Roosevelt’s experience during the Cuban campaign made him deeply sympathetic with the lot of the soldier. This was in evidence when, while he was President, our army was engaged in combating the guerilla warfare in the Philippines. An order was then issued by the War Department that while the names of officers killed should be reported by cable, only the numbers of privates fallen should be sent.
The press of the country announced that a certain regiment had been engaged in battle. The War Department was besieged by the parents of the soldiers for information, but no news as to who were killed or wounded came until the lists arrived by mail.
President Roosevelt was at Sagamore Hill when the facts were reported to him. General Corbin was present. He asked the general what the order meant. The general told him that it had been issued for the purpose of economy, that each officer had a symbol in the cable code, but that to transmit the name and regiment of each private would cost $25 or more for each man. When this explanation had been made Roosevelt said:
“Corbin, can you telegraph from here to the Philippines?”
The general said that he could and suggested that he be allowed to do so when he returned from Washington.
“No,” said Roosevelt, “we cannot wait. Send the order to have the names telegraphed at once. Those mothers gave the best they had to their country. We will not have them breaking their hearts for $25 or $50.”
Now that the world war is over and the question of whether the United States is to depend on volunteer military organization or on regular armies has been definitely settled in favor of the latter view, it is well to admit that the decision is a wise one. A regiment like the Rough Riders was exceptional among volunteers. Roosevelt himself, in his book “The Rough Riders,” makes this comparison between the volunteer regiment and the regular regiment:
“The regiment was a wholly exceptional volunteer organization, and its career cannot be taken as in any way a justification for the belief that the average volunteer regiment approaches the average regular regiment in point of efficiency until it has had many months of active service. In the first place, though the regular regiments may differ markedly among themselves, yet the range of variation among them is nothing like so wide as that among volunteer regiments, where at first there is no common standard at all; the very best being, perhaps, up to the level of the regulars while the very worst are no better than mobs, and the great bulk come in between. The average regular regiment is superior to the average volunteer regiment in the physique of the enlisted men, who have been very carefully selected, who have been trained to life in the open, and who know how to cook and take care of themselves generally.”