Roebling, John August.
Roebling, John August.—One of the greatest engineers and America’s leading bridge builder. Among his famous achievements are the Pennsylvania Canal Aqueduct, across the Alleghany River (1842), Niagara Suspension Bridge (1852), the Cincinnati-Covington bridge, with a span of 1,200 feet, and the famous Brooklyn Bridge across the East River, completed by his son, Washington, upon the death of its designer. Roebling was born June 12, 1806, at Muehlhausen, Thuringia, and learned engineering at Erfurt and Berlin.
Rassieur, Leo.
Rassieur, Leo.—The only German ever elected Commander of the G. A. R. Served as major throughout the Civil War.
Roosevelt, Col. Theodore.
Roosevelt, Col. Theodore.—Ex-President Roosevelt’s early position on the war has never been cleared up satisfactorily. For more than two months after the outbreak of the war, August, 1914, he held that we were not called upon to interfere on account of the invasion of Belgium. During this time he was not only accounted neutral, but rather friendly to the German side, as was generally understood. He had been cordially received by the Kaiser, whom he allotted the chief credit for his success in bringing about peace between Russia and Japan, and during his term of President one of his most intimate friends was Baron Speck von Sternburg, the German ambassador.He was publicly charged by Mr. Andre Tardieu, the French editor, with trying to influence the Algeciras convention of the powers to favor Germany’s claims in Morocco, although, as M. Tardieu intimated in an article, he must have known of the secret understanding between this government and Great Britain. At all events, in the fall of 1914, Col. Roosevelt wrote in the Outlook Magazine that we had no concern with the invasion of Belgium. In September, 1914, the great war then being in its second month, Col. Roosevelt wrote:
It is certainly desirable that we should remain entirely neutral, and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or other.
Still later Col. Roosevelt wrote:
I am not passing judgment on Germany’s action.... I admire and respect the German people. I am proud of the German blood in my veins. When a nation feels that the issue of a contest in which, from whatever reason, it finds itself engaged will be national life or death, it is inevitable that it should act so as to save itself from death and to perpetuate its life.... What has been done in Belgium has been done in accordance with what the Germans unquestionably sincerely believed to be the course of conduct necessitated by Germany’s struggle for life.
Col. Roosevelt’s neutrality was a subject of newspaper comment, as indicated by an article in the New York “Times” of September 14, 1914, headed: “Roosevelt Neutral—Confers with Oscar Straus Again, Presumably about Mediation—Is the Kaiser’s Friend.” The lines gave the import of a dispatch from Oyster Bay, Roosevelt’s place of residence, and related that “Mr. Straus’s talks with Roosevelt, coupled with the diplomatic activity of Mr. Straus in diplomatic circles in Washington and New York, have given rise to rumors that Roosevelt’s aid is being sought by those who are endeavoring to pave the way for a settlement of the war.”