John Passos - Mr. Wilson's War

He stopped himself, and turned to Tumulty, who was listening attentively to every word. “If I say anything I shouldn’t be sure and censor it,” he said waving his arms. Then addressing the reporters he added, “I’m already under orders.”

“I congratulated him upon his war message,” he continued later, in an off the record chat, “and told him it would rank with the world’s great state papers … if it were made good … And I told him I wanted a chance to help make it good … If Tumulty came along,” he let his voice drop in a hoarse aside, “it might be as a sort of watchdog to keep Wilson informed. I’ll have a place for him but it won’t be the place he thinks.”

“If any other man than he talked to me as he did I would feel assured,” he told the friends gathered to meet him at his daughter’s house, “but I was talking to Mr. Wilson … He has however left the door open.” Interested parties lost no time in reporting these remarks to the White House.

That afternoon and all next day T.R. kept open house at the Longworths’. Newton D. Baker was the first to call. He listened politely to everything T.R. had to say. “I had a good time with Baker,” T.R. told his newspaper friends. “I could twist him around my finger if I could have him about for a while … He will do exactly what Wilson tells him to do, he will think exactly as Wilson wants him to think … He has the blindest faith in the General Staff and the graduates of West Point. He doesn’t realize that a muttonhead, after an education at West Point, or Harvard, is a muttonhead still.”

It was like the old days. The ambassadors called, with Jusserand and his dear Spring Rice, old members of the “tennis cabinet,” in the lead; and Senator Lodge; and people from the Council of National Defense; and congressmen from the military affairs committees of the Senate and House. He lectured them all on the need for conscription and for four divisions of volunteers for immediate action, to be raised by himself and trained and led by General Wood.

When Congress passed the conscription act T.R.’s four divisions of volunteers were, in spite of vigorous pressure from the White House, incorporated in it. The provision was added that these divisions should be activated at the President’s discretion. Wilson lost no time in announcing that this was a war for professionals and not for amateurs.

General Wood, who had been acclaimed as a hero throughout the South as he travelled about inspecting campsites, couldn’t help confiding to his friends that the War Department was playing politics with him. T.R. stormed at Sagamore Hill, but issued a statement that he was bowing to superior authority, and releasing the men who had volunteered to serve under him.

Pershing, as soon as he was notified that he was chosen to lead the first troops to France, intimated privately to the Secretary of War that neither Wood nor Roosevelt would be acceptable to him overseas. Troublemakers. Physically unfit. Baker’s underlings in the War Department began spreading tales about how T.R.’s bronchitis would never support the French climate and how Leonard Wood had a hole in his head.

Tumulty, who feared a voters’ revulsion against the shelving of the two most popular military figures, argued long and valiantly on the other side. He begged his boss to let some sort of ornamental posts at least be found for them.

Joffre, when he arrived on his mission to Washington, gave out that he wanted volunteers at once. Pétain, from France, begged for volunteers. Clemenceau wrote specially to the President pointing out the morale value of a Roosevelt mission. Bryce added his plea.

Wilson had made up his mind. Once he had made up his mind there was no altering him.

“The real truth,” wrote T.R. to an Arizona friend, in the bitterness of his disappointment, “is that Wilson is bent on making this merely a war to advance his own personal fortunes from a political standpoint. He has always been more interested in preventing Wood and myself from being of service to the nation than he has of rendering himself such service.”

A great many people from both parties agreed with T.R. One of the more prominent Roosevelt volunteers, John M. Parker, a New Orleans cotton factor and a progressive Democrat who had performed as a mighty man of valor during Wilson’s campaigns in the South, made it his business to tell the President so.

“Mr. President,” said Parker, who pulled too much political weight to be denied an interview, “you preach against autocracy and today in the civilized world there is no greater autocrat than Woodrow Wilson.”

Wilson’s treatment of General Wood and Colonel Roosevelt was destroying confidence in his conduct of the war, Parker went on. “You should realize that you are simply an American citizen, exalted for the time being by the votes of your people to the President’s chair. As a man who gladly gave his own time and money touring the country to support you, I feel I have the right to criticize, because you are my hired man, just as you are the hired man of the people … remember it is their money, their sons who are making this fight … I beg you not to play politics.”

According to Tumulty the President kept his temper:

“Sir,” he replied, “I am not playing politics. Nothing could be more advantageous to me than to follow the course you suggest.”

He pointed out that the British had used Kitchener, their most famous general, for training troops. “General Wood is needed here. Colonel Roosevelt is an admirable man and a patriotic citizen but he is not a military leader.”

After fifteen stormy minutes Parker took his hat and went back to the Shoreham Hotel to write down every word that had been said. Meanwhile Roosevelt, smouldering with frustration at Sagamore Hill, was including in almost every letter of his enormous correspondence a phrase that tickled him: “Fighting this war under Wilson is like fighting the Civil War under Buchanan.”

Congress passed the conscription bill on May 18. The next day President Wilson issued a proclamation based on a draft Newton D. Baker had sent over from the War Department early in the month.

The proclamation quoted section five of the act which the President’s signature had just made law: “That all male persons between the ages of 21 and 30 inclusive shall be subject to registration in accordance with regulations established by the President: And upon proclamation by the President and other public notice given by him or by his direction stating the time and place of such registration it shall be the duty of all persons of the designated ages, except officers and enlisted men of the army, the navy and the National Guard and Naval Militia while in the service of the United States, to present themselves for and submit to registration under the provisions of this act.”

Failure to register was a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail followed by compulsory registration.

Woodrow Wilson went on to develop some characteristic variations upon the theme of “selective service,” the euphemism for conscription which had been hit upon as being most palatable to the American public:

“The whole nation must be a team in which each man must play the part for which he is best fitted … To this end Congress has provided that the nation shall be organized for war by selection: that each man shall be classified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him.”

He was preparing the public for the exemption of farmers and railroadmen and seamen and essential workers in war industries.

“The day here named is the day upon which all shall present themselves for assignment to their tasks. It is for that reason destined to be remembered as one of the most conspicuous moments in our history.”