Roosevelt on Wilson: In 1915, when a German submarine sank the liner Lusitania, Wilson's measured response infuriated Roosevelt. His published comment was that the United States would "earn as a nation measureless scorn and contempt if we follow the lead of those who exalt peace above righteousness, if we heed the voices of those feeble folk who bleat to high heaven that there is peace when there is no peace."—Joseph Gardner, Departing Glory.

On the eve of the 1916 presidential election, Roosevelt in a speech at Cooper Union noted that Wilson was at Shadow Lawn, his home in New Jersey. "There should be shadows enough at Shadow Lawn," Roosevelt intoned; "the shadows of men, women and children who have risen from the ooze of the ocean bottom and from graves in foreign lands; the shadows of the helpless whom Mr. Wilson did not dare protect lest he might have to face danger; the shadows of babies gasping piteously as they sank under the waves; the shadows of women outraged and slain by bandits; ... the shadows of troopers who lay in the Mexican desert, the black blood crusted round their mouths, and their dim eyes looking upward because President Wilson sent them to do a task, and then shamefully abandoned them to the mercy of foes who knew no mercy. Those are the shadows of Shadow Lawn; the shadows of deeds that were never done; the shadows of lofty words that were followed by no action; the shadows of the tortured dead."—Gardner, Departing Glory; Patricia O'Toole, When Trumpets Call.

Wilson took the nation to war in April 1917, but Roosevelt was not satisfied: "It is not our enemies that are responsible for our complete unpreparedness. It is the foes of our own household. The leaders who have led us wrong those foes; and in so far as our own weakness and shortsightedness and love of ease and undue regard for material success have made us respond to such leadership, we ourselves have been our foes."—John Milton Cooper Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.

After the 1918 midterm elections, Roosevelt wrote to British and French leaders to point out that Wilson's Democrats had been trounced by the Republicans, "of which I am one of the leaders." Roosevelt undercut Wilson by rejecting the president's Fourteen Points as the basis for peace and assuring the British and French that the Republicans were for "the unconditional surrender of Germany and for absolute loyalty to France and England in the peace negotiations." This, as Roosevelt biographer H.W. Brands points out, "was an extraordinary tactic, patriotically dubious if not downright seditious. ... Roosevelt simply couldn't bear that Wilson might win credit for the defeat of Germany."—H.W. Brands, TR: The Last Romantic.

The Wilson administration was not disposed to tolerate much wartime dissent, but it generally left Roosevelt alone. "I really think the best way to treat Mr. Roosevelt is to take no notice of him," Wilson told an aide. "That breaks his heart and is the best punishment that can be administered."—Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life.