Black Tom: Terror on the Hudson by Semple Ron

Author:Semple, Ron [Semple, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78535-111-2
Publisher: John Hunt (NBN)
Published: 2015-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Woodrow the Weak

“I despise Wilson.”

That’s how Teddy Roosevelt summed up his feelings about President Woodrow Wilson, the man who had bested him in the three-way race for president in 1912.

His antipathy really wasn’t based on Wilson’s approach to domestic problems. Both were leaders of the progressive wing of their party; the principal difference being that Roosevelt would have used the Federal government to implement needed social change while Wilson, fearing big government, favored a more decentralized path.

No, the visceral dislike was rooted in their polar opposite personalities and, more importantly, their approach to foreign affairs.

When Roosevelt was president, a Greek-American businessman, Ion Perdicaris, was kidnapped and held for ransom in Morocco by Ahmed ibn-Muhammed Raisuli.

The next day Roosevelt ordered a naval squadron to Morocco. Waiting a month to give the warships time to get there, a blunt message then was sent to the Sultan of Morocco.

“Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” Perdicaris was released two days later and the squadron sailed for home.

The RMS Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat on May 7, 1915, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans.

Three days later, Wilson gave his “Too Proud to Fight Speech” preferring to chastise the Germans with a series of diplomatic notes.

Roosevelt was choleric. He thought that the United States had little choice but to declare war on Germany and fight on the side of Great Britain.

In a letter written to a friend he said, “If Lincoln had acted after the firing of Sumter in the way that Wilson did about the sinking of Lusitania, in one month the North would have been saying they were glad he kept them out of the war and that they were too proud to fight and that at all hazards fratricidal war must be averted.”

Roosevelt knew American public opinion was against entering the war. He also knew the American army was unprepared for this kind of war. Barely a hundred thousand strong it was 1/20th the size of the German army and was poorly equipped. The highly politicized part time National Guard was in much worse shape.

Roosevelt, who had led the “Rough Riders” in their famous charge up San Juan Hill, favored universal military training.

Thus was born the “Preparedness Movement.” If Wilson wouldn’t act to strengthen America’s army, some famous, influential private citizens would. Roosevelt threw his support to General Leonard Wood, the former Army chief of staff, who wanted to build up a strong army and navy for defensive purposes.

A pair of former Secretaries of War also backed Wood’s concept of requiring 600,000 men who turned eighteen each year to undergo six months of military training and then be assigned to reserve units, not the National Guard.

Wilson abhorred the concept and it drew fierce opposition from women’s groups, churches, pacifists and others who feared a big military. It went nowhere.

The Preparedness people, who were certain war was inevitable and strongly leaned towards joining Britain, turned to the Plattsburg Movement. More than 20,000 young college graduates learned the rudiments of military service at summer camps there during 1915 and 1916.

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