Mr. Roosevelt wrote regularly for The Outlook, later for the Metropolitan Magazine and the Kansas City Star. Thousands of his countrymen read his articles, and found in them the only expression of the American spirit which was being uttered. Americans were puzzled, troubled and finally humiliated by the letters and speeches which came from Washington. To be told that in this struggle between the blood-guilty Hun, and the civilized nations of the earth, that we must keep even our minds impartial seemed an impossible command. School-boys throughout the country must have wondered why President Wilson, with every means for getting information, should have to confess that he did not know what the war was about! And when Mr. Wilson declared in favor of a peace without victory, his friends and admirers were kept busy explaining, some of them, that he meant without victory for the Allies, and others that he meant without victory for Germany, and still others that he meant without victory for anybody in particular.
It was not strange that Americans began to wonder what country they were living in, and whether they had been mistaken in thinking that America had a heroic history, in which its citizens took pride. No wonder they turned their eyes to Europe, where scores of young Americans, sickening at the state of things at home, had eagerly volunteered to fight with France or England against the Hun. One of these, named Alan Seeger, who wrote the fine poem “I have a Rendezvous with Death,” died in battle on our Independence Day. He also wrote a poem called “A Message to America.”[27] In it he said that America had once a leader:
[27] Seeger. Poems, pp. 164, 165.
… the man
Most fit to be called American.
In it he spoke further of the same leader
I have been too long from my country’s shores
To reckon what state of mind is yours,
But as for myself I know right well
I would go through fire and shot and shell
And face new perils and make my bed
In new privations, if Roosevelt led.
One did not have to be long with the men who volunteered at the beginning of the war to know that Roosevelt’s spirit led these men, and that they looked to him and trusted him as the great American. The country’s honor was safe in his hands, and no mawkish nor cowardly words ever came from his lips.
He pointed out the folly of the pacifist type of public men, like Mr. Bryan and Mr. Ford. The latter, helpless as a butterfly in those iron years, led his quarreling group of pilgrims to Europe, on his “Peace Ship,” and then left them to their incessant fights with each other. The American public was quick to see the contrast, when war came, and Roosevelt’s four sons and son-in-law all volunteered, while Mr. Ford’s son took advantage of some law and avoided military duty, in order to add more millions to his already enormous heap. The lesson of Roosevelt’s teaching and example was not lost, and the people recognized that the country would endure while it had men like the Roosevelts, but that it would go down in infamy if the other sort became numerous.
In the election of 1916 Mr. Roosevelt, after refusing the Progressive nomination, supported Mr. Hughes, the Republican, against President Wilson. He tried hard to get Mr. Hughes to come out with some utterance which would put him plainly on record against the Germans and Pro-Germans who were filling America with their poisonous schemes. For we continued to entertain German diplomats and agents (paymasters, as they were, of murderers and plotters of arson) and to run on Germany’s errands in various countries. The cry “He kept us out of war” was effectively used to reelect Mr. Wilson, although members of the Government must have been thoroughly well aware that war was coming and coming soon.