Leonard Wood, administrator, soldier, and citizen

Front matter

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Foreword

No American who is solicitous of the future of his country can well avoid glancing at the map of the worid with the question in mind: By what means have some nations achieved suzerainty over mankind, while others remain subordinate nations, whatever be the nominal degree of their independence?

Why are France, Great Britain, and the United States, powers of the first order? he will ask ; why was Germany such a power, and why are Italy and Japan approaching this high estate? Then he will inquire why the prerogative of decision among all the world's nations recently gathered at Paris should have fallen into the hands of three nations, and eventually into the hands of two.

He will wish to know the nature of the qualities which enabled Germany almost to gain the mastery of Europe, which enabled France to endure Germany's attack, and which enabled the English-speaking peoples to overthrow the one, deliver the other, and to come forth with the control of the world in their hands.

These are deep questions, in the sense that they reach to the fundamental phenomena upon which the structure of organized society is reared. But they are not abtruse questions; they may be understood if one but grasp the truth that civilization rests upon the superiority of its military power, of its weapons and warlike prowess.

If this were not so, the great mass of mankind, which is composed of savage and barbarous races, would long since have overthrown the small groups of peoples who have collectively created modern society and who now enjoy its fruits, and who, despite their insignificance in nimibers, are able to maintain and develop this society in the very midst of hostile multitudes. Were the military ramparts to fall by which this society is protected, there would instantly occur, not merely the sack of a Rome, but the destruction of civilization itself.

As Russia — and some of our own communities — have recently shown us, the savage and barbarous races are not confined to their native habitats, but their members are amongst us in great throngs, wearing our raiment and speaking our tongue. Some of them appear clad in the robes of our learning and culture, while simulating belief in our traditions and acquiescence in our governmental institutions; but they are nevertheless everywhere ready to throw over the established order so that they may possess themselves of its fruits without having to accept its, to them, alien and hateful restraints. One need only picture Western Europe, Great Britain, and our own continent, as having been plimged, as Russia has been plunged, into a condition of social and governmental disintegration, to realize whither a general barbaric eruption within the modem world would lead it.

So it is that civiHzation requires for its preservation the exercise of unsleeping vigilance, within its borders no less than beyond them. It must keep itself ready to defend promptly at its centre its traditions, and to save itself from disintegrating revolution, set afoot by those not of Western blood whom it has cherished and taught, and by their native allies, while at its boundaries the barbarian must ever be confronted by invulnerable barriers.

Because military force still is, as it always has been, the bulwark of civilization, the greatest calamity that could befall the human race would be invited by the disarmament of its advanced peoples. So long as civilized man shall employ his knowledge, skill, and highly developed spiritual powers to create and wield armaments that are in complexity and might beyond the grasp of savage or barbarian, his conceptions of life will prevail. But, so soon as he shall cease to cultivate and himself control the mechanisms and art of warfare, then, that which he terms his social order will perish, and mankind will find itself once more at the foot of the ladder of intellectual growth, spiritual development, and Hberty.

If we consider now the organized peoples that make up modern society, we find them in various stages of development . Some, being unable to govern themselves, are wholly governed by their rulers, while others wholly govern themselves. Between the complete subject and the complete citizen, history attests, many generations, living under favorable conditions, must intervene. A nation of vassals can no more successfully become a nation of citizens, at a single step — as the experience of Russia proves — than can a nation of citizens successfully be made a nation of vassals. This should be borne in mind by those self-governing peoples who, like ourselves, thoughtlessly invite promiscuous immigration.

Social customs differ, those of some peoples being offensive to other peoples, while no two peoples place quite the same emphasis upon any precept of the moral law. As habits of thought and life, and material necessities, differ among peoples, so differ tenets of international morality, and, consequently, the reactions of nations when international questions arise. Some are fortunately, and others are unfortunately, situated with respect to the acquirement of wealth and power. Some are more keenly alive than are others to the acquirement and use of practical knowledge. They differ in industrial energy and wisdom. Some peoples possess the local sense only, while others possess the world sense: hence the former expand but slowly, while the latter reach into the corners of the earth, found colonies everywhere, and take into their hands the direction of vast territories and the seas.

Between the two extremes are peoples in various stages of culture and growth, each dissatisfied with its lot and ever striving to better it by diplomacy or the sword. Thus, struggles for trade, for territorial or racial expansion, for security, with their ever present possibilities of war, are, and have always been, current phenomena in the international life of the civilized world.

We therefore come to see that there are three permanent dangers which menace the state, each of a military character, resulting from the hostility of (a) savage or barbaric peoples, (b) those within the state who wish to overthrow it, and (c) other, competitive, states.

In our search to discover the qualities which will make of our own commonwealth an enduring republic we ask: What is it that has enabled the English-speaking peoples to achieve what is in effect the mastery of the world? Having learned the cause, we shall wish to apply it diligently in our affairs. I recently asked one, well grounded in history, to name the single most important factor in the emergence of the English-speaking peoples. "The unshakable self-confidence of the Anglo- Saxon, " was the reply. Such is an effect, not a cause, but its suggestion furnishes an invaluable clue to the cause.

The self-confidence of the Anglo-Saxon is the stamp of his victories, — of the victories of the EngHsh-speaking peoples, whose affairs are conducted in accordance with Anglo- Saxon traditions and practices, notwithstanding their absorption of the blood of other peoples.

The Anglo-Saxon achieved victory over his rulers when he secured liberty of conscience and person, and when, throughout subsequent centuries of hardship, heperf ected himself inthe practice of self-government. He has achieved victory over surrounding nature, from which he has wrung more useful secrets, and set them to work for man, than has all the world besides. He has achieved victory over the wild wastes and tribes of the earth, which his organizing skill has brought under cultivation and control. He has achieved victory over all the peoples that throughout nearly nine hundred years have come against him. And, as his greatest victory, he has spread the benign complexion of his social and governmental institutions over the social and governmental institutions of mankind.

But what are the characteristics that have enabled the so-called Anglo-Saxon to achieve these victories ? The preservation of his group , and the cultivation of the traditional practices which have held it knit closely together and given it enduring form, have been to him the first duties of his being. To safeguard these, he has been ever ready to lay down his individual life. In response to an attack upon either, he has invariably chosen to svdfer, rather than to yield. Having set upon his group and its institutions a higher value than upon his individual life, he has been enduring in the midst of hardship, steadfast beneath the harrow of adverse circumstance, and fearless under the threat of death. In a world subject to volcanic national eruption, to meteoric national ascension and cataclysmic echpse, the Anglo-Saxon has neither paused nor hurried, but has moved forward to mastery by the application of inexorable glacierlike pressure.

In all things he is practical. He comprehends the earth and the material realities of existence, and deals with each upon its own terms. He knows that if men would stand firmly they must set themselves squarely upon the ground; but he knows also that if they would control themselves and other men, they must cultivate their intellectual and spiritual qualities and make of these the inspirators of their conduct. In him, therefore, strength is tempered with kindliness ; firmness, with gentleness; justice, with mercy; conviction, with tolerance; controversy, with chivalry, and ambition, with thought for the welfare of mankind. In the Anglo-Saxon, the materialist and idealist do not part company. Both, as he instinctively knows, are the artisans of nationality, and must be found functioning harmoniously in the daily life of a people if it is to endure and achieve greatly.

It is imperative that we have before us this view of the past ; that we know and apply the qualities upon which our national life is based, as we enter the complex struggle for the preservation of our institutions into which we are now suddenly plunged. We have amongst us those who, hating the institutions of civilized society, would raze these, and others who, detesting national separatism, would destroy the jealous spirit of devoted love for group and country to which we owe all that we are as a race and a nation, and replace it with a dilute attachment for mankind in general and for no nation in particular.

The first represent the materialist from whom the idealist has parted company, while the second represent the idealist who has forsaken the materialist. Both will inevitably fail in their attempts violently to remodel the spiritual and material agencies by which we have arrived where we are. But we must be prepared to pay the price of their defeat; we must be ready to suffer rather than to yield, if we are to avoid a calamitous transformation within, and preserve our form of government, or to avoid a disastrous surrender of our national liberty of action, and maintain our independence of foreign control.

The struggles in which we are now engaged are but a continuation of the series of events with which this book deals. In all of these events the same forces are to be seen more or less in co-operation, the one striving to destroy the national spirit, in order to bring about a revolution with safety and profit to itself; the other seeking to betray it, in order to bring all peoples into, or under the control of, a single international body. Patriotism is in the sight of both an offensive attribute which, because it stands in the way of both, is attacked by them in common. Thus we find the gross forces of revolution in virtual alliance with the cultivated forces of ultra idealism, which explains the philosophy of those who, while leading the second, tolerate and condone the offences of the first.

The recent Preparedness movement was the natural expression of the reaction of patriotic men of strong nationalistic feeling against the non-patriotic, internationalistic philosophy of President Wilson. That this movement was able at last to overturn his purpose, and to precipitate him into a war that was repugnant to him, is not cause for surprise; but that so great an effort was needed to arouse an English-speaking commonwealth to perform the patriotic duty of defending its nationality, is cause not alone for surprise, but for concern, — concern which is intensified by the herculean efforts now being required of another patriotic group, in the pending contest over the terms upon which we shall join a league of nations, to prevent the same community from yielding up its independence and surrendering the control of its destiny into the hands of a group of alien peoples.

In the various phases of the struggle for the preservation of traditional personal and national rights, which began with the Preparedness movement, there have stood forth two antithetic types of man. The one, the demolisher and reconstructionist who, whether as pacifist or covenanter, would first demolish and then abruptly remould the institutions of his people, upon an arbitrary plan of his own devising, and toss his nation into the melting pot of internationalism; the other, the conservator, the patriot committed to the conservation of his institutions and their orderly development, and the preservation of his nation's independence, who beHeves in the painstaking creation of a condition of international harmony based upon justice and mutual accommodation, but not upon the pooling of sovereignties.

Between these types no reconciliation is possible, nor is compromise possible between the theories of life and government which they profess. The first neither likes nor trusts either the processes by which Anglo- Saxon civilization has been achieved, or their resulting institutions; the second is the very product of these processes, and his free institutions are the breath of his nostrils. The one is exotic; the other is native. The one reacted to the war and the peace in ways wholly unknown to the history of English-speaking peoples; the other reacted to both in normal Anglo-Saxon fashion.

The story told by Professor Hobbs in his World War and Its Consequences, and in this book, is the story of the struggle between an alien parasitic growth, and the sturdy native tree about which it is stealthily entwining its tendrils. It is the story of the stout resistance of the Anglo-Saxon spirit to strangulation by ostensibly native fingers through the veins of which runs hostile alien blood. Twice has the man of this book stood forth as the defending instrimient of that spirit; at Plattsburg, while there gathered the clouds of war, and at Omaha and Gary, after the clouds had broken and gone. In both crises the native spirit was personified in Leonard Wood, and in both it prevailed. Did this soldier and administrator not possess in extraordinary degree the wise and virile qualities which have brought about and preserve the ascendancy of our great, our dominant race, he could not have aroused his countrymen from the somnolence of a spiritual drugging by the administrative head of their government and set them to prepare for their hour of trial, nor could he have stilled the revolutionary mob at Gary, without the loss of a life. Of his historian, also, something is to be said. In these days of an idealism unrelated to the facts of life, when the word patriotism must be spoken apologetically, if at all, in many halls of learning, and when the charter of our liberties is often the stock subject of academic jest, it is an occurrence of no small importance when one meets suddenly, face to face, a scholar who is a patriot. Such a man is the author of this book. Beneath the superstructure of his erudition, there lies an Americanism so profound and strong as to make him proof against the blasts of destructive ephemeral thoughts which, sweeping hither and thither across the intellectual world, press for a moment and are gone, — before the impact of such only a great man stays always rooted.

Henry A. Wise Wood.

New York City, October 27, 19 19.

Preface

This book makes no pretence either to deal adequately with the life of a great American, or with the important Preparedness movement of which he has been the conspicuous leader. These will no doubt be the subjects of careful study and of extended treatment by competent historians in the near future. The writer has found it a congenial task to devote a portion of his vacation to putting the salient facts in order. The book has almost written itself, for the attempt has been, so far as possible, to substitute for his own words the statements of those who by reason of their direct relation to the events recorded speak with the greatest authority.

W. H. H.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, September i, 19 19.

II.-

III-

PART II PROPHET AND ORGANIZER OF PREPAREDNESS IV. — Organizing the American Army for

V. — The Fight against Pacifism . .129

VI. — The Darkening of Counsel . . 151

VII. — " Broomstick Preparedness " . . 174

VIII. — At War 202

IX. — A Soldier's Reward . . . 233

Partial List of Writings of General Leonard Wood . . . 269

Books and Articles Concerning General Leonard Wood . .271 25

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Leonard Wood .... Frontispiece

General and Mrs. Wood and Family . . 36 '-^^

General Wheeler, General Wood, and

Colonel Roosevelt in Cuba . . 52^"^^

General and Mrs. Wood at Governor's

Island 104^^^

General Wood at Plattsburg . . . 132^^-^'

Mayor Mitchel and General Wood Reviewing Parade of the Alaska Soldiers at New York City Hall .... 146^^^^

Charles E. Hughes and General Wood at

Plattsburg 160^

General Wood and Secretary Garrison at ^

Dayton, Ohio, During the Flood . . 166

Letter to Wood from Colonel Roosevelt . 204

General Wood in 1918 .... 216

General Wood and Admiral Usher . . 236 ^

INTRODUCTION

The historian of the future will be compelled to study as one of the dominating factors in the Worid War that bitter struggle of the advocates of national defence against the hosts of pacifism, the later phases of which struggle have become known in the United States as the Preparedness movement. A competent judge has said, "Nothing of the kind, and certainly nothing of equal extent, has been known in this or in any other country. " The main object of the preparedness men, which was to provide for their country an adequate national defence before its involvement in war, was not to be crowned with success; but the salutary effect of the movement upon the morale of the nation through education to meet responsibilities when the storm should break, has been nothing less than overwhelming and was a prime factor in the final triumph of the Allies.

If it is true, as is now generally admitted, that America's participation was necessary for the winning of the war, it follows that the eleven months of indecision and note-writing which followed the sinking of the Lusitania, and the additional seventeen months which separated our official entry upon our responsibilities from our effective participation — two and one third years in all — cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of brave men in the AlHed armies, an amount of treasure which can scarcely be computed, and perhaps most important of all, it brought about that slow disintegration of morale within the Allied countries which is the direct consequence of exhaustion and discouragement and manifests itself by the running amuck of the disorderly elements of the proletariat. These new horrors, while bearing most heavily upon our Allies who have borne the burden and heat of the conflict, are now menacing the peace and prosperity of the entire world; and it is clear that they might all have been avoided.

The unfortunate discussion which has now developed over the question which nation won

Introduction 33

the war — a discussion entirely futile since all were necessary — has thus far overlooked the vitally important antecedent question of which nation lost the war for the Allies during the first two and a half years of the struggle. It is as true of support of war effort as of the military campaigns that morale is three fourths, and actual physical effort one fourth; and it would be easy to show that President Wilson's deadening repression of every patriotic sentiment, and his eagerness to launch one peace without victory movement after another, again and again blocked the military efforts of the Allied Powers. The complete breakdown of the Allies' Balkan policy must be studied with this in mind, as must also the long delay of Great Britain to take the strangle hold and vigorously enforce a blockade against the enemy. This delay was occasioned largely through fear of giving offence to the American Government, and to it is to be charged therefore the great military successes of Germany during the opening years of the war. Throughout this period the President was addressing to the British Government vigorous notes of protest against the restrictions which were put upon American trade, meanwhile negotiating with the BerUn Government in an effort to aboHsh all blockade and set up the German doctrine of Freedom of the Seas. Had the British Government but felt free to enforce the blockade in the years 19 14 and 191 5, as it did later, the great crisis of 19 1 7 which resulted from submarine successes, and the military crisis of the spring of 1918, could hardly have occurred. Had we in America through preparedness in season been able to apply our military force in six months, instead of seventeen months, after our admission that we were at war, the end must have come in the defeat of Germany at least a full year before the date of the signing of the armistice.

The American Preparedness movement and the British had many points in common. Entrusting its defence to a dominant navy, the British Government had adopted the policy of maintaining no army of importance at home; but the very obvious menace which was rearing its head in Germany had within the last dec-

Introduction 35

ade before the war given the alarm to a few far-seeing statesmen and military men. Seven years before the war broke, that great British soldier, Field Marshal Earl Roberts, the hero of Kabul and Kandahar, threw age-long military traditions to the winds and travelled up and down the land sounding the warning to "prepare or perish. " His warnings were resented by the pacifist ministry then in power, and were apparently but little heeded by the common people. The Minister of State for War administered a rebuke which was accompanied by a threat to take away the Field Marshal's pension if he did not desist from his crusade. For such an unusual departure from age-long tradition as that made by Earl Roberts, though one which time has fully justified, a courage was required far greater than that which leads men to face the cannon in battle.

This fearless course of Lord Roberts in England was paralleled in the United States by that of General Leonard Wood, who was likewise the ranking general in the army and the most distinguished soldier in the country. Both these great commanders had been at the German manoeuvres of 1902, where they watched the rehearsal in practice of the most perfect mihtary machine that the world had ever seen. ' * Wood, ' ' said Roberts, ' * what are our countries to do when that splendid military machine is directed against us?" Each returned to warn his country at whatever cost to himself. In each case the warning was imheeded and bitterly resented by the pacifist Government in power.

Soldier as he is. General Wood has kept his temper and, no matter under what provocation, he has never been led into criticism of his Commander-in-Chief; but neither has he been coerced by threats or intimidation from telling the stark truth concerning the peril that has faced his country. No one not himself a commander of troops is likely in any degree to be able to measure the depths of the General's heart-breaking disappointment when upon the eve of embarking for the front with the crack division which he had trained, the order was received relieving him of his command and aiming to place him on the shelf at

I Wallinger Co

General and Mrs. Wood and family

Introduction 37

a deserted military post. At this juncture public opinion became audible in so angry a tone that the order had to be modified and the General permitted to exercise his genius in training a second division for field service. This second splendid unit was trained and ready to leave for the front when hostilities were terminated by the signing of the

armistice.

The proponents of preparedness have always made their fight under most serious handicaps. It is peculiar to humanity to accept of two programmes that one which is the more agreeable. Our wishes are almost inevitably the father to our thoughts and beliefs. The siren voice of pacifism tells us that we are secure in a soft and easy existence with leisure for high thinking and for boundless material prosperity. Why should we resort to stern self-sacrifice and turn our thoughts even for a moment to such base objects as preparing to destroy the lives of our fellow-men made in the image of God? '*It is wicked"; they say, "it is the militarism of a sordid Europe above which we have risen in our famed American idealism"; and a picture is painted of a future Utopia of which no evidence has yet been seen.

If, in addition, the Government is actively engaged in developing the propaganda of pacifism, it becomes invested with the prestige of legality, and Americans are a law-abiding people who expect to follow the lead of their Government in all things. No one who has studied carefully the situation, or who has read with any fullness the press comments during the days of suspense which followed the sinking of the Lusitania, can doubt that if, instead of his "too proud to fight" address, President Wilson had spoken a word of courage and determination, the vast majority of his countrymen would have rallied loyally behind him in a declaration of war upon Germany.

No less important as a factor in the great struggle to raise the public morale has been that mass psychology of the people which is developed by mass action through association, and which responds to stimulation — organization. Once a stand has been taken, the pride

Introduction 39

of consistency and firmness is impelling against any change of mental attitude. Hence the side which first occupies the field with propaganda is, quite independent of the strength of its arguments (provided counter arguments are not forthcoming), almost certain to prevail because of the mind becoming committed and so closed to argument. The organized peace societies were first in the field, and they were, moreover, far better financed throughout than were the defence organizations which so tardily followed them. Moreover, such appeal to the emotions as they indulged in lent itself readily to popular oratory, against which the appeal to reason of sober statements can hardjy be expected to prevail if abundant time for deliberation is not found.

It was the impelling object-lessons of the war itself during those years when we were shielded by the Allies, confirming as they did the arguments of the preparedness men and refuting the shallow prattlings of the pacifist preachments, which wrought those profound changes in the national morale which now appear so remarkable. In inculcating these above j^- ;:':rrr . ; Ir:: :

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Chapter I

A characteristic incident — Wood's early life — He enters the army as a contract surgeon — He takes part in Lawton's expedition against Geronimo — Takes command of the infantry when no line officers are left — Is given the Congressional Medal of Honor — Ordered to Washington to become attending surgeon to President Cleveland — Meets Theodore Roosevelt — Wood organizes the "Rough Riders" and becomes Colonel of Volunteers — The battle of Las Guasimas — Commands a brigade at battle of San Juan Hill — Becomes Governor of Santiago Province — Cleaning a pest-ridden city — The r^eneration of a province — With one sentry the General suppresses a riot.

When General Wood held the post of Chief of Staff of the United States Army, the highest nosition in the service, it is reported that a lanky Western fellow whose gait proclaimed that he had spent his life in the saddle wandered into the War Department.

"Who was that bull -bison who dashed past me and bolted through that door as if it hadn't any business bein' in the way?" he inquired.

"That was General Wood," solemnly replied the doorkeeper.

"He covers the ground mighty decided," remarked the saddle man. "Wonder if he's any relative of Doc Wood — Doc Len Wood, who used to be with the Fourth Cavahy in Arizona, and went with the Rough Riders to Cuby, and afterward President IVIcKinley made him Governor."

"That was the General Wood himself," replied the doorkeeper.

"You're guyin' me," said the Westerner. "Maybe you think I don't know Len Wood. Waal, I do then. I served in the Fourth Cavalr>^ through the Geronimo campaign when Wood got his breakin' in— a lean, cleancut, yellow-white-headed contract doctor; but he made a go of it, by gosh ! He wasn't much to look at, but we soon caught on that what little stuffin' there was in him was all right, and before he was with us long, there wasn't a man could best him. Doc was always right on hand whenever there was a man to be pulled through. We come to think a powerful lot of Len Wood, back there in '86. You never could get talk enough out of him to call it answerin' back, but whenever it was doin'' instead of talkin\ he was front, rear, and both flanks. He had an eye in his head that you didn't want to have hit you if you wasn't satisfied to have it see clean through." He paused abruptly and settled back against the wall, for the door fiew open and General Wood emerged, tall, massive, with deep chest and powerful shoulders, and quick and elastic in every motion.