The Career of Leonard Wood

by Joseph Hamblen Sears

Wood saw the President, explained the situation and was told that the latter would take the matter under consideration.

No consideration was ever reported.

Meantime the order sending him to California created such an uproar throughout the United States that it was rescinded and General Wood was ordered to Camp Funston again to train a new division--the 10th--which was ready to go {231} abroad when the armistice was signed on November 11th.

This constitutes General Wood's services to his country during the period of the war.

Much might be said in regard to this history. Much might be surmised as to the causes which led to keeping the man who was the senior officer of the army out of the war entirely. Much--very much--has been said throughout this country in and out of print during the past two years. The theory that he was too old for active service could not be a reason, since he is younger than many general officers who did see service abroad--younger as a matter of fact than General Pershing himself. It is hardly conceivable that physical condition could have been a reason, since at least twice in the last two years he has been passed by expert physical examination boards in the regular routine of army life and found sound, mentally and physically. He does, to be sure, limp and has had to do so for years on account of an accident in Cuba fifteen or sixteen years ago. Yet this could hardly unfit him for service in France when it did not unfit him for service in the {232} Philippine jungle, or the active life which he has led for the past ten years.

There has been considerable surmise as to whether his amazing campaign for preparedness, his speeches and his many activities in the officers' training camps organization and administration prejudiced the authorities against him. This again is hardly credible since it is manifestly inconceivable that those men in charge of the prosecution of our part in the great war, with the immense responsibility resting upon their shoulders, could possibly have allowed personal prejudice and favoritism to have played any part in their decision in regard to any man--least of all the most important man in the Regular Army.

Some controversy arose as to whether Wood's friendship and relation to Theodore Roosevelt might not have created hostility in administration and army circles. This again is beyond credence when the importance of the men on both sides is considered and the terrific importance of events at the time is taken into account. Here again it is inconceivable that any man or group of men could at such times and in such circumstances {233} allow anything personal to sway his or their judgment.

The incontestable fact still remains, however, that the one man in the Army who by his whole life in the United States, in many parts of the earth, had during a period of thirty years been preparing himself for just such an occasion, who had for four years been trying to get the people of the country and the government to prepare, who had appeared before Senate military commissions and other similar bodies and registered his belief in the necessity for certain measures, all of which were adopted by the Government as recommended by him--that the one man who had done all this should not have been selected to do any active service whatever at the front, but should have been offered posts in the Philippines, Hawaii and California when he was applying for service in France. Lloyd George wanted him; France wanted him; and the American Army wanted him.

All sorts and conditions of men throughout the United States expressed their opinion upon the subject during this war period and are doing so {234} still, but the one man who has said nothing is General Wood himself. With his inherited and acquired characteristic of doing something, of never remaining idle, with the habit acquired from years of military discipline and respect for orders emanating from properly constituted authority, he put in his application again and again for service and then accepted without public comment whatever orders were issued to him.

Here again is the same simple, direct mind of the man who has at no time lost his sense of proportion, who has not become excited because his chance was not given him--the chance for which he had spent long years of preparation--who did not let this outward wallpaper--plaster--showy thing divert him from the essential point, the great beam of our war preparation house--the necessity that every man, woman and child should do all he or she could do to help the Government of the United States carry the war--or our part of it--to a successful conclusion when that Government finally made up its mind to go in.