Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him Part 20

Of course, he realizes that he must have the best practical advice obtainable in this matter and is seeking for it from every available source. In fact, it is known that the best minds of the various departments of the Government, both of the Army and the Navy, are now and have been at work on these important matters for some time; that is, he is seeking advice from the men in those departments who have been most directly in touch with the new conditions of defence that have been evolved out of modern experience. He not only wishes advice from those who have a knowledge of actual modern conditions of warfare, but he is seeking light from those who are able to understand and comprehend the altered conditions of land and naval warfare. He wishes the Navy to stand upon an equality with the most efficient and serviceable.

As to the Army, it is known here that he is preparing to incorporate in his next message to Congress a programme in regard to the development and equipment of the Army and a proper training of the citizens of the United States to arms which, while in every way consistent with American traditions and national policy, will be of such a character as to commend itself to every patriotic and practical mind. In this matter he is working with the Secretary of War and his professional a.s.sociates, who, it is understood, have reached some very definite conclusions on these exceedingly important matters. He is anxious to have a programme that will be definite and positive, and wishes to have the information in hand before laying the matter before the committees of the Senate and the House.

Contemporaneously with this statement was issued the following, which was prepared by the President, but issued over my name, the full significance of which was not apparent at the time:

The note [Third _Lusitania_ note] having been dispatched, the President felt that it was best to drop further discussion of the matter for the present, as far as he was concerned. He will be free now to devote his time to a full consideration of a matter that the country has for a long time been thoughtful of, that is a reasonable programme of national defense. Of course, this programme will be considered regardless of present-day conditions.

It is known that the President has been considering this important matter in all its aspects, and has been in touch with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy regarding it. It is also known in official circles here that the President had taken steps before leaving for Cornish to instruct the Army and Navy departments to make ready for his consideration a careful programme of national defense in preparation for the presentation of his views to Congress at the proper time.

He desires to have the programme based on the most practicable lines obtainable from the departments and it is said that the best minds in the departments are at present at work on the subject. He hopes that the programme will express the best traditions of the country and not lose sight of modern experience. He is anxious to have a programme that will be definite and positive, and wishes to have the information in hand before laying the matter before the committees of the Senate and the House.

On July 21, 1915, he addressed the following letters to the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, respectively:

THE WHITE HOUSE WAs.h.i.+NGTON

July 21, 1915.

MY DEAR MR. SECRETARY:

I have been giving scarcely less thought than you yourself have to the question of adequate preparation for national defense, and I am anxious, as you know, to incorporate in my next message to Congress a programme regarding the development and equipment of the Army and a proper training of our citizens to arms which, while in every way consistent with our traditions and our national policy, will be of such a character as to commend itself to every patriotic and practical mind.

I know that you have been much in conference with your professional a.s.sociates in the department and that you have yourself come to some very definite conclusions on these exceedingly important matters. I shall be away from Was.h.i.+ngton for a few days, but I would be very much obliged if you would be kind enough to prepare for me a programme, with estimates, of what you and the best-informed soldiers in your counsels think the country ought to undertake to do. I should like to discuss this programme with you at as early a time as it can be made ready. Whether we can reasonably propose the whole of it to the Congress immediately or not we can determine when we have studied it.

The important thing now is to know and know fully what we need.

Congress will certainly welcome such advice and follow it to the limit of its opportunity.

Cordially and faithfully yours, WOODROW WILSON.

HON. LINDLEY M. GARRISON, Secretary Of War.

THE WHITE HOUSE WAs.h.i.+NGTON

July 21, 1915.

MY DEAR MR. SECRETARY:

I have been giving, as I am sure you have also, a great deal of thought to the matter of a wise and adequate naval programme to be proposed to the Congress at its next session, and I would like to discuss the whole subject with you at the earliest possible date.

But first we must have professional advice. I would be very much obliged to you if you would get the best minds in the department to work on the subject: I mean the men who have been most directly in contact with actual modern conditions, who have most thoroughly comprehended what the Navy must be in the future in order to stand upon an equality with the most efficient and most practically serviceable. I want their advice, a programme by them formulated in the most definite way. Whether we can reasonably propose the whole of it to the Congress immediately or not we can determine when we have studied it. The important thing now is to know fully what we need.

Congress will certainly welcome such advice and follow it to the limit of its opportunity.

It should be a programme planned for a consistent and progressive development of this great defensive arm of the nation and should be of such a kind as to commend itself to every patriotic and practical man.

I shall return to Was.h.i.+ngton in a few days and shall be glad to take this important matter up with you at your early convenience.

Cordially and faithfully yours, WOODROW WILSON.

HON. JOSEPHUS DANIELS, Secretary of the Navy.

Immediately after the war message there arose an insistent demand for a coalition cabinet. It was the beginning of the Republican drive for what was called a bi-partisan government. Republicans chose to forget the experiences of England and France under their coalition cabinets, and when the President refused to act upon the suggestion, the impression was subtly conveyed to the unthinking that the President's refusal arose from his dislike of counsel and cooperation, and his unwillingness to share the responsibilities and glories of the war with people outside his own party.

As an historian, the President knew the troubles of Was.h.i.+ngton with a coalition cabinet, Lincoln's embarra.s.sments from Cabinet members not of his own party, McKinley's sagacious refusal in 1898 to form a coalition cabinet. He also knew human nature; knew that with the best intentions, men sometimes find it difficult to work whole-heartedly with a leader of a political party not their own. He could not risk a chance of division, in his own official family in the face of the common enemy.

The President looked upon the agitation for a coalition cabinet as a partisan effort to hamper and embarra.s.s his administration, and so he coldly turned away from every suggestion that looked toward the establishment of a cabinet of the kind suggested by his too-solicitous Republican friends.

The following note which I addressed to the President and his reply, bear upon the subject:

THE WHITE HOUSE WAs.h.i.+NGTON

DEAR GOVERNOR:

The newspaper men asked me this morning what the att.i.tude of the Administration was toward the proposed super-cabinet. I hedged as much as I could, but I asked if it was not the same proposition that came up some months ago, advocated by Senator Weeks, in a new disguise--if it was not the same kind of a commission that had hara.s.sed Mr.

Lincoln. I think we ought to let our att.i.tude be known unofficially for the guidance of men who wish to help us. If we do nothing at this time to let it be known, it would seem that our opposition to this kind of legislation had been silenced by the furore over the fuel order. In other words, we ought to show by our att.i.tude that the tantrums on the Hill are making no impression on us whatever.

TUMULTY.

DEAR TUMULTY:

Of course, I am opposed to the idea of a "super-cabinet," and regard it as nothing more nor less than a renewal of the perpetual effort of the Republicans to force representation in the Administration.

Republicans of the finest sort and of the finest capacity are working for and with the Administration on all hands and there is no need whatever for a change at the head of the administering departments. I am utterly opposed to anything of the sort and will never consent to it. You will know how to create the impression on the minds of the newspaper men that I regard it as merely a partisan effort to hamper and embarra.s.s the Administration.

THE PRESIDENT.

There were many misgivings in the minds of the people when war was declared in April, 1917, and the nation embarked upon the most gigantic of all its wars, under the leaders.h.i.+p of a college professor, a doctrinaire, who did not believe in war as a method of permanently solving international problems, and a Secretary of War who was an avowed pacifist.

There was another matter which greatly disturbed the peace of mind of the average American. The political party that was conducting the struggle was the Democratic party, the party of the plain folk, of the average men and women of America. Our Republican friends had so cleverly "advertised"

their conduct of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, that many people in the country felt that the Republican party, because of its leading minds and the business genius of its masters, was the only political organization that could be depended upon successfully to carry on a great war.

Colonel Roosevelt's diary, first made public on September 28, 1921, throws interesting light on Republican claims of efficient management by Republicans of the Spanish-American War. Under date of May 7, 1898, the Colonel, then a lieutenant-colonel, recorded in his diary: "The delays and stupidity of the Ordnance Department surpa.s.s belief. The Quartermaster's Department is better, but bad. The Commissary Department is good. There is no management whatever in the War Department. Against a good nation we should be helpless," and these animadversions are reiterated in subsequent entries. Interesting comments from the greatest of contemporary Republicans on the divine right of the Republican party to conduct all American wars and transact all other American business of importance. But doubtless the Colonel had forgotten all this in 1917, and many other good Americans had also forgotten what was notorious in 1898 and the inept.i.tude of the Republican War Department, which, as Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt said under date of May 21, 1898, had "no head, no energy, no intelligence." But the old myth sedulously cultivated by Republicans continued in 1917, that only Republicans are fit to govern, no matter how badly they govern. Direful prophecies and predictions of disaster to the country by reason of the Democratic auspices under which the war was to be conducted were freely made.

It is an unpleasant fact that some of the leading Republicans in the Senate and the House harboured for the President a partisan and personal hatred which made the wish father to the thought. Yet the expected did not happen, to the amazement and chagrin of the Republican enemies of the President. No other war was attended with so little scandal and with greater expedition. The cause was plain. It was the magnificent and aggressive leaders.h.i.+p of Woodrow Wilson exerting itself all along the line, and that leaders.h.i.+p was based upon certain fundamental resolutions which had been taking form in the President's mind for many months previous to his appearance before Congress asking for the pa.s.sage of a war declaration. They were as follows: (1) There was to be no "politics" in the conduct of the war; (2) no political generals would be selected; (3) every ounce of energy and force in the nation was to be put back of the heads of the Army and the Navy in a supreme effort to make our influence, moral and physical, quickly felt. Every effort was made to cut out scandal and to put an absolute embargo on the activities of army speculators, contractors, and profiteers.

Speaking to me one day about the conduct of the war, shortly after the delivery of his war message, he said: "We must not in our conduct of this war repeat the scandals of the Civil and the Spanish-American wars. The politics of generals and admirals must be tabooed. We must find the best trained minds that we can get and we must back them up at every turn. Our policy must be 'the best man for every job,' regardless of his political affiliations. This must be the only test, for, after all, we are the trustees of the boys whose lives will be spent in this enterprise of war."

This was not an easy policy to pursue. Every kind of hara.s.sing demand came from Democratic senators and representatives to induce the President to recognize political considerations in the conduct of the war, the argument being that after all the responsibility for its conduct resting with the Democrats, the administration of the war ought to be under Democratic tutelage throughout. But the President was firm--in his resolve to see the war through to the end without political considerations. The political predilections of generals, admirals, and war workers of every kind was ignored.

Mr. Creel by furnis.h.i.+ng a list of Republicans appointed by the President to conspicuous office has disproved the charge against the President of n.i.g.g.ard partisans.h.i.+p. Although the President would not tolerate a coalition cabinet, he gave to Republicans all manner of opportunities to share in the conduct and the credit of the war. I quote from Mr. Creel:

The search for "the best man for the place" was inst.i.tuted without regard to party, faction, blood strain, or creed, and the result was a composite organization in which Democrats, Republicans, and Independents worked side by side, partisans.h.i.+p forgotten and service the one consideration.

It stood recognized as a matter of course that the soldier selected to command our forces in France might well develop into a presidential possibility, yet this high place was given without question to Gen.

John J. Pers.h.i.+ng, a life-long Republican and the son-in-law of Senator Warren, one of the masters of the Republican machine.

Admiral William S. Sims, a vociferous Republican, was sent to English waters in high command, and while Secretary Daniels was warned at the time that Sims's partisans.h.i.+p was of the kind that would not recognize the obligations of loyalty or patriotism, he waved the objection aside out of his belief that Sims was "the best man for the job".

For the head of the Aircraft Board, with its task of launching America's great aviation programme, Mr. Howard E. Coffin, a Republican, was selected and at his right hand Mr. Coffin placed Col.

Edward A. Deeds, also a Republican of vigour and regularity.