The Emergency Fleet Corporation was virtually turned over to Republicans under Charles M. Schwab and Charles Piez. Mr. Vance McCormick, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was made chairman of the War Trade Board, but of the eight members the following five were Republicans: Albert Strauss of New York, Alonzo E. Taylor of Pennsylvania, John Beaver White, of New York, Frank C. Munson of New York, and Clarence M. Woolley of Chicago.

The same conditions obtained in the Red Cross. A very eminent Republican, Mr. H. P. Davison, was put in supreme authority, and on the Red Cross War Council were placed ex-President Taft; Mr. Charles D. Norton, Mr. Taft's secretary while President; and Mr. Cornelius N. Bliss, former treasurer of the Republican National Committee. Not only was Mr. Taft thus honoured, but upon the creation of a National War Labour Board the ex-President was made its chairman and virtually empowered to act as the administration's representative in its contact with industry.

Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, a Republican of iron regularity, was placed in charge of the War Savings Stamps Campaign, and when Mr. McAdoo had occasion to name Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury he selected Prof. L. S. Rowe of the University of Pennsylvania and Mr. H. C. Leffingwell of New York.

Harry A. Garfield, son of the Republican President, was made Fuel Administrator, and Mr. Herbert Hoover, now a candidate for President, on a platform, of unadulterated Republicanism, was nominated as head of the Food Administration.

The Council of National Defense was an organization of high importance and one of tremendous influence from a partisan standpoint, yet its executive body was divided as follows: Republicans—Howard E. Coffin, Julius Rosenwald, Dr. Hollis Godfrey, Dr. Franklin Martin, Walter S. Gifford, Director; Democrats—Daniel Willard and Bernard M. Baruch; Independent—Samuel Gompers.

No sooner had the war begun than the preliminary war work of the President began to bear fruit.

Within a month from the declaration of war the traditional policy of the nation was reversed, by the enactment of the Selective Service Act. A vast machinery of registration was created that ran without a hitch, and on June 5th more than 10,000,000 men were registered quickly and efficiently.

Thirty-two encampments—virtual cities, since each had to house 40,000 men—were built in ninety days from the driving of the first nail, complete in every municipal detail, a feat declared impossible, and which will stand for all time as a building miracle.

In June, scarcely two months after the President's appearance before Congress, General Pershing and his staff reached France, and on July 3rd the last of four groups of transports landed American fighting men in the home of La Fayette and Rochambeau. On October 10th our soldiers went on the firing-line.

Training camps for officers started in June, and in August there were graduated 27,341 successful aspirants, ready to assume the tasks of leadership.

In a notable speech, confidential in character, the President on the 8th day of April, 1918, addressed the foreign correspondents at the White House concerning "our resolutions" and "actions in the war." The speech was as follows:

I am very glad to have this opportunity to meet you. Some of you I have met before, but not all. In what I am going to say I would prefer that you take it in this way, as for the private information of your minds and not for transmission to anybody, because I just want, if I may, in a few words to create a background for you which may be serviceable to you. I speak in confidence.

I was rendered a little uneasy by what Mr. Lloyd George was quoted as having said the other day that the Americans have a great surprise in store for Germany. I don't know in what sense he meant that, but there is no surprise in store. I want you to know the sequence of resolves and of actions concerning our part in the war. Some time ago it was proposed to us that we, if I may use the expression feed our men into the French and English armies in any unit that might be ready— companies or regiments or brigades—and not wait to train and coordinate the larger units of our armies before putting them into action. My instinctive judgment in the face of that proposition was that the American people would feel a very much more ardent interest in the war if their men were fighting under their own flag and under their own general officers, but at that time, which was some months ago, I instructed General Pershing that he had full authority whenever any exigency that made such a thing necessary should occur to put the men in any units or in any numbers or in any way that was necessary— just as he is doing. What I wanted you to know was that that was not a new action, that General Pershing was fully instructed about that all along.

Then, similarly with regard to the impression that we are now going to rush troops to Europe. Of course, you cannot rush any faster than there is means of rushing and, what I have said recently is what I have said all along, that we are getting men over there just as fast as we can get them ready and as quickly as we can find the ships to transport them. We are doing that now and we have been doing it all along. Let me point out some of the circumstances: Our first programme was to send over ninety thousand men a month, but for several months we were sending over only thirty thousand—one third of the programme. Why? Not because we didn't have the men ready, not even because we didn't have the means of transportation, but because—and there is no criticism of the French Government involved in this—because the ports assigned to us for landing couldn't take care of the supplies we had to send over. We had to send materials and engineers, and workmen, even, over to build the docks and the piers that would be adequate to handle the number of men we sent over, because this was happening: We began with the ninety-thousand programme and the result was that cargo ships that we needed were lying in those ports for several weeks together without being unloaded, as there was no means of unloading them. It was bad economy and bad practice from every point of view to have those ships lying there during a period when they could have made two or three voyages. There is still this difficulty which I am afraid there is no means of overcoming rapidly, that the railroad communication between those ports and the front is inadequate to handle very large bodies of men. You may notice that General Pershing recommended that Christmas boxes should not be sent to the men. That sounded like a pretty hard piece of advice, but if you could go to those ports and see those Christmas boxes which are still there, you would know why he didn't want them sent. There was no means of getting them to the front. Vast accumulations of these gifts were piled up there with no means of storing them adequately even.

I just wanted to create for you this picture, that the channels have been inevitably choked. Now we believe that, inasmuch as the impediments on the other side are being largely removed, we can go ahead with the original programme and add to it in proportion as the British can spare us the tonnage, and they are going to spare us the tonnage for the purpose. And with the extra tonnage which the British are going to spare us we will send our men, not to France but to Great Britain, and from there they will go to the front through the channel ports. You see that makes a new line where the means of handling them are already established and where they are more abundant than they are at the French ports. Now, I want to say again that none of this involves the least criticism of the French authorities, because I think they have done their very best in every respect, but they couldn't make ports out of hand, they couldn't build new facilities suddenly, and their man power was being drawn on in very much larger proportion than our man power. Therefore, it was perfectly proper that we should send men over there and send materials to make the means of handling the troops and the cargoes more expeditiously.

I want you gentlemen to realize that there was no wave-like motion in this thing so far as our purpose and preparation are concerned. We have met with delays, of course, in production, some of which might have been avoided and ought to have been avoided, and which are being slowly corrected, but apart from that the motive power has been back of this thing all the time. It has been the means of action that has oscillated, it has been sometimes greater and sometimes less than was necessary for the programme.

I for my own part don't like the idea of having surprises. I would like the people to be surprised if we didn't do our duty, but not surprised that we did do it. Of course, I don't mean that Mr. Lloyd George meant that we would surprise everybody by doing our duty, but I don't just know how to interpret his idea of it, because I have said the same thing to the British representatives all along as I informally expressed it to Lord Reading, that we had been and always would be doing our damnedest, and there could not be a more definite American expression of purpose than that.

As to another matter (I am just giving you things to think about and not things to say, if you will be kind enough to take it that way). That speech I made on Saturday I hope was correctly understood. We are fighting, as I understand it, for justice to everybody and are ready to stop just as soon as justice to everybody is everybody's programme. I have the same opinion privately about, I will not say the policy, but the methods of the German Government that some gentlemen have who see red all the time, but that is not a proper part of my thought. My thought is that if the German Government insist that the thing shall be settled unjustly, that is to say by force, then of course we accept that and will settle it by force. Whenever we see sincere symptoms of their desire to settle it by justice, we will not only accept their suggestions but we will be glad and eager to accept them, as I said in my speech. I would be ashamed to use the knock-down and drag-out language; that is not the language of liberty, that is the language of braggadocio. For my part, I have no desire to march triumphantly into Berlin. If they oblige us to march triumphantly into Berlin, then we will do it if it takes twenty years. But the world will come to its senses some day, no matter how mad some parts of it may be now, and this is my feeling, that we ought when the thing is over to be able to look back upon a course which had no element in it which we need be ashamed of. So it is so difficult in any kind of a speech, this kind or any other, to express two things that seem to be going in opposite directions that I wasn't sure that I had succeeded in expressing them on Saturday—the sincere willingness to discuss peace whenever the proposals are themselves sincere and yet at the same time the determination never to discuss it until the basis laid down for the discussion is justice. By that I mean justice to everybody. Nobody has the right to get anything out of this war, because we are fighting for peace if we mean what we say, for permanent peace. No injustice furnishes a basis for permanent peace. If you leave a rankling sense of injustice anywhere, it will not only produce a running sore presently which will result in trouble and probably war, but it ought to produce war somewhere. The sore ought to run. It is not susceptible to being healed except by remedying the injustice. Therefore, I for my part wouldn't want to see a peace which was based upon compelling any people, great or small, to live under conditions which it didn't willingly accept.

If I were just a sheer Machiavelli and didn't have any heart but had brains, I would say: "If you mean what you say and are fighting for permanent peace, then there is only one way to get it, whether you like justice or not." It is the only conceivable intellectual basis for it, because this is not like the time, years ago, of the Congress of Vienna. Peoples were then not willing, but so speechless and unorganized and without the means of self-expression, that the governments could sit on their necks indefinitely. They didn't know how to prevent it. But they are wide awake now and nobody is going to sit comfortably on the neck of any people, big or little, and the more uncomfortable he is who tries it, the more I am personally pleased. So that I am in the position in my mind of trying to work out a purely scientific proposition: "What will stay put?"

A peace is not going to be permanent until that principle is accepted by everybody, that, given a political unit, every people has the right to determine its own life. That, gentlemen, is all I have to say to you, but it is the real inside of my mind, and it is the real key to the present foreign policy of the United States which for the time being is in my keeping. I hope it will be useful to you, as it is welcome to me to have this occasion of telling you what I really think and what I understand we are really doing.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

During this time the President was constantly on guard at the Executive offices, never for a moment out of touch with the situation. He was the intimate associate of the men who were his co-labourers on the various boards that had been set up to prosecute the work of the war. He seemed to know what was going on in every phase. His evenings were given to examination of the long dispatches that came from diplomatic and consular representatives of America at the various capitals of Europe, apprising him of the developments of the great war.

One of the most effective measures for weakening the enemy was the method of attacking the Central Powers from within by propaganda designed to incite the masses to rebellion and to drive wedges between Germany and Austria. As George Creel says, "The projectile force of the President's idealism, its full military value may be measured by the fact that between April 6 and December 8, 1917, sixteen States, great and small, declared war against Germany, or severed diplomatic relations with her. From the very first the Allies accepted the President as their spokesman." It was under the influence of Woodrow Wilson's clear vision and magic power of statement that the true significance of the war became clear. At first it had seemed a war of nations, and the belligerents had eagerly published official documents, Red Books, White Books, Yellow Books, and so forth, through all the colours of the spectrum, to show who had "started the war." The question of who began it became after a while quite secondary to the question of the fundamental principles at stake in the contest which was no longer a national conflict, but a world war, waged to the death between two irreconcilable views of the relationship of government to individuals, the autocratic view on the one hand, on the other the democratic. It was one man who brought the fundamental principle of the division into the clear light. A contemporary writer has said that the magical effect of Woodrow Wilson's utterances on all the Allies was due, not to his rhetoric but to his sublime gift of seeing and stating a profound truth after which others had been only groping. That is the prophet's power, to voice the latent, inarticulate aspirations of the multitude. Proof of the value of the President's method of attacking the Central Powers from within by propaganda was disclosed in General Ludendorff's and Von Tirpitz's revelations. In Ludendorff's opinion, the President's note to Germany had forced the Central Empires to yield to the President. Ludendorff says:

In his answer to our second note, Wilson gave us nothing; he did not even tell us whether the Entente took its stand on the Fourteen Points. He demanded, however, the suspension of the submarine campaign, stigmatized our conduct of the war in the west as a violation of international law, and once again sought to meddle with intimate questions of our domestic politics.

Speaking again of the answer to one of the Wilson notes, Ludendorff says:

The answer to Wilson was dispatched on the 20th of October. The submarine campaign was abandoned. This concession to Wilson was the deepest blow to the army, and especially to the navy. The injury to the morale of the fleet must have been immeasurable. The Cabinet had thrown up the sponge.

On October 23rd, President Wilson sent the following peremptory message to the Germans:

It is evident that the German people have no means of commanding the acquiescence of the military authorities of the Empire in the popular will; that the purpose of the King of Prussia to control the policy of the Empire is still unimpaired. If the United States must deal with the military masters and monarchical authorities now, or if it is likely to have to deal with them later in regard to international obligations of the German Empire, it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender. Nothing can be gained by leaving this essential thing unsaid.

In discussing this and the other Wilson notes, Ludendorff says that they had dealt a vital blow at the heart of militaristic Germans and finally loosed the grip they held on the German people. This entire situation is best expressed in Ludendorff's own words:

On October 23rd or 24th Wilson's answer arrived. It was a strong answer to our cowardly note. This time he had made it quite clear that the armistice conditions must be such as to make it impossible for Germany to resume hostilities, and to give the powers allied against her unlimited power to settle themselves the details of the peace accepted by Germany. In my view, there could no longer be doubt in any mind that we must continue the fight. I felt quite confident that the people were still to be won over to this course.

On the evening of the 24th, shortly after leaving Spa for Berlin, there was brought to me the following proclamation already signed by the Field Marshal, which expressed the views prevailing at G. H. Q. on the third Wilson note. It appeared essential that G. H. Q. in its dealings with Berlin should take up a definite stand to the note in order to eliminate its ill effects on the army. The telegram to the Army ran thus:

"For the information of all troops: Wilson says in his answer that he is ready to propose to his allies that they should enter into armistice negotiations; but that the armistice must render Germany so defenseless that she cannot take up arms again. He will only negotiate with Germany for peace if she concedes all the demands of America's associates as to the internal constitutional arrangements of Germany; otherwise, there is no choice but unconditional surrender.

"Wilson's answer is a demand for unconditional surrender. It is thus unacceptable to us soldiers. It proves that our enemies' desire for our destruction, which let loose the war in 1914, still exists undiminished. It proves, further, that our enemies use the phrase 'peace of justice' merely to deceive us and break our resistance. Wilson's answer can thus be nothing for us soldiers but a challenge to continue our resistance with all our strength.

"When our enemies know that no sacrifices will achieve the rupture of the German front, then they will be ready for a peace which will make the future of our country safe for the broad masses of our people.

"At the front, October 24th, 10 P.M."

This proclamation which was signed by Field Marshal Von Hindenburg was later signed by Ludendorff. It resulted in the Kaiser's immediate orders for a special conference at which both of these officials were dismissed from the Imperial German army.

Von Tirpitz in his Memoirs laid stress on the effect of the Wilson submarine notes. Ludendorff declares in his book that the "Wilson propaganda" that found root in Berlin and finally grew there eventually convinced the German people that it was not they themselves, but the Government and militarism that the United States was warring against. This was the seed of dissension that ruined German morale at home.

Tirpitz declared that the beginning of the end came when in answer to the President's Sussex note, "We showed the world that we were going down before America."

Probably the most enlightening chapter of either book is that containing Tirpitz's contention that the influence of the Wilson submarine notes resulted in Japan's stronger and more active alliance with the Allies. In this connection Von Tirpitz says:

Only the transmitting to Germany of the threatening notes of President Wilson, when he inveighed against my submarine campaign during the latter stages of the war, prevented Japan from coming to us in a great Germano-Japanese alliance, which would have ended the war at once.

The overtures of the Pope, in August, 1917, were rejected and again the attention of the world was arrested by the masterly leadership of the American President. On August 16, 1917, I addressed the following letter to the President with reference to the offers of peace made by His Holiness Pope Benedict XV:

The White House, Washington, 16 August, 1917.

DEAR GOVERNOR:

I do not believe that the proposals the Pope has submitted should lead us into a statement as to the terms of peace beyond that which the President has already given expression to in his address in the Senate and in his Russian note. In these two documents are discussed the fundamentals of international peace. Some of these fundamentals the Pope recognizes in his statement to the belligerents. To go beyond a discussion of these now might lead to a conflict of opinion even among our own allies (for instance, France hopes for the return of Alsace Lorraine; Russia, for Constantinople, etc.).

When the President said in his address of April second, last, that we were not making war on the German people, I believe he set the stage for the abdication of the Kaiser. And I think our whole note in reply to the Pope should be so framed that this idea would always be kept in the forefront of our discussion so as to bring home to the people of Germany the distrust and utter contempt in which the ruling powers of Germany are held by the peoples of the world.

Our note in reply to the Pope should, I believe, embody the following ideas:

"First—More important now than the terms of peace are the spirit and character of the nations who wish to end the war.

"Second—How can any international agreement to bring an end to the conflict be discussed until those who brought it about can be made to realize the inviolability of treaty obligations?

"Third—Attack the good faith of the ruling powers of Germany, calling attention to the fact that Germany brought on the war; that Germany invaded Belgium; that Germany ravished France, sank the Lusitania, ravished the women and children of the conquered territories; that Germany decreed submarine warfare, and 'erected barbarism into a religion.

"Fourth—And the democratic nations of the world are asked to confide their future and the future of the world to a nation that believes that force of arms should be substituted for the moral force of right. In other words, the ruling powers of Germany must purge themselves of contempt before they shall be given the hearing that the Pope feels they are entitled to."

This form of reply will, I am sure, rouse the people of Germany to a realization of the situation which confronts them, for there is abundant evidence that they are gradually arriving at the conclusion that the Kaiser no longer represents them or their ideals.

In other words, what I should like to see the President do is not to discuss in extenso our terms of peace but rather confine himself to a general attack upon the lack of good faith on the part of Germany in all of her dealings with us.

TUMULTY.

On August 27, 1917, the President, through, his Secretary of State, addressed the following reply to the Pope:

TO HIS HOLINESS BENEDICTUS XV, POPE:

In acknowledgment of the communication of Your Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917, the President of the United States requests me to transmit the following reply:

Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened by this terrible war must be touched by this moving appeal of His Holiness the Pope, must feel the dignity and force of the humane and generous motives which prompted it, and must fervently wish that we might take the path of peace he so persuasively points out. But it would be folly to take it if it does not in fact lead to the goal he proposes. Our response must be based upon the stern facts and upon nothing else. It is not a mere cessation of arms he desires: it is a stable and enduring peace. This agony must not be gone through with again, and it must be a matter of very sober judgment what will insure us against it.

His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status quo ante bellum, and that then there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations based upon an acceptance of the principle of arbitration; that by a similar concert freedom of the seas be established; and that the territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplexing problems of the Balkan States, and the restitution of Poland be left to such conciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new temper of such a peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved.

It is manifest that no part of this programme can be carried out successfully unless the restitution of the status quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practices and long- cherished principles of international action and honour; which chose its own time for the war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either of law or mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of blood—not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked but not defeated, the enemy of four fifths of the world. This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is no business of ours how that great people came under its control or submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose: but it is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world is no longer left to its handling.

To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by His Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to create a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German people who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the newborn Russia to intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the malign influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed the world. Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon any word of honour it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and accommodation?

Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before, that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple or, embarrass others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate injury. The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal upon the German people who have themselves suffered all things in this war which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the rights of governments —the rights of peoples great or small, weak or powerful—their equal right to freedom and security and self-government and to a participation upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of the world, the German people of course included if they will accept equality and not seek domination.

The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing government on the one hand and of a group of free peoples on the other? This is a test which goes to the root of the matter; and it is the test which must be applied.

The purposes of the United States in this war are known to the whole world, to every people to whom the truth has been permitted to come. They do not need to be stated again. We seek no material advantage of any kind. We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by the furious and brutal power of the Imperial German Government ought to be repaired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any people—rather a vindication of the sovereignty both of those that are weak and those that are strong. Punitive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace. That must be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind.

We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guaranty of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. Without such guaranties treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no man, no nation could now depend on. We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers. God grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the possibility of a covenanted peace.

ROBERT LANSING, Secretary of State of the United States.



CHAPTER XXXII

COLONEL ROOSEVELT AND GENERAL WOOD

It will be recalled that early in the war Colonel Roosevelt called at the White House to confer with the President regarding his desire to lead a brigade to the other side. I recall distinctly every fact of that meeting. I was seated a few feet away in the Red Room of the White House at the time these two men were conferring. Nothing could have been pleasanter or more agreeable than this meeting. They had not met since they were political opponents in 1912, but prior to that they had had two or three friendly visits with each other. Mr. Wilson had once lunched with Colonel Roosevelt at Sagamore Hill, and when the Colonel was President, he and his party had been luncheon guests of President and Mrs. Wilson of Princeton University on the occasion of an Army and Navy game played on the Princeton gridiron.

They met in the White House in the most friendly fashion, told each other anecdotes, and seemed to enjoy together what the Colonel was accustomed to call a "bully time."

The object of the Colonel's call was discussed without heat or bitterness. The President placed before the Colonel his own ideas regarding Mr. Roosevelt's desire to serve, and the attitude of the General Staff toward the volunteer system, a system that would have to be recognized if the Colonel's ambition was to be realized. As a matter of fact, instead of being moved by any ill will toward the Colonel, the inclination of the President was to overrule the recommendation of the General Staff and urge that the Colonel be granted permission to go over seas. The salutations at the end of the conference were most friendly and the Colonel, on his way out, stopped in to see me. He slapped me on the back in the most friendly way, and said: "By Jove, Tumulty, you are a man after my own heart! Six children, eh? Well now, you get me across and I will put you on my staff, and you may tell Mrs. Tumulty that I will not allow them to place you at any point of danger."

Some weeks later, I received the following letter from Colonel Roosevelt:

Oyster Bay, Long Island, N. Y. April 12, 1917.

MY DEAR MR. TUMULTY:

That was a fine speech of Williams. I shall write him and congratulate him.

Now, don't forget that it might be a very good thing to have you as one of my commissioned officers at Headquarters. You could do really important work there, and tell Mrs. Tumulty and the six children, that this particular service would probably not be dangerous. Come, sure!

Sincerely yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

MR. JOSEPH P. TUMULTY, Secretary to the President, Washington, D.C.

After the Colonel departed, the President in a boyish way said: "Well, and how did the Colonel impress you?" I told the President of the very favourable impression the Colonel had made upon me by his buoyancy, charm of manner, and his great good nature. The President replied by saying: "Yes, he is a great big boy. I was, as formerly, charmed by his personality. There is a sweetness about him that is very compelling. You can't resist the man. I can easily understand why his followers are so fond of him."

]

It was, therefore, with real pain that the President read the account of this interview as contained in John J. Leary's book entitled "Talks with T. R.," containing many slighting references made by the Colonel to the President. It appears that Mr. Leary accompanied the Colonel to the White House and immediately upon the conclusion of the conference was the recipient of a confidential statement of the Colonel's impression of the President. The account in Mr. Leary's book is as follows:

I found that, though I had written plainly enough, there was confusion in his [Wilson's] mind as to what I wanted to do. I explained everything to him. He seemed to take it well, but—remember I was talking to Mr. Wilson.

* * * * *

Tumulty, by way of a half joke, said he might go to France with me. I said: 'By Jove, you come right along! I'll have a place for you.' I would, too, but it wouldn't be the place he thinks. It is possible he might be sent along as sort of a watchdog to keep Mr. Wilson informed as to what was being done. He wouldn't be, though. He'd keep his distance from headquarters except when he was sent for.

* * * * *

He [Wilson] has promised me nothing definitely, but as I have said, if any other man than he talked to me as he did, I would feel assured. If I talked to another man as he talked to me it would mean that that man was going to get permission to fight. But I was talking to Mr. Wilson. His words may mean much, they may mean little. He has, however, left the door open.

Of course, what ultimately happened is clear to everyone, civilian and soldier, who pauses a moment to reflect; as plans for the conduct of the war matured, it became continually clearer that it must be a professional war, conducted by professionals with complete authority over subordinates. There could be no experimenting with volunteer commanders, no matter how great their valour, how pure their motives, or how eminent their positions in the nation. To make an exception of Colonel Roosevelt would have been to strike at the heart of the whole design. Military experts and the majority of Congressional opinion were at one in this matter, though Congress put upon the President the responsibility of making the final decision, together with whatever obloquy this would entail. It was purely as a step in the interest of waging the war with greatest effectiveness that the President announced the decision adverse to the Colonel's wishes. Personally it would have been pleasanter for the President to grant the Colonel's request, but President Wilson has never adopted "the easiest way."

A great deal of criticism was heaped upon the President for what appeared to the outside as his refusal to send General Leonard Wood to France. Although a fierce storm of criticism beat upon him, the President displayed no resentment, nor, indeed, did he seem to notice what his critics were saying.

As a matter of fact, the President played no part in the movement to keep General Wood from realizing his ambition to lead his division to France. Mr. George Creel in his book, "The War, The World and Wilson," has succinctly summarized this incident; has told how the name of General Wood did not appear in any of the lists of officers received from General Pershing; how the President took this as a plain indication that General Pershing did not desire General Wood in France (the absence of so eminent a name from the lists was certainly not an oversight 011 the part of the Commanding General in France); how President Wilson was determined to support General Pershing in every detail so long as General Pershing in the President's opinion was meeting the requirements of the great responsibility laid upon him; how the President was insistent that General Pershing should not be embarrassed by political considerations of any kind in the discharge of his great military duty; how the unfortunate feature of the whole matter was that the recall of General Wood did not come until "after he had taken his brigade to New York preparatory to sailing for the other side"; how "General March treated the circumstance as one of military routine entirely, utterly failing to realize its political importance"; how "instead of informing General Wood at once that he had not been chosen to go to France, General March followed the established procedure and waited for the completion of the training period before issuing orders to the division commanders"; how "General Wood left Camp Funston in advance of his division and without waiting to receive his orders"; how General March sent these orders to New York; how "in consequence there was an appearance of eleventh-hour action, an effect of jerking General Wood from the very deck of the transport"; how "General Wood carried his complaint to the President and was told plainly that the list would not be revised in the personal interest of any soldier or politician."

I discussed the matter with General Wood immediately upon the conclusion of his conference with the President. Walking into my office after his interview, the General informed me that his talk with the President was most agreeable and satisfactory and that he was certain, although the President did not intimate it to him, that the reason for his being held in America could not be attributed to the President. Turning to me, the General said: "I know who is responsible for this. It is that man Pershing." I assured the General that there was nothing in the President's attitude toward him that was in the least degree unfriendly, and reminded him how the President had retained him as Chief of Staff when he assumed office in 1913. The General, very much to my surprise, intimated that back of Pershing's attitude toward him was political consideration. I tried to reassure him and, indeed, I resented this characterization of General Pershing as an unjust and unwarranted imputation upon the Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces.

I myself felt that General Wood was being unfairly treated, although I did not admit this to him in our interview. I took the liberty of saying this to the President over the telephone from my house that evening. I tried to convince the President that there was a feeling rapidly spreading throughout the country that Wood was being unfairly treated and that it was not just that the Administration, which I knew was blameless in the matter, should be compelled to bear the responsibility of the whole thing and pay what I was certain would be a great price in the loss of popular esteem.

The President in his reply to my statement showed irritation at what I said in General Wood's behalf, and used very emphatic language in conveying to me the idea that he would not interfere in having the list, upon which General Wood's name appeared, revised. I urged that if General Wood was not to be sent to France, he should be given a chance to go to Italy. Our conversation over the telephone in reference to the Wood matter was as follows: "I trust, Governor, that you can see your way clear to send General Wood either to France or to Italy."

Without a moment's hesitation, the President said: "I am sorry, but it cannot be done."

Whereupon, I said: "It is not fair that the Administration should be carrying the burden of this whole affair. If General Pershing or the General Staff is responsible for holding General Wood in this country, surely they have good reason, and the public ought to be apprised of it, and thus remove the suspicion that we are playing politics."

The President quickly interrupted me and said: "I am not at all interested in any squabble or quarrel between General Pershing and General Wood. The only thing I am interested in is winning this war. I selected General Pershing for this task and I intend to back him up in every recommendation he makes."

When I tried to emphasize the feeling of dissatisfaction throughout the country over the Wood incident, he replied that the responsibility of winning the war was upon General Pershing and himself and not upon the critics who thought that General Wood was being badly treated. I then said: "But it is not fair to you to have it said that by reason of some feeling that you may have against Wood you are keeping him on this side."

The President replied: "I am sorry, but I do not care a damn for the criticism of the country. It would not be fair to Pershing if I tried to escape what appears to be my responsibility. I do not intend to embarrass General Pershing by forcing his hand. If Pershing does not make good, I will recall him, but it must not be said that I have failed to support him at every turn."

His attitude toward Wood and Roosevelt was consistently maintained, in supporting the General Staff and the War Department throughout the war. The only thing that seemed to interest him was how quickly and effectively to do the job and to find the man who could do it.



CHAPTER XXXIII

WILSON, THE WARRIOR

The President had but one object: to throw all the nation's energy into the scale for the defeat of Germany. Because he did not bluster and voice daily hymns of hate against Germany, he was singularly misunderstood by some of his fellow-citizens, who, in their own boiling anger against the enemy, would sometimes peevishly inquire: "Does he really hate Germany?" The President was too much occupied with deeds to waste time in word- vapouring. By every honourable means he had sought to avoid the issue, but a truculent and fatuous foe had made war necessary, and into that war the peace-loving President went with the grim resolution of an iron warrior. In his attitude before and during the war his motto might have been the familiar words of Polonius:

Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't, that the opposed may beware of thee.

Occasionally, as at Baltimore, on April 6, 1918, the public heard from him brief, ringing speeches of warlike resolution:

Germany has once more said that force and force alone shall decide whether Justice and Peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether Right as America conceives it or Dominion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind. There is therefore but one response possible from us. Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish Dominion down in the dust.

Months after hostilities had ended, there appeared from time to time in the newspapers, without his or my knowledge of proposed publication, utterances of his to military men during the conflict which showed his warrior heart and his extraordinary ability to grasp a technical military problem such as his dispatch to Admiral Sims, his address to the officers of the Atlantic Fleet, and his interview with Marshal Joffre in the White House. Perhaps it is not generally known that Mr. Wilson, who has constantly read and loved the philosophic poetry of Wordsworth, has also been an intense admirer of Shakespeare's warrior-hero, Henry the Fifth, and has frequently read aloud to friends, with exclamations of admiration, the stirring speeches of Henry in the Shakespearean play.

The cable message to Admiral Sims is as follows:

FROM THE PRESIDENT FOR ADMIRAL SIMS, American Embassy, London, July 5, 1917.

Strictly confidential.

From the beginning of the war, I have been greatly surprised at the failure of the British Admiralty to use Great Britain's great naval superiority in an effective way. In the presence of the present submarine emergency they are helpless to the point of panic. Every plan we suggest they reject for some reason of prudence. In my view, this is not a time for prudence but for boldness even at the cost of great losses. In most of your dispatches you have quite properly advised us of the sort of aid and cooperation desired from us by the Admiralty. The trouble is that their plans and methods do not seem to us efficacious. I would be very much obliged to you if you would report to me, confidentially, of course, exactly what the Admiralty has been doing, and what they have accomplished, and add to the report your own comments and suggestions, based upon independent thought of the whole situation, without regard to the judgments of any one on that side of the water. The Admiralty was very slow to adopt the protection or convoy and it is not now, I judge [protecting] convoys on adequate scale within the danger zone, seeming to keep small craft with the grand fleet. The absence of craft for convoy is even more apparent on the French coast than on the English coast and in the Channel. I do not see how the necessary military supplies and supplies of food and fuel oil are to be delivered at British ports in any other way within the next few months than under adequate convoy. There will presently not be ships or tankers enough and our shipbuilding plans may not begin to yield important results in less than eighteen months. I believe that you will keep these instructions absolutely and entirely to yourself, and that you will give me such advice as you would give if you were handling and if you were running a navy of your own.

(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

For sheer audacity, there is not much that can be compared with his address to the officers of the Atlantic Fleet on August 11, 1917:

Now, the point that is constantly in my mind, gentlemen, is this: This is an unprecedented war and, therefore, it is a war in one sense for amateurs. Nobody ever before conducted a war like this and therefore nobody can pretend to be a professional in a war like this. Here are two great navies, not to speak of the others associated with us, our own and the British, outnumbering by a very great margin the navy to which we are opposed and yet casting about for a war in which to use our superiority and our strength, because of the novelty of the instruments used, because of the unprecedented character of the war, because, as I said just now, nobody ever before fought a war like this, in the way that this is being fought at sea, or on land either, for that matter. The experienced soldier—experienced in previous wars—is a back number so far as his experience is concerned; not so far as his intelligence is concerned. His experience does not count, because he never fought a war as this is being fought, and therefore he is an amateur along with the rest of us. Now, somebody has got to think this war out. Somebody has got to think out the way not only to fight the submarine, but to do something different from what we are doing.

We are hunting hornets all over the farm and letting the nest alone. None of us know how to go to the nest and crush it; and yet I despair of hunting for hornets all over the sea when I know where the nest is and know that the nest is breeding hornets as fast as I can find them. I am willing for my part, and I know you are willing because I know the stuff you are made of—I am willing to sacrifice half the navy Great Britain and we together have to crush out that nest, because if we crush it the war is won. I have come here to say that I do not care where it comes from, I do not care whether it comes from the youngest officer or the oldest, but I want the officers of this navy to have the distinction of saying how this war is going to be won. The Secretary of the Navy and I have just been talking over plans for putting the planning machinery of the Navy at the disposal of the brains of the Navy and not stopping to ask what rank those brains have, because, as I have said before and want to repeat, so far as experience in this kind of war is concerned we are all of the same rank. I am not saying that I do not expect the admirals to tell us what to do, but I am saying that I want the youngest and most modest youngster in the service to tell us what we ought to do if he knows what it is. Now I am willing to make any sacrifice for that. I mean any sacrifice of time or anything else. I am ready to put myself at the disposal of any officer in the Navy who thinks he knows how to run this war. I will not undertake to tell you whether he does or not, because I know that I do not, but I will undertake to put him in communication with those who can find out whether his idea will work or not. I have the authority to do that and I will do it with the greatest pleasure.

* * * * *

We have got to throw tradition to the wind. Now, as I have said, gentlemen, I take it for granted that nothing that I say here will be repeated and therefore I am going to say this: Every time we have suggested anything to the British Admiralty the reply has come back that virtually amounted to this, that it had never been done that way, and I felt like saying: "Well, nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now." Therefore I should like to see something unusual happen, something that was never done before; and inasmuch as the things that are being done to you were never done before, don't you think it is worth while to try something that was never done before against those who are doing them to you. There is no other way to win, and the whole principle of this war is the kind of thing that ought to hearten and stimulate America. America has always boasted that she could find men to do anything. She is the prize amateur nation of the world. Germany is the prize professional nation of the world. Now when it comes to doing new things and doing them well, I will back the amateur against the professional every time, because the professional does it out of the book and the amateur does it with his eyes open upon a new world and with a new set of circumstances. He knows so little about it that he is fool enough to try to do the right thing. The men that do not know the danger are the rashest men, and I have several times ventured to make this suggestion to the men about me in both arms of the service. Please leave out of your vocabulary altogether the word "prudent." Do not stop to think about what is prudent for a moment. Do the thing that is audacious to the utmost point of risk and daring, because that is exactly the thing that the other side does not understand, and you will win by the audacity of method when you cannot win by circumspection and prudence. I think that there are willing ears to hear this in the American Navy and the American Army because that is the kind of folk we are. We get tired of the old ways and covet the new ones.

So, gentlemen, besides coming down here to give you my personal greeting and to say how absolutely I rely on you and believe in you, I have come down here to say also that I depend on you, depend on you for brains as well as training and courage and discipline.

When Marshal Joffre visited the President in the spring of 1917, he was surprised, as he afterward said to Secretary Daniels, "to find that President Wilson had such a perfect mastery of the military situation. He had expected to meet a scholar, a statesman, and an idealist; he had not expected to meet a practical strategist fully conversant with all the military movements.

"In answer to my question as to whether it would be feasible to send in advance of his army the general who was to command American troops in France, the President said at once that it could be arranged."

The President and Marshal Joffre considered together a number of technical military problems. General Joffre gave the President his expert opinion as to what should be done in every instance and was surprised at the promptness with which in each case the President said: "It shall be done."

A little incident at the White House at the luncheon given by the President to the members of the Democratic National Committee throws light upon the fighting qualities of the man. He asked Mr. Angus W. McLean, a warm and devoted friend from North Carolina, who was seated near him at the table, what the Scots down in North Carolina were saying about the war. Mr. McLean replied he could best answer the question by repeating what a friend of the President's father and an ardent admirer of the President had said about the President's attitude a few days previous. "I am afraid our President is not a true Scot, he doesn't show the fighting spirit characteristic of the Scots." The President promptly replied: "You tell our Scotch friend, McLean, that he does not accurately interpret the real Scottish character. If he did, he would understand my attitude. The Scotsman is slow to begin to fight but when once he begins he never knows when to quit."

Two capital policies which contributed enormously to the winning of the war received their impulse from Woodrow Wilson—the unification of command of the Allied armies on the western front and the attack of submarines at their base in the North Sea. On November 18, 1918, Colonel House let it be known in London that he had received a cable from President Wilson stating emphatically that the United States Government considered unity of plan and control between the Allies and the United States to be essential in order to win the war and achieve a just and lasting peace.

It was Woodrow Wilson, a civilian, who advised, urged, and insisted that a mine barrage be laid across the North Sea to check German submarine activities at their source. Naval experts pronounced the plan impossible: it would take too long to lay the barrage, and, when laid, it would not hold. A great storm would sweep it away. But the President insisted that the thing could be done, and that nothing else could check the submarine devastation amounting by July, 1917, to 600,000 tons a month of destroyed shipping. The President's audacity and persistence prevailed, and it is not too much to say that his plan ended the submarine menace.

It will be recalled that European newspapers carried a story of a farewell reception to Mr. Bonar Law, in which he paid his compliments to his chief, Mr. Lloyd George, saying, in substance, that he had seen Lloyd George discouraged only once. It was on the morning when the news came of the great German offensive in March, 1918. Mr. Lloyd George told Mr. Bonar Law that morning that only a vast increase in American reinforcements could save the Allies. A cable was immediately framed, asking Mr. Wilson to send the number of reinforcements necessary. Mr. Bonar Law stated in his speech that an affirmative answer was received from Mr. Wilson the same day.

A prominent Englishman, discussing the President's work in connection with the war, while criticizing what he characterized as the President's ignorance of European conditions, said: "I feel ashamed to be criticizing President Wilson for anything when I remember his practical services in prosecuting the war. No other man in any country gave such firm and instant support to every measure for making operations effective. His decisions were fearless and prompt and he stood by them like a rock. In sending troops promptly and in sending plenty of them, in cooperating in the naval effort, in insisting on the unity of command under Foch, in backing the high command in the field, and in every other practical detail Mr. Wilson had big, clear conceptions and the courage to carry them out."

Those who were critical of the President's conduct of the war forget the ringing statement that came from Lloyd George when the great offensive was on, when he said: "The race is now between Von Hindenburg and Wilson." And Wilson won.

The most important speech made by the President during the war was delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, on September 27, 1918, opening the campaign for the Fourth Liberty Loan.

I recall a talk the President had with me on the way to New York on the afternoon of the delivery of this speech when he requested me to read the manuscript. As he gave it to me he said: "They [meaning the Allies] will not like this speech, for there are many things in it which will displease the Imperialists of Great Britain, France, and Italy. The world must be convinced that we are playing no favourites and that America has her own plan for a world settlement, a plan which does not contain the germs of another war. What I greatly fear, now that the end seems inevitable, is that we shall go back to the old days of alliances and competing armaments and land grabbing. We must see to it, therefore, that there is not another Alsace-Lorraine, and that when peace finally comes, it shall be a permanent and a lasting peace. We must now serve notice on everybody that our aims and purposes are not selfish. In order to do this and to make the right impressions, we must be brutally frank with friends and foes alike."

As we discussed the subject matter of this momentous speech, I gathered from the President's statements to me that he clearly foresaw the end of the war and of the possible proposal for a settlement that might be made by the Allies. Therefore, he felt it incumbent upon him frankly to discuss America's view of what a just and lasting settlement should be. As one examines this speech to-day, away from the excitement of that critical hour in which it was delivered, he can easily find in it statements and utterances that must have caused sharp irritation in certain chancelleries of Europe. In nearly every line of it there was a challenge to European Imperialism to come out in the open and avow its purposes as to peace. Many of the Allied leaders had been addressing their people on the matter of peace; now they were being challenged by an American president to place their cards face up on the table. An examination of the speech, in the light of subsequent events, reemphasizes the President's pre-vision:

At every turn of the war we gain a fresh consciousness of what we mean to accomplish by it. When our hope and expectation are most excited we think more definitely than before of the issues that hang upon it and of the purposes which must be realized by means of it. For it has positive and well-defined purposes which we did not determine and which we cannot alter. No statesman or assembly created them; no statesman or assembly can alter them. They have arisen out of the very nature and circumstances of the war. The most that statesmen or assemblies can do is to carry them out or be false to them. They were perhaps not clear at the outset; but they are clear now. The war has lasted more than four years and the whole world has been drawn into it. The common will of mankind has been substituted for the particular purposes of individual states. Individual statesmen may have started the conflict, but neither they nor their opponents can stop it as they please. It has become a peoples' war, and peoples of all sorts and races, of every degree of power and variety of fortune, are involved in its sweeping processes of change and settlement. We came into it when its character had become fully defined and it was plain that no nation could stand apart or be indifferent to its outcome. Its challenge drove to the heart of everything we cared for and lived for. The voice of the war had become clear and gripped our hearts. Our brothers from many lands, as well as our own murdered dead under the sea, were calling to us, and we responded, fiercely and of course.

The air was clear about us. We saw things in their full, convincing proportions as they were; and we have seen them with steady eyes and unchanging comprehension ever since. We accepted the issues of the war as facts, not as any group of men either here or elsewhere had defined them, and we can accept no outcome which does not squarely meet and settle them. Those issues are these:

Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations be suffered to determine the fortunes of peoples over whom they have no right to rule except the right of force?

Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak nations and make them subject to their purpose and interest?

Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in their own internal affairs, by arbitrary and irresponsible force or by their own will and choice?

Shall there be a common standard of right and privilege for all peoples and nations or shall the strong do as they will and the weak suffer without redress?

Shall the assertion of right be haphazard and by casual alliance or shall there be a common concert to oblige the observance of common rights?

No man, no group of men, chose these to be the issues of the struggle. They are issues of it; and they must be settled—by no arrangement or compromise or adjustment of interests, but definitely and once for all and with a full and unequivocal acceptance of the principle that the interest of the weakest is as sacred as the interest of the strongest.

That is what we mean when we speak of a permanent peace, if we speak sincerely, intelligently, and with a real knowledge and comprehension of the matter we deal with.

* * * * *

As I have said, neither I nor any other man in governmental authority created or gave form to the issues of this war. I have simply responded to them with such vision as I could command. But I have responded gladly and with a resolution that has grown warmer and more confident as the issues have grown clearer and clearer. It is now plain that they are issues which no man can pervert unless it be wilfully. I am bound to fight for them, and happy to fight for them as time and circumstance have revealed them to me as to all the world. Our enthusiasm for them grows more and more irresistible as they stand out in more and more vivid and unmistakable outline.

And the forces that fight for them draw into closer and closer array, organize their millions into more and more unconquerable might, as they become more and more distinct to the thought and purposes of the peoples engaged. It is the peculiarity of this great war that while statesmen have seemed to cast about for definitions of their purpose and have sometimes seemed to shift their ground and their point of view, the thought of the mass of men, whom statesmen are supposed to instruct and lead, has grown more and more unclouded, more and more certain of what it is that they are fighting for. National purposes have fallen more and more into the background and the common purpose of enlightened mankind has taken their place. The counsels of plain men have become on all hands more simple and straightforward and more unified than the counsels of sophisticated men of affairs, who still retain the impression that they are playing a game of power and playing for high stakes. That is why I have said that this is a peoples' war, not a statesmen's. Statesmen must follow the clarified common thought or be broken.

I take that to be the significance of the fact that assemblies and associations of many kinds made up of plain workaday people have demanded, almost every time they came together, and are still demanding, that the leaders of their governments declare to them plainly what it is, exactly what it is, that they were seeking in this war, and what they think the items of the final settlement should be. They are not yet satisfied with what they have been told. They still seem to fear that they are getting what they ask for only in statesmen's terms—only in the terms of territorial arrangements and divisions of power, and not in terms of broad-visioned justice and mercy and peace and the satisfaction of those deep-seated longings of oppressed and distracted men and women and enslaved peoples that seem to them the only things worth fighting a war for that engulfs the world. Perhaps statesmen have not always recognized this changed aspect of the whole world of policy and action. Perhaps they have not always spoken in direct reply to the questions asked because they did not know how searching those questions were and what sort of answers they demanded.

But I, for one, am glad to attempt the answer again and again, in the hope that I may make it clearer and clearer that my one thought is to satisfy those who struggle in the ranks and are, perhaps above all others, entitled to a reply whose meaning no one can have any excuse for misunderstanding, if he understands the language in which it is spoken or can get someone to translate it correctly into his own. And I believe that the leaders of the governments with which we are associated will speak, as they have occasion, as plainly as I have tried to speak. I hope that they will feel free to say whether they think I am in any degree mistaken in my interpretation of the issues involved or in my purpose with regard to the means by which a satisfactory settlement of those issues may be obtained. Unity of purpose and of counsel are as imperatively necessary as was unity of command in the battlefield, and with perfect unity of purpose and counsel will come assurance of complete victory. It can be had in no other way. "Peace drives" can be effectively neutralized and silenced only by showing that every victory of the nations associated against Germany brings the nations nearer the sort of peace which will bring security and reassurance to all peoples and make the recurrence of another such struggle of pitiless force and bloodshed for ever impossible, and that nothing else can. Germany is constantly intimating the "terms" she will accept; and always finds that the world does not want terms. It wishes the final triumph of justice and fair dealing.

When I had read the speech, I turned to the President and said: "This speech will bring Germany to terms and will convince her that we play no favourites and will compel the Allies openly to avow the terms upon which they will expect a war settlement to be reached. In my opinion, it means the end of the war." The President was surprised at the emphasis I laid upon the speech, but he was more surprised when I ventured the opinion that he would be in Paris within six months discussing the terms of the treaty. The Washington Post, a critic of the President, characterized this speech, in an editorial on September 29, 1918, as "a marvellous intellectual performance, and a still more marvellous exhibition of moral courage."



CHAPTER XXXIV

GERMANY CAPITULATES

Germany had begun to weaken, and suddenly aware of the catastrophe that lay just ahead, changed her chancellor, and called upon the President for an armistice upon the basis of the Fourteen Points. The explanation of Germany's attitude in this matter was simply that she knew she was beaten and she recognized that Wilson was the only hope of a reasonable peace from the Berlin point of view. Germany professed to be a liberal and was asking Wilson for the "benefit of clergy."

On the 6th day of October, 1918, the following note from Prince Max of Baden was delivered to the President by the Secretary of State:

The German Government requests the President of the United States of America to take steps for the restoration of peace, to notify all belligerents of this request, and to invite them to delegate plenipotentiaries for the purpose of taking up negotiations. The German Government accepts, as a basis for the peace negotiations, the programme laid down by the President of the United States in his Message to Congress of January 8,1918, and in his subsequent pronouncements particularly in his address of September 27, 1918. In order to avoid further bloodshed, the German Government requests the President of the United States of America to bring about the immediate conclusion of a general armistice on land, on water, and in the air.

(Signed) MAX, Prince Of Baden, Imperial Chancellor.

The President was not surprised when the offer of peace came for on all sides there was abundant evidence of the decline of Germany and of the weakening of her morale. The President felt that Germany, being desperate, it would be possible for him, when she proposed a settlement, like that proposed by Prince Max, to dictate our own terms, and to insist that America would have nothing to do with any settlement in which the Kaiser or his brood should play a leading part. I stated to him that the basis of our attitude toward Germany should be an insistence, in line with his speech of September 27, 1918, wherein he said:

We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by any kind of bargain or compromise with the governments of the Central Empires, because we have dealt with them already and have seen them deal with other governments that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest. They have convinced us that they were without honour and do not intend justice. They observe no covenants, accept no principle but force and their own interest. We cannot come to terms with them. They have made it impossible. The German people must by this time be fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts or speak the same language of agreement.

At the time of the receipt of Prince Max's note by the State Department, on October 5, 1918, the President was in New York, staying at the Waldorf- Astoria, preparatory to attending a concert given by the Royal Italian Grenadiers. A message from the Army Intelligence Department, conveyed to me by General Churchill, at the Knickerbocker Hotel, in New York, where I was staying, was the first word we had of Germany's desire for an armistice. General Churchill read me the German proposal over the 'phone and I carried it to the President, who was in conference with Colonel House at the Waldorf. The offer of Germany was so frank and unequivocal in seeming to meet the terms of the President's formal proposals of peace, that when Colonel House read it to the President, he turned and said: "This means the end of the war." When I was interrogated as to my opinion, I replied that, while the German offer of peace seemed to be genuine, in my opinion no offer from Germany could be considered that bore the Hohenzollern-Hapsburg brand. For a moment this seemed to irritate the President, and he said: "But, at least, we are bound to consider in the most serious way any offer of Germany which is practically an acceptance of my proposals of peace." There our first discussion regarding the German peace offer ended.

At the conclusion of this talk I was invited to take dinner with the President and Colonel House and with the members of the President's family, but the matter of the note which we had just received weighed so heavily upon me that my digestive apparatus was not in good working order, and yet the President was seemingly unmindful of it, and refused to permit the evening to be interfered with because of the note, attending the concert and apparently enjoying every minute of the evening, and applauding the speeches that were made by the gentlemen who addressed us.

After the concert began, I left the Presidential box and, following a habit I had acquired since coming to the Executive offices, I conferred with the newspaper men in our party, endeavouring to obtain from them, without expressing any personal opinion of my own, just how they felt toward the terms proposed in the Max note. I then called up the State Department and discussed the note with Mr. Polk, expressing the same opinion to him that I had already expressed to the President, to the effect that we could not accept a German offer which came to us under the auspices of the Hohenzollerns. Upon the conclusion of the concert, we left the Metropolitan Opera House, I accompanying the President to the Waldorf. As I took my place in the automobile, the President leaned over to Mrs. Wilson and whispered to her the news of the receipt of the German note. Then, turning to me, he said: "Have you had any new reaction on the note since I last talked with you?" I told him I had not, but that what I had learned since talking with him earlier in the evening had only confirmed me in the opinion that I had already expressed, that it would not be right or safe for us to accept the German proposals. When we arrived at the Waldorf it was 12:30 A. M. and the President asked me to his rooms, and there, for an hour and a half, we indulged in a long discussion of the German offer. As was usual with the President in all these important matters, his mind was, to use his own phrase, "open and to let."

I emphasized the idea that we could not consider a peace proposal in which the Kaiser and his brood played a part, and that the only proffer we could consider must come from the German people themselves; that in his Mexican policy he had proclaimed the doctrine that no ruler who came to power by murder or assassination would ever receive the recognition of the United States; that we must broaden the morality which underlay this policy, and by our attitude say to the European rulers who started this war, that guilt is personal and that until they had purged themselves from the responsibility of war, we could not consider any terms of peace that came through them.

The next day the President left for Cleveland Dodge's home on the Hudson, with Colonel House and Doctor Grayson. I remained in New York at the Knickerbocker Hotel, busily engaged in poring over the newspaper files to find out what the editorial attitude of the country was toward the German proposal of peace, and in preparing a brief on the whole matter for the President's consideration. Before Colonel House left, I again impressed upon him my view of the note and my conviction that it would be a disastrous blunder for us to accept it.

The President returned to Washington in the early afternoon, Colonel House accompanying him. I was eager and anxious to have another talk with him and was given an opportunity while in the President's compartment in the train on our way back to Washington. As I walked into the compartment, the President was conferring with Colonel House, and as I took a seat, the President asked me if I still felt that the German proposal should be rejected. I replied, that, if anything, I was stronger in the judgment I had already expressed. He said: "But it is not an easy matter to turn away from an offer like this. There is no doubt that the form of it may be open to objection, but substantially it represents the wishes of the German people, even though the medium through which it may be conveyed is an odious and hateful one, but I must make up my own mind on this and I must not be held off from an acceptance by any feeling of criticism that may come my way. The gentlemen in the Army who talk about going to Berlin and taking it by force are foolish. It would cost a million American lives to accomplish it, and what lies in my thoughts now is this: If we can accept this offer, the war will be at an end, for Germany cannot begin a new one, and thus we would save a great deal of bloodshed."

I remember, as I pointed out to him the disappointment of the people were he to accept the German offer, he said: "If I think it is right to accept it, I shall do so regardless of consequences. As for myself, I can go down in a cyclone cellar and write poetry the rest of my days, if necessary." He called my attention to the fact that John Jay, who negotiated the famous treaty with Great Britain, was burned in effigy and Alexander Hamilton was stoned while defending the Jay Treaty on the steps of the Treasury Building in New York City. I pointed out to him that there was no comparison between the two situations; that our case was already made up and that to retreat now and accept this proposal would be to leave intact the hateful dynasty that had brought on the war.

As was his custom and habit, he was considering all the facts and every viewpoint before he finally took the inevitable step.

Never before was the bigness of the President shown better than in this discussion; never was he more open-minded or more anxious to obtain all the facts in the grave situation with which he was called upon to deal. In the action upon which his mind was now at work he was not thinking of himself or of its effect upon his own political fortunes. All through the discussion one could easily see the passionate desire of the man to bring this bloody thing of war honourably to an end.

Mr. Edward N. Hurley furnishes me with a characteristic anecdote connected with a session of the War Conference Board, which Mr. Hurley calls "one of the most historic conferences ever held at the White House."

"The question," says Mr. Hurley, "was whether the President would be justified in agreeing to an armistice. Many people throughout the country were demanding an insistence upon unconditional surrender. Very little news was coming from abroad." Mr. Hurley says that the President met the Conference Board with the statement: "Gentlemen, I should like to get an expression from each man as to what he thinks we should or should not do regarding an unconditional surrender or an armistice." Mr. Hurley says that "every man at the meeting except one was in favour of an armistice." After the President had ascertained the opinpn of each he said in a quiet way: "I have drawn up a tentative note to Germany which I should like to submit for your approval." After the paper had been passed Around one member of the Board said: "Mr. President, I think it would be better politics if you were to change this paragraph"—indicating a particular paragraph in the document. The President replied, in what Mr. Hurley calls "a slow and deliberate manner": "I am not dealing in politics, I am dealing in human lives."

While the President was engaged in conference with Colonel House, I addressed a letter to him, as follows:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

October 8, 1918.

DEAR GOVERNOR:

I do not know what your attitude is toward the late German and Austrian offers. The record you have made up to this time, however, is so plain that in my judgment there can be only one answer and that is an absolute and unqualified rejection of these proposals.

There is no safer counsellor in the country than the Springfield Republican. Speaking of the peace programme of the new German Chancellor, the Republican says:

"It [referring to the offer of Prince Max] does not meet the minimum requirements for the opening of negotiations. These have been variously stated, but in general may be reduced to restitution, reparation and guarantees. Under none of these heads has Germany yet come even measurably near meeting the plain requirements of the Allies, which have not been reduced in defeat and will not be increased with victory. Take, for example, the question of Belgium, now that Germany knows it cannot be kept, it makes a merit of giving it up, but beyond that Prince Maximilian is not authorized more than to say that 'an effort shall also be made to reach an understanding on the question of indemnity'.... What is needed first of all from Germany is a clear, specific and binding pledge in regard to the essential preliminaries. It does not advance matters an inch for the Chancellor, like Baron Burian, to offer to take President Wilson's points as a 'basis' for negotiations, They will make a first-rate basis, but only when Germany has offered definite preliminary guarantees."

I beg to call your attention to another editorial in the Springfield Republican, entitled "Why Germany Must Surrender," hereto attached.

Speaking of Germany's promises, I mention still another editorial from the Springfield Republican which concludes by saying, "Even Mr. Wilson is not so simple-minded as the Kaiser may once have thought him to be."

It is the hand of Prussianism which offers this peace to America. As long ago as last June you exposed the hollowness of peace offered under such conditions as are now set forth by the German Chancellor. Referring to the German Government, you said: "It wishes to close its bargain before it is too late and it has little left to offer for the pound of flesh it will demand."

In your speech of September 27th, you said:

"We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by any kind of bargain or compromise with the governments of the Central Empires, because we have dealt with them already and have seen them deal with other governments that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest. They have convinced us that they were without honour and do not intend justice. They observe no covenants, accept no principle but force and their own interest We cannot 'come to terms' with them. They have made it impossible. The German people must by this time be fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts or speak the same language of agreement." Certainly, the German people are not speaking through the German Chancellor. It is the Kaiser himself. He foresees the end and will not admit it. He is still able to dictate conditions, for, in the statement which appeared in the papers yesterday, he said: "It will only be an honourable peace for which we extend our hand."

The other day you said: "We cannot accept the word of those who forced this war upon us." If this were true then, how can we accept this offer now? Certainly nothing has happened since that speech that has changed the character of those in authority in Germany. Defeat has not chastened Germany in the least. The tale of their retreat is still a tale of savagery, for they have devastated the country and carried off the inhabitants; burned churches, looted homes, wreaking upon the advancing Allies every form of vengeance that cruelty can suggest.

In my opinion, your acceptance of this offer will be disastrous, for the Central Powers have made its acceptance impossible by their faithlessness.

TUMULTY.

While the President was conferring with Secretaries Lansing, Daniels, Baker, and Colonel House, I addressed the following letter to President Wilson and a practically identic letter to Colonel House:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

7 October, 1918.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

Since I returned, every bit of information that comes to me is along one line and that is, that an agreement in which the Kaiser is to play the smallest part will be looked upon with grave suspicion and I believe its results will be disastrous. In my opinion, it will result in the election of a Republican House and the weakening, if not impairing of your influence throughout the world. I am not on the inside and so I do not know, but I am certain that Lloyd George and Clemenceau will take full advantage of this opportunity in declaring that, so far as they are concerned, they are not going to sit down at the Council Table with William the Second, and you may be put in a position before the world, by your acceptance of these conditions, of seeming to be sympathetic with the Kaiser and his brood.

May not Germany be succeeding in splitting the Allies by this offer, just as Talleyrand succeeded, at the Congress of Vienna, in splitting the allies who had been victorious over Napoleon? You cannot blot out the record you have made in your speeches, which in every word and line showed a distrust of this particular autocracy, with which you are now asked to deal. Have you considered the possibility that as soon as Germany read your New York speech of September 27th, knowing, as they did, that it was neither palatable to the Allies nor in accordance with that which they had hitherto stood for, promptly accepted your attitude as a means of dividing the Entente at a critical moment and robbing her of the benefits of the military triumph? Did not Talleyrand do the very same thing to them, as the representative of defeated France, when he sided with Russia and Prussia as against England and thus made possible the return of Napoleon?

I realize the great responsibility that rests upon the President. In any other matter, not so vital as this, you could be wrong and time would correct it, but in a thing like this, when you are dealing with a question which goes to the very depths of international action and world progress, you are at the parting of the ways. If you wish to erect a great structure of peace, you must be sure and certain that every brick in it, that every ounce of cement that goes in it is solid and lasting, and above all, you must preserve your prestige for the bigger moments to come.

Sincerely, TUMULTY

Upon the conclusion of the conference, I had a talk with Colonel House and Secretaries Daniels, Lansing, and Baker, and again urged the necessity of a refusal on the part of the President to accept the German peace terms. Secretary Lansing informed me that the President had read my letter to the conference and then said: "We will all be satisfied with the action the President takes in this matter."

While at luncheon that afternoon, the President sent for me to come to the White House. I found him in conference with Secretary Lansing, Colonel House, and Mr. Polk. The German reply was discussed and I was happy when I found that it was a refusal on the part of the President to accept the German proposal.

The gist of the President's reply was a demand from him of evidence of a true conversion on the part of Germany, and an inquiry on the part of the President in these words:

"Does the Imperial Chancellor mean that the German Government accepts the Fourteen Points?" "Do the military men of Germany agree to withdraw all their armies from occupied territories?", and finally: "The President wishes to know whether the Chancellor speaks for the old group who have conducted the war, or does he speak for the liberated peoples of Germany?"

Commenting upon the receipt of the President's reply to the Germans, Andre Tardieu says:

It is a brief reply which throws the recipients into consternation they cannot conceal. No conversation is possible, declares the President, either on peace or on an armistice until preliminary guarantees shall have been furnished. These are the acceptation pure and simple of the bases of peace laid down on January 8, 1918, and in the President's subsequent addresses; the certainty that the Chancellor does not speak only in the names of the constituted authorities who so far have been responsible for the conduct of the war; the evacuation of all invaded territories. The President will transmit no communication to his associates before having received full satisfaction on these three points.

What must be the thought of those partisans in America who were crying out against the preliminary course of the President in dealing with Germany, who read this paragraph from Tardieu's book as to the impressions made in France and Germany by the notes which the President from week to week addressed to the Germans with reference to the Armistice?

Again Tardieu says:

Then comes the thunderbolt. President Wilson refuses to fall into the trap and, crossing swords in earnest, presses his attack to the utmost in the note of October 14. A mixed commission for evacuation? No! These are matters which like the Armistice itself "must be left to the judgment and advice of the military advisers of the Allied and Associated Governments." Besides no armistice is possible if it does not furnish "absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the maintenance of the present military supremacy of the armies of the United States and of its allies." Besides, no armistice "so long as the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhuman practices which they still persist in." Finally, no armistice so long as the German nation shall be in the hands of military power which has disturbed the peace of the world. As to Austria-Hungary, Germany has no interest therein and the President will reply directly. In a single page the whole poor scaffolding of the German Great General Staff is overthrown. The Armistice and peace are not to be the means of delaying a disaster and of preparing revenge. On the main question itself the reply must be Yes or No!

In the books of Ludendorff and Hindenburg we see the shattering effect of the President's answer upon the German military mind. Whatever misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the President's position there might be in his own country, whatever false rumours spread by party malice to the effect that he had entered into negotiations with Germany without the knowledge of the Allies and was imposing "soft" terms on Germany to prevent a march to Berlin, the German commanders were under no illusions. They knew that the President meant capitulation and that in his demand he had the sanction of his European associates.

Says Ludendorff:

This time he made it quite clear that the Armistice conditions must be such as to make it impossible for Germany to resume hostilities and to give the powers allied against her unlimited power to settle themselves the details of the peace accepted by Germany. In my view, there could no longer be doubt in any mind that we must continue the fight.

Said Hindenburg in an order "for the information of all troops," an order never promulgated:

He [Wilson] will negotiate with Germany for peace only if she concedes all the demands of America's allies as to the internal constitutional arrangements of Germany.... Wilson's answer is a demand for unconditional surrender. It is thus unacceptable to us soldiers.

In Andre Tardieu's book we read that from October 5th, the day when Germany first asked for an armistice, President Wilson remained in daily contact with the European governments, and that the American Government was in favour of writing into the Armistice harsher terms than the Allies thought it wise to propose to the Germans. It will be recalled that the popular cry at the time was "On to Berlin!" and an urgent demand upon the part of the enemies of the President on Capitol Hill that he should stand pat for an unconditional surrender from Germany; that there should be no soft peace or compromise with Germany, and that we should send our soldiers to Berlin. At the time we discussed this attitude of mind of certain men on the Hill, the President said: "How utterly foolish this is! Of course, some of our so-called military leaders, for propaganda purposes only, are saying that it would be more advantageous for us to decline the offer of Germany and to go to Berlin. They do not, however, give our people any estimate of the cost in blood and money to consummate this enterprise."