FDR - Jean Edward Smith [90]
FDR, who was responsible for the Navy’s procurement, threw himself into his mobilization duties. He contracted for vast amounts of materiel and equipment (sometimes before Congress appropriated the money),6 pressed for the immediate enlistment of large numbers of men, ordered training camps expanded and ship construction accelerated. “See young Roosevelt about it” became a catchphrase in wartime Washington.7
Roosevelt’s procurement efforts were so effective that two weeks after America entered the war he received an urgent summons to the White House. In the Oval Office he found General Hugh Scott, the Army chief of staff. “Mr. Secretary,” said Wilson, barely able to suppress a grin, “I’m very sorry, but you have cornered the market for supplies. You’ll have to divide up with the Army.”8
Busy as FDR was, he had no intention of fighting the war behind a desk. And though he had a wife and five young children, he was determined to see action.9 That was the path Cousin Theodore had followed, and the old Rough Rider, who had come to Washington to volunteer his services to President Wilson, encouraged Franklin to join up.* “You must resign,” said TR. “You must get into uniform at once.”10
Neither Daniels nor Wilson would hear of it. The war placed a premium on the qualities FDR brought to his job as assistant secretary—energy, flexibility, decisiveness, and the willingness to act on a moment’s notice—qualities they did not wish to lose. Daniels told Franklin he was “rendering a far more important war service than if he put on the uniform.”11 Wilson said that Roosevelt’s place had already been assigned by the country. “Tell the young man to stay where he is,” he instructed Daniels.12 General Leonard Wood, who evidently heard of Franklin’s desire from TR, added his voice to those urging him to remain in Washington. “Franklin Roosevelt should under no circumstances think of leaving the Navy Department,” he wrote. “It would be a public calamity to have him leave at this time.”13
Contrary to most Americans’ assumptions in April 1917, the war was not going well. In Russia, the army had mutinied, the czar had abdicated, and the provisional government was fast proving powerless. On April 16—ten days after the United States declared war—Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership detrained at the Finland Station in Saint Petersburg, smuggled from Switzerland by the German high command. In France, war weariness gripped the nation. The army might be counted on to defend French soil, but offensive operations were out of the question. In the Atlantic, unrestricted submarine warfare was taking a dreadful toll. Since February 1, German U-boats had sunk 844 Allied vessels. Nine hundred thousand tons of shipping had gone to the bottom in March, and April’s total was expected to be even greater. The Germans were sinking merchantmen faster than they could be replaced. Herbert Hoover, director of American food relief in Europe, reported that British warehouses held only a three-week supply of grain: once that was depleted, the islands could be starved into submission.14 “Unless we can stop these losses, and stop them soon, we must leave the war,” said Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Britain’s First Sea Lord.15
It should have been obvious that the solution to the U-boat menace was to require merchant ships to sail in convoys. Yet the Admiralty stubbornly refused. Convoy duty was inglorious. The warrior ethic of the Royal Navy demanded that submarines be hunted down: a virtual impossibility