The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (41 page)

With his usual optimism, TR believed his request would be granted. He already had his officers picked out. He wrote to President Wilson:

If granted permission, I earnestly ask that Captain Frank McCoy be directed to report to me at once. Minister Fletcher has written me that he is willing. Also if permission to raise the divisions is granted, I would like to come to Washington as soon as the War Department is willing, so that I may find what supplies are available, and at once direct the regular officers who are chosen for brigade and regimental commands how and where to get to work
.

The secretary of war to whom he referred was the same man who he suggested “knit well” in 1916. TR corresponded with Baker by letter as he tried to drum up interest in his military leadership. However, there were too many factors working against him to get Baker and Wilson to go along with his request.

TR was fifty-nine years old, a bit old for military duty. He was in poor health, and he already had one bullet in him. TR had insulted both Baker and President Wilson during the 1916 presidential campaign—and before it. The odds were that his request would be denied. It was.

Permission Denied

President Wilson did not waste any time making a decision. He sent TR a terse note two days later, stating:

I very much regret that I cannot comply with the request in your telegram of yesterday. The reasons I have stated in a public statement made this morning, and I need not assure you that my conclusions were based entirely upon imperative considerations of public policy and not upon personal or private choice
.

It had been a gallant, heroic, and perhaps quixotic effort on TR’s part, but he would have to fight the war vicariously through his sons, all of whom volunteered for military service.

TR recounted his efforts to raise and lead volunteers in his feisty book,
The Foes of Our Own Household
, published in 1917. In that book, he explained precisely why the United States should be involved in the war and why Germany needed to be punished. He laid out concise plans for individual and collective participation—including his own.

There was nothing else for TR to do. He notified his supporters that they would not be going to war. He told them:

It was decided unanimously that in view of the decision of the President the only course open to us is forthwith to disband and to abandon all further effort in connection with the divisions, thereby leaving each man free to get into the military service in some other way, if that is possible, and, if not, then to serve his country in civil life as he best can
.

Ever the good soldier, he concluded, “As good American citizens we loyally obey the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the American Army and Navy.” He returned to heckling the president and planning a possible presidential run in 1920. TR would not live long enough to carry out his plan.

Running Again

In a way, President Wilson might have been better off accepting TR’s offer to go to France. There, TR would have been out of the president’s hair for a while. Instead, TR contented himself with attacking the president’s policies and setting himself up for a possible presidential run in 1920.

TR became more outspoken against Wilson’s policies as the war dragged on. He used his continuing personal popularity to promote the united Republican Party principles in an effort to sway the congressional elections of 1918 back into the party’s power. (The Progressive Party had all but disappeared by 1918.) He succeeded.

The Republicans gained twenty-five seats in the 1918 House of Representatives election. The Democrats lost twenty-two. That gave the Republicans a 240–192 majority in the House. (There were also one Prohibition Party member, one Farmer-Labor Party member, and one Socialist, who the House refused to seat.) The Republican majority put added pressure on President Wilson as he sought a suitable peace treaty.

The outcome of the election not only gave the Republicans more leverage in domestic and foreign policies, but it re-established TR as a viable presidential candidate in the upcoming 1920 election.

TR Lays Out His Platform

TR was sounding like a candidate in 1918. An article in the October issue of
Metropolitan
magazine, “The Men Who Pay with Their Bodies for Their Souls’ Desire,” resembled a campaign platform. Although it sounded like a paean to the troops returning from the war, it laid out a plan for everything from education to unemployment insurance.

In the article, TR called for the implementation of many ideas he had been proposing for years. “The teaching in the schools should be only in English; in this country there is room for but one flag and but for one language,” he averred. He suggested that there should be universal military service and “training and service in the duties of peace”—for men and women.

Other recommendations included preparing shipping for times of peace, dealing on a national scale with factory and industrial conditions, and providing old age, health, and unemployment insurance for workers. He was outlining a wide political agenda.

Criticism Continues

At all times TR was particularly critical of President Wilson’s proposal for a League of Nations, which he had offered after the war ended. He wrote in a January 1919
Metropolitan
magazine article, “If the League of Nations is built on a document as high-sounding and as meaningless as a speech in which Mr. Wilson laid down his fourteen points, it will simply add one more scrap to the diplomatic waste paper basket.”

The speech to which TR referred was delivered by President Wilson to Congress in January 1918. In it, he outlined the fourteen points that formed the basis for a peace program and the November 1918 armistice between Germany and the allied countries. Point fourteen read, “A League of Nations should be set up to guarantee the political and territorial independence of all states.”

The armistice might have served as an issue of contention for TR in the 1920 presidential election. Sadly, he did not get to use it.

The Final Editorial

The March 19, 1919, issue of
Metropolitan
magazine carried an article by TR, titled “Bring the Fighting Men Home.” The editor added a note to it:

On Thursday, January 2nd, Colonel Roosevelt dictated the article to his secretary Miss Stricker who took it to him on Saturday, January 4th. One of the last things he did on the Sunday before his death was to correct the typewritten copy
.

There was one final irony in TR’s death. His last editorial reflected the deeply religious old political and military warrior’s final act. The God he so deeply respected did indeed bring the fighting man home.

Theodore Roosevelt died at his home in Sagamore Hill, New York, on January 6, 1919, of a pulmonary embolism. The world had lost a great leader—but it retained fond memories of a lasting legacy.

QUIZ

16-1 TR and his party planned to travel how many miles on their South American river expedition, not including the voyages there and back?

A. 875

B. 60,000

C. 38,000

D. 109,000

16-2 How many miles did the party actually travel, not including the voyages there and back?

A. 875

B. 109,000

C. 15,000

D. 60,000

16-3 On one occasion during the River of Doubt expedition a snake almost killed TR
.

A. True

B. False

16-4 Sir Edward Grey was:

A. the inventor of Earl Grey tea.

B. the brother of American author Zane Grey.

C. the Socialist Party candidate in the 1912 election.

D. an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British politician and statesman.

16-5 Even though Germany did not play a role in the 1845–1846 Mexican-American War, it offered to return land to the Mexicans in exchange for their help in WWI
.

A. True

B. False

16-6 Woodrow Wilson was the president of what university before becoming president of the United States?

A. Yale

B. Dakota Wesleyan

C. Princeton

D. Cambridge

ANSWERS

16-1. B

16-2. C

16-3. True: A coral snake sank its fangs into TR’s boot one night. But it could not penetrate its thick leather, so TR lived to explore some more. So did his boot.

16-4. D

16-5. False: Germany offered the land if Mexico would join it in the war against the United States. Germany did not actually have any Mexican land to offer.

16-6. C: He served from 1902–1910 as the university’s thirteenth president.

CHAPTER 17

Theodore Roosevelt’s Literary Bent

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

TR was one of the most well-rounded people of his era. He developed interests in a variety of disciplines as a youth and expanded his areas of academic and practical expertise as he grew older and more experienced through memberships in elite organizations such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Historical Association and the friendships he cultivated. His memberships in prestigious organizations and his access to people through his books, articles, and literary positions gave him more opportunity to influence events. He used them shrewdly.

Eclecticism

Few people in TR’s circle of associates were as well-versed as he was across the spectrum of academic and literary pursuits. Nevertheless, the people with whom he associated helped him develop his knowledge and skill sets even more.

More importantly, TR and his associates used their knowledge to help educate people at all levels of society. Sometimes their efforts went unrecognized. At other times, they led to controversy. In many cases, they were long-lasting. In fact, some of TR’s initiatives and innovations are still affecting society today.

“Nature Fakers”

A controversy arose in the United States in the early 1900s over whether animals were governed by instinct, instruction, or intuition and how they should be presented in literature. Most people really did not care.

Readers enjoyed stories like Anna Sewell’s
Black Beauty
, published in 1890; Jack London’s
White Fang
(a sequel to his 1903 best seller,
The Call of the Wild
, which appeared in serial form in
Outing
magazine prior to its publication in book form in 1906); and William Long’s
Brier-Patch Philosophy
(appearing in
Harper’s Monthly
starting in early 1905 under the pseudonym Peter Rabbit). As innocuous as such stories were, they generated significant literary controversy.

Writers Versus Naturalists

Stories of the generic genre irritated true naturalists such as John Burroughs and William Morton Wheeler, who abhorred the fact that writers untrained in animal science were leading people to believe erroneously that some critters had human tendencies. Worse, as Burroughs and his supporters suggested, these pseudo-naturalists were writing more to earn money than to educate readers about what really drove animals to do what they did, namely instinct.

TR read most of the articles and stories, but he stayed out of the debate for the first three years it raged. He was too busy settling matters between Russia and Japan, preparing the “Great White Fleet” for its trip around the world, overseeing the construction of the Panama Canal, and carrying out his other presidential duties to get involved in discussions about instinct versus intellect as they applied to animals.