My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt

by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

Robert Frost, who was with us that afternoon, had shortly before published a remarkable poem called “Servant to Servants,” which had attracted my brother’s attention, and of which he spoke with keen interest to the author. Nothing distressed him more than the realization of the hard work performed by the farmer’s wife almost everywhere in our country, and in this poem of Mr. Frost’s that situation was painted with his forceful pen.

This remarkable memory of my brother’s was shown not only that afternoon amongst the poets, but shortly afterward by an incident in connection with an afternoon at the Three Arts Club, where he also generously consented to spend an hour amongst the young girls who had come from various places in our broad country to study one of the three arts—drama, music, or painting—in our great metropolis. My friend Mrs. John Henry Hammond, the able president of the Three Arts Club, was anxious that he should meet her protégées and mine, for I was a manager of the club. I remember we lined the girls up in a row and had them pass in front of him in single file—several hundred young girls. Each was to have a shake of the hand and a special word from the ex-President, but none was supposed to pause more than a moment, as his time was limited. About fifty or sixty girls had already passed in front of him and received a cordial greeting, when a very pretty student, having received her greeting, paused a little longer and, looking straight at him, said: “Colonel Roosevelt, don’t you remember me?” This half-laughingly—evidently having been dared to ask the question. Holding her hand and gazing earnestly at her, he paused a moment or two and then, with a brilliant flashing smile, said: “Of course I do. You were the little girl, seven years ago, on a white bucking pony at El Paso, Texas, where I went down to a reunion of my Rough Riders. I remember your little pony almost fell backward into the carriage when it reared at the noise of the band.” There never was a more surprised girl than the one in question, for seven years had made a big difference in the child of twelve, the rider of the bucking white pony, and it had really not occurred to her that he could possibly remember the incident, but remember it he did, and one very happy heart was carried away that day from the Three Arts Club.

As the winter of 1917 slipped by, there was evidence on all sides that the slogan on which the Democratic party had based its campaign efforts must soon be falsified; nothing could keep the American people longer from their paramount duty, and on April 2, 1917, President Wilson appeared before the united bodies of the House and the Senate in Washington, and asked that Congress should declare a state of war between Germany and ourselves. Colonel Roosevelt, always anxious to back up the President in any action in which he thought he was right, went to Washington, or rather stopped in Washington, for he was in the South at the time, to congratulate him on his decision and to offer his services to assist the President in any way that might be possible.

Within a few weeks of the actual declaration of war, Mr. Roosevelt was already begging that he might be allowed to raise a volunteer division, and urging that the administration Army Bill should be supplemented with legislation authorizing the raising of from one hundred to five hundred thousand volunteers to be sent to the firing-line in Europe at the earliest possible moment. In a letter to Senator George E. Chamberlain, of Oregon, Colonel Roosevelt writes as follows:

“I most earnestly and heartily support the administration bill for providing an army raised on the principle of universal obligatory military training and service, but meanwhile, let us use volunteer forces in connection with a portion of the Regular army, in order, at the earliest possible moment,—within a few months,—to put our flag on the firing line. We owe this to humanity; we owe it to the small nations who have suffered such dreadful wrong from Germany. Most of all, we owe it to ourselves; to our national honor and self-respect. For the sake of our own souls, for the sake of the memories of the great Americans of the past, we must show that we do not intend to make this merely a dollar war. Let us pay with our bodies for our souls’ desire. Let us, without one hour’s unnecessary delay, put the American flag at the battle-front in this great world war for Democracy and civilization, and for the reign of Justice and fair-dealing among the nations of mankind.

“My proposal is to use the volunteer system not in the smallest degree as a substitute for, but as the, at present, necessary supplement to the obligatory system. Certain of the volunteer organizations could be used very soon; they could be put into the fighting in four months.... I therefore propose that there should be added to the proposed law, a section based on Section 12 of the Army Act of March 2nd, 1899....”

At the same time Representative Caldwell made an open statement as follows: “The Army Bill suggested by Secretary Baker will, in all probability, be introduced in the House on Wednesday. There have been suggestions made that a clause be placed in the proposed bill which would give Colonel Roosevelt the power to take an army division to Europe. Colonel Roosevelt outlined his plans to me.... I am a Democrat and intend to abide by the wishes of President Wilson and told Colonel Roosevelt so. We agreed that there was no politics in this matter, and from my talk with Mr. Roosevelt, I believe him to be sincere in his purpose. He gave me the names of men throughout the country who signified their intention of joining his division. They include a number of men who served as officers with him in the Spanish War, many college students, former officers and members of the National Guard, all of whom are in the best of physical condition and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Colonel Roosevelt said that a large majority of the men whom he hoped to take with him are from the south and west.”

Already, at the first intimation that Colonel Roosevelt might lead a division into France, there had flocked to his standard thousands of men, just as had been the case in the old days of the Rough Riders. As immediate as was the rallying to his standard were also the attacks made upon him for having wished to dedicate himself to this patriotic enterprise, and one of the most acrimonious debates that ever occurred in the Senate of the United States was on the subject of the amendment to that Army Bill. The Democrats, led by Senator Stone, had much to say about the unfitness of the Colonel. They did not seem to realize how strong was the desire of France to have America’s best-known citizen go to her shores at the moment when her morale was at the ebb; nor did they realize, apparently, the promise for the future that there would be in the rapid arrival of a large body of ardent American soldiers, well equipped to tide over the period of waiting before a still larger force could come to the assistance of the Allies.

Senator Hiram Johnson, orator and patriot, made a glowing defense of Colonel Roosevelt in answering Senator Stone. It is interesting to realize at this moment, when former Senator Harding is the President of the United States, that it was he who offered the amendment to the Army Bill, making it possible for Colonel Roosevelt to lead that division into France. Senator Johnson said:

“... I listened with surprise—indeed, as a senator of the United States, with humiliation—to the remarks of the senior senator from Missouri as he excoriated Theodore Roosevelt and as he held up to scorn and contumely what he termed contemptuously ‘The Roosevelt Division.’ What is it that is asked for The Roosevelt Division? It is asked only by a man who is now really in the twilight of life that he may finally lay down his life for the country that is his. It is only that he asks that he may serve that country, may go forth to battle for his country’s rights, and may do all that may be done by a human being on behalf of his nation. My God! When was it that a nation denied to its sons the right to fight in its behalf? We have stood shoulder to shoulder both sides of this Chamber in this war. To say that Roosevelt desires, for personal ambition and political favor hereafter, to go to war is to deny the entire life of this patriot.... Our distinguished senator has said that Roosevelt has toured the land in the endeavor to do that which he desires. Aye, he has toured the land; he toured the land for preparedness two and a half years ago, and he was laughed at as hysterical. He toured the land two and a half years ago and continuously since for undiluted Americanism, and you said he was filled with jingoism. To-day you have adopted his preparedness plan; to-day his undiluted Americanism that he preached to many, to which but few listened, has become the slogan of the whole nation. He toured the land for patriotism!... After all, my friends, Roosevelt fought in the past and he fought for the United States of America; after all, he asks only that he be permitted to fight to-day for the United States of America. He is accused of a lack of experience.... There is one thing this man has—one thing that he has proven in the life he has lived in the open in this nation—he has red blood in his veins and he has the ability to fight and he has the tenacity to win when he fights, and that is the sort of an American that is needed and required in this war. I say to you, gentlemen of this particular assemblage, that if a man can raise a division, if he wishes to fight, die, if need be, for his country, it is a sad and an awful thing that his motive shall be questioned and his opinions assailed in the very act that is indeed the closing act of his career.