Thus the history of the way in which the Government of the United States, when war was eventually declared, secured its officers is told. {219} One might go into detail, but the main facts are not altered by any amount of detail. They stand out clearly--the awakening of our land in time by the energy and patriotic spirit of one man, supplemented by the untold amount of work accomplished at his suggestion by thousands of patriotic American citizens.
And in the midst of this work before war was declared General Wood, as a part of his plan of preparedness, asked some ten or twelve men to come to Plattsburg at different times to speak to the student officers. Among these men he included the two living ex-presidents of the United States--Mr. Taft and Colonel Roosevelt. He first submitted the list of speakers to the War Department so that the Department might eliminate any one of them who for any reason should appear to be undesirable.
After two weeks, having had no reply, he sent out the invitations and from time to time these speakers came and addressed the members of the different camps.
Roosevelt on his arrival at Plattsburg handed to Wood the speech he proposed to deliver; and {220} in view of the known critical attitude which the former took towards the administration Wood asked two other army officers to go over the proposed speech with him and help him to eliminate anything which might be questioned upon such an occasion. The address was delivered at about five o'clock in the afternoon at the camp and when it was finished Roosevelt was heartily congratulated personally by many men of both political parties, among them two distinguished Democrats--John Mitchel, Mayor of New York, and Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York.
After dinner Roosevelt left in the evening to go into the city of Plattsburg, a mile or two away from the camp, to take the midnight train for New York. As he stood on the platform of the railway station some time after eleven in the evening he was interviewed by the newspaper reporters. No military person was present. What he said was given out on territory not under military jurisdiction and it had nothing to do with the Plattsburg speech. Roosevelt spoke to the newspaper men in his usual forcible fashion:
"In the course of his speech he remarked that {221} for thirteen months the United States had played an ignoble part among the nations, had tamely submitted to seeing the weak, whom we had covenanted to protect, wronged; had seen our men, women and children murdered on the high seas 'without action on our part,' and had used elocution as a substitute for action. 'Reliance upon high sounding words unbacked by deeds,' said he, 'is proof of a mind that dwells only in the realm of shadow and of sham.' Under the Hague Convention it was our duty to prevent, and, if not to prevent, then to undo, the hideous wrong that was done in Belgium, but we had shirked this duty. He denounced hyphenated Americans, professional pacifists and those who would substitute arbitration treaties for an army, or the platitudes of peace congresses for military preparedness."
The next day Wood received a telegraphic reprimand from the Government in Washington. "In this telegram of disapproval. Secretary Garrison said it was difficult to conceive of anything which could have a more detrimental effect than such an incident. The camp, held under the {222} Government auspices, was conveying its own impressive lesson in its practical and successful operation and results. 'No opportunity should have been furnished to any one to present to the men any matter except that which was essential to the necessary training they were to receive. Anything else could only have the effect of distracting attention from the real nature of the experiment, diverting consideration to issues which excite controversy, antagonism and ill-feeling, and thereby impairing, if not destroying, what otherwise would have been so effective.' General Wood replied, as follows: 'Your telegram received, and the policy laid down will be rigidly adhered to.'" [Footnote: The Independent.]
{223}
THE GREAT WAR
{224}