For Wood this meant much in the future--much of good and something of trouble. Roosevelt was his devoted friend and supporter, and upon his return to the United States in early 1902 he found this devoted friend the head of the nation, himself a Brigadier-General of the regular army scheduled to go into regular army work and to live on an army officer's pay. In this country there is no other procedure possible. In England such a man would have been given a title and a large sum of money to make it possible for him to keep up the position which a man of his abilities and {161} attainments should keep up. Here the case is different. He had the alternative of going on, or retiring and entering commercial pursuits. Offers looking towards the latter contingency were not wanting. He was, in fact, asked to take a business position, which offered him forty thousand a year. Here was a large income for a man of forty-two, regular work of an interesting sort, security and a clear future for himself and his family. Instead, he accepted the appointment to the Philippines which meant and indeed, as the outcome showed, actually involved more than a hundred military engagements amongst the natives of the islands in many of which he risked his life. Here again he took the road of service to his country as he had each time the ways divided since the day when as a young doctor he entered the army. No one but he himself can tell in detail just the reasons which led to this decision, but in the main they were the instinctive desire for action, for execution and for the open road, which then as now swayed him in all his actions and decisions. Then, too, he felt that since {162} Roosevelt was President, criticisms of their relations in political circles might readily arise, as indeed did occur later; and lest their friendship should be misunderstood he took the Philippine appointment--applied for it, even--in order that being thus out of the country, cause for any such occurrences might perhaps be avoided. It is always interesting to look back through the career of such a man and speculate on the chance or wise decision which caused the choice of the right road or the left road at such a time. Neither Wood nor Roosevelt could possibly know or foresee that this decision would furnish the former with the material which eventually led to his doing more than all the rest of the United States put together to start preparation for the Great War. Neither of them could have guessed that his administration in the Philippines would bring out further qualities in Wood which showed the statesman as well as the administrator in him.