Theodore Roosevelt States With Pride That All of His Sons Are Overseas Fighting in World War I

One of the boys, Quentin, would be killed in action

TR had been advocating a U.S. entry into World War I since 1915, and bitterly and vocally criticized President Wilson for his failure to plunge in. He publicly blamed Wilson for the loss of life on the Lusitania, accused him of cowardice and foolhardiness, and even worse. When the U.S. finally declared war in April 1917, Roosevelt moved immediately to recreate the Rough Riders and send them to France. He believed he had authorization from Congress to raise four divisions, and he selected eighteen officers and directed them to begin actively recruiting volunteer troops. It was all in process and TR was set to go. The War Department failed to act to authorize this, however.

So on May 18, 1917, TR wrote Wilson, saying “I respectfully ask permission immediately to raise two divisions for immediate service at the front under the bill which has just become law, and hold myself ready to raise four divisions, if you so direct.” Wilson, who had suffered much at Roosevelt’s hands and believed TR to be a reckless and dangerous adventurer, had no intention of allowing him to raise regiments, head to France, and become a factor in not just the war but the peace that would follow. He responded on May 19, “I very much regret that I cannot comply with the request in your telegram of yesterday. The reasons I have stated in a public statement made this morning, and I need not assure you that my conclusions were based entirely upon imperative considerations of public policy and not upon personal or private choice.” This letter, perhaps a bit disingenuous regarding Wilson’s reasons, effectively ended TR’s hopes to go and serve in France.

All four of Roosevelt’s sons had either absorbed or inherited his fearless, all-or-nothing approach to hazards. Throughout World War I, Ted Jr. would be alternately praised and criticized as an officer who routinely and boldly moved ahead of the line in battle after battle. In each of the world wars, he was at once idolized by his men, with whom he shared all dangers, and criticized by career officers, who respected Ted’s bravery more than they did his judgment. The same officers also sometimes found themselves reprimanding him for insubordination, reminiscent of his father in 1898. General Patton, who admired Ted Jr. in many ways, wrote of him: “Great courage, but no soldier.”

Archie, Kermit, and Quentin were the same way. One contemporary from the Great War called Arch “an absolutely selfless gladiator who insisted on being the first to smell the enemy’s bad breath, regardless of the risk.” Arch earned a similar reputation yet again in the South Pacific during World War II. During World War I Kermit was lightly reprimanded while fighting with the British in the Middle East. Some victories, said Kermit’s British colonel, could very well be had without full frontal assaults into the gaping mouths of enemy guns.

As for Quentin, his friend Hamilton Coolidge wrote that “his daring was difficult to understand.” He was possessed by an “utter fearlessness” that “perhaps caused his death.” In June 1918, Quentin got his wish when he was made a flight commander in the 95th Aero Squadron, in action near the Aisne River. “I think I got my first Boche,” he wrote in excitement to his fiancee on July 11, referring to a German plane he had shot at during a flight mission. Three days later, during the Second Battle of the Marne, his plane was engaged by three German fighters, according to one of the other pilots on his flight mission. Shot down, Quentin’s plane fell behind the German lines. Just three days before Quentin’s death in 1918, the New York Sun congratulated him editorially for “attacking three enemy airplanes single-handed and shooting one of them down.” In so doing, said the newspaper, Quentin was “running true to Roosevelt form.” The editorial concluded by noting “each of the vigorous Colonel’s four sons is out to make a record worthy of their father…”

Henry Bordeaux was a French author and a favorite of TR’s. His books reflected the values of traditional provincial communities, and had one recurring theme: loyalty. Loyalty is pervasive, and it applies to family, country and God. These values appealed to Roosevelt, who much praised his works. In 1918 Bordeaux would write a book about Georges Guynemer, a French fighter ace killed in action. This would come at a time when his own son had fallen.

Typed letter signed, on his personal letterhead, September 8, 1917, confirming that he cannot serve, but that his sons were all in action doing their duty. “I am of course greatly pleased with your book; and I read it with absorbed interest, as I read everything you write. I sincerely regret that I was not allowed myself to go with troops to France; but at least, of my four sons, three are with Pershing’s army in France, and the fourth is in Mesopotamia..”