theodore Roosevelt, the Logic of
His Career" (1916), contains the interpretation of a long-time friend
and sincere admirer.
Collections of Roosevelt's writings and speeches covering the years from
his becoming Governor of New York to the end of his Presidential terms
are found in "The Roosevelt Policy", 2 vols. (1908) and "Presidential
Addresses and State Papers", 4 vols. (1904). "The New Nationalism"
(1910) is a collection of his speeches delivered between his return from
Africa and the beginning of the Progressive campaign. His writings and
speeches during the Great War are found in several volumes: "America and
the World War" (1915); "Fear God and Take Your Own Part" (1916); "The
Foes of Our Own Household" (1917); "The Great Adventure" (1919).
Material on the Progressive movement and the Progressive party are to be
found in "The Progressive Movement" (1915), by Benjamin Parke De Witt,
"The Progressive Movement, Its Principles and Its Programme" (1913), by
S. J. Duncan-Clark, "Presidential Nominations and Elections" (1916), by
Joseph Bucklin Bishop, and "Third Party Movements" (1916), by Fred E.
Haynes. The story of La Follette is set forth at greater length in his
"Autobiography; A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences" (1918).
Three other autobiographies contribute to an understanding of politics:
"The Autobiography of Thomas C. Platt" (1910); J. B. Foraker, "Notes
of a Busy Life", 2 vols. (1916). S. M. Cullom, "Fifty Years of Public
Service" (1911).
The history of the country during the years when Roosevelt became a
national figure is recounted by J. H. Latane in "America as a World
Power" and by F. A. Ogg in "National Progress", both volumes in the
"American Nation" Series. Briefer summaries of the general history of at
least a part of the period treated in the present volume are to be found
in Frederic L. Paxson's "The New Nation" (1915), and Charles A. Beard's
"Contemporary American History" (1914).
The prosecution of the trusts may be followed in "Trust Laws and Unfair
Competition" (Government Printing Office, 1916). Much useful material
is contained in "Trusts, Pools and Corporations", edited by W. Z. Ripley
(1916). W. H. Taft in "The Anti-Trust Law and the Supreme Court"
(1914) defends the Sherman Act as interpreted by the courts during his
administration.
The progress of social and industrial justice is outlined in "Principles
of Labor Legislation" (1916), by John R. Commons and John B. Andrews.
The problems of conservation and the history of governmental policy are
set forth by C. R. Van Hise in "The Conservation of Natural Resources in
the United States" (1910).
The "American Year Book" for the years 1910 to 1919 and the "New
International Year Book" for the years 1907 to 1919 are invaluable
sources of accurate and comprehensive information on the current history
of the United States for the period which they cover.
Willis Fletcher Johnson's "America's Foreign Relations", 2 vols. (1915)
is a history of the relations of the United States to the rest of the
world. A shorter account is given in C. R. Fish's "American Diplomacy"
(1915).
But much of the best material for the historical study of the first
decade and a half of the twentieth century is to be found in the pages
of the magazines and periodicals published during those years. "The
Outlook", "The Independent", "The Literary Digest", "Collier's", "The
Review of Reviews", "The World's Work", "Current Opinion", "The Nation",
"The Commoner", La Follette's "Weekly"--all these are sources of great
value. The Outlook is of especial usefulness because of Mr. Roosevelt's
connection with it as Contributing Editor during the years between 1909
and 1914.
End of Project Gutenberg's Theodore Roosevelt and His Times, by Harold Howland