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CHAPTER THIRTY TWO 

Of Theodore Roosevelt And his Time Volume 2

DEATH OF QUENTIN ROOSEVELT: 

REFUSAL TO BE A CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: 

eaRly  in July 1918 a movement was started, under the leadership of men who for years had been among Roosevelt's bitterest political enemies, to induce him to consent to become the Republican candidate for Governor of New York. The party was in desperate straits at the time. The Governor, who was a Republican and whose administration had been very unpopular, was a candidate for reelection and had such complete control of the party machinery that he was able to dictate his own re-nomination, unless Roosevelt would consent to enter the primaries against him. The shrewdest politicians of the party were convinced that without Roosevelt's candidacy defeat in the November elections was certain. They called a state conference of the party leaders, at Saratoga, since under the primary law there could be no convention, and invited Roosevelt, Root and Taft to deliver addresses before it. Roosevelt consented with the others. On the morning of the day, July 17, 1918, on which he was to make his address, word reached him that his son Quentin, an aviator in the army at the front in France, had been killed in an aerial battle. When the news was conveyed to him at Oyster Bay, as he was starting for New York, he said, after taking it to his wife:
" Quentin's mother and I are very glad that he got to the front and had a chance to render some service to his country and to show the stuff there was in him before his fate befell him."
He went to the city and when asked if he would go to the conference and make his address, he said: "I must go; it is my duty." He started immediately for Saratoga, and when he appeared in the conference hall, the entire assemblage arose and gave him a subdued and most impressive greeting. He delivered his address as he had prepared it in advance, and at its close added a passage which, inspired as it clearly was by the affliction that had befallen him, made a profound impression upon his auditors:
"I have something I want to say to you—with all my heart and soul I want you to be alert to act upon it. I speak to you women primarily, but to the men also.
"Surely in this great crisis where we are making sacrifices and making ready for sacrifices on a scale never before known, surely when we are demanding such fealty and idealism on the part of the young men sent abroad to die, surely we have the right to ask and expect an equal idealism in life from the men and women who stay at home.
"Our young men have gone to the other side, very many of them to give up in their joyous prime all the glory and all the beauty of life to pay the greatest price of death in battle for a lofty ideal. Now, when they are doing that, cannot we men and women at home make up our minds to try to insist upon a lofty idealism here at home!
"And remember, friends, when I speak of lofty idealism, I mean ideals to be realized. I abhor that mock idealism which finds expression only in phrase and vanishes when the phrase has been uttered. I am speaking of the idealism which will permit no man in public or private to say anything lofty as a cloak for base action. I am asking for the idealism which will demand that every promise expressed or implied be kept, that every profession of decency, of devotion that is lofty in words, should be made good by deeds. I am asking for an idealism which shall find expression beside the hearthstone and in the family and in the councils of the state and the nation, and I ask you men in this great crisis, and I ask you women who have now come into the political arena, to stand shoulder to shoulder with your husbands and brothers and sons. I ask you to see that when those who have gone abroad to endure every species of hardship, to risk their lives, to give their lives, when those of them who live come home, that they shall come home to a nation which they can be proud to have fought for or could be proud to have died for."
On the following day, Horace Wilkinson visited him at Oyster Bay as a messenger from the party leaders who wished him to be a candidate for Governor. When Mr. Wilkinson told him that all his former political enemies in the State wished him to run, and had signed an appeal to him to consent to do so, he expressed incredulity, asking if his chief enemy, William Barnes, was among them. When told that Mr. Barnes was, he was scarcely able to believe it. He went on to give what he thought would be a conclusive reason why Mr. Barnes and his associates would not favor him, saying that some of them were opposed to the prohibition amendment to the Constitution and that if he were the candidate he would certainly be asked by prohibition advocates where he stood on the question, and if asked he would say that he was in favor of it. He requested Mr. Wilkinson to report this to them. Mr. Wilkinson did this, and when Mr. Barnes heard the message, he said with much force: "I don't care a damn whether he is for prohibition or against prohibition. The people will vote for him because he is Theodore Roosevelt!" When asked if he would state publicly that he was in favor of Roosevelt's nomination, Mr. Barnes invited the reporters who were in an adjoining room to enter that in which the leaders were gathered, and dictated to them this statement which was published on the following day, July 19, 1918:
"I signed the call addressed to Theodore Roosevelt to enter the Republican primary as a candidate for Governor because I believe that Republican thought and activities in this State should be raised to the level confronting the United States. Such differences of opinion as I have had with Mr. Roosevelt are not germane, in the slightest degree, to the situation which exists at this moment. Every man should be able to put aside subjects that are closed, and act in any emergency which presents itself with an open mind and in such manner as he thinks for the best interests of the country.
"We require above all else, in the highest affairs of trust and power, not only men of integrity and character, but primarily men who can see into the future, and who will not be content with doing only those things which become obviously necessary. Had this nation been led by vision the war would have been already won.''
The call to Roosevelt which Mr. Barnes had signed bore the signatures also of all the other Republican leaders in the State, who had not only bitterly opposed Roosevelt in the past but had denounced him repeatedly as a man who could not be trusted with power because of his radical professions and tendencies. Like Mr. Barnes, they all by their appeal to Roosevelt made public profession of faith in his character and ability and, consequently, public confession of the untruth and injustice of their previous assertions. Like the verdict in the Barnes trial, the call was a vindication of Roosevelt at the hands of his political enemies.
But gratifying as this vindication was to him, he could not be persuaded by it to become a candidate. On July 22, 1918, he wrote a letter to Morton C. Lewis, that was published on the following day, in which he said:
"I cannot be a candidate nor accept the nomination for Governor of New York. For the past four years my whole being has been absorbed in the consideration of the tremendous problems, national and international, created by the war. I cannot turn from them with any heart to deal with any other subjects. . . . My work is for the men who are fighting in this war."
Innumerable letters and telegrams of sympathy reached him after Quentin's death was confirmed. He replied to only a few of these. Among his replies were the following:
July 23, 1918.
To Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour, London, England: "Both Mrs. Roosevelt and I were touched by your cabling me. Of my four sons, Quentin has been killed, Archie very badly wounded and Ted less seriously wounded. He is now in the hospital. My only regret is that I have not been beside him in the fighting."
July 25, 1918.
To M. Clemenceau, Paris: "I have received many messages from rulers of nations and leaders of people; but among these there is none I have valued quite as much as yours, because I have a peculiar admiration for you and feel that you have played a greater part than any man not a soldier has played, and a greater part than any soldier, except one or two, has played in this great world war. It is a very sad thing to see the young die when the old who are doing nothing, as I am doing nothing, are left alive. Therefore it is very bitter to me that I was not allowed to face the danger with my sons. But whatever may be their fate, I am glad and proud that my sons have done their part in this mighty war against despotism and barbarism. Of my four boys Quentin, as you know, has been killed, and two of the other three wounded and all three of these boys have been decorated for gallantry and efficiency in action.
'' Thank Heaven, it begins to look as if at last Germany has spent her strength, and I thank Heaven also that we now have at least a few hundred thousand Americans to fight beside the French."
August 15, 1918.
To Edith Wharton, Paris, France: "There is no use of my writing about Quentin; as I should break down if I tried. His death is heart breaking, but it would have been far worse if he had lived at the cost of the slightest failure to perform his duty."
August 19, 1918.
To Gen. John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces, France: "I am immensely touched by your letter of July 27. I thank you for what you have said of Quentin. My dear fellow, you have suffered far more bitter sorrow than has befallen me. You bore it with splendid courage and I should be ashamed of myself if I did not try in a lesser way to emulate that courage.
"What admirable work our army under you has done! I congratulate you with all my heart. And what wonderful soldiers our men make! You, and those under you, have written your names forever on the highest honor roll of our nation.''
General Pershing's letter of July 27, alluded to by Roosevelt, contained the following passages:
"Quentin died as he had lived and served, nobly and unselfishly, in the full strength and vigor of his youth, fighting the enemy in clean combat. You may well be proud of your gift to the nation in his supreme sacrifice.
"Enclosed is a copy of his official record in the air service. The brevity and curtness of the official words paint clearly the picture of his service, which was an honor to all of us."
BECOBD:
"Lieut. Quentin Roosevelt, during his whole career in the air service, both as a cadet and as a flying officer, was a model of the best type of young American manhood. He was most courteous in his conduct, clean in his private life, and devoted in his duty.
"After completion of his training as a pilot he was selected on account of his efficiency as an instructor, and had charge of one of the most important flying instruction fields. His great desire and hope was to get to the front. This opportunity was not practicable for a comparatively long time on account of his expert services being more needed as an instructor.
"When the order assigning him with a squadron finally came, on June 24, he lost no time in reporting, and arrived just in time to take part in the last great enemy offensive, where the combat work by his squadron was most strenuous and aided materially in the success of the battle.
"Lieutenant Roosevelt had already brought down one enemy plane and had aided the squadron in a number of flights against large enemy air formations where the American units dispersed the enemy and brought down a number of their aircraft. His work during the combats was exceptionally good, his endeavor being the success of the squadron rather than to get individual airplanes to his personal credit.
"His loss was deeply felt by his flying comrades in the squadron as well as by all officers and soldiers with whom he had ever come in contact.''
In response Roosevelt wrote to Gen. Pershing on Sept. 27, 1918:
"We very much appreciate your letter of August 23 and the enclosures. Naturally, we value the photographs and the official report. It was most kind and considerate of you, my dear General, in the midst of your absorbing work, to think of us. Naturally, we are profoundly moved and profoundly pleased by the way in which Quentin's comrades, the soldiers of your army, have marked his grave and treated it, in a certain sense, as almost a place of pilgrimage.
• "And now I wish to thank you most heartily for the news about Ted's promotion to the Lieutenant Colonelcy, of which you notified me in your cable.
"Well, my dear General, you are the American most to be envied of all the Americans since the close of the Civil War. You have done the great deed in the great crisis, and you have made all of us debtors always. Of course, all the wars in which our nation has taken part, even in the Civil War itself, had nothing to show in any way resembling this war, or the fighting that you have yourself conducted."
The exaltation, the sublimity of Roosevelt's grief for Quentin, found expression in an editorial article which he wrote for the Metropolitan Magazine, under the title of "The Great Adventure." This was published in the newspapers on September 17, 1918, and created a profound impression everywhere. It was subsequently published, with some other articles of Roosevelt's on the war, in a volume with the same title (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1918), and thus given a permanent place in literature. The universal verdict upon it was that in it Roosevelt struck a higher note than he had ever before reached. When I said as much to him, he replied: "Ah, that was Quentin!" I quote here the opening and closing passages:
"Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are part of the same Great Adventure. Never yet was worthy adventure worthily carried through by the man who put his personal safety first. Never yet was a country worth living in unless its sons and daughters were of that stern stuff which bade them die for it at need; and never yet was a country worth dying for unless its sons and daughters thought of life not as something concerned only with the selfish evanescence of the individual but as a link in the great chain of creation and causation, so that each person is seen in his true relations as an essential part of the whole, whose life must be made to serve the larger and continuing life of the whole."
"In America to-day all our people are summoned to service and sacrifice. Pride is the portion only of those who know bitter sorrow or the foreboding of bitter sorrow. But all of us who give service, and stand ready for sacrifice, are the torch-bearers. We run with the torches until we fall, content if we can then pass them to the hands of other runners. The torches whose flame is brightest are borne by the gallant men at the front, and by the gallant women whose husbands and lovers, whose sons and brothers are at the front. These men are high of soul, as they face their fate on the shell-shattered earth, or in the skies above or in the waters beneath; and no less high of soul are the women with torn hearts and shining eyes; the girls whose boy lovers have been struck down in their golden morning, and the mothers and wives to whom word has been brought that henceforth they must walk in the shadow.
"These are the torch-bearers; these are they who have dared the Great Adventure."