Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  The 1912 race between Roosevelt and Wilson was at heart more than a debate. It formed the opening round in a battle that would grow stronger and more heated, especially when foreign affairs entered the picture after 1914. The true precedent and analogy to their adversarial relationship was the long-running clash a century earlier between Jefferson and Hamilton, with their conflicting visions of the nation’s future. Roosevelt and Wilson were their twentieth-century successors. Roosevelt, despite his distaste for plutocracy and “materialism,” was the true heir to Hamilton. Something deeper than nationalism and affection for strong government dictated the affinity between those two men. It was their shared pessimistic view of human nature and their belief in the need to overcome people’s limitations through an attachment to a higher good. Wilson, despite his early disdain for Jefferson and continuing admiration for Hamilton, was the true heir to Jefferson. Something deeper than political expediency dictated Wilson’s late-blooming affinity for Jefferson. It was Wilson’s recognition that they shared the same optimistic view of human nature and the belief in the importance of creating an environment in which people can freely use their energies in the pursuit of their own happiness.

  American politics might have followed a different, more interesting, and more constructive path if Wilson and Roosevelt had left legacies like those of Jefferson and Hamilton. Things turned out otherwise on both sides. For conservatives and Republicans, it was Taft, not Roosevelt, who pointed out the ideological path of the future. The link between approval of big business and revulsion from big government would take several decades to mature, and it would owe much to the trauma suffered by businessmen and Republicans in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s brand of statist-oriented, commercially skeptical conservatism would grow less and less welcome in his former party. Instead, by a quirk of fate, his big-government views and concern for the welfare of workers and consumers would find a home among Democrats.

  This ideological crossover would happen, in part, because the next Democratic president after Wilson would be Roosevelt’s distant cousin and the husband of his niece, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The second Roosevelt had adopted “Uncle Ted” as his role model early and absorbed much of his approach to politics. At the same time, Franklin Roosevelt was Wilson’s political heir and a veteran of his administration. His eclectic, unintellectual temperament, together with the challenge of combating the Depression, afforded him lots of ideological latitude in drawing upon the visions of both his kinsman and his party predecessor. After the 1930s, with the exception of one slowly withering wing of the Republican Party, strong-government views along both Theodore Roosevelt’s and Woodrow Wilson’s lines would become the sole property of the Democrats. The result would be ideological mishmash, shallowness, and sterility in domestic political debate. Nothing would again match the depth and sophistication of what passed between Wilson and the first Roosevelt.42

  In November 1912, the continuing conflict between these two men and their ideological legacies lay in the unseen future. For the man who won the election, the opportunities and the burdens of the presidency began to come in a rush. The flood of mail and telegrams that brought congratulations quickly gave way to an avalanche of men offering advice on policy and angling for office. Exhausted from the campaign, Wilson retreated to Bermuda for a month. This time, Ellen and their daughters accompanied him. The respite gave the president-elect more than rest and relaxation. It also afforded him time to do what he liked to do most—think, reflect, plan, prepare. When the family returned at the middle of December, Wilson was ready to tackle the twin tasks of finishing out his term in Trenton and choosing a crew and charting the course for his new ship of state in Washington. He also took time out for a backward-looking, sentimental journey.

  At the end of December 1912, he and his wife made that two-day trip to Staunton, Virginia. The town pulled out all the stops to welcome back a native son who had risen to the highest office in the land. There were bands, cheering crowds, and another torchlight parade. On December 28, his birthday, Wilson gave two speeches, both of them a bit rambling, mixing sentiment with foretastes of politics to come. At the school where he had visited Hattie Woodrow, which was now called Mary Baldwin Seminary, he recalled visiting “five cousins” of whom he was “very fond.” He said he hoped that, as a native Virginian who was governor of a northern state and about to become president of the United States, he might become an “instrument in drawing together the hearts of all men in the United States in the service of a nation that has neither region, nor section, nor North, nor South.” He did not believe he faced an easy task in Washington. The capital contained many who did not appreciate the new responsibilities that government must assume and would “have to be mastered in order that they shall be made the instruments of justice and mercy. This is not a rosewater affair. This is an office in which a man must put on his war paint. Fortunately, I have not such a visage as to mind marring it; and I don’t care whether the war paint is becoming or not.”43

  At an evening banquet sponsored by leading Virginia Democrats, Wilson hailed “my native place” and saluted “the standards established in the olden time in the great Commonwealth of Virginia. It is as if a man came back to drink at some of the original fountains of political impulse and inspiration in this country.” The compliment carried a sting. The men in Washington who had “to be mastered” included not just conservative Republicans. He noted that the leaders of Virginia’s Democratic machine—“I dare say one of them is present tonight”—had told him that “they thought I had some screw loose or that I was rather wild” and had opposed his nomination for president. He reminded them that he had advocated “nothing but the original doctrines of liberty as understood in America,” and he pointed to the Virginia Bill of Rights. He added, “So I am not in the least afraid of being regarded as a heretic, provided you know the standards of orthodoxy.”44 The Democrats were in for an exciting ride with their new president.

  For all the celebration and fanfare, the highlight and purpose of the visit were personal. “I remember that I have played many times in the yard of that little house opposite,”45 Wilson said at the seminary, referring to the manse where he had been born fifty-six years before. The boy who was called Tommy Wilson had gone far in the intervening years. He had come back as Woodrow Wilson, husband, father, scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, university president, governor, and now soon-to-be president of the United States. This native of Staunton stood on the brink of the most challenging, fulfilling, and heartrending time of his life.

  9

  PREPARATION

  A few days after the presidential election, Woodrow Wilson talked with a former colleague from the Princeton faculty, the biologist Edward Grant Conklin. As Conklin later recalled their conversation, Wilson said to him, “It would be an irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign problems, for all my preparation has been in domestic matters.”1 The first part of that remark proved prophetic because, following the outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914, Wilson did suffer that “irony of fate,” but the second part of the remark was especially revealing of Wilson’s character. When he talked about “preparation” he touched on the heart of his approach to politics. For him, “preparation” meant less the two years of practical political experience—a remarkably thin background for someone on the verge of entering the White House—and more the study of politics that had absorbed him since his days as a college student. He began his formal preparation for his presidency soon after the election returns had come in. Unlike most other politicians, Wilson did not surround himself with people when he made decisions. A decade as a college president and a governor had not changed the habits he had formed in his youth and strengthened as a professor. He still liked to be alone when pondering alternatives and sifting through ideas. Those were the activities he had engaged in during his monthlong sojourn with his family on Bermuda.

  Two matters loomed largest in his preparation fo
r the presidency: appointments and policy. He had a cabinet and other important positions to fill, and he had begun to receive advice and think about appointments even before he left for Bermuda. A new acquaintance proved useful in sorting out competing claims and assessing strengths, weaknesses, and political ramifications in various possibilities: Edward M. House. With his slight build and mild manner, House seemed to belie his origins in rough-and-tumble Texas and his honorific title of Colonel. In some ways, he did belie that background. He was the son of an Englishman who had immigrated to Texas while it was still part of Mexico and had later amassed a large fortune. As a youth, House had gone to school in England and Connecticut before attending college at Cornell. Back in Texas, he had become active in Democratic politics and acquired a reputation as a kingmaker and power behind the throne of several governors. More recently, since retiring from business and moving to New York, House had cast about for ways to play a similar role in national Democratic politics and had involved himself in an intermittent, conciliatory way at the Wilson campaign headquarters.2 He also ingratiated himself with the candidate by supplying him with a bodyguard during the campaign, Captain Bill McDonald, a former Texas Ranger who was also a crack pistol shot.

  Wilson spent an hour and a half at House’s apartment on New York’s Upper East Side the day he sailed for Bermuda. “Cabinet material was discussed,” House recorded in his diary. House suggested McAdoo for secretary of the Treasury and Albert Burleson for postmaster general. Wilson favored Josephus Daniels for the post office spot, but House had said, “I thought he was not aggressive enough and that the position needed a man who was also in touch with Congress. [Wilson] agreed that this was true.” For attorney general, House recorded, “We practically eliminated Brandeis for this position,” and for secretary of state he noted that he supported Wilson’s leaning toward Bryan.3

  Wilson seems to have deputized House to look into prospective cabinet officers and talk with Democratic leaders in Congress. Writing to Wilson about various possibilities for attorney general, House lavished special praise on James McReynolds, a Tennessean who was an experienced anti-trust prosecutor. He also had lunch with Brandeis, whom he praised to Wilson as “more than a lawyer” and dismissed criticism of him, but House noted, “There comes to the surface, now and then, one of those curious Hebrew traits of mind that makes one hold something in reserve.” On a trip to Washington, the colonel sounded out leading Democrats on Capitol Hill, most of whom favored Bryan as secretary of state. House talked about banking reform with Representative Carter Glass of Virginia, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, who said he would follow Wilson’s lead but did not favor “central control.”4 Glass’s attitude portended problems with banking reform.

  Wilson kept his own counsel while he was in Bermuda, but he was clearly pondering what he would do in the White House. He wanted to accomplish something no incoming president had ever done: he wanted to introduce a comprehensive program of legislation at the outset of his administration. Before he left for Bermuda, he announced that he would call into session the newly elected Congress—where Democrats enjoyed a top-heavy majority in the House and a narrower margin of control in the Senate—on April 15, 1913, six weeks after his inauguration. Under the Constitution, this Congress did not have to convene until December 1913. The new president was signaling that he meant to break with politics as usual.

  As House’s report from Washington indicated, their party’s senior men on Capitol Hill expected the new president to take the lead in proposing and drafting major legislation. This was a big change. Previously, when either party had won control of both the White House and Congress, legislative priorities had usually emerged slowly and collaboratively, and congressional leaders had often played a bigger role than the president. Even that recent paragon of presidential activism, Theodore Roosevelt, had bided his time before trying to push significant legislation through Congress. Taft had called Congress into session at the beginning of his administration and asked for reform and downward revision of the tariff. That effort had turned into a fiasco, and it did not offer an appealing precedent for major legislative initiatives by an incoming president. Wilson’s eagerness to take this path testified to his self-confidence and sense of preparation. Congressional Democrats’ willingness to follow him testified to their gratitude at finally having been led out of the political wilderness.

  When his steamship docked in New York on December 16, reporters found Wilson tanned and in good spirits. He had enjoyed a restful vacation, he told them, “and we all feel ready for anything.” When asked about appointments, he refused to discuss the matter—a vow of silence he would keep for another month—and he stayed mum on major policy issues as well. He was forthcoming on two subjects: New Jersey politics and the general tone of his presidency. Back at his desk in Trenton the next day, the governor gave out a statement saying that he would stay active in state affairs and would keep up the fight against the bosses. Speaking to the Southern Society of New York that evening, Wilson declared, “America is not what it was when the Civil War was fought. We have come into a new age. There can be no sectionalism about the thinking of the American people from this time on.”5

  Those four matters—appointments, policy, New Jersey politics, and presidential tone—would occupy Wilson for the remaining two and a half months before his inauguration. Behind the scenes and in public, he would deal with them simultaneously. He still preferred to tackle questions one at a time, and he often joked about his “single-track mind,” yet already as a college president and as a governor he had rarely been able to follow that bent. Now he was getting a foretaste of the many and varied questions that would come at him all at once in the White House.

  Appointments held the least appeal for him. The day after his speech to the Southern Society, he had lunch with House in New York. They discussed ambassadorships, including the possibility of one for McCombs, and cabinet posts, including Bryan for secretary of state and Brandeis for attorney general. House continued to throw cold water on Brandeis and sing the praises of McReynolds. Wilson offered Bryan the post of secretary of state when the Great Commoner visited him in Trenton on December 21. Bryan later recalled that he told the president-elect that as a matter of conscience he could not serve alcohol at his house or at official functions and Wilson raised no objections. In a handwritten letter four days later, Bryan noted, “I am thinking of increasing pleasure of association with McAdoo.” This was the first indication that McAdoo would become secretary of the Treasury. In this almost offhand manner, Wilson filled the two top posts in his cabinet.6

  As Democrats had predicted, Bryan weighed in with advice on other cabinet appointments. For secretary of the interior, he suggested the mayor of Cleveland, Newton D. Baker: “He is a man of ideals and capacity.” He praised Josephus Daniels as being “of the Salt of the Earth” but did not say which post he thought his friend should fill. “As to the Atty. Gen.,” Bryan wrote, “I share your high opinion of Brandeis & I do not know that a better man can be found. He has a standing among reformers & I am sure all progressives would be pleased.” Bryan offered an additional, less flattering reason for favoring Brandeis: “It is more important that he be at heart with the people against the special interests than that he be a brilliant lawyer—brilliant lawyers can be hired but the right kind of man for Atty Gen is not so easy to find.”7 Wilson does not seem to have responded to these suggestions. He would not turn his attention to filling the rest of the cabinet until January, and although he had picked McAdoo for the Treasury post, he would not make the offer until the beginning of February.

  Setting the tone for his presidency was a more appetizing task. Starting with the speech to the Southern Society of New York, Wilson delivered messages that had two main aims, one partly retrospective, the other prospective. Looking back, he continued to rebut Roosevelt’s campaign charges that he, Wilson, was a limited-government, state-rights man only posing as a progressive. When he eschewed sectionali
sm in the speech to the Southern Society and bearded Virginia’s conservative leaders during his birthday jaunt to Staunton, he underlined his claims to be an emancipated, up-to-date progressive. Looking forward, Wilson opened a long-term campaign to win over Roosevelt’s third-party followers and build a majority behind himself and his party. He pursued both aims by dwelling on his newly coined slogan, the New Freedom, and he published a book with that title, which wove together some of his campaign speeches. In speeches during the first part of January 1913, he also expanded on his progressive vision. In one, he sounded like Roosevelt when he maintained that “men are no longer to be catalogued, … no longer to be put in classes,” and he sounded like himself and Bryan when he demanded a turning away from the widespread belief “that a poor man has less chance to get justice administered to him than a rich man. God forbid that should be generally true. But so long as that is believed, the belief constitutes a threatening fact.”8 To seize upon this new temper and combat perceptions of injustice, he called for action in four areas: conservation of natural resources, equal access to raw materials, equal access to credit, and reform of the tariff.