The use of this text or audio material is subject to the TR American Patriot user agreement located at: TR American Patriot.com 

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2 

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE 

RENEWED OPPOSITION TO WILSON'S PEACE POLICY: 
ROOSEVELT WAR DIVISION: 
APPEAL FROM CLEMENCEAU: 

for a short time after the election in November, 1916, Roosevelt was silent on the course pursued by the Wilson Administration, but in December he renewed his open criticism. He had now a very large audience throughout the country. In addition to writing editorial articles each month for the Metropolitan Magazine he was making similar contributions almost daily to the Kansas City Star. At the same time he was making frequent speeches in various parts of the country, thus coming in contact with many thousands of people. The demand from all quarters for his services was overwhelming. More than ever he was the accepted leader of the opposition to the dilatory and pacifist tendencies of the Wilson Administration, and the foremost champion of vigorous, militant and unadulterated Americanism. His views found expression in editorial articles and speeches as well as in private letters, and from all of these I shall quote.
His first utterance was a protest against the note which the Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, had sent to the belligerent nations, on December 18, 1916, in which the Secretary had said in behalf of the President: "He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects, which the statesmen of the belligerent nations on both sides have in mind in this war, are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world." The note suggested that all the nations at war make an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guaranty against its renewal or the kindling of any similar conflict in the future, as would make it possible frankly to compare them.
Commenting on this note, on January 3, 1917, Roosevelt said in a published statement:
"The note takes positions so profoundly immoral and misleading that high-minded and right-thinking American citizens, whose country this note places in a thoroughly false light, are in honor bound to protest. For example, the note says that thus far both sides seem to be fighting for the same thing. This is palpably false. Nor is this all. It is wickedly false."
On January 25, 1917, President Wilson made an address before the two Houses of Congress in joint session in which he advocated a League of Nations and freedom of the seas and used his famous phrase, "Peace without victory." In his address the President said concerning the utterances of the statesmen of both groups of nations engaged in the war:
"They imply first of all that it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. . . . Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms forced upon the vanquished. . . . Only a peace between equals can last; only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit."
Commenting on this address on the evening of the day on which it was delivered, Roosevelt issued a statement which appeared side by side with the text of the address in the morning papers of January 28, 1917, in which he said, speaking first of a league of peace for all nations:
"Unless the Government can bring the peace of justice to Mexico, it had better not talk of securing the peace of justice throughout the world.
"As regards freedom of the seas, the most important element in it is freedom from murder, and until this Government has taken an effective stand to prevent the murder of its citizens by submarines on the high seas, it makes itself an object of derision by asking for the freedom of the seas. Interfering with life is worse than interfering with property.
"As for the statement there can be no real peace with victory. So far as Belgium is concerned the statement stands on a par with a similar statement, had there been such, after Bunker Hill and Lexington, that there could be no real peace if victory came to the forces of General Washington.
"If President Wilson's statement had been made by the Emperor Napoleon III, or by Lord John Russell in 1864, I doubt if it would have won any enthusiastic support from Abraham Lincoln, although it would have been applauded by the pacifists."
A day later, January 29, 1917, when a declaration by President Wilson against universal military service was published, Roosevelt said:
"President Wilson has announced himself in favor of peace without victory, and now he has declared himself against universal service—that is, against all efficient preparedness by the United States.
"Peace without victory is the natural ideal of the man who is too proud to fight.
"When fear of the German submarine next moves Mr. Wilson to declare for 'peace without victory' between the tortured Belgians and their cruel oppressors and taskmasters ; when such fear next moves him to utter the shameful untruth that each side is fighting for the same things, and to declare for neutrality between wrong and right; let him think of the prophetess Deborah, who, when Sisera mightily oppressed the children of Israel with his chariots of iron, and when the people of Meroz stood neutral between the oppressed and the oppressor, sang of them:
Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord against the wrongdoings of the mighty.
"President Wilson has earned for the nation the curse of Meroz for he has not dared to stand on the side of the Lord against the wrongdoings of the mighty.''
When, on February 3, 1917, President Wilson addressed Congress again, announcing the severing of diplomatic relations with Germany and the handing of his passports to Bernstorff, Roosevelt said:
"Of course I shall in every way support the President in all that he does to uphold the honor of the United States and to safeguard the lives of American citizens. Yesterday I wrote to the War Department asking permission to raise a division if war is declared and there is a call for volunteers. In such event I and my four sons will go."
He abandoned a proposed trip to the West Indies, and began at once to agitate for speedy preparation for war. On March 1, 1917, in a speech at Hartford, Conn., he said: "If we go to war, we are not to be excused if we do not prepare instantly and to the utmost of all our strength. . . . We must strike hard at Germany with the most formidable expeditionary force that can be raised."
At a great mass meeting in Carnegie Hall, on the evening of March 5,1917, he said:
"The time has come when it is unpardonable for us as a nation to fail to act immediately for the full and effective defense of American rights and performance of American duties."
The inaction of the Wilson Administration disturbed and alarmed him, and he sought earnestly to move it to action. In a published statement on March 19, 1917, he said:
"The news this morning of the sinking of our three ships —City of Memphis, Vigilancia and Illinois—with loss of American life, makes it imperative that every self-respecting American should speak out and demand that we hit hard and effectively. Words are wasted on Germany. What we need is effective and thorough-going action.
'' Seven weeks have passed since Germany renewed with the utmost ruthlessness her never-wholly abandoned submarine war against neutrals and noncombatants. She then notified our Government of her intention. This notification was itself a declaration of war and should have been treated as such. During the seven weeks that have since elapsed she has steadily waged war upon us. It has been a war of murder upon us; she has killed American women and children as well as American men upon the high seas. She has sunk our ships, our ports have been put under blockade. She has asked Mexico and Japan to join her in dismembering this country. If these are not overt acts of war, then Lexington and Bunker Hill were not overt acts of war.
"Seven weeks ago we broke relations with Germany. This was eminently proper. But it amounted to nothing, it was an empty gesture, unless it was followed by vigorous and efficient action. Yet during the seven weeks (a time as long as the entire duration of the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866) we have done nothing. We have not even prepared.
"Under existing conditions armed neutrality is only another name for timid war; and Germany despises timidity as she despises all other forms of feebleness. She does not wage timid war herself, and she neither respects nor understands it in others.
"Seemingly her submarine warfare has failed and is less menacing now than it was seven weeks ago. We are profiting and shall profit by this failure. But we have done nothing to bring it about. It has been due solely to the efficiency of the British Navy. We have done nothing to help ourselves. We have done nothing to secure our own safety or to vindicate our own honor. We have been content to shelter ourselves behind the fleet of a foreign power.
"Such a position is intolerable to all self-respecting Americans who are proud of the great heritage handed down to them by their fathers and their fathers' fathers. Let us dare to look the truth in the face. Let us dare to use our own strength in our own defense and strike hard for our national interest and honor. There is no question about 'going to war.' Germany is already at war with us. The only question for us to decide is whether we shall make war nobly or ignobly. Let us face the accomplished fact, admit that Germany is at war with us, wage war on Germany with all our energy and courage, and regain the right to look the whole world in the eyes without flinching."
In March, 1917, John J. Richeson, dean of Ohio University, sent to Roosevelt a set of resolutions that had been adopted by the faculty of that institution upholding President Wilson's policy. Replying on March 21, 1917, Roosevelt wrote:
"I thank you for your kind letter. I am very glad that the University and you yourself favor universal military training.
"You say that on many subjects our opinions have not been the same. One of these subjects includes the first 'resolved' of the paper you inclosed. In my judgment nothing has done more to damage our country than this writing blank checks in support of President Wilson's foreign policy, when, as a matter of fact, it has been in the highest degree disgraceful to this country. This resolution puts you down as ' strongly approving and supporting his policy in the controversy with Germany.' As good Americans, you ought unqualifiedly to condemn at least 99 per cent of that policy. His first note, 'the strict accountability note,' would have been excellent if he had lived up to it, but as he has for two years failed to live up to it, it becomes infamous. We then had two years of note writing, of tame submission to brutal wrong-doing, and of utter failure to prepare. Then he broke relations. This was excellent, but only if he meant to follow it up; it amounts to nothing whatever by itself. Seven weeks have gone by, and he has done not one thing. He is himself responsible for the growth of the pacifist and pro-German party in Congress. He never asked for any real action, and the little action he did ask for, was asked for so late that he must have known perfectly well any small group of Senators could prevent its being taken. Congress has been summoned to meet in April. By that time, either the submarine warfare against England will have succeeded, in which case what Mr. Wilson does is of no earthly consequence, or, what is far more probable, it will have failed, in which case, he will have put us in the ignoble position of sheltering our selves behind the British Navy until all danger is past. Indeed, he has already put us in such a position. The twelve Senators were slightly worse than Mr. Wilson; but the difference was not material. The difference between Mr. Wilson's conduct and proper patriotic conduct, however, is abysmal. Under such circumstances, a general 'strong support' of Mr. Wilson's conduct stands on an exact level with 'strong support' of President Buchanan's conduct as regards slavery and secession."
For several weeks Roosevelt had been in active correspondence with men in all parts of the country who had applied for service in the military division he had asked the Government for permission to take to France. Everything that could be done without such permission was completed in March, and on the 23rd of that month he went to Florida, on invitation of his friend, Russell J. Coles, to hunt for devil fish. While in Florida he made a brief speech at Punta Gorda, on April 1, 1917, in which he denounced pacifists and said:
'' There are only two classes in this country now. There are Americans and anti-Americans. We have got to handle this situation right now, and to do it right we have got to send an army to France."
In an editorial article in the Metropolitan Magazine, entitled "Now We Must Fight," advance sheets of which were given out to the press on April 2, 1917, he said:
"We love life, but there are things we love even more than life, and we feel that we are loyal to all that is highest in America's past when we act on the belief that those only are fit to live who are not afraid to die."
President Wilson went before Congress in joint session on April 2, 1917, and asked for a declaration of war against Germany. Roosevelt, who was on his way back from Florida, stopped at Washington and called upon the President for the purpose of congratulating him on his address, but the President was at a Cabinet meeting and Roosevelt, being unable to wait for the meeting to adjourn, did not see him. He published a statement on the same day, in which he said:
"The President's message is a great state paper which will rank in history with the great state papers of which Americans in future years will be proud. It now rests with the people of the country to see that we put in practice the policy that the President has outlined and that we strike as hard, as soon, and as efficiently as possible in aggressive war against the Government of Germany.
"We must send troops to the firing line as rapidly as possible. Defensive war is hopeless. We must by vigorous offensive warfare win the right to have our voice count for civilization and justice when the time for peace comes.
"I, of course, very earnestly hope that I may be allowed to raise a division for immediate service at the front."
In a statement which was published on April 5, 1917, Roosevelt said:
"The American people believe that we owe it to ourselves and to the national honor to send a fighting force of at least an army corps under the American flag to the front at the earliest moment. This army corps should be commanded by one of our first-class Major Generals. It might consist of three or perhaps only two divisions. I have asked permission to raise a division which would be in this army and under its commander.''
On April 9,1917, Roosevelt went to Washington and had an interview with the President by appointment. In a statement which he made to the reporters from the steps of the White House after the interview, he said he had sought to see the President personally to reiterate what he had said about his address and to lay before him in detail his plans for raising a military division to go to France. He added that the President had received him with the utmost courtesy and consideration and doubtless would, in his own good time, come to a decision. "I am," he continued, "heart and soul for the proposal of the Administration for universal obligatory military training and service. I would favor it for 3,000,000 men. You can call it conscription if you wish, and I would say yes. The division that I ask permission to raise would be raised exclusively among men who would not be taken under the conscription system. They would either be over 25 or of the exempted class, and they would eagerly enlist to go to the front."
Applications to enlist in his division poured in in such volume that on May 7, 1917, Roosevelt announced that they were coming in at the rate of over 2,000 a day, and that he was confident he could offer the Government the services of 250,000 men within a short time. In a speech in Brooklyn on May 8, 1917, he said: "I ask only that I be given a chance to render a service which I know I can render, and nine out of ten of those who oppose my rendering it do so because they believe I will render it too well."
The news of the proposed Roosevelt Division reached France and aroused general enthusiasm. Whitney Warren, an eminent American architect who was in Paris at the time, sent a cable message to the New York Times, on May 9, saying:
"The presence of an ex-President of the United States will send a thrill through the fighting line of the allies. He is known here as a leader of men, as was Kitchener, and it is he whom France awaits.''
The proposal received quite general support in Congress and on May 16 the first bill providing for a draft, with a clause permitting the raising of volunteer divisions which was understood to authorize Roosevelt to raise his division, was passed by large majorities in both houses, in spite of the open opposition of the Administration. The bill went to the President and was approved by him on May 18, 1917. In giving his approval the President made public a statement in which he said of this clause that it was understood that its object was to provide an independent command for Roosevelt, but that he should not avail himself at the present stage of the war of the authorization conferred. He added:
"It would be very agreeable to me to pay Mr. Roosevelt this compliment and the Allies the compliment of sending to their aid one of our most distinguished public men, an ex-President who has rendered many conspicuous public services and proved his gallantry in many striking ways. Politically, too, it would no doubt have a very fine effect and make a profound impression. But this is not the time or the occasion for compliment or for any action not calculated to contribute to the immediate success of the war. The business now in hand is undramatic, practical, and of scientific definiteness and precision."
On receipt of this refusal, Roosevelt issued, under date of May 25,1917, an address to the men who had volunteered for service under him, in-which he said:
"As good American citizens we loyally obey the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the American Army and Navy. The men who have volunteered will now consider themselves absolved from all further connection with this movement. . . . Our sole aim is to help in every way in the successful prosecution of the war and we most heartily feel that no individual's personal interest should for one moment be considered save as it serves the general public interest. We rejoice that a division composed of our fine regular soldiers and marines under so gallant and efficient a leader as Gen. Pershing is to be sent abroad. We have a right to a certain satisfaction in connection therewith.
"I wish respectfully to point out certain errors into which the President has been led in his announcement. He states that the purpose was to give me an 'independent' command. In my last letter to the Secretary of War I respectfully stated that if I were given permission to raise an army corps of two divisions, to be put under the command of some General like Wood or Pershing or Barry or Kuhn, I desired for myself only the position of junior among the eight brigade commanders. My position would have been exactly the same as theirs, except that I would have ranked after and have been subordinate to the rest of them.
"The President alludes to our proffered action as one that would have an effect 'politically,' but as not contributing to the 'success of the war,' and as representing a 'policy of personal gratification or advantage.' I wish respectfully but emphatically to deny that any political consideration whatever or any desire for personal gratification or advantage entered into our calculations. Our undivided purpose was to contribute effectively to the success of the war.
"The President condemns our proposal on the ground that 'undramatic' action is needed, action that is 'practical and of scientific definiteness and precision.' There was nothing dramatic in our proposal save as all proposals indicating eagerness or willingness to sacrifice life for an ideal are dramatic. It is true that our division would have contained the sons or grandsons of men who in the Civil War wore the blue or the gray; for instance, the sons or grandsons of Phil Sheridan, Fitzhugh Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James A. Garfield, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Adna K. Chaffee, Nathan Bedford Forest; but these men would have served either with commissions or in the ranks, precisely like the rest of us; and all alike would have been judged solely by the efficiency—including the 'scientific definiteness'—with which they did their work and served the flag of their loyal devotion."
The full text of Roosevelt's address to the volunteers and of correspondence that he held with the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, on the subject of his military division, was published at the time in the Metropolitan Magazine and subsequently included in the appendix of a volume of his writings and addresses entitled "The Foes of Our Own Household." (The George H. Doran Company, 1917.)
Two days after the President's action was announced, the veteran statesman of France, Georges Clemenceau, addressed to him through the press on May 27,1917, this open letter of appeal to reconsider his decision:
"If I have the temerity of addressing you it is because it may be permitted me to throw light on certain aspects which perhaps are not sufficiently clear to you. Allow me to say, in all candor, that at the present moment there is in France one name which sums up the beauty of American intervention. It is the name Roosevelt, your predecessor, even your rival, but with whom there can now be no other rivalry than heartening success. I saw Roosevelt only once in my life. It was just after I left office and he returned from his lion hunt. He is an idealist, imbued with simple, vital idealism. Hence his influence on the crowd, his prestige to use the right expression. It is possible that your own mind, inclosed in its austere legal frontiers, which has been the source of many noble actions, has failed to be impressed by the vital hold which personalities like Roosevelt have on popular imagination. But you are too much of a philosopher to ignore that the influence on the people of great leaders of men often exceeded their personal merits, thanks to the legendary halo surrounding them. The name of Roosevelt has this legendary force in our country at this time and in my opinion it would be a great error to ignore the force which everything counsels us to make use of as quickly as possible.
"Roosevelt was one of the greatest craftsmen in the great laborious work which will constitute your glory. It cannot displease you that your two names are coupled in our minds. He, moreover, followed your idea. He wished to raise four volunteer divisions of infantry to be incorporated in our armies. The Senate and Congress did not withhold consent. If the law has charged you, Mr. President, with all the practical issues of the undertaking, it is no less true that Roosevelt represents a vast potential factor which a statesman is unable to overlook. Roosevelt cannot come alone, for his prestige on our battlefields demands that he come with prestige conferred on him by his countrymen. I claim for Roosevelt only what he claims for himself—the right to appear on the battlefield surrounded by his comrades.
"We have just heard of the arrival of the first American unit on the front. All our hearts beat. With what joy our soldiers greeted the starry banner! Yet you must know, Mr. President, more than one of our poilus asked his comrade: 'But where is Roosevelt? I don't see him.' It is to convey this remark to you, not knowing whether my mission will reach you, that I have written this letter. You will forgive me for this rule in democracies that each at his hour tries to make himself heard. No other impulse impels me but the idea of what occupies your mind.
"Eminent Americans have consulted our military leaders on the problems of our common campaign. It is not for me to dispute technical questions. My ambition is more modest. I have not consulted our soldiers, but it was not necessary, for I have seen them work and know them well. The cause of humanity, which is also your cause, will owe to them something approaching a miracle. Since it is in your power to give them before the supreme decision the promise of reward, believe me—send them Roosevelt. I tell you because I know it will gladden their hearts."
Commenting on this appeal from Clemenceau, Roosevelt said on May 28, 1917: "I am very grateful for the kind expressions in the letter, and, of course, it is a matter of the greatest sorrow and regret to me that I am not to have this opportunity to serve."
In a speech on May 28, 1917, he said:
"No American has the right to hold up his head if he has not sought with all his strength and ingenuity to get into this war. If a man is conscientious in not wanting to fight, I am equally conscientious in not wanting him to .vote. The man who is not willing to fight for his country is not fit to work. I'd take him to the front anyway. I would not interfere with his conscience. If it does not permit him to shoot at the enemy, I would not make him shoot, but I would place him in a position where he would be shot at. I would put him at work digging kitchen sinks and doing other labor which would set other men of better fibre free for service which the unworthy manhood of the conscientious objector does not permit him to perform."
In May, 1917, Roosevelt received a letter from Captain de Rochambeau, of the Fifth Regiment of French Infantry at the front in France, congratulating him on the vote in Congress in favor of his proposed Roosevelt Division, and expressing the hope that he would be one of the first to salute him with the title of "My General" on the battlefields of France. In reply Roosevelt wrote under date of June 1, 1917:
"Your letter touched and pleased me very greatly. I remember well your elder brother, and I need hardly say that your name is one familiar to every American. My dear sir, you have nobly upheld your family tradition in this war; you say you were the sole survivor of the three Rochambeaus who have fought in the army during it; this is a record worthy of the ancient valor of France.
"I bitterly regret to say that my Government has refused to allow me to raise troops and take them to France. The reasons were not connected with patriotism, or with military efficiency, and so there is no use of my trying to get the decision altered. My four sons and one of my sons-in-law are now in the army that is being trained, and I hope that all five of them will not too long hence go to your country.''