FDR - Jean Edward Smith [87]
Daniels shared Wilson’s view. “If any man in official life ever faced the agony of a Gethsemane,” he wrote later, “I was that man in the first four months of 1917.”93 Not surprisingly, Daniels became the whipping boy for interventionists in the GOP, the Navy League, Wall Street, and the steel industry, as well as the jingoist press, all of which clamored for immediate entry into war. Also, not surprisingly, FDR was praised extravagantly. “Secretary Daniels has been criticized for four years,” wrote Washington’s Evening Star, “but there has been little, if any criticism of his assistant, for the simple reason there has been little to criticize.”94 When an old Harvard friend wrote to suggest that he assume Daniels’s position, FDR stood by his chief:
I am having a perfectly good time with many important things to do and my heart is entirely in my work.
Personally I have no use for a man who, serving in a subordinate position, is continually contriving ways to step into his boss’s shoes and I detest nothing so much as that kind of disloyalty.
Franklin said he had “worked very gladly under Mr. Daniels and I wish the public could realize how much he has done for the Navy. I would feel very badly indeed if friends of mine should unwittingly give the impression that I was for a minute thinking of taking his place at the head of the Navy.”95
The German U-boat campaign soon resolved whatever tension existed between FDR and Daniels over the speed of mobilization. On March 18 the steamships City of Memphis, Illinois, and Vigilancia were all torpedoed, the Vigilancia without warning. Two days later, Wilson placed the question of war before his cabinet. Daniels was the most reluctant, but in the end, with tears in his eyes, he voted to make the recommendation for war unanimous. “I had hoped and prayed that the hour would not come, but the attitude of the Imperial German Government left us no other course.”96
Wilson called Congress back from recess and on the evening of April 2 asked for a declaration of war. The House chamber was packed to capacity that evening as the Senate, the Supreme Court (in a departure from tradition), and the cabinet joined the 435 members of the House.97 The galleries were crammed with those fortunate enough to get tickets. FDR sat with Daniels on the House floor, Eleanor in the diplomatic gallery. Setting the tone for the evening, the president was escorted up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol by a mounted battalion from the 1st Cavalry, stationed at Fort Myer. He was greeted by thunderous applause when he entered the chamber. Virtually every member was on his feet cheering, led by the towering figure of the chief justice of the United States, Edward D. White, a seventy-two-year-old Louisianian who had fought for the Confederacy and had long supported the Allied cause.
Wilson spoke clearly, without bombast or excess. Our quarrel was not with the German people, he said, but with their government, which had “thrown to the winds all scruples of humanity.” America’s object was not conquest but peace and justice—a war “without rancor and without selfish object,” a war without revenge. “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
His pastoral Presbyterian voice reverberating through the chamber, Wilson asked Congress to recognize that a state of war “has been thrust upon us.” He requested authorization to draft 500,000 men and bring the Navy to full combat readiness. “There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making. We will not choose the path of submission.” He ended by paraphrasing the words of Martin Luther. America was privileged to spend her blood for the principles she treasured. “God helping her, she can do no other.”98
The House chamber erupted in frantic applause. A few members—Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, Senator George Norris of Nebraska, Senator James K. Vardaman of Mississippi, Representative Jeannette Rankin from Montana—sat silent. But Wilson carried the day. Senator Henry Cabot