The Illusion of Victory (80 page)

Sobering and saddening as the cemeteries were, the most heartbreaking moment of my historical journey to France was my visit to Chamery, the little village in Champagne where Quentin Roosevelt spun into the earth with German bullets in his brain. Arriving on a gray January day, I spent almost an hour searching for the winding road, barely wide enough for a single car, that led to the cluster of stone houses. Around the village spread rolling farm country, almost as treeless and desolate as Kansas in winter.

Quentin no longer lies in the solitary grave outside the village, although the site is marked by a stone. After World War II, his family moved his body to the Normandy Cemetery to lie beside his brother Ted, who died shortly after he led a brigade of the Fourth Division ashore on D Day in 1944. There is a memorial fountain to Quentin in the center of Chamery. Above the spout, which is a bronze head of a lion, is an inscription in French stating Quentin’s age and the date he was shot down. Beneath the lion’s head is a line from an article Theodore Roosevelt wrote after Quentin’s death:“Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.”

It was bitterly cold on the day of my visit. The village was deserted. The only sound was the water gushing from the lion’s mouth into the fountain’s trough. Nearby were bales of hay and a tractor and part of a plow. Across the road a big black dog sat on a barrel, studying the American intruder. It was all very ordinary—until Flora Payne Whitney whispered,
Oh Quentin, why does it all have to be? It isn’t possible that it can be for any ultimate good that all the best people in the world have to be killed.

I could only shake my head and hope the men and women who guide America’s covenant with power in the world of the twenty-first century have the courage and the wisdom to manage our country’s often perplexing blend of idealism and realism. God helping us, we now can do no other.

1
. Arthur S. Link,
Woodrow Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace
(Princeton, 1965), 423.

2
. Barbara W. Tuchman,
The Zimmermann Telegram
(New York, 1966), 6–7, 183.

3
. Cass W. Gilbert,
New York Tribune,
April 2, 1917.

4
. James Kerney,
The Political Education of Woodrow Wilson
(New York, 1926), 12. Kerney was editor of the
Trenton Evening Times.

5
. Henry Wilkinson Bragdon,
Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years
(Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 328–329. James Kerney said Grover Cleveland predicted Wilson would go far in politics, but when he had finished, there would be very little left of the Democratic Party.

6
. Alexander L. George and Juliette L. George,
Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study
(New York, 1964), 51; and Robert Alex Bober,
Young Woodrow Wilson and the Search for Immortality,
Ph. D. dissertation (Case Western Reserve University, 1980), iv, 202.

7
. Link,
Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace,
394; and
Washington Evening Post
, April 2, 1917.

8
. Link,
Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace
, 420–421.

9
. Phyllis Lee Levin,
Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House
(New York, 2001), 177.

10
. John S. Heaton,
Cobb of the World
(New York, 1924), 268–270.

11
. Arthur S. Link,“That Cobb Interview,”
Journal of American History
72 (June 1985): 7–17.

12
. Jerold S. Auerbach, “Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Prediction’ to Frank Cobb: Words Historians Should Doubt Ever Got Spoken,”
Journal of American History
54 (December 1967): 608–617.

13
. See Chapter 3, pp. 86–89, 98–100.

14
. Ray Stannard Baker,
Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters,
vol. 6,
Facing War, 1915–1917
(New York, 1937), 505–507. Arthur S. Link was the first to note Cobb’s absence from the White House logs on April 1. But he assigned the interview to mid-March, and subsequent biographers have followed him. Baker cited two other Wilson associates who recollected similar prophecies by the president. These recollections were also long after the fact and suspect for some of the reasons outlined in the text. In his history of the decision for war, Patrick Devlin,
Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson’s Neutrality
(New York, 1975), 681, was inclined to think Wilson expressed sentiments of regret but conceded that Cobb’s version of the interview was almost certainly “touched up.”

15
. W.A. Swanberg,
Pulitzer
(New York, 1967), 254–255.

16
. Walter Millis,
Road to War: America 1914–1917
(New York, 1935), 432–433; and
New York Times
, March 22, 1917.

17
. Charles Seymour, ed.,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House
(New York, 1926), 2:467–468; and Link,
Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace
, 422.

18
. Ronald Steel,
Walter Lippmann and the American Century
(New York, 1980), 108, quotes Lippmann’s assessment of the House-Wilson relationship:“He was able to serve Wilson because he was in almost every respect the complement of Wilson.” Lippmann saw House constantly in 1916–1917 and met and corresponded with Wilson.

19
. Bragdon,
Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years
, 263. Also see George and George,
Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House
, which explores the House-Wilson relationship in depth.

20
. Lester D. Langley,
The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century
(Athens, Ga., 1982), 76–77, 80–83, 85–88, 92.

21
. Arthur S. Link,
Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era
(New York, 1954), 122–124; and Nancy Mitchell,
The Danger of Dreams: Weltpolitik Versus Protective Imperialism,
Ph. D. dissertation (Johns Hopkins University, 1993), 295.

22
. John S.D. Eisenhower,
Intervention! The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913–17
(New York, 1993), 165–241.

23
. Seward W. Livermore,
Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress
,
1916–18
(Middletown, Conn., 1966), 10, 14.

24
. Baker,
Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 6,
Facing War
, 508.

25
. Seymour,
Intimate Papers of Colonel House,
2:468–470; and Edwin A. Weinstein,
Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography
(Princeton, 1981), 164–167. Wilson suffered less serious episodes in 1896 and 1904, which temporarily deprived him of the use of his right hand (Weinstein,
Medical and Psychological Biography,
141–142, 158). Weinstein and others called these traumas strokes. But other physicians, mostly notably Michael F. Marmor, an ophthalmologist at the Stanford University Medical School, have disagreed (Robert H. Ferrell,
Woodrow Wilson and World War I
[New York, 1985], 273–274).

26
. Ernest R. Dupuy,
Five Days to War: April 2–6, 1917
(Harrisburg, Pa., 1967), 57–58.

27
. Millis,
Road to War
, 433.

28
. Ibid., 434.

29
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 67.

30
. William A. DeGregorio,
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
(New York, 1989), 419.

31
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 67–68.

32
. John Tebbel and Sarah Miles Watts,
The Press and the Presidency
(New York, 1985), 379.

33
.
New York Times,
April 3, 1917.

34
. Ibid.; and Millis,
The Road to War
, 438.

35
. Millis,
The Road to War,
439–440.

36
. Arthur S. Link et al., eds.,
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson,
69 vols. (Princeton, 1966–1994), 41:519–527 (hereafter cited as PWW).

37
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 71–72.

38
. Edward Mandell House Diary, April 2, 1917, Edward M. House Papers, Yale University Library.

39
. Joseph P. Tumulty,
Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him
(Garden City, N. Y., 1921), 256, 259. Link,
Campaigns for Progessivism and Peace
, 427, called the scene preposterous.

40
. Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, in collaboration with Margaret Gaffey,
The Woodrow Wilsons
(New York, 1937), 139.

41
. John Morton Blum,
Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era
(Boston, 1951), 120–122.

42
. Levin,
Edith and Woodrow
, 75.

43
. Ibid., 156.

44
. Arthur Marwick,
The Deluge: British Society and the First World War
(New York, 1970), 31.

45
. Scott Meredith,
George S. Kaufman and His Friends
(New York, 1974), 402.

46
. Millis,
Road to War
, 442; and Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 75–77.

47
. Richard O’Connor,
The German-Americans
(New York, 1986), 406.

48
. Link,
Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace
, 428.

49
. Steel,
Walter Lippmann
, 112–113.

50
. David McCullough,
Truman
(New York, 1992), 104.

51
. Link,
Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace
, 362;
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., Senate, April 13, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 342; and H.C. Peterson,
Propaganda for War
(Port Washington, N.Y., 1939), 22.

52
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 85–89.

53
. Nancy C. Unger,
Fighting Bob La Follette, the Righteous Reformer
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000), 243–244.

54
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 100.

55
. D. Clayton James,
The Years of MacArthur,
vol. 1,
1880–1941
(New York, 1970), 132.

56
. Kenneth S. Davis,
FDR:The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882–1928
(New York, 1971), 446.

57
. Geoffrey C. Ward,
A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt
(New York, 1989), 339.

58
. Ibid., 347.

59
.
New York Tribune
, April 4, 1917.

60
. Millis,
Road to War
, 445–446; and
San Francisco Chronicle,
April 15, 1917.

61
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 111.

62
. Belle Case and Fola La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette
, 2 vols. (New York, 1953), 620.

63
. Ibid., 650.

64
. Millis,
Road to War
, 447.

65
. Ibid., 448.

66
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., Senate, April 4, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 208–209.

67
. Ibid., 210.

68
. Ibid., 213–214.

69
. Case and La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette
, 655.

70
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., Senate, April 4, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 220.

71
. Ibid., 225–226; and Case and La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette
, 658–659.

72
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., Senate, April 4, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 229.

73
. Ibid., 234.

74
. Unger,
Fighting Bob La Follette
, 249.

75
. Millis,
Road to War
, 452; Unger,
Fighting Bob La Follette
, 249; and Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 125.

76
. Case and La Follette,
Robert M. La Follette
, 666.

77
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 132.

78
. Ibid., 129, 131.

79
. Millis,
Road to War
, 453–454.

80
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., House, April 5, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 327.

81
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 137.

82
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., House, April 5, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 332.

83
. Ibid.

84
. Dupuy,
Five Days to War
, 137.

85
. Ibid., 138.

86
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., House, April 5, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 341–343.

87
. Millis,
Road to War
, 454–456.

88
. Ibid., 458–459.

1
. Link,
Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace
, 429n, cites hundreds of letters in the Claude Kitchin Papers at the University of North Carolina revealing an “overwhelming sentiment” against the war. Along with the thousands of letters La Follette and other senators and members of Congress received, these letters constitute evidence that opposition to the war was still “very wide and deep” after Wilson’s speech. For more recent scholarship on this relatively uninvestigated subject, see Jeannette Keith, “The Politics of Southern Draft Resistance, 1917–18: Class, Race and Conscription in the Rural South,”
Journal of American History
87, no. 4 (March 2001): 1335–1361. Keith concludes: “The concept of overwhelming public support for the war becomes less and less tenable.”

2
. Tuchman,
The Zimmermann Telegram
, 10–11.

3
. Stewart Halsey Ross,
Propaganda for War: How the United States Was Conditioned to Fight the Great War of 1914–1918
(Jefferson, N. C., 1996), 27–28.

4
.
Congressional Record,
65th Congr., 1st sess., House, April 5, 1917, 55, pt. 1, 342.

5
. Ross,
Propaganda for War
, 30, 38; Cate Haste,
Keep the Home Fires Burning: Propaganda in the Great War
(London, 1977), 25; and Peter T. Scott, “The Secrets of Wellington House: British Covert Propaganda, 1914–18,”
Antiquarian Book Monthly,
August-September 1996, 12–15, and October–September 1996, 14–19.

6
. Gilbert Parker, “The United States and the War,”
Harper’s Monthly,
March 1918, 521–531; and H.C. Peterson,
Propaganda for War: The Campaign Against American Neutrality
(Port Washington, N.Y., 1968), 16.

7
. Peterson,
Propaganda for War
, 19.

8
. Ibid., 21, 31.

9
. Ross,
Propaganda for War
, 82, 181–184.