Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials

by Theodore Roosevelt

Even when the turning of the tide had set in, Roosevelt’s demand was for men, more men, and then more men for France. He would have in all six or seven million men in training, and four million American soldiers in France in the spring of 1919. In the first article he sent after the news of Quentin’s death, he said:

Now and always afterwards we of this country will walk with our heads high because of the men who face death and wounds, and so many of whom have given their lives for this nation and for the great ideals of humanity across the sea. But we must not let our pride and our admiration evaporate in mere pride, in mere admiration of what others have done. We must put the whole strength of this nation back of the fighting men at the front. We owe it to them.

Later on the good effect of Colonel Roosevelt’s criticism was widely recognized. The Nation, one of the Colonel’s bitterest opponents, in general a strong supporter of the Administration, said of his editorials: “It is largely to him that we owe our ability to discuss peace terms and to criticize at all.”

Summing up the effect of Colonel Roosevelt’s campaign to speed up our part in the war, The Star said editorially:

There were periods of intolerance when neither Mr. Roosevelt nor The Star was under any illusions as to the reception that would be given frank criticism. But it was essential that such criticism be made in order to correct evils that were really threatening the outcome of the war....

The selective draft was the big achievement of the Administration in 1917. But having prepared this, the Government proceeded in most leisurely fashion, apparently not getting the slightest comprehension of the danger to the Allied cause resulting from Russia’s collapse.

The War Department continued to be run, as it had been in the past, by amiable old gentlemen who were wholly unfit for the task. Although airplanes had become an essential feature of modern warfare, it was not until weeks after war had been declared that the department sent a commission to Europe to learn what a military airplane was. Rifles are usually regarded as a part of the military equipment of troops. But it was two months after the declaration of war before the War Department decided what type of rifle to make. An army of millions of men was certain to need uniforms, but the easy-going quartermaster-general turned down the offer of the wool manufacturers’ association for the entire output of the country and the result was that the soldiers went into the winter without warm clothing or overcoats. As for artillery, the incapacity was complete.

Meanwhile we sent a small expeditionary force to France, and in the autumn began sending troops across in a leisurely way, at the rate of ten thousand a week.

Then suddenly, late in March, with the German army driving straight on Paris and the Allied defenses giving way, under the appeal of Lloyd George we suddenly woke to the fact that we had been playing with the war. From that time on we acted as if we had a man’s job, and we got into the line just in time to save the situation.

All through the fall and winter of last year what Mr. Roosevelt and the other outspoken critics were trying to do was to arouse the country and the Administration to the magnitude of the task and to the danger from delay. They succeeded only partly. But they did succeed to the extent of forcing the removal of incompetent departmental chiefs, and the substitution of efficient men who were able to handle the emergency when the Administration finally discovered that the emergency existed.