Theodore Roosevelt [135]
lost its taste for generations together in art, and in poetry. We remember that the Witchcraft Delusion obsessed our ancestors. It is not impossible, therefore, that between 194 and 1918 the American people passed through a stage in which it threw logic to the winds. This would account at least for its infatuation for President Wilson, in spite of his undisguised inconsistencies and appalling blunders. A people who thought logic ally and kept certain principles steadily before it, could hardly otherwise have tolerated Mr. Wilson's "too-proud-to-fight" speech, and his message to Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania, or his subsequent endeavor to make the Americans think that there was no choice between the causes for which the Allies and the Teutons were fighting. Was it not he who said that Europe was war-mad, and that America had better mind her own business, and look the other way? Did he not declare that we were forced into war, and then that we were not? That a President of the United States should assert or even insinuate these things during the great War for Humanity -and by Humanity I mean every trait, every advance which has lifted men above the level of the beast, where they originated, to the level of the human with its potential ascent to heights undreamed of--is amazing now: what will it be a generation hence?
Roosevelt watched impatiently while these strange phases passed before him. He listened angrily at the contradictory utterances. He felt the ignominy of our country's being at such a depth. He knew Germany too well to suppose that she could be deterred by President Wilson's messages. He saw something comic in shaking a long fore-finger and saying, "Tut, tut! I shall consider being very harsh, if you commit these outrages three more times.." To shake your fist at all, and then to shake your finger, seemed to Roosevelt almost imbecile. Cut off from serving the cause of American patriotism in any public capacity, Roosevelt struggled to take his part by writing. Every month in the Outlook, and subsequently in the Metropolitan Magazine, he gave vent to his pent-up indignation. The very titles of some of his papers reveal his animus: "Fear God and Take Your Own Part"; "A Sword for Defense"; "America First: A Phrase or a Fact?"; "Uncle Sam's Only Friend is Uncle Sam"; "Dual Nationality"; "Preparedness." In each of these he poured forth with unflagging vehemence the fundamental verities on which our American society should rest. He showed that it was not a mere competition in letter-writing between the honey-worded Mr. Wilson and the sophisticated Bernstorff or the Caliban-sly Bethmann Hollweg, but that God was in the crisis, and that no adroitness of phrase or trick of diplomacy could get rid of Him. He showed that there could not be two kinds of Americans: one genuine, which believed wholly and singly in the United States, and the other cunning and mongrel, which swore allegiance to the United States--lip service--and kept its allegiance to Germany--heart service. He lost no opportunity to make his illustrations clear. On resigning as Secretary of State after the sinking of the Lusitania, because President Wilson insisted on mildly calling Germany's attention to that crime, Mr. Bryan addressed a large audience of Germans.
Then Roosevelt held him up to the gaze of the American people as a man who had no true Americanism. Lest I should be suspected of misinterpreting or exaggerating Roosevelt's opinion of President Wilson, during the first two years of the war, I quote two or three passages, taken at random, which will prove, I hope, that I have summarized him truly. He says, for instance:
Professional pacifists of the type of Messrs. Bryan, Jordan, and Ford, who in the name of peace preach doctrines that would entail not merely utter infamy, but utter disaster to their own country, never in practice venture to denounce concrete wrong by dangerous wrongdoers .... These professional pacifists, through President Wilson, have forced the country into a path of shame and dishonor during the past eighteen
Roosevelt watched impatiently while these strange phases passed before him. He listened angrily at the contradictory utterances. He felt the ignominy of our country's being at such a depth. He knew Germany too well to suppose that she could be deterred by President Wilson's messages. He saw something comic in shaking a long fore-finger and saying, "Tut, tut! I shall consider being very harsh, if you commit these outrages three more times.." To shake your fist at all, and then to shake your finger, seemed to Roosevelt almost imbecile. Cut off from serving the cause of American patriotism in any public capacity, Roosevelt struggled to take his part by writing. Every month in the Outlook, and subsequently in the Metropolitan Magazine, he gave vent to his pent-up indignation. The very titles of some of his papers reveal his animus: "Fear God and Take Your Own Part"; "A Sword for Defense"; "America First: A Phrase or a Fact?"; "Uncle Sam's Only Friend is Uncle Sam"; "Dual Nationality"; "Preparedness." In each of these he poured forth with unflagging vehemence the fundamental verities on which our American society should rest. He showed that it was not a mere competition in letter-writing between the honey-worded Mr. Wilson and the sophisticated Bernstorff or the Caliban-sly Bethmann Hollweg, but that God was in the crisis, and that no adroitness of phrase or trick of diplomacy could get rid of Him. He showed that there could not be two kinds of Americans: one genuine, which believed wholly and singly in the United States, and the other cunning and mongrel, which swore allegiance to the United States--lip service--and kept its allegiance to Germany--heart service. He lost no opportunity to make his illustrations clear. On resigning as Secretary of State after the sinking of the Lusitania, because President Wilson insisted on mildly calling Germany's attention to that crime, Mr. Bryan addressed a large audience of Germans.
Then Roosevelt held him up to the gaze of the American people as a man who had no true Americanism. Lest I should be suspected of misinterpreting or exaggerating Roosevelt's opinion of President Wilson, during the first two years of the war, I quote two or three passages, taken at random, which will prove, I hope, that I have summarized him truly. He says, for instance:
Professional pacifists of the type of Messrs. Bryan, Jordan, and Ford, who in the name of peace preach doctrines that would entail not merely utter infamy, but utter disaster to their own country, never in practice venture to denounce concrete wrong by dangerous wrongdoers .... These professional pacifists, through President Wilson, have forced the country into a path of shame and dishonor during the past eighteen