TR Tries to Go to War (Again)
When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Theodore Roosevelt was 58 years of age. Despite being past the usual age of enlistment, Roosevelt asked permission from President Woodrow Wilson to lead volunteer troops to fight in the war. Wilson declined Roosevelt's offer.
Roosevelt wrote about this in his book Foes of Our Own Household, written in 1917. He wrote that he had authorization from Congress to raise four divisions to fight in France. He had raised divisions to fight in the Spanish-American War in 1898 at the age of 39 (the "Rough Riders"). President Wilson ultimately rejected Roosevelt's plan, partly because of concern about Roosevelt's age and health, partly because the Army brass was concerned about Roosevelt's ability to follow orders and partly for political reasons (he was concerned about Roosevelt running against him for President in 1920.)
Roosevelt sent this telegram to President Wilson on May 18, 1917:
I respectfully ask permission immediately to raise two divisions for immediate service at the front under the bill which has just become law, and hold myself ready to raise four divisions, if you so direct. I respectfully refer for details to my last letters to the Secretary of War. If granted permission, I earnestly ask that Captain Frank McCoy be directed to report to me at once. Minister Fletcher has written me that he is willing. Also if permission to raise the divisions is granted, I would like to come to Washington as soon as the War Department is willing, so that I may find what supplies are available, and at once direct the regular officers who are chosen for brigade and regimental commands how and where to get to work.
Wilson sent back this response on May 19th:
I very much regret that I cannot comply with the request in your telegram of yesterday. The reasons I have stated in a public statement made this morning, and I need not assure you that my conclusions were based entirely upon imperative considerations of public policy and not upon personal or private choice.
Roosevelt denied that there were any political considerations in his offer. On May 21st, he wrote to the men who had volunteered to serve with him, stating:
I wish respectfully to point out certain errors into which the President has been led in his announcement. He states that the purpose was to give me an "independent" command. In my last letter to the Secretary of War I respectfully stated that if I were given permission to raise an army corps of two divisions, to be put under the command of some General like Wood or Bell or Pershing or Barry or Kuhn, I desired for myself only the position of junior among the eight brigade commanders. My position would have been exactly the same as theirs, except that I would have ranked after and have been subordinate to the rest of them.
The President alludes to our proffered action as one that would have an effect "politically," but as not contributing to the "success of the war," and as representing a "policy of personal gratification or advantage." I wish respectfully but emphatically to deny that any political consideration whatever or any desire for personal gratification or advantage entered into our calculations. Our undivided purpose was to contribute effectively to the success of the war. I know nothing whatever of the politics of the immense majority of the men who came forward, and those whose politics I do know numbered as many Democrats as Republicans. My purpose was to enable the Government to use as an invaluable military asset the men who would not be reached under the selective draft, who were fit for immediate service, and the great majority of whom would not otherwise be used at all...
The President says in effect that to comply with our offer would have been mischievous from the military standpoint and he adds that the regular officers whom I have asked to have associated with me are "some of the most effective officers of the regular army, "who" cannot possibly be spared from the duty of training regular troops." One of the chief qualifications for military command is to choose for one's associates and subordinates "the most effective officers," and this qualification the President thus states that I possess. As for my withdrawing them from the "more pressing and necessary duty of training" the troops, I wish to point out that I had asked for about fifty regular officers from lieutenant-colonels to second lieutenants for the first division. This would be only about one-tenth of the number who will go with General Pershing's division which, the President announces, is to be composed exclusively of regulars...
The President condemns our proposal on the ground that "undramatic" action is needed, action that is "practical and of scientific definiteness and precision." There was nothing dramatic in our proposal save as all proposals indicting eagerness or willingness to sacrifice life for an ideal are dramatic. It is true that our division would have contained the sons or grandsons of men who in the Civil War wore the blue or the gray; for instance, the sons or grandsons of Phil Sheridan, Fitz Hugh Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James A. Garfield, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Adna R. Chaffee, Nathan Bedford Forest; but these men would have served either with commissions or in the ranks, precisely like the rest of us; and all alike would have been judged solely by the efficiency-including the "scientific definiteness"-with which they did their work and served the flag of their loyal devotion.
It was probably a good thing that Wilson rejected TR's offer. As it was, Roosevelt died less than two years later from a heart attack. He also had other health problems such as rheumatism. On the other hand, Roosevelt was a tough old bird, and it may have been that the thrill of the fight would have reinvigorated him. As Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall said when TR died, "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight."
Roosevelt wrote about this in his book Foes of Our Own Household, written in 1917. He wrote that he had authorization from Congress to raise four divisions to fight in France. He had raised divisions to fight in the Spanish-American War in 1898 at the age of 39 (the "Rough Riders"). President Wilson ultimately rejected Roosevelt's plan, partly because of concern about Roosevelt's age and health, partly because the Army brass was concerned about Roosevelt's ability to follow orders and partly for political reasons (he was concerned about Roosevelt running against him for President in 1920.)
Roosevelt sent this telegram to President Wilson on May 18, 1917:
I respectfully ask permission immediately to raise two divisions for immediate service at the front under the bill which has just become law, and hold myself ready to raise four divisions, if you so direct. I respectfully refer for details to my last letters to the Secretary of War. If granted permission, I earnestly ask that Captain Frank McCoy be directed to report to me at once. Minister Fletcher has written me that he is willing. Also if permission to raise the divisions is granted, I would like to come to Washington as soon as the War Department is willing, so that I may find what supplies are available, and at once direct the regular officers who are chosen for brigade and regimental commands how and where to get to work.
Wilson sent back this response on May 19th:
I very much regret that I cannot comply with the request in your telegram of yesterday. The reasons I have stated in a public statement made this morning, and I need not assure you that my conclusions were based entirely upon imperative considerations of public policy and not upon personal or private choice.
Roosevelt denied that there were any political considerations in his offer. On May 21st, he wrote to the men who had volunteered to serve with him, stating:
I wish respectfully to point out certain errors into which the President has been led in his announcement. He states that the purpose was to give me an "independent" command. In my last letter to the Secretary of War I respectfully stated that if I were given permission to raise an army corps of two divisions, to be put under the command of some General like Wood or Bell or Pershing or Barry or Kuhn, I desired for myself only the position of junior among the eight brigade commanders. My position would have been exactly the same as theirs, except that I would have ranked after and have been subordinate to the rest of them.
The President alludes to our proffered action as one that would have an effect "politically," but as not contributing to the "success of the war," and as representing a "policy of personal gratification or advantage." I wish respectfully but emphatically to deny that any political consideration whatever or any desire for personal gratification or advantage entered into our calculations. Our undivided purpose was to contribute effectively to the success of the war. I know nothing whatever of the politics of the immense majority of the men who came forward, and those whose politics I do know numbered as many Democrats as Republicans. My purpose was to enable the Government to use as an invaluable military asset the men who would not be reached under the selective draft, who were fit for immediate service, and the great majority of whom would not otherwise be used at all...
The President says in effect that to comply with our offer would have been mischievous from the military standpoint and he adds that the regular officers whom I have asked to have associated with me are "some of the most effective officers of the regular army, "who" cannot possibly be spared from the duty of training regular troops." One of the chief qualifications for military command is to choose for one's associates and subordinates "the most effective officers," and this qualification the President thus states that I possess. As for my withdrawing them from the "more pressing and necessary duty of training" the troops, I wish to point out that I had asked for about fifty regular officers from lieutenant-colonels to second lieutenants for the first division. This would be only about one-tenth of the number who will go with General Pershing's division which, the President announces, is to be composed exclusively of regulars...
The President condemns our proposal on the ground that "undramatic" action is needed, action that is "practical and of scientific definiteness and precision." There was nothing dramatic in our proposal save as all proposals indicting eagerness or willingness to sacrifice life for an ideal are dramatic. It is true that our division would have contained the sons or grandsons of men who in the Civil War wore the blue or the gray; for instance, the sons or grandsons of Phil Sheridan, Fitz Hugh Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James A. Garfield, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Adna R. Chaffee, Nathan Bedford Forest; but these men would have served either with commissions or in the ranks, precisely like the rest of us; and all alike would have been judged solely by the efficiency-including the "scientific definiteness"-with which they did their work and served the flag of their loyal devotion.
It was probably a good thing that Wilson rejected TR's offer. As it was, Roosevelt died less than two years later from a heart attack. He also had other health problems such as rheumatism. On the other hand, Roosevelt was a tough old bird, and it may have been that the thrill of the fight would have reinvigorated him. As Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall said when TR died, "Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight."