Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him Part 40

With warmest regard,

Cordially and faithfully yours, (Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

Nor did the little things of life escape him, as is shown by the following letter to Attorney General Gregory:

The White House, Was.h.i.+ngton, 1 October, 1918.

MY DEAR GREGORY:

The enclosed letter from his wife was handed to me this morning by a rather pitiful old German whom I see occasionally looking after the flowers around the club house at the Virginia Golf Course. I must say it appeals to me, and I am sending it to you to ask if there is any legitimate way in which the poor old fellow could be released from his present restrictions.

In haste,

Faithfully yours, (Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An evidence of the tender-heartedness which Mr. Tumulty claims for the President.

(Transcriber's note: contains a reproduction of the above-quoted letter.)]

I recall a day when he sat at his typewriter in the White House, preparing the speech he was to deliver at Hodgensville, Kentucky, in connection with the formal acceptance of the Lincoln Memorial, built over the log cabin birthplace of Lincoln. When he completed this speech, which I consider one of his most notable public addresses--perhaps in literary form, his best-- he turned to me and asked me if I had any comment to make upon it. I read it very carefully. I then said to him, "Governor, there are certain lines in it that might be called a self-revelation of Woodrow Wilson." The lines that I had in mind were:

I have read many biographies of Lincoln; I have sought out with the greatest interest the many intimate stories that are told of him, the narratives of nearby friends, the sketches at close quarters, in which those who had the privilege of being a.s.sociated with him have tried to depict for us the very man himself "in his habit as he lived"; but I have nowhere found a real intimate of Lincoln. I nowhere get the impression in my narrative or reminiscence that the writer had in fact penetrated to the heart of his mystery, or that any man could penetrate to the heart of it. That brooding spirit had no real familiars. I get the impression that it never spoke out in complete self-revelation, and that it could not reveal itself complete to any one. It was a very lonely spirit that looked out from underneath those s.h.a.ggy brows, and comprehended men without fully communing with them, as if, in spite of all its genial efforts at comrades.h.i.+p, it dwelt apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on. There is a very holy and very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny in the affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right perhaps no man can a.s.sist.

To Woodrow Wilson the business of government was a solemn thing, to which he gave every ounce of his energy and his great intellectual power. No President in the whole history of America ever carried weightier responsibilities than he. Night and day, with uncomplaining patience, he was at his post of duty, attending strictly to the pressing needs of the nation, punctiliously meeting every engagement, great or small. Indeed, no man that I ever met was more careless about himself or thought less of vacations for the purpose of rest and recuperation.

There are three interesting maps which show the mileage covered by Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. These maps show the states traversed by each of the Presidents. Great black smudges show the trail covered by President Roosevelt, which included every state in the Union, and equally large black marks show the territory covered by President Taft, but only a thin line shows the peregrinations and wanderings of President Wilson. The dynamic, forceful personality of Mr. Roosevelt, which radiated energy, charm, and good-nature, and the big, vigorous, lovable personality of Mr. Taft, put the staid, simple, modest, retiring personality of the New Jersey President, Mr. Wilson, at a tremendous disadvantage. Into the atmosphere created by these winning personalities of Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft the personality of Mr. Wilson did not easily fit, and he realized it, when he said to me one day, "Tumulty, you must realize that I am not built for the dramatic things of politics. I do not want to be displayed before the public, and if I tried it, I should do it badly."

Without attempting to belittle the great achievements of former Presidents of the United States, particularly Roosevelt, it is only fair to say that, comparing the situations which confronted them with those that met President Wilson from the very beginning of his inc.u.mbency, their jobs were small. As a genial Irishman once said to me, "h.e.l.l broke loose when Wilson took hold." Every unusual thing, every extraordinary thing, seemed to break and break against us. From the happening of the Dayton flood, which occurred in the early days of the Wilson Administration, down to the moment when he laid down the reins of office, it seemed as if the world in which we lived was at the point of revolution. Unusual, unprecedented, and remarkable things began to happen, things that required all the patience, indomitable courage, and tenacity of the President to hold them steady.

The Mexican situation, left on our door-step, was one of the great burdens that he carried during his administration. Then came the fight for the revision of the tariff, the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, all items that const.i.tuted the great programme of domestic reform which emanated from the brain of Woodrow Wilson, and then in the midst of it all came the European war, the necessity for neutrality, the criticism which was heaped upon the President for every unusual happening which his critics seemed to think called for intervention of the United States in this great cataclysm. It was not a time for the camaraderie and good- fellows.h.i.+p that had characterized the good old days in which Mr. Roosevelt served as President.

And yet no man was less exclusive in dealing with the members of the Senate and House. In preparing the Federal Reserve Act in collaboration with Senator Gla.s.s, he was constantly in touch with the members of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, in an endeavour to make clear the road for the pa.s.sage of this important piece of constructive legislation.

Constant demands were made upon his time and he gave of his energy and of the small reserve of strength that he had uncomplainingly and without a protest. No rest, no recreation, no vacation intervened. Every measure that he sought to press to enactment was the challenge to a great fight, as, for instance, the tariff, the currency, the rural credits, and the Panama tolls acts.

I have often been asked whether anger or pa.s.sion ever showed itself in the President, and I am reminded of a little incident that happened at the White House during one of those conferences with the newspaper men, which, before the days of the war, and for a long time afterward, took place in the Executive offices. At the time of this particular conference, the President's first wife lay seriously ill at the White House, and stories were carried in the various newspapers exaggerating the nature of her illness, some of them going so far as to say she was suffering from this or from that disease. At the very time these stories were appearing in the newspapers there were also articles that his daughter, Margaret, was engaged to marry this man or that man. The President came to the newspaper men's conference this morning fighting mad. It was plain that something serious was afoot. Taking hold of the back of the chair, as if to strengthen himself for what he had to say, he looked squarely at the newspaper men and said, "I hope that you gentlemen will pardon me for a personal word this morning. I have read the stories that have appeared in certain newspapers of the country, containing outrageous statements about the illness of my wife and the marriage of my daughter. I realize that as President of the United States you have a perfect right to say anything you d.a.m.n please about me, for I am a man and I can defend myself. I know that while I am President it will be my portion to receive all kinds of unfair criticism, and I would be a poor sport if I could not stand up under it; but there are some things, gentlemen, that I will not tolerate.

You must let my family alone, for they are not public property. I acquit every man in this room of responsibility for these stories. I know that you have had nothing to do with them; but you have feelings and I have feelings, even though I am President. My daughter has no brother to defend her, but she has me, and I want to say to you that if these stories ever appear again I will leave the White House and thrash the man who dares to utter them."

A little letter came to my notice in which the President replies to an old friend in Ma.s.sachusetts who had asked him to attempt to interpret himself:

MY DEAR FRIEND:

You have placed an impossible task upon me--that of interpreting myself to you. All I can say in answer to your inquiry is that I have a sincere desire to serve, to be of some little a.s.sistance in improving the condition of the average man, to lift him up, and to make his life more tolerable, agreeable, and comfortable. In doing this I try hard to purge my heart of selfish motives. It will only be known when I am dead whether or not I have succeeded.

Sincerely your friend, WOODROW WILSON.

CHAPTER XLV

THE SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION

During the winter of 1919-1920 President Wilson was the target of vicious a.s.saults. Mrs. Wilson and Admiral Grayson with difficulty curbed his eagerness to take a leading hand in the fight over the Peace Treaty in the Senate, and to organize the Democratic party on a fighting basis. It was not until after the Chicago Convention had nominated Mr. Harding and enunciated a platform repudiating the solemn obligations of the United States to the rest of the world that the President broke his silence of many months. Because he had something he wanted to say to the country he asked me to send for Louis Seibold, a trusted friend and an experienced reporter, then connected with the New York _World_. When Mr. Seibold arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton on the Tuesday following Mr. Harding's nomination, the President talked unreservedly and at length with him, discussed the Republican Convention, characterized its platform as "the apotheosis of reaction," and declared that "it should have quoted Bismarck and Bernhardi rather than Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln." During the two days of Mr. Seibold's visit to the White House he had abundant opportunity to observe the President's condition of health which had been cruelly misrepresented by hostile newspapers. Mr. Seibold found him much more vigorous physically than the public had been given to understand and mentally as alert and aggressive as he had been before his illness. Mr. Seibold's article, which by the way was regarded as a journalistic cla.s.sic and for which Columbia University awarded the author the Pulitzer prize for the best example of newspaper reporting of the year, exposed the absurd rumours about the President's condition and furnished complete evidence of his determination to fight for the principles to establish which he had struggled so valiantly and sacrificed so much.

As the days of the San Francisco Convention approached those of us who were intimately a.s.sociated with the President at the White House were warned by him that in the Convention fight soon to take place we must play no favourites; that the Convention must be, so far as the White House was concerned, a free field and no favour, and that our att.i.tude of "hands off" and strict neutrality must be maintained. Some weeks before the Convention met the President conferred with me regarding the nominations, and admonished me that the White House must keep hands off, saying that it had always been charged in the past that every administration sought to use its influence in the organization of the party to throw the nomination this way or that. Speaking to me of the matter, he said, "We must make it clear to everyone who consults us that our att.i.tude is to be impartial in fact as well as in spirit. Other Presidents have sought to influence the naming of their successors. Their efforts have frequently brought about scandals and factional disputes that have split the party. This must not happen with us. We must not by any act seek to give the impression that we favour this or that man."

This att.i.tude was in no way an evidence of the President's indifference to the nominee of the Convention, or to what might happen at San Francisco.

He was pa.s.sionately anxious that his party's standard bearer should win at the election if for no other reason than to see his own policies continued and the League of Nations vindicated.

There was another and personal reason why he insisted that no White House interference should be brought into play for any particular nominee. His son-in-law, Mr. William G. McAdoo, was highly thought of in connection with the nomination, and therefore the President felt that he must be more than ordinarily strict in insisting that we keep hands off, for anything that savoured of nepotism was distasteful to him and, therefore, he "leaned backward" in his efforts to maintain a neutral position in the Presidential contest and to take no part directly or indirectly that might seem to give aid and comfort to the friends of his son-in-law. While Mr.

McAdoo's political enemies were busily engaged in opposing him on the ground of his relations.h.i.+p to the President, as a matter of fact, the President was making every effort to disa.s.sociate himself and his administration from the talk that was spreading in favour of McAdoo's candidacy. While every effort was being made by Mr. McAdoo's enemies to give the impression that the Federal machine was being used to advance his candidacy, the President was engaged wholly in ignoring Mr. McAdoo's candidacy.

Every family visit which Mr. McAdoo and his wife, the President's daughter, paid the White House, was distorted in the newspaper reports carried to the country into long and serious conferences between the President and his son-in-law with reference to Mr. McAdoo's candidacy. I know from my own knowledge that the matter of the nomination was never discussed between the President and Mr. McAdoo. And Mr. McAdoo's real friends knew this and were greatly irritated at what they thought was the gross indifference on the part of the President to the political fortunes of his own son-in-law. So meticulously careful was the President that no one should be of the opinion that he was attempting to influence things in Mr. McAdoo's behalf, that there was never a discussion even between the President and myself regarding Mr. McAdoo's candidacy, although we had canva.s.sed the availability of other Democratic candidates, as well as the availability of the Republican candidates.

I had often been asked what the President's att.i.tude would be toward Mr.

McAdoo's candidacy were he free to take part in the campaign. My only answer to these inquiries was that the President had a deep affection and an admiration for Mr. McAdoo as a great executive that grew stronger with each day's contact with him. He felt that Mr. McAdoo's sympathies, like his own, were on the side of the average man; and that Mr. McAdoo was a man with a high sense of public service.

And while the President kept silent with reference to Mr. McAdoo, the basis of his att.i.tude was his conviction that to use his influence to advance the cause of his son-in-law was, in his opinion, an improper use of a public trust.

That he was strictly impartial in the matter of Presidential candidates was shown when Mr. Palmer, the Attorney General, requested me to convey a message to the President with reference to his [Palmer's] candidacy for the nomination, saying that he would be a candidate and would so announce it publicly if the President had no objection; or that he would resign from the Cabinet if the announcement would embarra.s.s the President in any way, and that he would support any man the President saw fit to approve for this great office.

I conveyed this message to the President and he requested me to notify Mr.

Palmer that he was free to do as he pleased, that he had no personal choice and that the Convention must be left entirely free to act as it thought proper and right and that he would gladly support the nominee of the Convention.

Mr. Homer S. c.u.mmmgs, the permanent chairman of the Convention, Senator Gla.s.s of Virginia, and Mr. Colby, Secretary of State, called upon the President at the White House previous to taking the train for San Francisco to inquire if the President had any message for the Convention or suggestion in the matter of candidates or platforms. He informed them that he had no message to convey or suggestions to offer.

Thus, to the end, he maintained this att.i.tude of neutrality. He never varied from this position from the opening of the Convention to its conclusion. There was no direct wire between the White House and the San Francisco Convention, although there were frequent long-distance telephone calls from Colby, c.u.mmings, and others to me; never once did the President talk to any one at the Convention. At each critical stage of the Convention messages would come from someone, urging the President to say something, or send some message that would break the deadlock, but no reply was forthcoming. He remained silent.

There came a time when it looked as if things at the Convention had reached an impa.s.se and that only the strong hand of the President could break the deadlock.

I was informed by long-distance telephone that the slightest intimation from the President would be all that was necessary to break the deadlock and that the Convention would nominate any one he designated.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE WHITE HOUSE WAs.h.i.+NGTON

26 September 1920.

My dear Governor:

I think I have found a suitable way to begin our attack if you care to take part in this campaign. The whole country is filled with the poison spread by Lodge and his group and it has to do princ.i.p.ally with the attacks made upon you for failing to consult anyone about possible changes in the Treaty and your reluctance toward suggesting to your a.s.sociates on the other side changes of any kind.

George Creel and I have examined the cables that pa.s.sed between you and Mr. Taft and we have prepared a statement which is attached to this letter. This statement, with the Taft cables will be a knockout (I know that Mr. Taft is already preparing a book on the Treaty which will carry these cables) and will clear the air and show how contemptible our enemies have been in circulating stories. We have carefully gone over the Covenant and find that nearly every change suggested by Mr. Taft was made and in come cases you went further than he asked.

George Creel is of the opinion that the statement should come from the White House.

Sincerely, (signed) Tumulty