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CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2 

REFUSAL TO BE A THIRD PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN 1916: 

in March 1916, Roosevelt went with his wife on a trip to the West Indies. The most devoted of his Progressive followers were pressing him forward as a Presidential candidate and he was firmly opposing their efforts, as he had no desire for another nomination. They were convinced that they could persuade the Republican leaders to nominate him by showing that he was the strongest possible candidate for them, the only one, in fact, that they could hope to elect.
He himself had no faith in the success of their efforts. "I do not believe," he wrote to Julian Street on April 24, 1916, "there is any real chance of nominating me. I am just one of Abraham Lincoln's 'splashed and battered pioneers.' "
He insisted that no effort whatever should be made by his advocates to secure delegates for him for the Republican nomination, and no such effort was made. His advocates confined themselves to placing his merits as a candidate before the country and by arranging to hold a Progressive National Convention. On his way home from the West Indies he prepared for publication a statement of his position and it was telegraphed from Trinidad by Mr. Henry L. Stoddard, editor of the New York Evening Mail, who had gone there to meet him. In this statement, which he had written in his own hand for Mr. Stoddard, he said:
"I do not wish the nomination. I am not the least interested in the political fortunes either of myself or any other man.
"I am interested in awakening my fellow countrymen to the need of facing unpleasant facts. I am interested in the triumph of the great principles for which, with all my heart and soul, I have striven and shall continue to strive.
"I will not enter into any fight for the nomination, and I will not permit any factional fight to be made in my behalf. Indeed, I will go further and say that it would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has in its mood something of the heroic, unless it feels not only like devoting itself to ideals, but to the purpose measurably to realize those ideals in action.
"This is one of those rare times which come only at long intervals in a nation's history, when the action taken determines the basis of the life of the generations that follow. Such times were those from 1776 to 1789, in the days of Washington, and from 1858 to 1865, in the days of Lincoln.
"It is for us to-day to grapple with the tremendous national and international problems of our own hour in the spirit and with the ability shown by those who upheld the hands of Washington and Lincoln."
This deliverance was in direct opposition to the earnest appeals of many of his followers that he keep silent on the question of a nomination and thereby avoid giving offense to the large pacifist element in the Western States; but a policy of silence never had attractions for him. Although he consented to allow his most ardent supporters to advocate his nomination by exhibiting his record to the public in various ways, because by so doing he secured attention for his views, he had little share in their faith that the Republicans could be induced to nominate him. The one thing that he was determined upon was that there should be no concealment of his views, that a nomination should not be secured by any misunderstandings as to his principles, and that under no circumstances would he run again as a third candidate. His attitude was defined clearly in a letter that he wrote to one of his most zealous Progressive followers, Matthew Hale, of Boston, on April 3, 1916:
"I meant literally and exactly every word of my Trinidad statement. Not only do I desire that no kind of faction fight be made to secure my nomination but I feel that it would be worse than worthless to have the nomination unless it comes of their own accord from the Republicans, because they feel they need me, and because they feel that the country is ripe for the kind of campaign which is the only campaign I would consent to make. After Lincoln became President the question of retaining the Union was of such absorbing consequence that for the next eighteen months he declined to consider even such a tremendous question as Slavery. He subordinated everything else to the question of the Union. There are certain tremendous national questions affecting our attitude as regards the primary duties of a nation, affecting perhaps the questions whether we are to continue as a nation, which transcend infinitely in importance any question of whether or not the Crane machine or any other machine is to be hurt, is to be opposed, or is to be made an issue in any way. I must not be used in any local fight for any local objects. . . .
"My sole usefulness at present must lie in my continuing to preach nationally the kind of doctrines that I have been preaching for the last eighteen months. Conscientiously and with infinite labor a year ago last Summer and Fall I fought in every kind of locality for local triumph along the lines of Progressive principles. I not only did no good but I am not at all certain that I did not do damage. The effort for me to mix in local affairs and the effort to mix me in local affairs simply did harm. Very possibly no use can be made of me nationally, but most emphatically it is only nationally that any use can be made of me, and the effort to win anything for me by a faction fight anywhere will do me damage and cannot from any standpoint do good.
"Understand me, I would not care whether it would do me damage or not if it would do any good to the nation; but it won't do any good to the nation. If this nation is to be helped in the least by me, it is to be helped by my teachings in national and international matters. If the nation gets the slightest idea that I am acquiescing in faction fights in my own interests, there is the end of my accomplishing anything whatever."
To Frederick Scott Oliver, in England, author of the 'Life of Hamilton' and, later of 'The Ordeal of Battle,' he wrote on April 7, 1916:
"To chasten one's own side is an absolute necessity (one of the chief sources of our trouble here in the United States has been the persistent refusal to chasten our own side, even in dealing with past history), and yet in a crisis it exposes one to the charge of assisting one's enemies. To a very much less degree I have myself been having this difficulty for the last twenty months. French, English and Canadian editors of newspapers and reviews have kept asking me to write for them, as I have been writing and speaking in the United States, and they have apparently been unable to understand my response that the very fact that I was speaking unpleasantly of my countrymen meant that these unpleasant words must be spoken directly to them and not in some other land about them.
"I suppose each man tends to feel a particular animosity toward his tribal enemies, so to speak. I have never expected anything from the frank materialists. "When they play the part of frankly selfish swine and say that they do not care what happens to Belgium as long as they can keep their own four feet in the trough, I merely try to appeal to any possible far-sightedness in their selfishness by pointing out that, if they do not make ready, they will ultimately themselves be shouldered out of the trough by the German boar or by some other equally warlike and competent competitor. But the men who really do arouse my anger are those who have been for years claiming to be idealists, claiming to be for peace and for justice and for virtue, and who have usually denounced me as not having sufficiently lofty ideals and as not being sufficiently altruistic.
"I wish to Heaven there was a better chance of developing some strong candidate against Wilson. There is a real movement to nominate me, simply because I am the only man who has stood openly against him in a way to show that I meant it. But I have had to be the pioneer in this movement and as Lincoln, with his homely common sense said, the trouble with pioneers is that they necessarily get so battered and splashed that they cannot be used at subsequent stages of the movement. It would be just as hard to elect me this year as it would have been to have elected Hamilton against Jefferson in 1808. If it had been possible to run Pinckney against Jefferson, with Hamilton and Adams heartily backing him, Jefferson might have been beaten. I wish to Heaven we could develop some Pinckney now who would be put forward."
In order to bring pressure on the Republican National Convention by a demonstration of their popular strength, the Progressive managers called a national convention of their party to meet in Chicago on the same date that the Republican convention was to meet. Roosevelt had no faith in the success of this proceeding, as is shown in a letter that he wrote to C. S. Thompson, of New York City, on May 4, 1916: "I do not for a moment believe that the Chicago convention is going to nominate me. I think they are inclined to 'pussy-foot' and it is worse than useless for them to nominate me, unless they are prepared for an entirely straightforward and open campaign."
He left no possibility for any one to doubt his position during the months that preceded the assembling of the two conventions, for he continued to speak and write with un-diminished force and frankness on the subjects which he considered of supreme importance—national preparedness and righteous peace. His denunciations of German outrages and atrocities were as vigorous as ever and made it absolutely certain that if nominated he would have the entire German vote of the country arrayed against him. His strongest and most outspoken addresses were made in Western cities in which the German elements of the population were most numerous, and where pacifists most abounded. In April and May he spoke to great throngs in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit and other similar centers on such subjects as "Righteous Peace and National Preparedness," "National Duty" and "International Ideals." In none of these did he speak as a Presidential candidate, but as an American devoted heart and soul to the honor and welfare of his country, and deeply stirred by the slowness of the national administration in the work of preparedness for the great war in which he believed we were destined soon to be involved.
This was peculiarly the case in his speeches in St. Louis on May 31, 1916, only a week before the two conventions, Republican and Progressive, were to assemble at Chicago. In fact the delegates to both conventions- were already either in Chicago or on their way there. St. Louis had a larger number of German-born inhabitants than any other American city except Milwaukee, and it was known at the time to be a stronghold of German war sympathy. Roosevelt's first speech of the several that he made during his visit showed that he was not a Presidential aspirant who was seeking support from German-born citizens. He declared that there was no room in the United States for German-Americans, or Irish-Americans or any other hyphenated citizens, but room only for those who were "Americans and nothing else." In fact, he declared, there could be no such person as a German-American; he had the authority of the Kaiser himself for the statement, since the Kaiser had said that he knew what a German was and what an American was but he did not know what a German-American was. "Whatever else may be said of me," declared Roosevelt to a great audience that had assembled to hear him, "I am no pussy-footer." That was a notification not only to his audience but to the delegates to the Republican National Convention that if he were to be made a candidate there must be no angling for German-American votes.
It is interesting to note that the sentiments of this speech were not new with Roosevelt, were not the outcome of the European war. Like his views on preparedness, he had avowed them many years earlier. In the Preface to a 'History of New York City' which he wrote in 1890 he used these words:
"In speaking to my own countrymen there is one point upon which I wish to lay especial stress; that is, the necessity for a feeling of broad, radical, and intense Americanism, if good work is to be done in any direction. Above all, the one essential for success in every political movement which is to do lasting good, is that our citizens should act as Americans; not as Americans with a prefix and qualification;—not as Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Native Americans,—but as Americans pure and simple."
In his book on 'True Americanism,' published in 1894, he uttered similar sentiments:
"We welcome the German or the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such. We do not wish German-Americans and Irish-Americans who figure as such in our social and political life; we want only Americans, and, provided they are such, we do not care whether they are of native or of Irish or of German ancestry. We have no room in any healthy American community for a German-American vote or an Irish-American vote, and it is contemptible demagogy to put planks into any party platform with the purpose of catching such a vote. We have no room for any people who do not act and vote simply as Americans and nothing else."
I In one of his St. Louis speeches on May 31, 1916, Roosevelt used his subsequently famous phrase, "weasel words." On the preceding day, President Wilson had made a Memorial Day address, and in criticizing it, Roosevelt said: '' The President said that he was for universal voluntary training, but that America did not wish anything but the compulsion of the spirit of Americanism. Now, universal voluntary training is an expression precisely similar to that which you would use if you said, in speaking of a truant law for the schools, that you believed in universal obligatory attendance at the public schools for every child that did not wish to stay away.
"In connection with the word 'training' the words 'universal voluntary' have exactly the same effect an acid has on an alkali—a neutralizing effect. One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called 'weasel words,' When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a 'weasel word' after another there is nothing left of the other. Now, you can have universal training, or you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word 'voluntary' to qualify the word 'universal' you are using a 'weasel word'; it has sucked all the meaning out of 'universal.' The two words flatly contradict one another."
It was subsequently shown that Roosevelt got the term "weasel words" from a story by Stewart Chaplin that was published in the Century Magazine in June 1900, in which this passage occurred:
"Why, weasel words are words that suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell. If you heft the egg afterwards it's as light as a feather, and not very filling when you are hungry, but a basketful of them would make quite a show, and would bamboozle the unwary.
"I know them well, and mighty useful they are, too. Although the gentleman couldn't write much of a platform, he's an expert on weasling. I've seen him take his pen and go through a proposed plank or resolution and weasel every flat-footed word in it. Then the weasel word pleases one man, and the word that's been weasled pleases another."
In his universal reading, Roosevelt had encountered this magazine story and his marvelous memory had retained the phrase and its meaning for sixteen years, holding it ready for usage when the opportune moment arrived.
In prefacing his speech in which the phrase was used Roosevelt gave this delicious thrust at two noted pacifists:
"I don't have to deal with Mr. Bryan and Mr. Ford. I regard them both as nice, amiable men, and I like them in private life; but I decline to take part in any such wild mental joy rides as would be necessary if I had to discuss seriously their attitude."
The two conventions assembled in separate halls in Chicago on June 7, 1916. From the first, the Republican body refused to give any sign of yielding to the demand of the Progressive assemblage for the nomination of Roosevelt. Conference committees were appointed and conferences were held by them without result. A great majority of the delegates were solidly and surely pledged against Roosevelt and could not be moved a particle from their fixed position. Their convention nominated Justice Charles E. Hughes, of the United States Supreme Court, on the third ballot, on June 10. The Progressive convention nominated Roosevelt by acclamation on the same day, but with little hope that he would consent to run. The news of his nomination was telegraphed to him at Oyster Bay. He responded at once by telegraph expressing gratitude for the honor, and saying that he could not consent to accept at this time, adding: " I do not know the attitude of the candidate of the Republican party toward the vital questions of the day. Therefore, if you desire an immediate decision, I must decline the nomination. But if you prefer it, I suggest that my conditional refusal be placed in the hands of the Progressive National Committee." It was so placed by vote of the convention. On June 26, Mr. Hughes having in the meantime defined his views on the vital questions of the day, Roosevelt wrote a letter to the Progressive National Committee announcing his satisfaction with Mr. Hughes as a candidate and his intention to support him, at the same time urging his Progressive followers to do the same. This action marked the final dissolution of the Progressive party. The great bulk of its members followed Roosevelt's lead and supported Mr. Hughes, thereby returning to the Republican fold. A few went over to the Democratic side and supported President Wilson for reelection.
Writing to James Bryce, in England, on June 19, 1916, Roosevelt said:
"You have, of course, seen the result of the Presidential nominations here. I am having my own troubles with my fellow Progressives. They are wild to have me run on a third ticket. They feel that the Republican Convention was a peculiarly sordid body, a feeling with which I heartily sympathize. They feel that Mr. Hughes was nominated largely in consequence of the German-Americans who were against me, and largely also for the very reason that nobody knew anything of his views on living subjects of the day,—and a nomination made for such a cause is in my own judgment evidence of profound political immorality on the part of those making it. But Hughes is an able, up-right man whose instincts are right, and I believe in international matters he will learn with comparative quickness, especially as I hope he will put Root into office as Secretary of State. Under these circumstances there is in my mind no alternative but to support him. At his worst he will be better than Wilson, and there is always the chance that he will do very well indeed."
A letter to Mr. Van Valkenberg, on September 5, 1916, is of value as showing Roosevelt's own estimate of the scope and usefulness of his public services:
"Of course, we can never be absolutely certain, but my usefulness to this country depended so largely upon conditions of national and international politics that its real need of me has probably passed. My great usefulness as President came in connection with the Anthracite Coal Strike, the voyage of the battle fleet around the world, the taking of Panama, the handling of Germany in the Venezuela business, England in the Alaska boundary matter, the irrigation business in the West, and finally, I think, the toning up of the Government service generally.
'' Any decent and forceful man could handle the irrigation business, and could tone up the Government service, and build up our navy and regular army. But, as to the other matters I am less sure. My usefulness in 1912 and again this year would have been because we were facing a period when there was need of vision in both national and international matters. I would have done my best work in connection with the European war, the Mexican situation, and the Japanese and Chinese situation; and also in connection with universal military service, which would not only be of prime military consequence, but of prime consequence to us socially and industrially. I would, moreover, have fought for the industrial regeneration of this country along the lines of the 1912 platform, and would have fought hard and, I think, effectively for that wise and farsighted justice which no more fears organized labor than it fears Wall Street. But when 1920 arrives no human being can tell what the issues will be. I am already an old man, and the chances are very small that I will ever again grow into touch with the people of this country to the degree that will make me useful as a leader; and a man who has been a leader, is very rarely useful as an adviser when the period of his leadership has passed.
"People always used to say of me that I was an astonishingly good politician and divined what the people were going to think. This really was not an accurate way of stating the case. I did not 'divine' how the people were going to think; I simply made up my mind what they ought to think, and then did my best to get them to think it. Sometimes I failed, and then my critics said that 'my ambition had overleaped itself.' Sometimes I succeeded; and then they said that I was an uncommonly astute creature to have detected what the people were going to think and to pose as their leader in thinking it."
In the campaign of 1916 Roosevelt took the stump for Hughes and made vigorous speeches in his behalf in various parts of the country, laying stress upon the issues which he had been advocating for two years previous—namely national preparedness, loyal Americanism—and criticizing severely the policy of the Wilson Administration, both in regard to Mexico and in regard to Germany and the European war.