New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-04
T. r. VS.. Hindenburg
WHY Reader Considers the Colonel
Essential to the Firing Line

To the Editor Of The Tribune
Sir: Every real patriot with but few drops
of red blood in his veins, every one who is
acquainted with the merest elements OF
crowd psychology. is choked with shame and
anger at the pitful sight of former Fresi-
don't Of the United States, a soldier by train
ing and nature, being forced to beg on MS
knees our government, our nation to per-
NIT him TO take a crack division of genuine
volunteers to the firing line. If the Washing
TON red-tapers refuse to send him as major or
bricadier general, let them convey him as
second Lieutenant, as he himself, with grim
martial humor. proposed in his Chicago
sneccb. Tcddy's name over in Europe has a
creator dynamic power than two tons of mar
shall uniforms.
When Rome. the Prussia of the ancient
world. fought with Carthage for the dominion
of the Mediterranean, the North African John
Buu Of that time dispatched Hannibal, who
took his heavy infantry, his artillery and
cavalry and his elephants through Spain over
the Pyrenees and Alps very close to the Ro-
man Campagna
Hannibal ad portas," This cry of anguish,
which made the Roman lcgIons and the Roman
Senate shuddcr. and which to the days OF
Romuius Augustulus, the last degenerate hm-
rcror OF the decadcnt empire, retained the
sound OF horror for the masses-even the
naughty Roman boys were frightened by 1t
into submission by their nervous mothers -
must be translated to-day into the Anglo
Saxon-Gcrman tongue. Roosevelt in Paris"
is the only tocsin which Will really wake up
William II. his royal cousins and the German
General staff And if | were Secretary OF
War Baker would even go a step further and
send Teddy. and were it but at the head OF
one single Rough Rider regiment, to Nerdun
TO pay his compliments there TO the kron-
prinz.
England had her own Hannibal Kitchener.
She lost in that great man the equal in value
Of ten army corps Let Uncle Sam be glad
that he is in position to send to his allies,
ahead of the 100000 troops which will be
our quota for 1915 an equivalent for the
lamented Earl of Khartoum.
We all remember the triumphal European
trip Of Teddy after he had come out Of the
African wilderness. He Is the only man in
this wide world whom the proud war lord Of
Mit.eleuropa treated as his equal. And if
there is one man on earth who can click the
Kaiser" it is Roosevelt. A mere inspection
tour by him from Dlxmude to Thanh, in Al
sace. would add to the Western front the
-trength Of a new army. His speeches will
echo throughout Europe and drown the mega
lomaniac proclamations Of William in sea
Of laughter
Root in Petrograd and Moscow; Teddy in
Paris and Nerdun, To complete the trio, let
President Wilson send William Howard Taft
as ambassador plenipotentiary and extraordi-
nary 10 Peking and Toxic, with his permanent
seat at Manila, as Niceroy of the Philippines.
A wise man looks ahead, taking heed of the
danger signals.
To sum up: Hag and Niyelle for the last
three months have been hammerng away at
the Hindenburg statue, with its iron, silver
and golden nails, which the German people,
unconscously rcyertng 10 a superstitious Gus
tom Of the Bushito and other negroes, erected
to their dol after the battle Of the Mazurian
Lakes. which had been won less by the genius
of the Prussian than by the treachery of
cowardy Russian general. Teddy is the God
ordained Gideon TO cast down this false mill
tary idol. behind which the Hohenzollerns
Wittelsbachs and the other royal and princely
houses Of Germany are hiding, in trembling
expectation of the fate which overcame their
big brother in autocracy, Nicky Won Romanof.
HlSTORICUS
New York, April 29, 1911