Average Americans Part 1

Average Americans.

by Theodore Roosevelt.

PREFACE

All our lives my father treated his sons and daughters as companions. When we were not with him he wrote to us constantly.

Everything that we did we discussed with him whenever it was possible. All his children tried to live up to his principles.

In the paragraphs from his letters below, he speaks often of the citizens of this country as "our people." It is for all these, equally with us, that the messages are intended.

"New Year's greetings to you! This may or may not be, on the whole, a happy New Year--almost certainly it will be in part at least a New Year of sorrow--but at least you and your brothers will be upborne by the self-reliant pride coming from having played well and manfully a man's part when the great crisis came, the great crisis that 'sifted out men's souls' and winnowed the chaff from the grain."--_January 1, 1918._

"Large ma.s.ses of people still vaguely feel that somehow I can say something which will avoid all criticism of the government and yet make the government instantly remedy everything that is wrong; whereas in reality nothing now counts except the actual doing of the work and that I am allowed to have no part in.

Generals Wood and Crowder have been denied the chance to render service; appointments are made primarily on grounds of seniority, which in war time is much like choosing Poets Laureate on the same grounds."--_August 23, 1917._

"At last, after seven months, we are, like Mr. Snodgra.s.s, 'going to begin.' The National Guard regiments are just beginning to start for their camps, and within the next two weeks I should say that most of them would have started; and by the first of September I believe that the first of the National Army will begin to a.s.semble in their camps.... I do nothing. Now and then, when I can't help myself, I speak, for it is necessary to offset in some measure the talk of the fools, traitors, pro-Germans, and pacifists; but really what we need against these is action, and that only the government can take. Words count for but little when the 'drumming guns' have been waked."--_August 23, 1917._

"The regular officers are fine fellows, but for any serious work we should eliminate two thirds of the older men and a quarter of the younger men, and use the remainder as a nucleus for, say, three times their number of civilian officers. Except with a comparatively small number, too long a stay in our army--with its peculiar limitations--produces a rigidity of mind that refuses to face the actual conditions of modern warfare. But the wonder is that our army and navy have been able to survive in any shape after five years of Baker and Daniels."--_September 17, 1917._

"Along many lines of preparation the work here is now going fairly fast--not much of a eulogy when we are in the ninth month of the war. But there cannot be much speed when military efficiency is subordinated to selfish personal politics, the gratification of malice, and sheer wooden-headed folly."--_October 14, 1917_.

"The socialist vote [in the New York mayoralty election] was rather ominous. Still, on the whole, it was only about one fifth of the total vote. It included the extreme pacifist crowd, as well as the vicious red-flag men, and ma.s.ses of poor, ignorant people who, for example, would say. 'He'll give us five-cent milk,' which he could have given as readily as he could have given the moon."--_November 7, 1917_.

"Well, it's dreadful to have those we love go to the front; but it is even worse when they are not allowed to go to the front."--_Letter to Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., November 11, 1917._

"Yesterday mother and I motored down to the draft camp at Yaphank. First, I was immensely pleased with the type of the men, and the officers are just as good as the average of young West Pointers. I believe that in the end that army there will be as fine a body of fighting men as any nation in the world could desire to see under its banners. But there is still, after nearly three months that they have been called out, some shortage in warm clothes; there are modern rifles for only one man in six; there are only about four guns to an artillery brigade."--_November 19, 1917._

"Of course, the root of our trouble lies in our government's att.i.tude during the two and one half years preceding our entry into the war, and its refusal now to make the matter one in which all good citizens can join without regard to party, and paying heed only to the larger interests of the country and of mankind at large.... I now strike hands with any one who is sound on Americanism and on speeding up the war and putting it through to the finish; but we _ought_ to take heed of our industrial and social matters too."--_Thanksgiving Day, 1917._

"There is little I can do here, except to try to speed up the war; the failure to begin work on the cargo s.h.i.+ps with the utmost energy ten months ago was a grave misfortune."--_December 23, 1917._

"The work of preparation here goes on slowly. I do my best to speed it up; but I can only talk or write; and it is only the doers who really count. The trouble is fundamental and twofold.

The administration has no conception of war needs or what war means; and the American army has been so handled in time of peace that the bulk of the men high up were sure to break down in the event of war."--_January 6, 1918._

"Over here Senator Chamberlain's committee has forced some real improvements in the work of the war department and the s.h.i.+pping board. It is of course a wicked thing that a year was wasted in delay and inefficiency. Substantially we are, as regards the war, repeating what was done in 1812-15; there was then a complete breakdown in the governmental work due to the pacifist theories which had previously obtained, to inefficiency in the public servants at Was.h.i.+ngton, and above all to the absolute failure to prepare in advance. Yet there was much individual energy, resourcefulness, and courage; much work by good s.h.i.+pwrights; fine fighting of an individual and non-coherent kind by s.h.i.+p captains and by occasional generals."--_March 10, 1918._

"How I hate making speeches at such time as this, with you boys all at the front! And I am not sure they do much good. But _someone_ has to try to get things hurried up."--_March 14, 1918._

"Wood testified fearlessly before the Senate committee, and the country has been impressed and shocked by his telling (what of course all well informed people already knew) that we had none of our own airplanes or field guns and very few of our own machine guns at the front."--_March 31, 1918._

"The great German drive has partially awakened our people to the knowledge that we really are in a war. They still tend to complacency about the 'enormous work that has been accomplished'--in building home camps and the like--but there really is an effort being made to hurry troops over, and tardily, to hasten the building of s.h.i.+ps, guns, and airplanes.

"My own unimportant activities are, of course, steadily directed toward endeavoring to speed up the war, by heartily backing everything that is done zealously and efficiently, and by calling sharp attention to luke-warmness and inefficiency when they become so marked as to be dangerous."--_April 7, 1918._

"Of course, we are gravely concerned over the way the British have been pushed back; and our people are really concerned over the fact that after over a year of formal partic.i.p.ation in the war our army overseas is too small to be of great use."--_April 14, 1918._

"The administration never moves unless it is forced by public pressure and public pressure can as a rule only be obtained by showing the public that we have failed in doing something we should do; for as long as the public is fatuously content, the administration lies back and does nothing."--_April 20, 1918._

"The people who wish me to write for them are divided between the desire to have me speak out boldly, and the desire to have me say nothing that will offend anybody--and cannot realize that the two desires are incompatible."--_April 28, 1918._

"I spoke at Springfield to audiences whose enthusiastic reception of warlike doctrine showed the steady progress of our people in understanding what the war means."--_May 5, 1918._

"It is well to have had happiness, to have achieved the great ends of life, when one must walk boldly and warily close to death."--_May 12, 1918._

"We are really sending over large numbers of men now, and the s.h.i.+pbuilding program is being rushed; but the situation as regards field guns, machine guns, and airplanes continues very bad. The administration never takes a step in advance until literally flailed into it; and the entire cuckoo population of the 'don't criticize the President' type play into the hands of the pro-Germans, pacifists, and Hearst people, so that a premium is put on our delay and inefficiency."--_May 12, 1918._

"The only way I can help in speeding up the war is by jarring loose our governmental and popular conceit and complacency. I point out our shortcomings with unsparing directness and lash the boasting and the grandiloquent prophecies.

"The trouble is that our people are ignorant of the situation and that most of the leaders fear to tell the truth about conditions. I only wish I carried more weight. Yet I think our people are hardening in their determination to win the war, and are beginning to ask for results."--_May 23, 1918._

"The war temper of the country is steadily hardening and so is the feeling against all the pro-German agitators at home."--_June 2, 1918._

"In every speech I devote a little time to the 'cut out the boasting plea.' Of course I really do think that in spite of our governmental shortcomings we are developing our strength."--_June 26, 1918._

"On the Fourth of July I went down to Pa.s.saic, where three quarters of the people are of foreign parentage, the mayor himself being of German ancestry. I talked straightout Americanism, of course, which was most enthusiastically received; the mayor's two sons have enlisted in the navy, and one has been promoted to being ensign. The war spirit of the people is steadily rising."--_July 7, 1918._

"I, of course, absolutely agree with you as to the tremendous difficulties and possible far-reaching changes we shall have to face after this war. Either _fool Bourbonism_ or _fool radicalism_ may land us unpleasantly near--say halfway toward--the position in which Russia has been landed by the alternation between Romanoffism and Bolshevism."--_July 15, 1918._

"It is very bitter to me that all of you, the young, should be facing death while I sit in ease and safety."--_July 21, 1918._

"I keep pegging away in the effort to hurry forward our work. We now have enough troops in France to make us a ponderable element in the situation."--_August 4, 1918._

"On Labor Day I spoke at Newburgh s.h.i.+pyard and spoke plainly of the labor slackers and the unions that encourage them; and on Lafayette Day, at the City Hall, I spoke of the kind of peace we ought to have, and nailed to the mast the flag of Nationalism as against Internationalism."--_September 9, 1918._

"The Germans have been given a staggering blow, and while I _hope_ for peace by Xmas, I believe we should speed everything to the limit on the a.s.sumption that next year will be the crucial year."--_October 20, 1918._

"During the last week Wilson has been adroitly endeavoring to get the Allies into the stage of note writing and peace discussion with an only partially beaten and entirely unconquered Germany. I have been backing up the men like Lodge who have given utterance to the undoubtedly strong, but not necessarily steady, American demand for unconditional surrender.

It is dreadful to have my sons face danger; but unless we put this war through, _their sons may have to face worse danger--and their daughters also_."--_October 27, 1918._

OYSTER BAY, August, 1919.

AVERAGE AMERICANS

CHAPTER I

BOYHOOD RECOLLECTIONS

"'Tis education forms the common mind,-- Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

ALEXANDER POPE.