Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  15. Oscar Garrison Villard to WW, July 21, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; WW to Villard, July 23, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  16. John Palmer Gavit to Villard, Oct. 1, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; WW statement, Nov. 6, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  17. The ascribing of blame to Franklin K. Lane first appeared in RSB, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, vol. 4, President, 1913–1914 (Garden City, N.Y., 1931), and was based on interviews with several cabinet members. It is also supported by McAdoo in his memoir, Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo (Boston, 1931). This interpretation is followed in ASL, Wilson, vol. 2. It is disputed in Keith W. Olson, Biography of a Progressive: Franklin K. Lane, 1864–1921 (Westport, Conn., 1979). Olson notes the lack of direct evidence of Wilson’s reaction and Lane’s not having the only loose tongue in the cabinet.

  18. The stationery struck at least one New York acquaintance of House’s as an affectation. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, who later knew the colonel through the Council on Foreign Relations and the magazine Foreign Affairs, observed: “He prided himself on the variety of his contacts and the fact that they were spread all across the country and were not limited to the Eastern seaboard. Long after he had installed himself definitely in New York, his notepaper was still embossed, ‘Edward M. House, Austin, Texas.’” Armstrong, Peace and Counterpeace: From Wilson to Hitler (New York, 1971).

  19. EMHD, entry for Dec. 2, 1913, PWW, vol. 29.

  20. CTG, interviews by RSB, Feb. 18–19, 1926, RSBP, box 106.

  21. WW to EAW, Aug. 10, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. On Cary Grayson’s care for Ellen, see Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson. The Wilsons evidently chose not to attend the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, which was nearer the White House, because it was affiliated with the northern branch of the denomination.

  22. Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (New York: 1937). On Grayson’s early care for Wilson and Wilson’s difficulty with golf, see Edwin A. Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography (Princeton, N.J., 1981).

  23. EMHD, entry for Aug. 16, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. On the intraparty problems in New York and elsewhere, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  24. On diplomatic appointments, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  25. WW statement, Mar. 12, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  26. WW statement, Mar. 18, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  27. WW message to president of China, U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1913 (Washington, 1920).

  28. WW to James D. Phelan, Apr. 9, 1913, PWW, vol. 27. On the effect of the withdrawal from the loan consortium, see Tien-yi Li, Woodrow Wilson’s China Policy, 1913–1917 (New York, 1952).

  29. On the controversy with Japan, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  30. WW, Constitutional Government in the United States, PWW, vol.

  11 TAKEN AT THE FLOOD

  1. JDD, entry for Apr. 8, 1913, PWW, vol. 27; WW speech, Apr. 8, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  2. Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (New York, 1937).

  3. Albert S. Burleson, interviews by RSB, Mar. 17–19, 1927, RSBP, box 103.

  4. Burleson, interviews by RSB, Mar. 17–19, 1927, RSBP, box 103.

  5. WW speeches, Apr. 14, 1913; May 2, 1913, PWW, vol. 27; Financial World, Apr. 12, 1913, quoted in ASL, Wilson, vol. 2, The New Freedom (Princeton, N.J., 1956).

  6. WW to MAH, Sept. 21, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; WW speech, Apr. 8, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  7. WW press statement, May 26, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  8. La Follette’s Weekly, July 12, 1913. On reaction to the statement and the investigation, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  9. WW to Furnifold Simmons, Sept. 4, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  10. WW statement, Oct. 3, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  11. EAW to WW, Oct. 5, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  12. WW to MAH, June 22, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  13. William Gibbs McAdoo to EMH, June 18, 1913, EMH Papers, Yale University Library. On the June 17 meeting, see also New York Times, June 18, 1913, and New York World, June 18, 1913. On the positions and machinations of the various actors, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  14. Louis Brandeis to WW, June 14, 1913, PWW, vol. 27; WW press conference, June 16, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  15. WW speech, June 23, 1913, PWW, vol. 27. On the meetings at the White House, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  16. New York Sun, June 21, 1913, quoted in ASL, Wilson, vol. 2; WW quoted in Carter Glass, An Adventure in Constructive Finance (Garden City, N.Y., 1927). On the bankers’ and conservative opposition, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  17. WW to EAW, July 27, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. On the revolt of the agrarians, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  18. On the House maneuvering and the bankers’ opposition, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2, and Glass, Adventure in Constructive Finance.

  19. WW to EAW, Sept. 9, 1913, in PWW, vol. 28; WW to MAH, Sept. 28, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. Gilbert Hitchcock headed the faction of Nebraska Democrats that opposed Bryan, and he kept up a relentless battle with the secretary over patronage in that state. James O’Gorman was a Tammany man, and despite being Dudley Field Malone’s father-in-law, he resented Wilson’s friendliness toward the machine’s reformist opponents. James Reed, a flowery orator and ally of the machine in his hometown of Kansas City, also conducted patronage fights with the administration.

  20. WW to Oscar W. Underwood, Oct. 20, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. On the meeting with the senators, see New York Times, Oct. 17, 1913, and New York World, Oct. 17, 1913.

  21. WW to Frank A. Vanderlip, Oct. 24, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. On the Vanderlip plan and its presentation, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  22. On the last debates and final passage of the Federal Reserve Act, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  23. WW speech, Dec. 23, 1913, PWW, vol. 29.

  24. Formally, there were two sessions, the first, which adjourned in November 1913, and the second, which began in December. In fact, Congress had never taken such a brief recess between sessions before.

  25. On how Glass’s approach came out, see Adventure in Constructive Finance. A decade later, under Republican presidents, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York would effectively become the nation’s central bank, and its chairman—a collaborator of Vanderlip’s in 1913 with the fitting surname of Strong—would become a European-style central banker.

  26. For an excellent characterization and analysis of these approaches, see Marc Winerman, “The Origins of the FTC: Concentration, Cooperation, Control, and Competition,” Antitrust Law Journal 71, no. 1 (2003).

  27. WW to MAH, Oct. 12, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; WW address, Dec. 2, 1913, PWW, vol. 29.

  28. WW address, Jan. 20, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  29. On Wilson’s desire for flexibility and his divergent thoughts, see WW to John Sharp Williams, Jan. 27, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  30. On the final vote, see New York Times, June 6, 1914. Nearly all of the Republicans voting for the bill were insurgents from the Midwest and West; one Progressive, from New York, opposed the bill.

  31. On Wilson’s meeting with labor leaders and his refusal to go further, see New York World, Apr. 14, 1914; May 1, 1914.

  32. Samuel Gompers to WW, Oct. 16, 1914, PWW, vol. 31. On the Senate’s actions and Gompers’s reaction, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  33. On the Senate action and final passage, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2. On the first Senate vote, every Democrat favored the bill, joined by seven Republicans and one Progressive. On the second vote, three Democrats broke ranks—Harry Lane of Oregon, James Martine of New Jersey, and James Reed of Missouri—and all the Republicans who voted were opposed.

  34. See George Rublee, “The Original Plan and Early History of the Federal Trade Commission,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 11 (Jan. 1926), and ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  35. Norman Hapgood to WW, Apr. 21, 1914, PWW, vol. 29. Why Brandeis did not involve himself more in advising Wilson on the anti-trust issue is a matter of disagreement among scholars. Thomas K. McCraw argues that this was an “abdication” on Brandeis’s part. McCraw, Prophets o
f Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn (Cambridge, Mass., 1984). McCraw offers no explanation, however, for Brandeis’s behavior. The historian of the Federal Trade Commission, Marc Winerman, believes that Hapgood was correct in saying that Brandeis was simply too busy with other matters to advise Wilson closely. See Winerman, “Origins of the FTC,” n. 398. On Rublee, see Marc Eric McClure, Earnest Endeavors: The Life and Public Work of George Rublee (Westport, Conn., 2003).

  36. WW to Henry F. Hollis, June 2, 1914, PWW, vol. 29. On Murdock’s criticisms of the Covington bill and later support of the Stevens bill, see Winerman, “Origins of the FTC,”. Starting late in 1913, Colonel House had been wooing one of the Progressives’ leading publicists and financial backers, William Rockhill Nelson, owner of The Kansas City Star. See EMHD, entry for Jan. 16, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  37. 37. George Rublee memoir, Dec. 1950–Feb. 1951, Microfiche Collection, Oral History Research Office, Columbia University Libraries; WW to Charles A. Culberson, July 30, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  38. WW to William C. Adamson, Aug. 5, 1914, PWW, vol. 30. On the votes, see Winerman, “Origins of the FTC,”. On final passage of the Federal Trade Commission bill, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  39. WW to Oscar W. Underwood, Oct. 17, 1914, PWW, vol. 31.

  40. On the early history of the FTC, see Winerman, “Origins of the FTC,”.

  41. Winerman, “Origins of the FTC,”. McCraw also uses the term “rocky start” and stresses the ambiguity of the agency’s charter. See Prophets of Regulation. Among historians, the leading proponent of the “reluctant progressive” view of Wilson is Arthur Link in his earlier work. See “The South and the ‘New Freedom,’” American Scholar 20 (summer 1951), and Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910–1917 (New York, 1954), esp. In the volume of his larger work that treats this legislation, he modifies this view. See Wilson, vol. 2, 444, 471. In one of the later volumes, Wilson, vol. 3, The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914–1915 (Princeton, N.J., 1960), he downplays the view, and in the final volume, Wilson, vol. 5, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917 (Princeton, N.J., 1965), he abandons it altogether.

  42. New Republic, Jan. 9, 1915; Winerman, “Origins of the FTC,”. The claim of Wilson’s gradual conversion to the New Nationalism is advanced by Link in the works cited in n. 41, above.

  12 TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

  1. JDD, entry for Apr. 18, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  2. Ibid. On British policy toward Mexico and the influence of oil interests there, see Peter Calvert, The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1914: The Diplomacy of Anglo-American Conflict (Cambridge, U.K., 1968).

  3. Memorandum enclosed with Delbert J. Haff to WW, May 12, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  4. WW press conference, May 26, 1913, PWW, vol. 27.

  5. William Bayard Hale report, July 9, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. There was also a secret mission by a friend of William Jennings Bryan’s to make contact with and assess the Constitutionalists, but it turned into a fiasco. See ASL, Wilson, vol. 2, The New Freedom (Princeton, N.J., 1956).

  6. Hale report, July 9, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  7. WW instructions, [Aug. 4, 1913], PWW, vol 28.

  8. WW speech, Aug. 27, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  9. WW to EAW, Sept. 9, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; WW draft diplomatic note, Oct. 24, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  10. On William Tyrrell’s meeting with Wilson, see EMHD, entries for Nov. 12 and 13, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; Tyrrell to Sir Edward Grey, Nov. 14, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  11. WW speech, Dec. 2, 1913, PWW, vol. 29; EMHD, entry for Oct. 30, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  12. On these developments, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  13. WW press conference, Nov. 14, 1914, PWW, vol. 32. On this incident and its repercussions, see Robert E. Quirk, An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Vera Cruz (Lexington, Ky., 1962).

  14. Samuel G. Blythe, “Mexico: The Record of a Conversation with President Wilson,” Saturday Evening Post, May 23, 1914, PWW, vol. 29; WW speech, Apr. 20, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  15. Venustiano Carranza, quoted in George C. Carothers to WJB, Apr. 22, PWW, vol. 29. The only Mexican leader who seemed to approve the action was the guileful Pancho Villa, who privately told a State Department agent that “no drunkard, meaning Huerta, was going to draw him into war” and he would try to change Carranza’s mind. Carothers to WJB, Apr. 23, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  16. H. J. Forman to RSB, RSBP, box 109; WW press conference, Apr. 23, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  17. For a sample of reactions, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  18. New York World, May 19, 1914; WW to Lindley M. Garrison, Aug. 8, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  19. For this characterization, see Samuel G. Blythe, “A Talk with the President,” Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 9, 1915, PWW, vol. 30: “He showed me why a writer was wrong who said he could not be a progressive Democrat if he admired Edmund Burke.” Unfortunately, Blythe did not record how Wilson explained his synthesis of Burke and progressivism.

  20. WJB to WW, Aug. 16, 1913, PWW, vol. 28; TR to William J. Stone, July 11, 1914, in TR, Letters, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 7, The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954). Ironically, in 1921, after Roosevelt’s death, Lodge would manage Senate approval of a similar treaty under Wilson’s successor, a Republican—a treaty that dropped mention of regret but paid the same indemnity and had strong backing from American oil interests. On the Colombian treaty, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  21. WW speech, Oct. 27, 1913, PWW, vol. 28.

  22. EMHD, entry for Dec. 16, 1914, PWW, vol. 31; WW draft of Pan-American pact, [Dec, 16, 1914], PWW, vol. 30. On the Pan-American pact, see Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992). On James Slayden, see Ellen Maury Slayden, Washington Wife: Journal of Ellen Maury Slayden from 1897–1919 (New York, 1963).

  23. New York World, Aug. 3, 1913. On the Nicaraguan affair, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  24. On Wilson’s involvement in the Dominican affair, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2, 538–48.

  25. WW to RL, Aug. 4, 1915, PWW, vol. 34. On the Haitian affair, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3, The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914–1915 (Princeton, N.J., 1960).

  26. For the phrase and the interpretation, see ASL, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910–1917 (New York, 1954).

  27. WW statement, Aug. 29, 1916, PWW, vol. 38. On the legislative wrangle and passage of the Jones Act, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, Confusion and Crises, 1915–1916 (Princeton, N.J., 1960).

  28. WW to Walter Page, Jan. 6, 1914, PWW, vol. 29.

  29. WW to William L. Marbury, Feb. 5, 1914, PWW, vol. 29; WW speech to Congress, Mar. 5, 1914, PWW, vol. 29. On congressional repeal of the tolls exemption, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  30. WW speech, June 13, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; WW to James Bryce, July 6, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  31. EMH to WW, May 29, 1914; June 19, 1914; July 3, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  32. WW to EMH, June 16 and 23, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; EMHD, entry for Aug. 30, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  33. WW to John Sharp Williams, Apr. 2, 1914, PWW, vol. 29. On the Terrell appointment, see George C. Osborn, “Woodrow Wilson Appoints a Negro Judge,” Journal of Southern History 24 (Nov. 1958). On Wilson’s broader appointments record, see Kathleen Long Wolgemuth, “Woodrow Wilson’s Appointment Policy and the Negro,” Journal of Southern History 24 (Nov. 1958).

  34. WW remarks, June 30, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  35. WW speech, May 11, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  36. Arthur Krock memorandum of conversation with WW, Apr. 30, 1915, Henry Watterson Papers, LC. For an account of this complicated and sometimes ludicrous situation, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2. The veto of the Volstead Act occurred after Wilson’s stroke. Tumulty wrote the veto message, and there is some question about whether Wilson was aware of the action. Mrs. Wilson did review and approve the veto message, and it was consistent with his views.

  37. WW speech, Dec. 2, 1913, PWW, vol. 29.

  38. Wilson later shifted hi
s stands on this issue and child labor. Interestingly, Arthur Link is less categorical in viewing his position on rural credits as insufficiently progressive: “Wilson would not adhere forever to New Freedom doctrines that denied the demands of the organized farmers, politically the most powerful pressure group in the United States.” ASL, Wilson, vol. 2.

  39. WW speech, June 25, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; WW to Frank E. Doremus, Sept. 4, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; EMHD, entry for Sept. 28, 1914, PWW, vol. 31.

  40. On passage of the seamen’s act, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 2, and Belle Case La Follette and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925 (New York, 1953), vol. 1.

  41. WW quoted in La Follette and La Follette, Robert La Follette, vol. 1; WW to NDB, Mar. 5, 1915, PWW, vol. 32.

  42. WW speeches, Mar. 20, 1914; May 29, 1914; June 13, 1914, PWW, vol. 29; vol. 30, 177.

  43. WW speech, July 4, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  44. For Wilson’s borrowing from the Library of Congress, see William W. Bishop to WW, Nov. 14, 1914, PWW, vol. 31. Given the pressures on him in the fall of 1914, it is doubtful that he read all or many of the books Bishop listed, but the list does show where his interests ran.

  45. On the summer in Cornish, see Frances Wright Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson: First Lady between Two Worlds (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985). Harlakenden was owned by the popular novelist and Progressive Party activist Winston Churchill—no relation to the rising British political star of the same name.

  46. WW to EAW, July 27, 1914, PWW, vol. 28; EAW to WW, July 28, 1914, PWW, vol. 28.

  47. New York Times, Nov. 26, 1913.

  48. EMHD, entry for Nov. 29, 1913, PWW, vol. 28. See also New York Times, Nov. 30, 1913.

  49. WW to Benjamin M. King, Mar. 22, 1914, PWW, vol. 29. On Ellen’s health, see Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, 270–71.