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CHAPTER 30 

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2

MESSAGE TO SOLDIERS LEAVING FOR FRANCE: 

FAITH IN GENERAL LEONARD WOOD: 
REBUKE TO GOMPERS: 

when the first detachment of American troops were ready to sail for France in June, 1917, the American Bible Society, which was supplying them with Pocket Testaments, asked Roosevelt to write a message in them. In compliance with the request he wrote:
"The teachings of the New Testament are foreshadowed in Micah's verse: 'What more doth the Lord require of thee than to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'
"Do justice; and therefore fight valiantly against the armies of Germany and Turkey, for these nations in this crisis stand for the reign of Moloch and Beelzebub on this earth.
"Love mercy; treat prisoners well; succor the wounded; treat every woman as if she were your sister; care for the little children, and be tender with the old and helpless.
"Walk humbly; you will do so if you study the life and teachings of the Savior.
"May the God of Justice and Mercy have you in His keeping.''
Soon after Gen. Leonard Wood had arrived at his station in the Southeastern Department of the army, to which he had been ordered, in June, 1917, he wrote a letter to Roosevelt in which he said he had met with a very cordial reception from the Southern people, and that if he were given a free hand he could have 100,000 men ready for final training in Europe by November, adding:
'' The old fighting spirit of the South is waking up, and, 
under proper leadership, they are going to give a splendid account of themselves."
Replying on June 22, 1917, Roosevelt wrote:
"I was immensely pleased with your note. I cannot help grinning over the way in which the attempt to exile you has turned out. You have had a really wonderful reception in the South, and have made a wonderful impression there. To my great amusement a British General, who is rather taking the Administration view, told me that the President had informed him that he had purposely sent you to the South, because of the great work he knew you would be doing down there! I asked him if that was the reason the President had tried to get you to go to the Hawaiian Islands. He expressed doubt whether our volunteers would have done well, and to my immense amusement, gave as a justification of the doubt the fact that he did not think the Australians and Canadians were as good as the British tommies, and expressed disapproval of their discipline.
"I am absolutely certain that if you were given a free hand, not merely in the South, but in the country at large, you would have instead of 100,000, 500,000 men ready for training in Europe by November. But, as you say, there never has been such effort as now to keep concentration and control in Washington, and the wooden-headed way in which they do this makes the situation one fraught with ugly possibilities of delay and disaster.
"I feel exactly as you do—I am trying to do the best that can be done. I have not criticized the President since April 2nd, but neither do I lie about him. I intend to tell the truth and point out the criminal folly of our having failed to prepare, and to speak plainly of the dangers ahead."
Roosevelt's strong disapproval of the use of violence and rioting in labor strikes found expression in a somewhat startling but eminently characteristic manner in the summer of 1917. The Russian Republic had been declared and a commission from its government to the United States, accompanied by a new Russian Ambassador, had arrived in New York. A public meeting for their reception was held in Carnegie Hall on the evening of July 6, 1917. Roosevelt was present as the chief speaker. For several days previous there had been race riots in progress in East St. Louis, Illinois. The town was a large manufacturing center and there were several thousand laborers, white and black, employed in the mills. Several thousand white laborers went on strike and to take their places additional blacks were brought in from the South. The strikers assaulted these and started riots which included attacks upon all black laborers, burning their quarters and killing and wounding many of them, including their wives and children. The local authorities had not exerted themselves effectively to quell the disturbance. Referring to the riots Roosevelt said:
"Before we speak of justice for others it behooves us to do justice within our own household. Within the week there has been an appalling outbreak of savagery in a race riot in East St. Louis, a race riot for which, as far as we can see, there was no real provocation, and which, whether there was provocation or not, was waged with such an access of appalling brutality as to leave a stain on the American name.
"Now, friends, the longer I live the more I grow to abhor rhetoric that isn't based on facts, words that are not translated into deeds. And when we applaud the birth of democracy in another people, the spirit which insists on treating each man on the basis of his right as a man, refusing to deny the humblest the rights that are his, when we present such a greeting to the representatives of a foreign nation, it behooves us to express our deep condemnation of acts that give the lie to our words within our own country."
Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, followed Roosevelt, saying he approved the "general sentiments" of Roosevelt, and adding: "But I want to explain a feature of the East St. Louis riots with which the general public is unacquainted. ... I wish I had brought with me a copy of a telegram received to-day from Victor Hollander, secretary of the Illinois Federation of Labor. I can tell you that not only labor men but a member of the Chamber of Commerce of East St. Louis warned the men engaged in luring negroes from the South that they were to be used in undermining the conditions of the laborer in East St. Louis. The luring of these colored men to East St. Louis is on a par with the behavior of the brutal, reactionary, and tyrannous forces that existed in Old Rome.''
The audience which contained a large number of Russian Socialists applauded Gompers vigorously. Roosevelt, visibly indignant, asked the chairman for permission to say a word in response, and moving to the front of the platform, said with great earnestness:
"I am not willing that a meeting called to commemorate the birth of democracy and justice in Russia shall seem to have given any approval of or apology for the infamous brutalities that have been committed on negroes at East St. Louis. Justice with me is not a mere phrase or form of words. How can we praise the people of Russia for doing justice to the men within their boundaries if we in any way apologize for murder committed on the helpless? In the past I have listened to the same form of excuse advanced on behalf of the Russian autocracy for pogroms of Jews. Not for a moment shall I acquiesce in any apology for the murder of women and children in our own country. I am a democrat of democrats. I will do anything for the laboring man except what is wrong."
Striding over to Mr. Gompers, who was seated, he shook his clenched fist close to his face and said: "I don't care a snap of my finger for any telegram from the head of the strongest labor union in Illinois. This took place in a Northern State, where the whites outrank the negroe’s twenty to one. And if in that State the white men cannot protect their rights by their votes against an insignificant minority, and have to protect them by the murder of women and children, then the people of the State which sent Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency must bow their heads."
Mr. Gompers arose from his chair and said: "Investigations afterward, not before—" Shaking his fist again in Mr. (rompers' face Roosevelt shouted:
"I'd put down the murderers first and investigate afterwards." A great tumult arose in the audience, hisses and hooting mingling with cheers. Standing over Mr. Gompers, Roosevelt continued: "I will go to any extreme necessary to bring justice to the laboring man, to insure him his economic place, but when there is murder I'll put it down and I'll never surrender." (Howls of disapproval drowned by applause.) "Oh, friends, we have gathered to greet the men and women of new Russia, a republic founded on the principles of justice to all, equity to all. On such an evening never will I sit motionless while directly or indirectly apology is made for the murder of the helpless."
There was some criticism of Roosevelt's conduct on the ground that while Mr. Gompers might have deserved rebuke the occasion was not a suitable one on which to administer it, and that Roosevelt had been guilty of a breach of good manners. This criticism betrayed a lack of knowledge of Roosevelt's character. There was a question at issue which in his mind far transcended in importance any question of etiquette. He saw the evil influence of the specious words of Mr. Gompers upon an audience of such a character, and he did not hesitate a second as to his duty in the premises. If the rebuke was to be made at all, it must be made then and there. Furthermore, the effect of it under such conditions called immediate and widespread attention to the insidious nature of the defense of disorder that Mr. Gompers was making and revealed it as no other treatment could have done.
During the remaining months of the year 1917 he continued to speak and write constantly in favor of vigorous prosecution of the war and in condemnation of all persons and influences that-in any way opposed it. In a speech at Forest Hills, Long Island, on July 4, 1917, he said: '' Any man who now announces that although he favors the United States against Germany, yet he favors Germany against England, is a traitor to America." On August 10, 1917, he published a statement in which he said: "I trust that Congress will pass a law refusing to allow a newspaper to be published in German or in the language of any other of our opponents while this war lasts, so that we shall know just what they are saying and doing.''
When street orators in New York City were condemning the war openly and violently assailing any one who rebuked them, he wrote to the Commissioner of Police on August 17: "We are in this war to a finish and the man is a traitor to this nation who directly or indirectly upholds Germany or attacks any of our allies while this war is pending. The newspaper that follows such a course should be promptly suppressed by the National Government, and any failure so to suppress any newspaper is a dereliction of duty. The street orator who takes such a course is preaching sedition and the police should take summary action about it."
On September 5, 1917, he gave out for publication an address entitled, "The Children of the Crucible," which was signed by himself and 38 other persons representing ancestry in the allied nations, neutral countries, and Germany, giving reasons for united action in support of the war by all Americans of whatever national lineage. In it this passage occurred:
"We are Americans and nothing else. We are the true children of the crucible. This is a new nation. It is a melting pot of the old world nationalities that come hither. The new type is different from all other types. But the mold into which the crucible pours its contents was fixed in the days of Washington and the Revolution. All the children of the crucible must be loyal to the American tradition as established by the men of Washington's day, as preserved by the men of Lincoln's day. Otherwise they are not true Americans. Unless we come out as one people, and unless that people is the American people, true to the old ideals, then the crucible has failed to do its work. "We must have one flag, and only one flag; and we must tolerate no divided loyalty. "We must have one language, the language of the Declaration of Independence, of Washington's farewell address, and Lincoln's great speeches."
On September 20, 1917, he started on a tour of the West making a series of speeches on "Americanism and the War." As he was leaving he said to the press reporters: "Whatever may have been our judgment in normal times we are convinced that to-day our most dangerous foe is the foreign language press. Professional pacifists should be regarded as traitors to the great cause of justice and humanity. The only peace is the peace of overwhelming victory.''
Speaking at Johnstown, Pa., on September 30, 1917, he said:
"We did not go to war to make democracy safe, and we did go to war because we had a special grievance. We went to war, because, after two years, with utter contempt of our protests, she had habitually and continually murdered our noncombatant men, women and children on the high seas, Germany formally announced that she intended to pursue this course more ruthlessly and vigorously than ever. This was the special grievance because of which we went to war, and it was far more than an empty justification for going to war. As you know, my own belief is that we should have acted immediately after the sinking of the Lusitania."
In his addresses on this western tour he denounced repeatedly the "shadow Huns who sit in our national legislature and serve the Kaiser." In all of his speeches he urged support of the Liberty Loan, and of the Y. M. C. A., the Bed Cross and other agencies that were engaged in relief work abroad. Speaking at Hartford, Conn., on November 7,1917, he said:
"Do not forget, that not only do we owe to England and France our safety for two and one-half years before we went to war, but we have owed to them our safety for the months since when we have been preparing to begin to get ready to go in.
"There is a two-fold lesson from that; first let us resolve that never again will we be caught so unprepared, and next let us remember that the strain has not come to us yet; that the strain, when our men begin to be killed by the scores and thousands, when the pressure comes upon us, will be felt some time next year. Then, friends, you will have the chance to show the stuff that is in you. Then the weakling, the coward, the fool, the short-sighted one, all-will join together to clamor for a patched-up peace, to pray for something that will give temporary respite at the cost of future damnation."
He gave warm support to the candidacy of John Purroy Mitchel for reelection as Mayor of New York City, making several speeches in behalf of that able and upright public official, whom the city did not appreciate till he met his death while fitting himself for airplane service in France. His fellow citizens, who had failed to reelect him, united in giving him a public funeral, Roosevelt walking as a private citizen in the procession, which was one of the most impressive the city had ever known.
After returning from the West, Roosevelt made many speeches in the various military training camps and other places, insisting upon the vital need of universal military service, of constructive criticism of war measures, and of the speeding up of war preparations.
In January, 1918, he visited Washington and held conference with Senators and Congressmen on matters connected with the war. While there he made an address before the National Press Club, on January 24, in which he said:
'' Our rule should be the same for the nation as for the individual. Do not get into a fight if you can possibly avoid it. If you get in, see it through. Don't hit if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting, but never hit soft. Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep.
" It is our duty to tell the truth. If conditions are good, tell the truth. If they are bad, tell the truth. If they have been bad and become good, tell the truth. We are told now and then that the truth would frighten our people so that they would not go on with the war. If they are such a set of weaklings and cowards, then nothing can save us. On the contrary, I believe that the full telling of the truth will wake the American people up to a sterner realization of the task that is before them, and therefore to a sterner resolve that, cost what it may, every deficiency shall be remedied, every wrong undone, every failure of Government officials turned into an achievement and a success, so that as speedily as possible we may harden our giant but soft and lazy strength, and exert it to the fullest degree necessary to bring the peace of liberty in this mighty conflict for civilization and the welfare of mankind."