At the start, there was
much debate over the employment of Volunteers, the rating of
Regulars, and the carrying out of a selective draft. True to his
policy of timidity and evasion President Wilson did not openly
declare war on Germany, but allowed us to drift into a state of
war; so executives who do not wish either to sign or veto a bill
let it become a law without their signatures. His Secretary of
War, Lindley M. Garrison, the only member of his Cabinet who had
marked ability, had resigned the year before, having apparently
found the official atmosphere uncongenial. At the Plattsburg
camp, commanded by General Leonard Wood, Colonel Roosevelt made a
speech of ringing patriotism and of unveiled criticism of the
lack of energy in the Administration. It was not a politic thing
to do, although there seems to have been some confusion between
what the Colonel said to the Volunteers in camp, and what he said
that same evening to a gathering of civilians in the town. The
indiscretion, how ever, gave the Administration the opportunity
it had been waiting for; but, being unable to punish Roosevelt,
it severely reprimanded General Wood, who had not been aware of
what the Colonel intended to say.
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