328   My Brother Theodore Roosevelt

standard were also the attacks made upon him for having wished to dedicate himself to this patriotic enterprise, and one of the most acrimonious debates that ever occurred in the Senate of the United States was on the subject of the amendment to that Army Bill. The Democrats, led by Senator Stone, had much to say about the unfitness of the Colonel. They did not seem to realize how strong was the desire of France to have America's best-known citizen go to her shores at the moment when her morale was at the ebb; nor did they realize, apparently, the promise for the future that there would be in the rapid arrival of a large body of ardent American soldiers, well equipped to tide over the period of waiting before a still larger force could come to the assistance of the Allies.

Senator Hiram Johnson, orator and patriot, made a glowing defense of Colonel Roosevelt in answering Senator Stone. It is interesting to realize at this moment, when former Senator Harding is the President of the United States, that it was he who offered the amendment to the Army Bill, making it possible for Colonel Roosevelt to lead that division into France. Senator Johnson said:

". . . I listened with surprise-indeed, as a senator of the United States, with humiliation-to the remarks of the senior senator from Missouri as he excoriated Theodore Roosevelt and as he held up to scorn and contumely what he termed contemptuously `The Roosevelt Division.' What is it that is asked for The Roosevelt Division? It is asked only by a man who is now really in the twilight of life that he may finally lay down his life for the country that is his. It is only that he asks that he may serve that country, may go forth to battle for his country's rights, and may do all that may be done by a human being on behalf of his nation. My God ! When was it that a nation denied to its sons the right to fight in its behalf ? We have stood should, • to shoulder both sides of this Chamber in this war. To say that Roosevelt desires, for personal ambition and political favor hereafter, to go to war is to

War   329

deny the entire life of this patriot. . . . Our distinguished senator has said that Roosevelt has toured the land in the endeavor to do that which he desires. Aye, he has toured the land; he toured the land for preparedness two and a half years ago, and he was laughed at as hysterical. He toured the land two and a half years ago and continuously since for undiluted Americanism, and you said he was filled with jingoism. To-day you have adopted his preparedness plan; to-day his undiluted Americanism that he preached to many, to which but few listened, has become the slogan of the whole nation. He toured the land for patriotism ! . . . After all, my friends, Roosevelt fought in the past and he fought for the United States of America; after all, he asks only that he be permitted to fight to-day for the United States of America. He is accused of a lack of experience. ... There is one thing this man has-one thing that he has proven in the life he has lived in the open in this nation-he has red blood in his veins and he has the ability to fight and he has the tenacity to win when he fights, and that is the sort of an American that is needed and required in this war. I say to you, gentlemen of this particular assemblage, that if a man can raise a division, if he wishes to fight, die, if need be, for his country, it is a sad and an awful thing that his motive shall be questioned and his opinions assailed in the very act that is indeed the closing act of his career.

"Oh 1 for more Roosevelts in this nation; oh ! for more men who will stand upon the hustings and go about the country preaching the undiluted Americanism that all of us claim to have ! Oh ! for more Roosevelts and more divisions of men who will follow Roosevelt ! With more Roosevelts and more Roosevelt divisions, the flag of the United States will go forth in this great world conflict to the victory that every real American should desire and demand."

Part of the afternoon just Before the final vote on the above amendment to that Army Bill was spent by Theodore Roosevelt in my library in New York. Those were the days when