Article after article Colonel Roosevelt devoted to the slow speed in war-making until there was finally a response in Washington. It heard from public opinion. War-making was speeded up, although at the best and in the end there were many, many deficiencies in our war machine.
Colonel Roosevelt’s criticisms of the Administration were not widely popular. The Star never had any idea they would be popular, but it believed they were right and for the real good of the country. As he had foreseen when the connection was made, “Many of your subscribers will be perfectly furious at The Star for printing my editorials.” They were. They wrote to The Star to denounce the Colonel for writing the articles and The Star for printing them. In popular discussion in the Middle West forms of disapproval ranged from “He should stand by the President” to “He should be stood before a stone wall and shot.” Generally the user of the latter phrase added “at sunrise.” That was an expression often heard. It was used by political orators with effect. Colonel Roosevelt knew full well of the feeling in the West and South toward his articles. He wrote once asking what effect the storm was having on The Star. Never a word from him to show he cared one whit about himself. He knew he was doing the right thing for the country; he went ahead.
The frank truth is, there was a strong and active pacifist element in the territory in which The Star circulated. It had not been for preparedness. It had voted for President Wilson in 1916 largely “because he kept us out of war.” Undeniably that idea was popular. A candidate for governor in a neighboring state, running on the Republican ticket, had made a campaign identical with the Democratic slogan and had carried the state, which at the same time gave its vote to the Democratic presidential candidate. But once we were in war the people of this section responded nobly; they went to the limit, but for a long time after we were in war they did not approve the prodding-up of Washington. The hostility toward the Roosevelt articles in the South was more pronounced. At the beginning of the service ten Southern newspapers were taking it. Their statements about discontinuance ran from “We find further publication inadvisable in our territory” to an apology to their readers for ever having allowed the Roosevelt articles to enter their columns.
Colonel Roosevelt was not without defenders; many of them thought and said he was rendering the greatest service to the country in all his career. But in the excited state of mind in the spring of 1918, when the Germans were driving toward Paris, it required courage to defend the articles. Many, however, spoke out boldly; others did not. Party lines were not followed strictly. Republicans were not so bitter as men of the President’s party. “We must stand by the President” had a popular appeal regardless of whether the Government was functioning efficiently or not. The view was widely held that it was unpatriotic to criticize the President. Frequently it was charged that Colonel Roosevelt’s purposes were political, not patriotic. The articles were often decried as pro-German propaganda and The Star was branded as pro-German for publishing them.
In April, 1918, when this feeling was at its height, when the people in Kansas City’s territory were in a highly inflamed state of feeling toward criticism of the Government, Colonel Roosevelt sent a ringing editorial, “Freedom Stands with her Back to the Wall,” which The Star did not consider it advisable to publish. It had no doubt of the entire righteousness of the criticism passed on the officials at Washington, for the fruition of their slowness was shown in the poor showing America was making in these critical days, but it could see no good to come from the publication: in its opinion the article would only further inflame Colonel Roosevelt’s enemies and irritate his friends. Colonel Roosevelt was informed of the office opinion of this article as he was on a later article (“How Not to Adjourn Politics,” June 25) which was not published. He acquiesced in the decision, saying that he could readily conceive of local conditions which made their publication ill-advised. He asked that they be telegraphed to two other newspapers, which was done. The Star was willing to go as far as it could go without, in its judgment, lessening the effectiveness of the articles in accomplishing the speeding-up of the war, but it would not go beyond this point.
In July, when criticism had caused the removal of many inefficients at Washington and when American troops were beginning to reach France, The Star was barred from the Public Library at Fulton, Missouri, an intensely Democratic town in Central Missouri, “for disloyalty to the present Administration.” The notice read:
Dear Sir: By order from the library board of the Public Library I am advised to have you discontinue our subscription to The Daily Star and The Times. Disloyalty to the present Administration is the reason given for the action taken.
Yours sincerely
FRANCES F. WATSON
Librarian
Answering this editorially, The Star said that throughout the war it had taken the course of calling attention to the mistakes of the Government rather than remaining silent on its mistakes; that it did not believe in saying the country was doing finely when it was not; that it believed in exposing inefficiency and rooting it out. It directed attention to results already accomplished by criticism in bringing into the war preparations men like Schwab, Goethals, Stettinius, March, Baruch, and others, adding: “The Star is proud to belong to the little group of constructive critics, including preëminently Colonel Roosevelt, who worked to get wrong conditions changed and to contribute to the present result, which to-day is the salvation of the cause we fight for. For it to have done anything else would have been faithlessness to its trust.”
When at last the stirring-up of the Administration had borne fruit and American troops were in France and on the way in considerable, though disappointing, numbers, Colonel Roosevelt slowed down his bombardment of the Washington authorities. His campaign had produced results. He was right in doing all he could to speed up war preparations, and he stood his ground in the face of widespread censure in the way he always did. Hostile newspapers had demanded that the Postmaster-General suppress the circulation of the Roosevelt articles; indeed, a post-office inspector had visited Kansas City with the idea of denying The Star admission to the mails, but the Administration made no further move in this direction.