Colonel Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [232]
“It would reflect on the dignity of this country and the position I have held.”
John Wheeler, who had just formed a popular-press syndicate, had another idea. “How about doing a series on the lessons this country should learn from the war?”
Roosevelt thought he had written plenty about that already in The Outlook, but the opportunity to broadcast his views to the largest possible audience was irresistible. “You will hear from me,” he said.
HE WROTE FOUR PIECES at once, because he had to spend most of October on the road. Deliberately adopting a journalistic style, he compared what had happened to prosperous, pleasure-loving Europe to the fate that had befallen the Titanic. “One moment the great ship was speeding across the ocean, equipped with every device for comfort, safety, and luxury.… Suddenly, in one awful and shattering moment, death smote the floating host, so busy with work and play.” The “lesson” for Americans in Europe’s catastrophe was to see how quickly even the most civilized nations reverted to barbarism, and how vulnerable great powers were to sudden attack. The United States was no exception, now that the Panama Canal was open. Its army was as small as Persia’s. Its navy was by some counts third in the world, but a single lethal blow to its battleship fleet, and San Francisco or New York would be as open to destruction as Louvain. “Under such circumstances, outside powers would undoubtedly remain neutral exactly as we have remained neutral as regards Belgium.”
Although he did not refer to Wilson or Bryan by name, his evident contempt for them caused the pro-Democratic New York World to pass on the series. So did the Hearst news organization. The New York Times, however, ran the first article prominently in its Sunday edition on 27 September. It increased the paper’s circulation by several thousand copies. Other periodicals rushed to reprint Roosevelt’s series, and by mid-October he was reaching a readership of fifteen million. Wheeler urged him to continue with as many more war articles as he pleased.
He obliged with another five, dashed off between whistle-stops, for weekly publication through the end of November. By the time he was through, he had thoroughly unburdened himself on the responsibilities of the United States to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907; on the causes of the war (chiefly “fear … and the anger born of that fear”); on the development of an “international conscience” to chasten national self-interest; on the dangers inherent in disarmament; on the necessity for active, rather than passive neutrality; on preparedness (“the one certain way to invite disaster is to be opulent, offensive, and unarmed”); and on the current dereliction of the American military.
In his public appearances, Roosevelt stuck to Progressive domestic boilerplate, drummed out with more energy than enthusiasm. It was clear to him that the electorate had lost interest in political reform. So had he, although he insisted he was as radical as ever. His mind was elsewhere. When he encountered old friends on the road, he wanted to talk only about the war, and about the burning of Louvain in particular. Word that German troops had virtually destroyed the great cathedral at Reims caused him further anguish.
EDITH ROOSEVELT WORRIED about her husband’s gloom whenever he climbed onto another train. To cheer him up after an especially onerous trip to Philadelphia, where the Pinchots had pushed him for speech after speech, she went into New York to meet his train and spent the night of 29 October with him. He had no time to come home: he was needed the following day in Princeton, New Jersey.
She brought with her a long letter from Ethel in Paris. “You cannot imagine the conditions here—If we knew them at home our country would not be able to be neutral—It’s appalling.” The American Hospital was full of Belgian soldiers, hideously mutilated by shrapnel and shell, “—hardly any from bullets.” Every day, more civilian refugees