Topic 21 
"THE DIVISION"

THE day the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, Colonel Roosevelt decided war with Germany was inevitable and made his preparations accordingly.  These preparations consisted in laying the groundwork for the division (later an army corps) he asked permission to recruit and serve in.

Colonel Roosevelt told me that, when in June, 1916, war with Mexico seemed possible, he had quietly asked permission to put a division, modelled on the old "Rough Rider" idea, into the field.

"Winslow," said he, in discussing the Mexican offer, "came in on this thing more than a year ago.  He was one of the first to be considered when I decided to raise the organization.  That was at the time the Lusitania was sunk.

"Yes, that was when the thing was born.  It was planned for use against the Germans."

"Winslow" was Rear Admiral Cameron McR.  Winslow, then about to be retired from the navy because of the age limit.

From the day of its birth until the plan was finally abandoned, Colonel Roosevelt had the assistance of the ablest men in the military service of the United States.  The work was done quietly, so quietly that it was not until war threatened with Mexico that there was any public intimation that the warrior had smelled "the battle from afar." Even then there was no hint allowed to reach the public as to how nearly complete the plans were or that they were originally drawn for use against Germany.

In this work, the Colonel followed his practice of a lifetime — early and careful preparation with the utilization of the best brains available.  Whatever the impression among witlanders, those within the circle of Colonel Roosevelt's friendship knew that in military as in other matters he invariably relied on expert advice.  In so far as the army was concerned, this was always his.  Never popular with the "swivel chair" men, and disliked by others for the "big jump " he gave Pershing, he was at all times the ideal of the real fighting men in the army.  At the hint that he saw war coming and was preparing to take part in it, these besieged him at Oyster Bay and bombarded him with letters.  When finally the plan was given world wide publicity, appeals to be "counted in" came by cable from army men in isolated Siam and far distant Manila, as well as from nearer points in Europe.

In a sense the plan was the old story of the "big stick" again, for the central thought was to hit quickly and hit hard.

Contrary to a widely held belief, Colonel Roosevelt at no time asked or expected to be given command of the corps or even of a division.

" I shall be content," he told me, as he did others repeatedly, "if I am made the junior brigadier.

"What I would like to see is two divisions with two volunteer and one regular regiment in each brigade.  The regiment that I would raise would be on the model of the Rough Riders and the thirty regiments raised to put down the Philippine rebellion.  Most of those had young regulars as colonels and a sprinkling of regular officers elsewhere.  I have asked no man to join me who would be in the draft or the National Guard, or whose coming would in any way interfere with the Administration's plans.  My men would be of the solid business type, $2500 to $50,000 a year men.  The broncho buster type will be very much lacking.

"In asking a junior place for myself, I am doing what I did in the war with Spain.  McKinley offered me the colonelcy of the Rough Riders.  I declined it and asked that the command be given Wood.  It is worth remembering that my regiment then was raised, armed, equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept two weeks on transports and put through a victorious aggressive fight in which one third of its officers and one fifth of its men were killed or wounded, all within sixty days from the time Wood and I were commissioned.

"Ever since war was declared, I have been urging that men be sent over at once — even a small force — for the vast moral effect it would have.  This, I know, is what General Joffre advises.  If we can get the necessary permission we will speed up on the lines followed in getting my old regiment into the field.  The type of men we will get and intensive training will enable us to land in France at a very early date.

"Some of you boys will wish to come and I will take you along, but remember, you'll then see a side of me you have n't seen.  It will be hard work."

Colonel Roosevelt's plan contemplated, as he explained, all the advantages of using Guard regiments as the first (after the few regulars available) to be sent across, and none of the unfairness that must result in taking the large percentage of men with dependents in the Guard from their families.  Use of the Guard regiments on foreign or semi-foreign, such as Mexican Border, work, he always opposed.

"Foolish"and "unjust" were his terms to describe the mobilizing of the National Guard on the Mexican Border in 1916, when he made application for service for himself and the division he had planned.

"Three fourths of the National Guardsmen have no business in this thing," he said.  "They are married men with families dependent upon them.  In the regiment of a cousin of mine, in his company, his top sergeant, an Irishman, a mechanic, quits $100 a month, and his family will have to try and live on $30.  Another chap has $85 a month, three children, and a wife.  They must live on $16 a month and his job is gone.

"Take a captain in this command, another Irishman, McCoy, who used to play football.  He's been very successful as a lawyer and is earning $18,000 or so a year.  On his docket are fifty-two cases.  Now the fifty-two cases must go elsewhere and Mrs.  McCoy will have $3500 to do on instead of $18,000.  It's a question whether or not he will ever get his practice back.  There are dozens, scores, hundreds of such cases.  It is all wrong — it throws too much of a load where it does not belong.

" Now if we had universal military service the men to go would be the unmarried fellows of eighteen to twenty-eight — poor man's son, rich man's son, the grocer's lad, and the millionaire's boy.  Quentin would be the representative of this family.  How much better that would be!

"A single man can always get along.  Loss of a job is nothing to him.  He can always get another start.

He won't be hurt, though he may be inconvenienced.  It is nonsense to send National Guardsmen of this type to guard the border — it is all wrong."

"That would be a splendid thing to let me print now," I suggested.

"No, no — I cannot say a word for publication now.  Later — perhaps.  If Wilson is wise he will give me a commission."

"How can he do that under the law?" I asked, the Colonel being past the age limit fixed in a statute he, as President, had aided in placing on the books.

"How? Has n't he got to have a new law before he can raise volunteers?"

The words were fairly snapped out.  It was the first intimation that he had found a door through which he might enter any army raised for service in Mexico or Europe with the division he had in contemplation.  Something had been printed about this — just enough to whet the public interest.

"We are getting reports from here and there, Colonel," I said, "indicating that something of this sort is expected of you.  We would like very much to be able to send out something definite."

"Impossible," said he.  "Don't you see that that would at once result in three things: flooding of my mail with letters from men wanting to join and importunities for commissions I would not have to give; all the cranks in the world sending me advice and more tangible but useless things; and every editorial wit with a two-by-four intellect writing 'near bright' editorials about 'Roosevelt Hogging the Lime Light' — 'T.  R.  Seeking the Front Page'? That is impossible!

" If there is a call for volunteers — and I think there will be — I shall do my duty to the fullest extent permitted me.  Until then I want to be allowed as large a measure of privacy as possible.  I want to be as free to come and go as you are."

For several days we sought to get permission to print the story of his proposed Mexican division.  The details — since printed — we knew.  We also knew, thanks to A.  Leonard Smith, of the "newspaper cabinet," who was born in the army, that it would not be formed on orthodox army lines, having an unusual preponderance of cavalry and artillery, and a minimum of infantry; that it would be, as an officer of engineers described it to Smith "a re-enforced division."

"Colonel Blank was at our place to dinner last night," said Smith.  "I told him what the Colonel had in mind.

"'Lord!' said he, 'that thing will have a punch like an army mule, and the speed of a cyclone.  If it ever gets under way, it won't stop this side of the canal.  Once started, the rest of the army won't see it for dust.  Its only weakness may be in supply."

"There will be no difficulty on that score," the Colonel said when this was repeated to him.  "Supplies will come through all right.  If not, the men I'll take along will see that they do.  I 've had some experience getting through Quartermaster's red tape in Cuba."

As the Colonel had anticipated, definite though anonymous statements of his intentions sent many persons looking for commissions.  Among those going to Oyster Bay was Roosevelt's one time Secretary of War, "Harry" Stimson, who arrived, unannounced, one Sunday afternoon.

"What is it you want, Harry?" the Colonel asked after exchanging the usual greetings.

"I read in the papers," said he, "that you were going to raise a division for service in Mexico.  I also read that it was a fake.  I came down to see if it was so."

"So!" snapped the Colonel; "of course it's so.  What about it; what do you want to do?"

"I came to see what I could do to help.  I'll do anything."

Thus Stimson, exSecretary of War, joined the list of men notable in many walks of life who were to have gone with Roosevelt to Mexico had he been permitted to go.  To Stimson, who knew nothing of the plan, he read the roll, as it were — "Bob" Bacon, millionaire banker and diplomatist; "Jack" Greenway, Yale athlete and best loved of the Rough Riders; Rear Admiral Cameron McR.  Winslow; Seth Bullock, exsheriff of Deadwood, when Deadwood was new; Thomas C.  Desmond, subway and ship builder; and Dan Collier, California miner, among those not on the regular army list.  As for those in the regular establishment, the list read like a rollcall of the Army Four Hundred — Sheridan, Fitz Lee, Young, Jackson, Chaffee, Mosby, and Forrest, to name a few of them.

"Are you going to arm your cavalry with sabers or lances?" Mr.  Stimson asked.

"Certainly not," replied the Colonel.  "I'll have no time to teach them the use of swords.  If they require any hand weapon of that sort, I'll give them hatchets.  They will at least know how to chop."

No public announcement was made of his plans by Colonel Roosevelt until July 4, when, speaking to "my fellow townsmen," he declared his purpose of taking some of them with him.  Any detailed statement he barred until after his formal application had been filed with the War Department.  Two days later he gave me, for the group of newspaper men assigned to Oyster Bay, permission to "let it drive."

"Use," said he, "no names of officers now in the regular establishment.  To print them now would be to embarrass them.  This is a pretty vicious Administration, you know.  Use the names of Stimson, Bullock, and the other civilians.  They cannot be damaged."

The Colonel's hope of doing anything with Mexico soon evaporated.  Less than a fortnight later, when he asked how soon the correspondents would leave Oyster Bay, I told him the division matter would hold them there awhile longer.

"It will not permit us to drop you," he was told.

"For the present it will.  We won't have war with Mexico.  This man will never declare war on Mexico.  The only way that war will come will be by Mexico declaring war on us.

"Later on as election draws near he may do something, but — bah!

"He is impossible.  I never have any patience with the man who, after his toes have been tread upon, his nose tweaked, his face slapped and spat upon, turns on his tormentor and says: 'Beware, sir, lest you arouse the lion!''

As the Colonel anticipated, the Mexican affair fizzled out.  The division plans remained intact, however, preserved for use against the enemy for whose benefit they were first drawn.  From time to time changes were made, until, when early in 1917 it became apparent that our entrance into the war could not be much longer delayed, they were again brought out, and a new petition to the War Department for permission to raise and equip such a force was prepared.

Quietly the necessary "paper work" of a division, enormous in itself, was done under the direction of experts, money without limit was pledged from private purses to offset any delay that might accrue from temporary lack of government funds, and tentative arrangement made for such equipment as the War Department might lack.

"They have made ready for nothing; they will be short of everything," the Colonel said.  "We will, if we get the necessary permission, be ready to move quickly."

On February 2, 1917, two days after Germany announced her programme of "ruthless submarine warfare," Colonel Roosevelt sent a renewal of his offer to raise troops to Mr.  Baker.

When it was filed, the Colonel was scheduled for a trip to Jamaica to rest up a bit.  This trip he abandoned.

" I do not expect to get what I ask at this time," said he, "but I am determined to use every effort to get the necessary permission.  I shall not go away, for I feel that I should stand by.  Furthermore, my letter to Baker cannot be made public by me, and if I sailed it might look as though I were going away at a time when I should stay at home to be ready if wanted.  So I shall cancel my passage."

"I am going to keep at this thing," he said some days later when it became apparent the War Department would be in no haste to grant his request.  "While nothing may come of it so far as I am directly concerned, it may help the country.  It is helping the country by arousing the interest in preparedness.  But, oh, the pity of it! At war, and the President refuses to acknowledge the fact and make ready."

Meantime applications for permission to go along with the Colonel piled in from all sides, and from men in all walks of life.  In Congress, Senator Harding, of Ohio, offered an amendment tacked on the Army Bill which would permit the Colonel to raise a force.  This was adopted in the Senate, but hung fire in the House.

To get it through the House, it was suggested to the Colonel that the one hundred thousand or more men who had then asked to be enrolled, be told to write their Congressmen urging its adoption.

"I cannot write such letters," the Colonel said.  "It's out of the question."

This was admitted, but enough was thought of the idea to call "Bob" Bacon into consultation on it.  Bacon found a quieter way of getting the desired result.

In San Diego then lived Daniel C.  Collier, miner, banker, real estate operator, and all around organizer.  In competition with the Panama Fair in San Francisco, he had made a fair in San Diego a big success — his specialty seemed to be doing difficult things.  Collier was of those who were to have commissions in the division.  He was called East, told of the situation in Congress, and asked to "get busy."

He did.  He worked so quietly that none of the Washington correspondents noted him or his activities.  The night before the House voted, he left Washington, hopeful for the best, but fearing he had failed.  The day of the vote I met him en route to Oyster Bay.

"I've just heard the vote and am feeling pretty good," he said, "but I was n't at all sure we had the votes.  Just now I 'm not sure the President will act under it."

This also was Colonel Roosevelt's opinion.

"The vote," said he, "does not mean that I am commissioned, not by a jug-full.  It does open the door, but that might have been opened any time Mr.  Wilson wished it opened."

The adoption of the Harding amendment served to increase the flood of offers of men, and the offices, opened on Fifth Avenue to handle the correspondence, did a land office business.  Eventually, as is well known, the Colonel had enough volunteers to fit out an army corps.  At no time, however, was the Colonel or those closest to him over sanguine.

"I hope for the best, but fear the worst," the Colonel told me more than once as the days went on.  "I am still exchanging letters with Mr.  Baker.

"He has changed his position so rapidly he reminds one of the fly wheel of an engine.  But the dear little fellow is not to blame.  He's been trying to defend a bad case."

The National Government taking no action, Charles S.  Whitman, then Governor, offered to aid.  He offered to make the Colonel a Major General in the National Guard of New York, this on the theory that once he was in the Guard, President Wilson would permit him to go with it into the national service.  The Colonel did not think this practical — but went to Albany to talk it over with the Governor.  He returned practically convinced that the scheme was impracticable.

"We had a pleasant talk," he told me, "but I doubt if anything comes of it.  For one thing I do not wish to be under obligation to Whitman.  If he does anything for me, I shall have to do something for him and he's wise enough to realize that.  There is nothing very disinterested in Mr.  Whitman's offer, but I do appreciate it just the same."

Meanwhile men who had sought to go with the Colonel were beginning to despair.  Many wrote in asking what they should do.  Among these was one from "Tom" Desmond.  Desmond had lined up three thousand engineers, the pick of the thirty thousand subway diggers then working in New York, this thirty thousand in turn being the cream of the heavy construction men in the world.  The answer to Desmond's letter was the vehicle chosen by the Colonel to tell all that it was their duty to get "over there" any way they could.

As originally drafted, this letter, which now hangs on the wall of Mr.  Desmond's New York office, admitted final and complete defeat.  Slaght of the "newspaper cabinet" pointed this out.

"That phrase, ' It is to me a matter of the keenest regret that I cannot take you in a division to France,' is an admission you are beaten," he said.

"Very well," said the Colonel, "your point is well taken.  Let us see how we can avoid destroying the small hope you think may remain."

Consequently the letter, on the original of which the changes plainly show, as made public read: "It will be to me a matter of the keenest regret if I cannot take you in a division to France." The change did not affect the advice to get in.

This letter, dated May 9, 1917, was to all intents and purposes the end of the movement.  A few days later there were gatherings of the clan at Oyster Bay and in the New York offices of the division.  To these came among others Seth Bullock, Jack Greenway, John M.  Parker of Louisiana, " Bob" Carey of Wyoming, "Dan" Collier of California, Sloane Simpson of Texas, J.  L.  Reeves and H.  N.  Jackson, teachers in Norwich College, Vermont, where Dewey studied, Hamilton Fish, Dr.  William Jay Schieffelin, " Bill" Donovan of New York, "Dave" Goodrich, and others.  Never, except in a house of death, have I noticed a greater air of depression.  All except the Colonel showed it plainly.  He, it was apparent to those who knew him best, felt worse than any other.

"I feel like hell about the whole thing," is the way Bullock expressed himself, "and so do the rest of us.  The Colonel feels worst of all, only he's too proud to let on.  He may fool some of you boys, but he can't fool us.  We've tried to tell him there may be some way out, but he admits he's licked and I figure it that way too.  So I guess this is the end.  There is no way of getting around the President's announcement that he won't act under the Harding amendment."

"We must, as loyal American citizens, bow to the decision of the commander-in-chief of the army and navy, the President," said the Colonel, "so we are releasing everybody, returning the money that has been subscribed, and telling every one to get in as best he can."

The Colonel was far from thinking he had failed entirely.  He took immense satisfaction in a Washington despatch to the Brooklyn Eagle, describing the decision to send troops at once as "a compromise" between the original plans of the General Staff which called for no early movement of troops abroad, and the request of the Colonel to be permitted to take troops abroad.  The dispatch bore all the ear marks of being "inspired."

"If," said the Colonel, "the dispatch gives the real explanation of the matter, and I think it does, I can say we are all unselfishly pleased to have served this use, although, naturally, we regret not to have been allowed to go ourselves.  It is due the men that the full facts should be known.

" If my request had been granted the various units of the first division would begin to assemble tomorrow at whatever point the department designates.  Personally I would have preferred Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  We were prepared to make good any immediate lack of supplies.  In fifteen days the second division would have begun to mobilize.  At intervals of thirty days the others would have mobilized.  At intervals of thirty days thereafter the commands would have been ready to sail for intensive training in France.  All could have been on the firing line by September I, the time set for the first draft to become effective.

"Under the 'compromise' men go abroad earlier than Mr.  Baker had intended they should.  The 'compromise,' therefore, is that France gets men and Roosevelt stays at home.  That is not entirely satisfactory to Roosevelt, not by a long shot, but it is something.  We are not one hundred per cent loss, and we have not worked in vain."

In later talks, the Colonel insisted that "the division" had helped improve the war situation.

"We did n't get over," he would say, "but we did help.  Baker has had to do everything I wanted him to do and that he said could not be done; we have troops in France long ahead of the time they planned to send them; we have helped arouse the country.

"It is the regret of my life that I am not permitted to serve.  Had I been, they would have no fear of political glory to be reaped by me, for I would never have come back.  Had they sense, they would have known that."