Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  When he pointed to the four areas in which he meant to take action, Wilson was tipping his hand to the major policies he intended to pursue. The first area—conservation of natural resources—was a gesture toward the Roosevelt following, because this was their most cherished issue. Wilson would appoint a conservationist as secretary of the interior, and his administration would compile a good record in this area. Except for the establishment of the National Park Service and consolidation of the parks under that agency in 1916, however, there would be no significant legislative initiatives. The second area—equal access to raw materials—was partly an appeal to westerners, who chafed under the domination of big outside-owned mining and timber interests, and was partly an oblique way of raising the anti-trust issue, which had loomed so large in the campaign. That was a complex problem to tackle: anti-trusters disagreed among themselves about whether to seek new laws or try administrative regulation. Finding common ground would require patience, diligence, and expert advice, and the anti-trust issue would become the last of the major issues that Wilson would address during the first part of his presidency.

  The third area—equal access to credit—was another way of saying banking reform. It was the issue on which Wilson had received the most advice and had seen the most lobbying since the election—almost as much as on appointments. Carter Glass, the chairman of the House Banking Committee, wrote to Wilson several times before and after his trip to Bermuda, and on December 26 he traveled to Princeton to confer, accompanied by his adviser, Professor H. Parker Willis of George Washington University. Wilson, who was in bed with a cold, looked over a draft plan for a reserve system drawn up by Willis. According to Glass, the presidentelect wanted “some body of supervisory control.”9 The congressman was willing to have government oversight of the banking system, but he did not want a central bank. Their discussions on this matter highlighted the main point of contention in banking reform—the degree and the kind of central control—and showed that Wilson wanted supervisory control. Banking reform would prove to be as complicated as the anti-trust issue and even more contentious. It would become the hardest-fought of Wilson’s major legislative initiatives.

  The last area—reform of the tariff—meant lowering rates. That would prove to be the easiest of Wilson’s main legislative initiatives. For a quarter of a century, the tariff had pitted the two parties against each other more than any other issue. Among Republicans—except for some, but not all, insurgent progressives—high tariffs were an article of faith, especially regarding industrial products and some raw materials. Among Democrats—except for a scattering of deviations, such as Louisiana sugar growers and some western mining and ranching interests—lower tariffs were just as strong an article of faith and overrode even the enmity between Bryanites and conservatives. Taft’s recent attempt to lower the tariff had broken the pattern, but his failure, along with an earlier stumble by Grover Cleveland, seemed to jinx any effort at downward revision. Still, with the Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, a renewed push in that direction seemed inescapable. As a corollary, if the effort succeeded, government revenues would decline, thereby providing an excuse to do what most Democrats, together with Progressives and progressive Republicans, wanted to do anyway—enact an income tax. Impending ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment by three quarters of the states would provide the required constitutional sanction, and a push in the next Congress to enact legislation to levy an income tax seemed well-nigh certain.

  In the meantime, while preparing for his presidency, Wilson was still governor of New Jersey. Of all the tasks that occupied him between the election in November 1912 and his inauguration on March 4, 1913, this was the one he could have ducked. Thanks in part to the Republican-Progressive split, the Democrats had not only regained control of the New Jersey assembly in the November elections, but they had also won a majority in the state senate. Overall control of the legislature assured that Congressman William (Billy) Hughes, the victor of the 1912 Democratic primary in which Jim Smith had staged his ill-fated attempt at a comeback, would be chosen to fill the state’s second seat in the U.S. Senate. Even more important, control of the state senate meant that a Democrat would succeed Wilson as governor. Because New Jersey did not have a lieutenant governor, the president of the senate was required to fill a governor’s unexpired term. When the legislature met in January, the new Democratic majority chose James Fielder, a Wilson supporter, as its president. Wilson could have resigned at that point, but he did not: he believed he had unfinished business as governor.

  He did not have as easy a time as many expected. Assembly Democrats rebuffed his choice for speaker, and he had to fight the machine over his choice for state treasurer. Nevertheless, when he addressed the legislature on January 14, 1913, the governor presented a list of proposals designed to round out his program. The main measures were reform of securities to discourage fraud and monopoly, changes in the jury system to reduce political manipulation, and a constitutional convention to streamline and democratize the state’s government. He also again urged ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, to allow an income tax, and the Seventeenth Amendment, to require popular election of U.S. senators. As before, Wilson employed a combination of cajolery and charm to bring the legislators around. Securities reform passed fairly easily, although some observers questioned whether the new law accomplished much, and the legislature also ratified the amendments to the Constitution. Those actions betokened a brief revival of the governor’s honeymoon with the legislators. At the end of January, at a dinner with state senators in Atlantic City, the governor grew a bit misty-eyed as he reminisced about their times together and told them it was going to be “a great wrench” to leave. Near midnight, as the dinner ended, he proposed a walk on the Atlantic City boardwalk. “The Senate accepted the proposition en masse,” reported The New York Times, “and led by the Governor the twenty-one Senators marched along the walk before the brisk breeze until the Governor’s ‘right face,’ when they wheeled and returned.” The entourage covered two miles in a little over half an hour.10

  All did not remain fun and games with the legislature. The assembly passed a bill to call a constitutional convention, but the senators dragged their feet until after Wilson left for Washington and then defeated the bill. Jury reform turned into a fiasco. Machine forces were able to water down a bill embodying Wilson’s ideas and attached a provision to require a referendum before any changes could take effect. The matter was not resolved when Wilson stepped down. Later, despite personal intervention by the president, the affair ended in a muddle, with the voters approving a much-weakened law in November 1913. Those wrangles marked the beginning of the resurgence of the machine forces, still led by Nugent, who was now joined by Frank Hague of Jersey City.11

  Wilson put a good face on the last days of his governorship. He resigned on February 25, 1913. At Fielder’s swearing-in ceremony, he called the governorship the greatest privilege of his life and expressed confidence in his successor. He had the satisfaction of seeing Fielder elected governor the following November, but that was almost the only post-gubernatorial victory he enjoyed. Between the renewed strength of the Democratic machine and the reversion of voters to Republican majorities under conservative control, New Jersey would not become a model progressive state like Wisconsin or Oregon. Moreover, despite repeated pledges to stay in touch with the state, Wilson would take little part in state affairs after 1913, except for an unsuccessful attempt in 1915 to get voters there to adopt woman suffrage. There was some truth to the acid line in John Dos Passos’s novel U.S.A.: “so he left the State of New Jersey halfreformed.”12

  Meanwhile, Wilson was somewhat reluctantly tackling presidential appointments. He met with House ten more times during the last seven weeks before his inauguration, mostly at House’s apartment in New York, where he stayed overnight five times. Except when the president-elect had a ceremonial dinner to attend, he would dine with House and spend the evening and the next mo
rning discussing appointments and, occasionally, policy. The two men sometimes interrupted their discussions to attend a Broadway play, often a light comedy, Wilson’s favorite form of theater. Telephone calls and letters from House supplemented the face-to-face meetings. In addition, Ellen Wilson visited the colonel once in New York and talked with him about appointments. These meetings between Wilson and House had a twofold significance. They were the times when Wilson thought about whom to appoint to cabinet posts and ambassadorships. They were also the times when he and House formed what House later called the “intimate” bond that became one of the two most important relationships of Wilson’s presidency.13

  Contrary to his normally orderly nature, Wilson went about cabinet making in a haphazard, almost sloppy way. From the outset, familiar names figured in the discussions. Early in January, the colonel drew up a list of possible cabinet picks; it included Bryan, McAdoo, and McReynolds at the State, Treasury, and Justice departments, with Brandeis, Page, and Daniels as possibilities for other departments. Also on the list or discussed were David F. Houston, who was chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and a special friend of House’s, and William C. Redfield, an anti-Tammany Democratic congressman from New York.14 All except Brandeis and Page eventually wound up with cabinet posts; Page would become ambassador to Great Britain, and Brandeis would later be appointed to the Supreme Court.

  It was one thing for Wilson to think up names; it was another thing for him to make appointments. McAdoo got the nod for the Treasury post at the beginning of February, but the offer came after second thoughts that included naming him postmaster general or governor general of the Philippines. The attorney generalship continued to be a headache. Pressures from progressives and Wilson’s own admiration for Brandeis resurrected the candidacy of “the people’s attorney.” Strong opposition from lawyers, financiers, and some Democrats, abetted by House, helped block him, but Wilson still wanted to appoint him in some capacity, possibly as secretary of commerce. The colonel found an ally in Tumulty, who was evidently swayed by a campaign against Brandeis by some Massachusetts Democrats. They finally prevailed upon Wilson to appoint Redfield instead to head the Commerce Department.15

  Even with Brandeis out, there was still a scramble for the attorney generalship. One candidate was A. Mitchell Palmer, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who had a strong progressive record and was openly angling for the job. Unfortunately for his chances, Bryan did not like him and had a new candidate of his own in Joseph W. Folk, another progressive and a former governor of Missouri. Also working against Palmer were stories that during the deadlock at the convention Palmer had dallied with a scheme to supplant Wilson for the nomination. This time, Wilson gave in to House’s persistent advocacy and offered McReynolds the attorney generalship on February 15. Palmer could have joined the cabinet when Wilson offered him the secretaryship of war a week later. After briefly thinking it over, he declined, however, citing religious grounds: “As a Quaker Secretary, I should consider myself a living illustration of a horrible incongruity.” House had a different take on Palmer’s motives. “He wants to be Attorney General to advance his own fortunes,” the colonel recorded, “as he thinks it would be possible for him to obtain a lucrative practice after four years of service.” In the meantime, the War Department post had to be filled. Curiously, Wilson called in a New Jersey lawyer and judge, Lindley M. Garrison, whom he had not met before, and offered him the job.16

  The other armed services secretaryship, the navy, came to be filled almost as casually. Of the men who had worked for his nomination, Wilson most liked and respected Josephus Daniels, and he initially thought of the North Carolina editor for the postmaster generalship. House and others maintained that this post should go to someone better versed in the tougher aspects of party politics. Wilson bowed to those objections, and just over a week before the inauguration he offered Daniels the secretaryship of the navy. Congressional politics helped sway the postmaster general appointment. Underwood, the House Democratic leader, came to see Wilson in Trenton after the election and argued that Albert Burleson of Texas, who was a ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, should be in the cabinet because he enjoyed “the implicit confidence of the Democratic members of the House and Senate.” The post office was the logical place for Burleson, and Wilson made the offer the same day that he wrote to Daniels.17

  Walter Page and David Houston appeared as possibilities for the secretaryships of agriculture and the interior. After seeing Wilson for the first time in January, House recorded in his diary, “I gave Houston unqualified praise but was somewhat more guarded in regard to Page.” The colonel pushed Houston because, before going to Washington University, he had been president of the University of Texas, and House had come to regard him as a protégé. Page remained under consideration, with Wilson shifting him and Houston back and forth between the two departments. House’s patronage paid off for Houston, who was offered the agriculture secretaryship early in February. Page would have received the interior post if House had not continued to lobby against him and successfully pushed for Franklin K. Lane, a Californian who was serving on the Interstate Commerce Commission. Wilson did not meet Lane until the inauguration. The final cabinet slot was the head of the newly created Department of Labor. The only person considered, William B. Wilson, was, like Palmer, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. Wilson was also a former officer of the mine workers’ union and was close to the president of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers.18

  Two other appointments vexed Wilson. The first was the question of what to do with his nominal party chairman, the increasingly unstable McCombs. Wilson refused to appoint him to the cabinet; instead, he offered McCombs the ambassadorship to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After brooding over the matter for a month, McCombs declined and said he might take the ambassadorship to France but then declined that post too; he would fester for another three years as titular head of the party, increasingly isolated and embittered. The second troubling question about appointments was what to do with Tumulty. The governor’s secretary yearned to fill the same post in the White House, but he was not a shoo-in for the job. Anti-Catholic prejudice still dogged Tumulty, and the president-elect received a raft of letters opposing his appointment, some of them scurrilous. Those prejudices carried no weight with Wilson, but he did worry about Tumulty’s political background. House recorded Wilson’s saying that “the trouble with Tumulty is that he cannot see beyond Hudson County, his vision is too narrow.”19 Fortunately for Tumulty, Ellen and House lobbied on his behalf, and at the beginning of February, Wilson agreed to appoint him. Overnight, Tumulty stepped in to advise and confer with House on filling the cabinet.

  Wilson’s method of making major appointments provided a foretaste of his method as president. Previous presidential cabinet making had also witnessed scurrying and confusion, but nothing in recent decades had seen anything like this. Most of Wilson’s predecessors had mainly rewarded important factions and constituencies in their respective parties, nearly always in consultation with important state and congressional leaders. Roosevelt had broken away from that pattern to choose able men who were personally close to him, such as Taft and Elihu Root, for some—but not all—of his cabinet positions. Taft had followed Roosevelt’s practice to a degree—though not often enough to satisfy his predecessor and patron. Because the Democrats had been out of power for sixteen years, Wilson faced a far different situation. His party had neither the clearly defined interests to appease nor a deep bench of qualified people to choose from. In this situation, Wilson bounced around among competing claims of friendship or service to him (Tumulty, Daniels, McAdoo), party standing (Bryan, Burleson), interest group representation (W.B. Wilson, possibly Redfield), and advice from House (Houston, Lane, McReynolds), as well as making a stab in the dark (Garrison). Consistently choosing first-rate lieutenants would not be his strong suit, and at times he would tolerate mediocre performance and even disloyalty
from high-ranking subordinates. Why Wilson behaved this way in making appointments and later in overseeing subordinates remains puzzling. It may have reflected his essentially solitary approach to leadership, which made him care less about advisers and lieutenants: in making major decisions, he would consult with and receive advice from the men around him, but he would rely strictly on his own judgment.

  Another foretaste of Wilson’s presidency lay in his relationship with House. A deep affinity had arisen quickly between these men. Wilson supposedly once said, “Mr. House is my second personality. He is my independent self. His thoughts and mine are one.”20 He did seem to treat House like a second self. In picking his cabinet, he not only leaned heavily on the colonel, whom he had barely known before the election, but he also offered him a place in the cabinet. The colonel pleaded delicate health and preferred to remain a free agent and adviser.

  Wilson and House made an odd couple. Wilson was an intellectual, and in the midst of public life he still liked to spend time alone thinking and writing. House, like Andrew West, was compulsively sociable, and he never read or wrote much: his anonymously published novel, Philip Dru, Administrator, was largely ghostwritten, and he dictated his diary to his secretary. This attraction of opposites harked back to Wilson’s friendship with Hibben, and House’s gentle, soothing manner may have reminded Wilson of Hibben. The colonel was also an accomplished flatterer, and he quickly learned how to play on his new friend’s sensibilities. Josephus Daniels later recalled that before House saw the president, he would ask cabinet members, “What is the Old Man thinking about so-and-so” and then repeat what he heard as his own views: “Wilson was astounded to find that their minds ran in the same channel, and that made him think that he and House were almost one man in their thoughts.”21