Mr. Roosevelt had always been strong for having the nation ready for war if war should come.  Mr. Wilson first said that persons who believed this were nervous and excited.  Next he joined these persons himself, so far as words went, and finally he let the matter drop until we were at war.  Mr. Roosevelt believed that when you once were at war it was a crime to “hit softly.”  Mr. Wilson waited until we had been at war a year and over, and then announced in a speech that he was determined to use force!

Mr. Roosevelt wrote regularly for The Outlook, later for the Metropolitan Magazine and the Kansas City Star.  Thousands of his countrymen read his articles, and found in them the only expression of the American spirit which was being uttered.  Americans were puzzled, troubled and finally humiliated by the letters and speeches which came from Washington.  To be told that in this struggle between the blood-guilty Hun, and the civilized nations of the earth, that we must keep even our minds impartial seemed an impossible command.  School-boys throughout the country must have wondered why President Wilson, with every means for getting information, should have to confess that he did not know what the war was about!  And when Mr. Wilson declared in favor of a peace without victory, his friends and admirers were kept busy explaining, some of them, that he meant without victory for the Allies, and others that he meant without victory for Germany, and still others that he meant without victory for anybody in particular.

It was not strange that Americans began to wonder what country they were living in, and whether they had been mistaken in thinking that America had a heroic history, in which its citizens took pride.  No wonder they turned their eyes to Europe, where scores of young Americans, sickening at the state of things at home, had eagerly volunteered to fight with France or England against the Hun.  One of these, named Alan Seeger, who wrote the fine poem “I have a Rendezvous with Death,” died in battle on our Independence Day.  He also wrote a poem called “A Message to America.” [Footnote:  Seeger.  Poems, pp. 164, 165.] In it he said that America had once a leader: 

    ... the man
    Most fit to be called American.

In it he spoke further of the same leader

    I have been too long from my country’s shores
    To reckon what state of mind is yours,
    But as for myself I know right well
    I would go through fire and shot and shell
    And face new perils and make my bed
    In new privations, if Roosevelt led.

One did not have to be long with the men who volunteered at the beginning of the war to know that Roosevelt’s spirit led these men, and that they looked to him and trusted him as the great American.  The country’s honor was safe in his hands, and no mawkish nor cowardly words ever came from his lips.