Roosevelt wrote regularly for The Outlook, later for the
Metropolitan Magazine and the Kansas City Star. Thousands of his
countrymen read his articles, and found in them the only
expression of the American spirit which was being uttered.
Americans were puzzled, troubled and finally humiliated by the
letters and speeches which came from Washington. To be told that
in this struggle between the blood-guilty Hun, and the civilized
nations of the earth, that we must keep even our minds impartial
seemed an impossible command. School-boys throughout the country
must have wondered why President Wilson, with every means for
getting information, should have to confess that he did not know
what the war was about! And when Mr. Wilson declared in favor of a
peace without victory, his friends and admirers were kept busy
explaining, some of them, that he meant without victory for the
Allies, and others that he meant without victory for Germany, and
still others that he meant without victory for anybody in
particular.
It was not strange that Americans began to wonder what country
they were living in, and whether they had been mistaken in
thinking that America had a heroic history, in which its citizens
took pride. No wonder they turned their eyes to Europe, where
scores of young Americans, sickening at the state of things at
home, had eagerly volunteered to fight with France or England
against the Hun.
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