by FDR
Another pet project involved creation of a naval reserve. FDR was impressed with the training camp Cousin Theodore and General Leonard Wood had established at Plattsburgh, New York, to drill young gentlemen in the rudiments of military life, and he wished to establish a naval counterpart.* Initially, the going was heavy. Daniels feared the reserve would appeal primarily to rich young Ivy Leaguers and well-to-do yachtsmen and would have an upper-class bias. Franklin assured him otherwise. “You may take my word for it,” he told Daniels, the reserve would be constituted “on absolutely democratic lines.”75 Daniels was won over and permitted a preliminary cruise in the summer of 1916 but procrastinated establishing the reserve itself. On September 2, with Daniels away, FDR as acting secretary ordered the creation of a Naval Reserve of fifty thousand men along with an auxiliary complement of patrol boats.76 “Today I sprang the announcement … and trust J.D. will like it,” Franklin wrote Eleanor. “It is of the utmost importance and I have failed for a year to get him to take any action, though he never objected to it. Now I have gone ahead and pulled the trigger myself. I suppose the bullet may bounce back on me, but it is not revolutionary nor alarmist and is just common sense.”77
Nineteen-sixteen was a presidential election year, and as a preparedness Democrat FDR was a distinct asset to the administration: a Roosevelt on display to offset the criticism of Cousin Theodore and the interventionist wing of the GOP. Wilson’s chances looked dim. His narrow victory in 1912 traced to the split in Republican ranks between party regulars under Taft and progressive insurgents backing TR. But in the spring of 1916 the Colonel returned to the fold. The GOP regulars were a sordid bunch, he told friends, but “a trifle better than the corrupt and lunatic wild asses who seem most influential in Democratic councils.”78 Wilson’s recent marriage to the Washington socialite Edith Galt, a widow considerably younger than he, also did not help his chances, coming so quickly after his first wife’s death. And the preparedness issue cut both ways. While TR lambasted the administration for being too weak, many in the Middle West—where isolationist sentiment was strong—condemned Wilson for being too bellicose.
When the Republican National Convention convened at Chicago in early June, anticipation of victory was in the air. Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes quickly emerged as a compromise candidate and was nominated virtually without opposition on the second ballot.79 Twice elected governor of New York, Hughes had established a solid record of reform but had turned away from partisan politics following his elevation to the bench in 1910. His remarkable intellect and good judgment had made him the leader of the Court’s liberal minority, while his stately bearing and conservative demeanor endeared him to Republican regulars. The only Supreme Court justice in the nation’s history to be tapped by a major party, Hughes looked more presidential than any candidate in recent history.
On June 14, 1916, four days after Hughes was nominated, the nation celebrated Flag Day with preparedness parades throughout the country. Wilson led the Washington procession himself, a flag carried decorously over his shoulder. Civilian employees from each government department marched, and FDR headed the Navy’s contingent. “The Navy Department made an excellent showing,” he wrote Eleanor. “When I passed the President’s reviewing stand I was sent for to join them and spent the next four hours there.”80 Press coverage the next day featured photographs of Wilson standing foursquare for preparedness, a Democratic Roosevelt beaming at his side.81
FDR campaigned for the ticket in New England and the middle Atlantic states. He defended the administration’s preparedness record and shielded Daniels from Republican attack, suggesting that criticism of the mobilization effort was counterproductive and unpatriotic. “How would you expect the public to be convinced that a dangerous fire was in progress if they saw members of the volunteer fire department stop their headlong rush toward the conflagration and indulge in a slanging match as to who was responsible for the rotten hose or lack of water at a fire a week ago?”82 The fire hose analogy was one of the homey metaphors FDR sometimes called up to explain the necessity for cooperation in times of crisis. In early 1940 he employed it again to support his proposal for Lend-Lease to Great Britain: “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire.”83
Hughes waged a lackluster campaign—TR called him “Wilson with whiskers”—but he remained the overwhelming favorite.84 New York bookmakers quoted the final odds at 5 to 3. On election night, FDR attended a large dinner given by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., for party bigwigs at New York’s Biltmore Hotel. Morgenthau chaired the Democratic finance committee, and the politicians present that evening hoped against hope the bookies had it wrong. Gloom settled in quickly. Early returns from the East showed a landslide for Hughes. Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont, all of which Wilson had carried in 1912, had swung Republican. North of the Mason-Dixon Line, only New Hampshire remained in doubt. At midnight Franklin left the Biltmore to catch the last train to Washington, certain that Wilson had lost. Newsboys were already hawking Wednesday’s New York Times proclaiming Hughes elected in banner headlines. At press time, the Republicans had carried or were leading in eighteen states with 247 electoral votes to Wilson’s 135. Two hundred sixty-six votes were needed to win, and Hughes was only 19 shy.
Results from the West were slow coming in. But when FDR reached his office the next morning, Hughes’s lead had narrowed. In addition to the Solid South, Wilson appeared to be adding one after another of the states beyond the Mississippi. The Democrats campaign slogan, “He kept us out of war,” had fallen on receptive ears in America’s heartland. By noon the race had become too close to call. Franklin scribbled a quick note to Eleanor at Hyde Park: “Dearest Babs, [This] is the most extraordinary day of my life. Wilson may be elected after all. It looks hopeful at noon.”85 Uncertainty continued through Thursday. “Returns have been coming in every hour,” FDR wrote Eleanor. “Wilson seems to have 251 votes safe.… It appears we have North Dakota (5 votes) and in California (13) we are well ahead, though there are still 200 districts to hear from. New Hampshire looks better and we may carry it.”86 Not until Friday morning was the California vote count complete. Wilson carried the state by 3,420 votes. That was the Democrats’ margin of victory. Wilson had 277 electoral votes to Hughes 254. The popular vote was 9,129,606 for Wilson, 8,538,321 for Hughes.
Instead of making ready to leave Washington, Franklin and Eleanor settled in for another four years. “It is rumored that a certain distinguished cousin of mine is now engaged in revising his most noted historical work, The Winning of the West,” FDR joked to an audience of party faithful immediately after the election. To Eleanor he confided, “I hope to God I don’t grow reactionary with advancing years.”87
In France, the military stalemate continued. The Allied lines were stretched thin but remained intact. Imperial Russia was on the verge of collapse and revolution loomed, but the British naval blockade was taking a dreadful toll on the German home front. Eager to drive Britain from the war, the German high command concluded that unrestricted submarine warfare—the one weapon they had not yet employed—would force the island to its knees in six months. That might bring the United States into the war, but the German military was convinced the fighting would be over before America’s power could be felt. On January 9, 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm revoked his earlier edict and ordered unrestricted submarine warfare to commence on February 1. German embassies were instructed to inform their host governments on January 31, which left no time for a diplomatic protest. Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann dispatched an additional note to the German ambassador in Mexico City:
We shall endeavor to keep the United States neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: Make war together, make peace together, generous financial support, and an
understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.88
On February 3, following the U-boat sinking of the freighter Housatonic, Wilson went before Congress to announce that he had severed diplomatic relations with Germany.89 FDR was inspecting the Marine occupation of Santo Domingo at the time and received an urgent message from Daniels to return to Washington immediately.90 “No one knew anything for certain except that the German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, had been given his passports and it seemed probable that the United States and Germany were already at war,” Roosevelt recalled. “As we headed north on our way to Hampton Roads no lights were showing, the guns were manned and there was complete radio silence.”91
When FDR arrived in Washington, he found it was business as usual. Wilson hoped that by breaking relations he would convince Germany to rescind its submarine campaign, and the administration settled into a period of watchful waiting. But the president’s hopes were soon dashed. By the end of February German U-boats had sunk an unprecedented 781,500 tons of Allied shipping. Reeling under the impact, the British Admiralty furnished the U.S. Embassy in London a decoded copy of Zimmermann’s January telegram to his ambassador in Mexico City.* The embassy passed the message to Washington, and on March 1, 1917, an infuriated Wilson released it to the press. A wave of anti-German sentiment swept the country, and the United States inched closer to war.
With hostilities looming and Daniels out of town, FDR as acting secretary asked Wilson for permission to bring the Atlantic Fleet north from Guantánamo Bay so that it could be fitted out for war. Wilson declined. “I want history to show,” Roosevelt remembers the president saying, “not only that we have tried every diplomatic means to keep out of the war; to show that war has been forced upon us deliberately by Germany; but also that we have come into the court of history with clean hands.”92
Daniels shared Wilson’s view. “If any man in official life ever faced the agony of a Gethsemane,” he wrote later, “I was that man in the first four months of 1917.”93 Not surprisingly, Daniels became the whipping boy for interventionists in the GOP, the Navy League, Wall Street, and the steel industry, as well as the jingoist press, all of which clamored for immediate entry into war. Also, not surprisingly, FDR was praised extravagantly. “Secretary Daniels has been criticized for four years,” wrote Washington’s Evening Star, “but there has been little, if any criticism of his assistant, for the simple reason there has been little to criticize.”94 When an old Harvard friend wrote to suggest that he assume Daniels’s position, FDR stood by his chief:
I am having a perfectly good time with many important things to do and my heart is entirely in my work.
Personally I have no use for a man who, serving in a subordinate position, is continually contriving ways to step into his boss’s shoes and I detest nothing so much as that kind of disloyalty.
Franklin said he had “worked very gladly under Mr. Daniels and I wish the public could realize how much he has done for the Navy. I would feel very badly indeed if friends of mine should unwittingly give the impression that I was for a minute thinking of taking his place at the head of the Navy.”95
The German U-boat campaign soon resolved whatever tension existed between FDR and Daniels over the speed of mobilization. On March 18 the steamships City of Memphis, Illinois, and Vigilancia were all torpedoed, the Vigilancia without warning. Two days later, Wilson placed the question of war before his cabinet. Daniels was the most reluctant, but in the end, with tears in his eyes, he voted to make the recommendation for war unanimous. “I had hoped and prayed that the hour would not come, but the attitude of the Imperial German Government left us no other course.”96
Wilson called Congress back from recess and on the evening of April 2 asked for a declaration of war. The House chamber was packed to capacity that evening as the Senate, the Supreme Court (in a departure from tradition), and the cabinet joined the 435 members of the House.97 The galleries were crammed with those fortunate enough to get tickets. FDR sat with Daniels on the House floor, Eleanor in the diplomatic gallery. Setting the tone for the evening, the president was escorted up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol by a mounted battalion from the 1st Cavalry, stationed at Fort Myer. He was greeted by thunderous applause when he entered the chamber. Virtually every member was on his feet cheering, led by the towering figure of the chief justice of the United States, Edward D. White, a seventy-two-year-old Louisianian who had fought for the Confederacy and had long supported the Allied cause.
Wilson spoke clearly, without bombast or excess. Our quarrel was not with the German people, he said, but with their government, which had “thrown to the winds all scruples of humanity.” America’s object was not conquest but peace and justice—a war “without rancor and without selfish object,” a war without revenge. “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
His pastoral Presbyterian voice reverberating through the chamber, Wilson asked Congress to recognize that a state of war “has been thrust upon us.” He requested authorization to draft 500,000 men and bring the Navy to full combat readiness. “There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making. We will not choose the path of submission.” He ended by paraphrasing the words of Martin Luther. America was privileged to spend her blood for the principles she treasured. “God helping her, she can do no other.”98
The House chamber erupted in frantic applause. A few members—Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, Senator George Norris of Nebraska, Senator James K. Vardaman of Mississippi, Representative Jeannette Rankin from Montana—sat silent. But Wilson carried the day. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, an inveterate foe of the administration who hated Wilson with a passion, approached the president as he made his way out of the chamber. “Mr. President, you have expressed in the loftiest manner possible the sentiments of the American people.”99 FDR told the press that Wilson’s speech would be “an inspiration to every true citizen no matter what his political faith.”100 Eleanor said she “listened breathlessly and returned home still half dazed by the sense of political change.”101
Daniels pronounced the most eloquent benediction: “If I should live a thousand years, there would abide with me the reverberation of the fateful ominous sound of the hoofs of the cavalry horses as they escorted Mr. and Mrs. Wilson back to the White House.”102
* In 1916, Wilson sealed his bargain with the New York regular organization when he tapped Martin H. Glynn to give the keynote address at the Democratic convention in Saint Louis, and it was Glynn, in that speech, who coined the slogan “He kept us out of war.” In 1921, as a private citizen, Glynn introduced Prime Minister David Lloyd George to the Irish leader Eamon De Valera and brokered the deal that established the Irish Free State. The New York Times, October 7, 1923.
* Instability in the Balkans traced to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the defeat of Turkey by Russia in 1878. At the ensuing Congress of Berlin, Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro became independent states and Austria was given a mandate to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1908 Austria unilaterally repudiated its occupation mandate and annexed the two provinces directly into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, precipitating the Annexation Crisis of 1908. Austria prevailed, but the reaction of the south Slavic people to the annexation was unforgiving.
Two minor Balkan wars in 1912 and 1913 redistributed the remaining territory of Turkey in Europe among Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Serbia. The ensuing treaties of London (May 30, 1913), Bucharest (August 10, 1913), and Constantinople (September 29, 1913) appeared to resolve all outstanding issues except the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria, which continued to rile Serbian irredentist sentiment. When Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, both Serbia and Austria welcomed the showdown, which both believed would be decisive. A balanced account is provided by Fritz Fischer in Germany’s Aims in the First World War 51–57 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967). Also see Gordon A. Craig, Germany: 1866–1945 302–338 (New York: Oxford University Press
, 1978), and the classic study by Sidney B. Fay, The Origins of the World War, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1930).
† Because of the enormous military advantage acquired by the nation that mobilized first, the common law of European diplomacy held the act of mobilization tantamount to a declaration of war.
* Wagner, who had his heart set on becoming a judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, was taken by surprise and declined the powerful patronage position of postmaster. Three years later he got his wish and was elevated to the bench, where he served until elected to the U.S. Senate in 1926. Wagner was reelected to the Senate in 1932, 1938, and 1944 and served until he resigned because of ill health in 1946.
* Wilson reinstituted the practice of Presidents Washington and John Adams of delivering the State of the Union message in person to a joint session of Congress—a practice in desuetude since Thomas Jefferson’s time.
* The sinking of the Lusitania has intrigued historians for almost a century. The ship flew the British flag and, in addition to the passenger complement, carried 4,200 cases of cartridges and 1,250 cases of shrapnel shells. Before it sailed from New York, the German Embassy in Washington placed notices in all major newspapers warning Americans of the danger involved in traveling on a British vessel in a war zone.
