CHAPTER 20 Hermann Hagedorn’s: The Boy’s Life of Theodore Roosevelt.

THE  GREAT AWAKENER

  ROOSEVELT returned to the United States the middle of May, 1914.  Three months later the world was engulfed in the most terrible war in history. 

From the first day of the crowded week of feverish negotiations and telegrams flying to and fro between the chancelleries and sovereigns of Europe, Roosevelt's mind was absorbed in the fierce struggle.  At once domestic issues, even those over which he had struggled most persistently for half his lifetime, yielded their place in his thoughts to what he saw at once was the foremost issue not only to the nations of Europe, but to his own country.  The hand that had thrown the blazing torch into the powder-magazine of the Old World had, he saw clearly, at the same moment completely shifted the national issues in the New. 

He was from the first acutely conscious of the nation's responsibilities toward herself and toward humanity.  That autumn he published a series of articles in which he pointed out the peril to America of trusting for her safety to arbitration treaties that rested not on the nation's defensive strength, but merely on the good will of other nations.  He pointed to the example of Belgium to show how worthless treaties are when armed force is lacking to defend them, and called for an increase in the nation's armament to safeguard her in the thousand perils the World War must inevitably bring in its train. 

His demand was greeted with cries of horror and disgust and violent accusations.  The timid and the sentimental railed at him; the smug and self-assured smiled in superior fashion at the "discredited and disappointed demagogue " who was seeing hobgoblins and making political capital out of his hysterical imaginings. 

Undeterred, he persisted, pointing out the need of some great league of nations to bring about and preserve the peace of righteousness by means of an international tribunal backed by military force. 

The idea of a league of nations was pleasant to the ear, and was approved; but the idea of a military force without which such a league would be a joke as grim and lamentable as the Hague Court was repellant to men unwilling to face facts. 

Once more the storms blew about Roosevelt from every direction of the compass at once.  They blew hardest from Germany.  Before the great war was two months old the German papers, ostentatiously courteous to all other Americans, were virulently attacking Theodore Roosevelt.  The German-language press in the United States took up the fight.  Even the American newspapers printed scathing letters, and no one guessed that three years later the eminent doctors of divinity who signed them would be revealed as the paid agents of Germany.  Through the German-American societies ran the word that Theodore Roosevelt was persona non grata.  One after another they revoked the honorary membership they had once been proud to offer him.  They burned his portrait and assailed him in resolutions. 

Germany and her sympathizers had recognized at a glance the one American that an ambitious and ruthless autocracy had most to fear. 

With the new year came the proclamation by Germany of a war zone about England to be enforced with submarines.  Roosevelt heartily applauded the President's note holding Germany to "strict accountability" and again pleaded for preparedness to meet any national exigency which might present itself in consequence of it.  The peace-at-any-price folk protested, assailing him for his bloodthirsty militarism.  The pro-Germans sneered and scolded.  The timid good, bewailing the fate of the Belgians over their teacups, were shocked at his stern demands.  The great mass ol the people were too busy that first winter, fighting hard times, to listen to him; as spring came, and with it the first hint of a new and bloody prosperity, they became too dazzled by alluring "war brides" to hear the voice of a prophet calling to arms. 

On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was sunk. 

"Without twenty-four hours' delay," said Roosevelt, next day, "this country should declare that, in view of Germany's murderous offenses against the rights of neutrals, all commerce with Germany shall be henceforth forbidden and all commerce of every kind permitted and encouraged with France, England, and the civilized world.  This would not be 3 declaration of war.  I do not believe the assertion of our rights means war, but we will do well to remember there are things worse than war. "

He himself expected war.  Sooner or later he knew that the crash must come, that the United States could not indefinitely bow to a Junker's arrogance and ruthless disregard of right, without losing all self-respect and all prestige among the nations; and he pleaded for that preparedness not only of battle-ships and armed men, but of the spirit, which alone could prevent national disaster. 
There must not be merely preparedness in things material [he cried].  There must be preparedness in soul and mind.  To prepare a great army and navy without preparing a national spirit would avail nothing.  .  .  .  We should devote ourselves as a preparation to preparedness, alike in peace and war, to secure the three elemental things; one, a common language, the English language; two, the increase in oui social loyalty citizenship absolutely undivided, a citizenship which acknowledges no flag except the flag of the United States and which emphatically repudiates all duality of national loyalty; and third, an intelligent and resolute effort for the removal of industrial and social unrest, an effort which shall aim equally to secure every man his rights and to make every man understand that unless he in good faith performs his duties he is QOS' entitled to any rights at all. 
Vigorously and with burning sincerity, in season and out of season, he preached preparedness, Americanism, and national self-respect.     He met first a feeble and then a growing and deepening chorus of assent.  But the voices of the pacifists and the sentimentalists and the materialists, who were well satisfied to eat, to drink, and to be merry on their new-won millions, filled the air with shrill, opposing cries or surly growls "to leave well enough alone. " On all sides was heard the chatter of men and women eager to believe that eloquence could fling a conqueror back within his boundaries.  During those months, that ran at last into years, the country was possessed by a very spirit of mad and sentimental theorizing.  An automobile manufacturer chartered a ship and led a crusade of social workers, verse-writers, stenographers, and elderly small-town oracles to release the soldiers from the trenches.  Every manner of scheme was devised to frighten the German terror away with gestures and words on paper. 

And always Roosevelt's voice boomed like a great bell through the endless chattering, saying: "You can't do it that way.  You can't have the millennium for a scratch of a pen on parchment.  You can't have peace without sacrifice.  You can't have security without service.  You can't enjoy rights without fulfilling obligations!"

It was a hard, unwelcome doctrine, and derision, hatred, and scorn were poured over the preacher of it.  The American people had been allowed to drift into complacent indifference to intolerable wrongs.  Their conscience had been lulled.  A period of prosperity never paralleled in the history of the country had followed the years of business depression and want.  The American people desired neither to think deeply nor to feel deeply.  They wanted to enjoy. 

"Safety first!" was the slogan that flew over the country. 

"Duty first!" boomed Roosevelt. 

Gradually, here and there, his doctrines gained converts, but it was a long, up-hill fight, for complacency in ignoble ease was held up by well-meaning supporters of peace as a commendable virtue, and his own insistence on the duty of American citizens to uphold and, if need be, to defend their rights, was cried down as rank jingoism.  As the presidential election of 1916 drew near it became evident that the issues of national preparedness and national duty which he had raised would mark the line of cleavage between the two parties.  With the coming of the new year Roosevelt's campaign of education began to show its results.  All over the country the sentiment in favor of preparedness began to grow.  The Democratic leaders, who had ridiculed or evaded the question, now skilfully checked their opponents by themselves demanding preparedness on a huge scale without a day's delay. 

The natural leader for an issue which Roosevelt had created was Roosevelt himself, and with increasing emphasis the demand was made that he become a candidate for the Presidency. 

His answer to the question whether he would enter the race was clear and ringing:

It would be a mistake to nominate me [he said, in a statement which he made at Trinidad, after a trip through the Spanish Main early in March] unless the country had 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. 

During the months that followed Roosevelt made no partisan or factional fight for the nomination, but here and there he spoke on the broad questions of Americanism and national honor in a spirit and with an eloquence that kindled the best impulses of the American people.  Roosevelt, who had been "repudiated" in 1910, defeated in 1912, and in 1914 consigned to oblivion alike by American and foreign observers after being deserted by the members of the party he had created and led in the bitterest political struggle in fifty years, was again the foremost figure in American politics.  Defeat had been unable to keep him in obscurity; calumny had left no blot on his character; the pitiless light of a political libel suit had revealed no word or act in his long public record of which he or his supporters need feel ashamed. 

The conventions of the Republican and Progressive parties met simultaneously at Chicago early in June.  There was much running to and fro among the leaders of both parties, much scurrying about in search of a basis of common action.  But the stand-pat Republican leaders had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, and the Republican delegates were hard-bit, short-sighted, and politically timid men and refused to grasp the clear issue which the nomination of Roosevelt would present.  They nominated Justice Hughes instead.  The Progressives nominated Roosevelt.  Roosevelt, recognizing clearly that in division lay defeat and counting the cause for which he had so valiantly fought as supreme over all personal considerations, refused the nomination and offered his support to Hughes. 

In the ensuing campaign the Democratic party, led by the President as a candidate for re-election, appealed to the people on its record of keeping the country out of war.  Roosevelt begged the Republican managers that the issue be made unmistakably clear, that against "Safety First!" the slogan of "Duty First!" be the battle-cry of the Republicans.  But the counsels of timidity prevailed, and in an uninspiring campaign the Republican party lost the chance of a century to achieve either a glorious victory or to go down to a scarcely less glorious defeat. 

The President was re-elected.  Three months later the German ambassador was given his passports.  Two months thereafter America was at war with Germany. 

During the Mexican troubles of the preceding spring Roosevelt had offered to raise a division of volunteers similar in character to the Rough Riders.  The day the German ambassador was expelled he renewed his offer.  It was declined.  Congress thereupon authorized the raising of four divisions of volunteers.  Two hundred thousand men had meanwhile asked to serve under his command, and Roosevelt once more made his offer.  It was again and now definitely declined. 

Roosevelt was deeply disappointed.  "As far as I am concerned," he said, "this is a very exclusive war. "

He could not go himself, but he was not without representatives at the front.  One after the other his four sons volunteered and sailed, Theodore, Archibald, and Quentin for France, Kermit for Mesopotamia.  Quentin, the youngest, was only nineteen. 

"It was hard when Quentin went," said one to whom they were dear, "but you can't bring up boys to be eagles and expect them to act like sparrows. "

Roosevelt, forbidden to fight in the field, turned his attention to the winning of the war at home.  There was no good cause which during the months that followed he did not aid with the force of his eloquence;   no evidence of vacillation and incompetency that he did not castigate in words that stung.  He reserved the right of public criticism of the acts of the administration, and exercised it practically alone among the leaders of the opposition party, with an energy and incisiveness which won the gratitude of men eager that America should act speedily and act greatly, and drew on him the cry of  "Treason!"   from  all  the  sinister,   half-hidden forces still working in the interests of enemy. 

He was called "a common scold" and cheerfully bore the accusation, seeing the demands that he made for action in this field or the other, one after another, accepted.  A private citizen, he became one of the most potent factors in the translation into effective action of the President's eloquent expression of the nation's aims.