"If we continue to back down we will become Chinafied, without any rights that other nations will respect," said Roosevelt emphatically.
In such critical times, personal differences might be laid aside, I suggested, and I wanted him to write the President and let him have the benefit of his views. I went further: I suggested that I could write the President about it. But in Roosevelt's opinion, Wilson would conclude that Roosevelt had himself urged me to do this because of my close association with Roosevelt.
My own relations with the President were always agreeable, I might even say most friendly. He had written me sometime before, that he would consider it a favor if I would keep him informed of developments that came under my observation regarding important matters. It occurred to me that on the eve of war it would be a fine thing if he consulted with his two surviving predecessors, as Monroe had done in consulting with Jefferson and Madison before issuing the doctrine which bears his name. In the crisis we were facing such a step would allay partisan differences and serve to solidify the Nation. With these ideas in mind I sent the President the following telegram:
Every patriotic American should support you in this great crisis in the history of our country. May I suggest the course followed by Monroe under a crisis involving many of the same principles, to confer with the two surviving ex-Presidents, whose advice, I feel sure, will be most helpful and serve to patriotically solidify the country behind you?
I informed Roosevelt of my action. He felt sure the President wanted neither advice nor cooperation, though he himself was ready to give him the fullest coöperation should Wilson desire it. He thought the same was true on the part of Mr. Taft. The telegram, to my surprise, was given out at Washington to the press a day or two later, but nothing ever came of it.
On February 7th the country was more or less agreeably surprised by the fact that Count von Bernstorff had been given his passports and Ambassador Gerard at Berlin had been instructed to demand his. I say the country was surprised because the President had so long delayed and avoided such a step—even after the sinking of the Lusitania and the Sussex following his "strict accountability" and other strong statements—that it was generally believed he did not mean to take it.
Roosevelt, of course, thought that we should have taken such action long before. His contention was always that had we taken prompt and decisive steps after the Lusitania tragedy, we should have been spared the submarine invasions. In fact, he thought we should have acted when Germany announced her submarine blockade and possibly saved ourselves from the Lusitania horror. Now that diplomatic relations were broken off, he canceled his trip to Jamaica, not wishing to be out of the country when war was likely to be declared at any moment.
At about this time the impression was current that the Jews of America were anti-Ally, a fact that had a prejudicial effect in France and England. It probably grew out of the fact that three of the largest Jewish banking houses of the country were of German origin, and further that the Yiddish press was anti-Russian in its sympathies as a result of the treatment of Jews in Russia.
After a careful investigation of these reports, a group of us met at the home of Eugene Meyer, Jr., later chairman of the War Finance Corporation. Among those I recall at this meeting were: Fabian Franklin, of the "New York Evening Post"; George L. Beer, the historian; Rabbi Stephen S. Wise; Professor Richard Gottheil, of Columbia University. M. Stephane Lauzanne, editor of "Le Matin" of Paris, and Professor Henri Bergson, both of whom were then in New York, had also been consulted. It was decided that the most practical way of correcting this erroneous impression was for me to write to the French and British ambassadors at Washington.
Accordingly I wrote to Ambassadors Spring-Rice and Jusserand that the impression was unfounded, that our investigations and observations showed a large preponderance of pro-Ally sympathy among the Jews, and I cited a number of leading citizens in business and the various professions, who were representative of their class, whom I knew personally to be pro-Ally. I stated further that in one of the largest Jewish clubs, whose membership consisted almost entirely of Jews of German origin, the pro-Ally sentiment was so strong as to be practically unanimous.