Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  Wilson began to involve others in the situation on Monday. He and Bryan exchanged several notes. Bryan broached the idea of warning American citizens not to travel on ships of belligerent countries. Wilson expressed no opinion of that idea, but he did say that they must weigh how their actions looked abroad. His stenographer, Charles Swem, noted that the president said he would not let the country be stampeded into anything and that he brushed aside a telegram imploring him, in the name of God, to declare war. The president said, “War isn’t declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely.”5 He did not meet with cabinet members, and Edith Galt was his only visitor during the day, for a private lunch, at which they talked ardently of their love for each other.

  Even before the sinking of the Lusitania, Wilson had planned to use a speech in Philadelphia on May 10 to continue to set the tone of America’s response to the war. Because his audience included 4,000 newly naturalized citizens, the occasion lent itself to the subject. Mostly, he reiterated well-worn ideas of his about America’s “constant and repeated rebirth” through immigration and its standing as “a great hope of the human race.” He urged his listeners “not only always to think first of America, but always, also, to think of humanity.” He did not mention the Lusitania, but he did say, “The example of America must be the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world, and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.”6

  The words “too proud to fight” would live on as one of Wilson’s best-remembered phrases—to his chagrin. In uttering those words, he evidently did not think he was saying anything remarkable. They expressed a personal philosophy instilled in him since childhood, particularly by his mother. In the preceding weeks, he had been counseling calm and self-control in facing challenges posed by the war. He told Edith the next day that he did not remember what he had said in Philadelphia because he was thinking of her: “I did not know before I got up very clearly what I was going to say, nor remember what I had said when I sat down.” That was a bit of sweet sophistry. Even before he heard any public reactions to the speech, Wilson knew he had blundered with “too proud to fight.” At a press conference the next day, he claimed he had not been talking about policy and had expressed “a personal attitude, that was all.” He allowed reporters to paraphrase, though not quote, his retraction. Frank Parker Stockbridge, his press secretary in 1911, recalled that Wilson told him, “That was just one of the foolish things a man does. I have a bad habit of thinking out loud. That thought occurred to me while I was speaking, and I let it out. I should have kept it in or developed it further.” Of all the words he uttered in his public career, “too proud to fight” were probably the ones he most wished had never passed his lips.7

  Actions, not words, caused him more immediate concern. Just how hard it would be to satisfy the “double wish” became painfully clear when he brought the Lusitania problem before the cabinet on May 11. Two days earlier, House had asserted in an impassioned telegram from London, “Think we can no longer remain neutral spectators. … We are being weighed in the balance, and our position amongst the nations is being assessed by mankind.” Wilson opened the cabinet meeting by reading that telegram, and he read aloud his draft of a diplomatic note. In the discussion, Bryan grew emotional and accused other cabinet members of not being neutral, and Wilson reportedly reproved him. He was not really put out with Bryan. “Both in mind and heart I was deeply moved by what you said in Cabinet this morning,” he wrote when he sent along the draft of the note, which demanded an apology and reparations for the sinking of the Lusitania as well as the earlier attack on the Falaba and warned that the United States would take “any necessary act in sustaining the rights of its citizens or in safeguarding the sacred duties of international law.”8

  Bryan showed great persistence in pushing his views on how to deal with the protest to Germany. The following day, he sent Wilson two handwritten letters containing suggestions to mitigate the risk of war and avoid siding with either set of belligerents. He also proposed to protest the Allied blockade and issue a supplemental statement that would invoke the principle of his compulsory delay, or a cooling-off treaty. Germany had not agreed to such a treaty with the United States, but he argued that it had endorsed the underlying principle. Wilson ignored the protest to the Allies, but he liked the idea of a supplemental statement and proposed to accompany the diplomatic note with a “tip” to the press, a draft of which he sent to Bryan. In this “tip,” he noted that Germany had endorsed the principle of compulsory delay and expressed confidence that the Germans would either respond favorably to the note or submit the dispute to some process of arbitration.9

  Wilson did not carry through with this move, seemingly scuttling it within hours. He told Bryan he had heard something from the German embassy that convinced him that such a statement would spoil the chance to resolve the dispute satisfactorily. That was not true. Instead, the “tip” fell victim to backstabbing intrigue. When Bryan described the move to Robert Lansing, the counselor of the State Department (the department’s second-ranking official), Lansing said he approved. Immediately afterward, however, Lansing went behind his boss’s back to inform Secretary of War Garrison, who was the most bellicose member of the cabinet. Garrison told Lansing to see Tumulty, who also reacted unfavorably to the “tip.” In turn, Tumulty informed Postmaster General Burleson, and the two of them went to see the president. Wilson defended the press statement, but Tumulty maintained that it would give the appearance of double-dealing. When Wilson read the statement to them, Burleson did not think it was so bad, but Tumulty stood his ground, and Wilson finally agreed not to issue it and sent the note as it stood. It is doubtful that Tumulty’s arguments swayed him and more likely that he had begun to have second thoughts of his own.10

  In fact, Wilson had not completely scuttled the plan. He planted stories claiming that the mood of the administration was hopeful of a satisfactory reply from Berlin and a peaceful outcome to the situation. The stories, written by David Lawrence, who had gone to Princeton and was close to Wilson, appeared on May 14 and 15 in the New York Evening Post and The New York Times. Two weeks later, Wilson tried sending a stronger peace signal. He appears to have met with Bernstorff, the German ambassador, on May 28, before he received a reply to his diplomatic note. Bernstorff reported to Berlin that the president’s thinking about peace terms included, besides a return to the pre-war status quo, “[t]he freedom of the seas to such an extent that it would be equal to neutralization of the seas” and “[a]djustments of colonial possessions.”11 This seems to have been the first time Wilson used the term “freedom of the seas,” a phrase and an idea that would appear repeatedly in his pronouncements about post-war international order.

  In the meantime, the president awaited Germany’s reply to the Lusitania note. This waiting period marked the beginning of a sequence that would repeat itself several times over the next eleven months. It would be like a tennis game in extreme slow motion: first, the United States would send a diplomatic note; next, after a time, Germany would reply; then the United States would volley again. While this game took place, debate and conflict over the latest move would wax and wane on each side, often heightened by events on the battlefield or the seas.

  Affairs of state did not keep Wilson from affairs of the heart. He invited Edith Galt and Altrude Gordon to accompany him, his daughter Margaret, his sister Annie Howe, Helen Bones, Grayson, and Tumulty on a cruise aboard the Mayflower. They sailed for New York, where Wilson was to give a speech and review the Atlantic fleet. A round of festivities greeted them on May 17. The president spoke at a luncheon given by the mayor and reviewed a parade, and Secretary of the Navy Daniels gave a dinner aboard the Navy Department’s official yacht. The following day, the president reviewed the fleet in the Hudson River. A
s the Mayflower steamed past, each warship fired a salute and played an anthem. Edith and Wilson had little time alone together, although she reveled in “the absolute abstraction and [in] forgetting there was anyone else in the launch but you.” Back in Washington, they resumed writing notes and meeting for rides and dinner. Wilson was growing impatient. Age had not cooled his physical desires; at fifty-eight he had the sexual appetite of a man half his age. Edith seems to have acted like a proper lady and resisted his advances. After spending two hours with her in the backseat of the presidential limousine with the curtains drawn, Wilson wrote the next morning, “For God’s sake try to find out whether you really love me or not. You owe it to yourself and you owe it to the great love I have given you, without stint or measure.”12

  Edith was more upset with herself than with Wilson. “I have promised not to raise barriers and not to think defeat possible,” she told him the next day. “I will patiently keep those promises, for I love you, and your love for me has made the whole world new.” For her, his allure was inseparable from his office, as she later admitted in her memoirs.13 On his side, he played upon the presidency in wooing her. He shared secrets of state with her and gave her glimpses of inner workings at the highest level of government. Some of this was standard practice for him. He was used to divulging his deepest thoughts and feelings to female friends, and he was accustomed to baring his soul to a woman he loved, as he had done with Ellen almost as soon as he had met her. The lack of privacy surrounding a president—ever-present Secret Service agents and staff and servants and an inquisitive press—restricted opportunities for intimacy, but they made do as well as they could.

  The day after the scene in the limousine, the German reply to the Lusitania note arrived and set off a second, even more trying, round in the diplomatic tennis game over the submarines. Although the Germans issued secret orders to spare large passenger liners from submarine attack, their official reply was haughty and evasive. Press reaction in the United States was uniformly negative. Wilson again kept to himself, except to deliver an address at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, Decoration Day. Having learned his lesson from “too proud to fight,” he refrained from saying anything that might be taken as a comment on the current situation. When the cabinet met on June 1, everyone expressed disappointment at the German reply. Bryan had not changed his mind and once more argued against a quick response and for further inquiry into the Lusitania‘s sinking. Wilson did not agree, but he did not totally reject this approach. He met again with the German ambassador for what Bernstorff described as “an extraordinarily friendly exchange of views,” in which Wilson promised that if Germany would give up submarine warfare, he would press the British to end their food blockade.14 That overture did not satisfy Bryan, who wrote Wilson a lengthy letter in which he noted that the Lusitania was alleged to have carried munitions and urged redoubled efforts to find a peaceful resolution.

  As before, Wilson decided from the outset to make a strong protest. He spent two days working on a new diplomatic note to Germany. On June 4, he read his draft at a cabinet meeting. He charged that the sinking of the Lusitania involved “principles of humanity” that lifted the incident “out of the class of ordinary subjects of diplomacy,” and he avowed that the loss of so many innocent lives imposed a “grave responsibility” on the United States. Another inconclusive discussion followed, with none of the cabinet members expressing his position clearly. By contrast, two senior Democrats from Capitol Hill showed no such hesitancy. The same day as the cabinet meeting, Thomas S. Martin, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Henry (Hal) De La Warr Flood, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, both Virginians, went to see Bryan, who reported that they strongly opposed war and knew from talking with their colleagues that neither the House nor the Senate would vote for a declaration of war. Wilson responded that Bryan’s report of what they said “made a deep impression on me, and I have no doubt echoes a great part of public opinion,” and he made his comment about the people’s “double wish.”15

  This expression of sentiment among congressional Democrats prompted Bryan to make one last stab at softening the diplomatic note. The next day, he suggested to Wilson “three matters which, to my mind, are necessary to prevent war with Germany”: invoking the principle of compulsory delay, barring passenger ships from carrying munitions, and simultaneously protesting British blockade practices. Wilson immediately rejected those proposals, though “with deep misgiving.” He liked the idea of keeping Americans off ships carrying munitions, but he could not see “the way to do it without hopelessly weakening our protest,” and he wanted to keep any dealings with Britain separate from the submarine controversy.16

  That exchange with Bryan took place on a Saturday. The weekend brought Wilson no respite. When he saw Edith Galt the next day, he showed her his latest draft of the diplomatic note, and he confided in her what one of the gravest consequences of that note would be. “Then, I did want to ask you more about the resignation of ‘W.J.B.’,” she wrote to him, “but saw the subject troubled you so would not let myself discuss it.” That Saturday, he had learned that Bryan intended to resign rather than sign the new diplomatic note to Germany. Bryan had decided to tell McAdoo first, because he was Wilson’s son-in-law. McAdoo later recalled that Bryan was nervous and haggard when he came to his house and admitted he had not been sleeping well. McAdoo tried unsuccessfully to talk him out of resigning, pointing out that a sign of disunity might lead to war—“the very result which you say you are so anxious to avoid.” He suggested that Bryan and his wife spend the weekend away from the city and speak with him again on Monday. “Meanwhile I will see the President and tell him of our conversation.” McAdoo then went to the White House and related everything to Wilson. According to his recollection, the president was not surprised at Bryan’s intention but wanted to keep him in the cabinet if possible.17

  The next day, Wilson again broke his custom of not working on the Sabbath and sought out Tumulty for advice. They talked over lunch, and Tumulty urged him to accept Bryan’s resignation at once. So, too, facetiously, did Edith Galt. “I think it will be a blessing to get rid of him,” she told Wilson, “and [I] might as well frankly say I would like to be appointed in his place, for then I should have to have daily conferences with you.”18 Wilson also met with McAdoo and Houston, his secretary of agriculture, in the afternoon and talked about possible successors to Bryan. The latter spent Saturday night and Sunday at the estate of a Democratic senator outside Washington, but time for reflection did not change his mind, as he told McAdoo on Monday. He wrote a lengthy final letter to Wilson suggesting changes to soften the note to Germany, and in the afternoon he went with McAdoo to the White House to inform the president in person of his intention to resign.

  Wilson sat facing Bryan for more than an hour in his office. He remained calm, but Bryan grew agitated and at one point his hand shook so much that he spilled water from a glass as he was trying to drink. Wilson repeatedly urged Bryan to stay on, but the secretary would have none of it. The president was risking war, he maintained, and was letting other nations dictate America’s policies. At one point, Bryan remarked in a quavering voice, “Colonel House has been Secretary of State, not I, and I have never had your full confidence.” House, after hearing of this charge, wrote that Wilson “tried to minimize what I have done, but was not very successful for facts were against him, although Mr. Bryan knew but a small part of my work. The President said he had only shown him a few of my messages, and excused himself for this by saying how utterly impossible it would be to let Mr. Bryan know his whole mind.”19 House was getting in another dig at Bryan and exaggerating his own importance.

  Wilson did not want Bryan to go. His resignation would not only send a signal of disunity to Germany but would also split the Democratic Party. Beyond such diplomatic and political considerations, he genuinely valued Bryan. He had worked more closely with him than with any other cabinet member. During the last two year
s, they had seen each other almost daily when they were in Washington, and they had exchanged a steady stream of notes and telephone calls. “No two officials ever got along more amicably,” Bryan later recalled. “I was in charge of the department and the President and I never differed on a matter of policy until the controversy over American citizens riding on belligerent ships.” Wilson agreed. At the meeting with McAdoo and Houston the day before, Robert Lansing’s name had come up as a possible successor to Bryan, and, as Houston recalled, the president “remarked that Lansing would not do, that he was not a big enough man, did not have enough imagination, and would not sufficiently vigorously combat or question his [Wilson’s] views, and that he was lacking in initiative.”20 In other words, he was no William Jennings Bryan.

  There was more to this resignation than met the eye. The stated reason—policy disagreement—was not so straightforward as it appeared. Wilson was taking a harder line toward Germany than Bryan thought right or safe, but the president was also making peaceable overtures. It was also odd that Bryan signed the first Lusitania note and only balked at the second protest. The strain of risking war was taking a toll on him emotionally and physically, but his reasons for resigning went deeper. Bryan was facing a political identity crisis. He believed he must leave in order to remain faithful to his most cherished view of himself. His daughter Grace later recounted that when her father came home from his meeting with the president, his face was flushed, his walk was unsteady, and he seemed to be in “great emotional agony.” Lying on a sofa, he told her and her mother, “We have come to a parting of the ways. The President does not seem to realize that a great part of America lies on the other side of the Alleghany Mountains. … By resigning I will be free to assist them in their struggle against entering this heart-breaking conflict on either side.” The next day, after his resignation was made public, Bryan said, “I believe that I can do more on the outside to prevent war than I can do on the inside. … I can work to direct public opinion so it will not exert pressure for extreme action.”21