Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate BiographyThayer, William Roscoe
History
Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography
Thayer, William Roscoe
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
Roosevelt had now made a contract with the Metropolitan Magazine
to furnish to it a monthly article on any topic he chose, and he
was also writing for the Kansas City Stay frequent, and often
daily, editorial articles. Through these he gave vent to his
passionate patriotism and the reader who wishes to measure both
the variety and the vigor of his polemics at this time should
look through the files of those journals. But this work by no
means limited his activity. As occasion stirred him, he
dispatched his communications to other journals. He wrote
letters, which were really elaborated arguments, to chance
correspondents, and he made frequent addresses. The necessity of
hurrying on the preparation of our army and of backing up our
troops with undivided enthusiasm were his main theme. But he
delivered himself on other subjects almost equally important. He
paid his respects to the "Conscientious Objector," and he
insisted at all times that "Murder is not debatable." "Murder is
murder," he wrote Professor Felix Frankfurter, "and it is rather
more evil when committed in the name of a professed social
movement." * Mr. Frankfurter was then acting, by appointment of
President Wilson, as counsel to a Mediation Commission, which was
dealing with recent crimes of the Industrial Workers of the
World. Anarchists, when arrested, had a suspicious way of
professing that they espoused anarchism only as a "philosophical"
theory. Roosevelt branded several of the palliators of
these--"the Hearsts and La Follettes and Bergers and Hillquits,"
and others--as reactionaries, as the "Bolsheviki of America," who
really abetted the violent criminals by pleading for leniency for
them on the ground that after all they were only "philosophical"
theorists. Roosevelt was not fooled by any such plea. "When you,"
he told Mr. Frankfurter, "as representing President Wilson, find
yourself obliged to champion men of this stamp [the
"philosophical" criminals], you ought by unequivocal affirmative
action to make it evident that you are sternly against their
general and habitual line of conduct."
* December 19, 1917. Letter printed in full in the Boston Herald,
June 6, 1919.
So Roosevelt pursued, without resting, his campaign to stimulate
the patriotic zeal of his country men and to rebuke the delays
and blunders of the Administration. If any one had said that he
was making rhetoric a substitute for warfare--the accusation with
which he charged President Wilson--he would have replied that
Wilson condemned him to use the pen instead of the sword.
Forbidden to go himself, he felt supreme satisfaction in the
going of all his four sons, and of his son-in-law, Dr. Richard
Derby. They did honor to the Roosevelt name. Theodore, Jr.,
became a Lieutenant-Colonel, Kermit and Archibald became
Captains; and Quentin, the youngest, a Lieutenant of Aviation,
was killed in an air battle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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