Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  50. EAW to Jessie Wilson Sayre, Feb. 20, 1914, quoted in Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson. On the romance and engagement.

  51. New York Times, May 8, 1914; WW to MAH, May 10, 1914, PWW, vol. 30. See also Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (New York, 1937), and Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson.

  52. McAdoo, Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo (Boston, 1931).

  53. SA, Brother Woodrow: A Memoir of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, N.J., 1993).

  54. McAdoo, Crowded Years.

  55. WW to MAH, July 12, 1914, PWW, vol. 30. On the final weeks of Ellen’s illness, see Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson.

  56. New York Times, Aug. 7, 1914; CTG, interviews by RSB, Feb. 18–19, 1926, RSBP, box 106.

  57. McAdoo, The Wilsons.

  58. WW to MAH, [Aug. 7, 1914], PWW, vol. 30. A moving tribute to Ellen came sixty-five years later, when the editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson stated in their preface, “In this volume, we say farewell to Ellen Axson Wilson, whom, over the years we have come to know, admire, and love.” PWW, vol. 30.

  13 IRONY AND THE GIFT OF FATE

  1. Henry James to Howard Sturgis, Aug. 5, 1914, in Henry James, The Letters of Henry James, vol. 2, ed. Percy Lubbock (New York, 1920); New York Times, Sept. 27, 1914. For a survey of American reactions to the outbreak of World War I that is both comprehensive and incisive, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3, The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914–1915 (Princeton, N.J., 1960).

  2. For a description of the funeral services and burial, see Frances Wright Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson: First Lady between Two Worlds (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985).

  3. WW to MAH, Aug, 23, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; Walter Page to WW, July 29, 1914, PWW, vol. 30. On Hoover’s work, see George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, vol. 2, The Humanitarian, 1914–1917 (New York, 1988).

  4. WW statement, [Aug. 18, 1914], PWW, vol. 30.

  5. On the economic issues, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3.

  6. WJB to WW, Aug. 10, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; New York Times, Aug. 16, 1914.

  7. On the reversal of the loan ban, see Vanderlip testimony, Jan. 7, 1936, U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, 73rd Congress (Washington, D.C., 1936), esp. and Charles A. Beard, “New Light on Bryan and the Wilson War Policies,” New Republic June 17, 1936. The committee before which Vanderlip testified was the Senate subcommittee chaired by Gerald Nye of North Dakota and popularly known as the Nye Committee.

  8. EMHD, entry for Sept. 27, 1914, PWW, vol. 31.

  9. EMHD, entry for Sept. 30, 1914, PWW, vol. 31; SA, interviews by RSB, Feb. 8, 10, and 11, 1925, RSBP, box 99.

  10. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice to Sir Edward Grey, Oct. 1, 1914, PWW, vol. 31. See also George M. Trevelyan, Grey of Fallodon: The Life and Letters of Sir Edward Grey (Boston, 1937), and ASL, Wilson, vol. 3.

  11. EMHD, entry for Nov. 6, 1914, PWW, vol 31.

  12. EMH to WW, Dec. 26, 1914, PWW, vol. 31.

  13. WW to Nancy Saunders Toy, Dec. 12, 1914, PWW, vol. 31; New York Times, Oct. 16, 1914.

  14. WW press conference, Oct. 19, 1914, PWW, vol. 50; New York Times, Oct. 20, 1914; WW speech, Dec. 8, 1914, PWW, vol. 31. On Wilson’s looking Gardner in the eye, see Gus J. Karger to WHT, July 27, 1915, WHTP, box 316 (general correspondence). On the response to Wilson’s declaration, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3, and John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Vanity of Power: American Isolationism and the First World War, 1914–1917 (Westport, Conn., 1969).

  15. For the survey of editorial opinion, see Literary Digest, Nov. 14, 1914, 974–78. There was considerable regional variation in sentiment, with the South and Northeast registering the strongest pro-Allied feelings. In no region did sentiment favoring the Central powers (pro-German sentiment) register above 9 percent.

  16. EMHD, entry for Aug. 30, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; Sir Cecil Spring-Rice to Sir Edward Grey, Sept. 3, 1914, PWW, vol. 30; WW to WJB, Sept. 4, 1914, PWW, vol. 30.

  17. Literary Digest, Nov. 14, 1914; New Republic, Jan. 9, 1915. For the assessment of public sentiment, see Mark Sullivan, Our Times: The United States, 1900–1925, vol. 5 (New York, 1926). On the arms-embargo drive, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3, and Cooper, Vanity of Power.

  18. Bryan may have reacted so readily against the idea because of past clashes in Nebraska with brewing interests over prohibition and because his home-state foe, Senator Gilbert Hitchcock, was sponsoring an embargo resolution. For the vote on the embargo amendment, see 63rd Cong., 3rd Sess., Congressional Record 4916 (Feb. 15, 1915).

  19. WW speech, Jan. 8, 1915, PWW, vol. 32. On the ship-purchase fight, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3.

  20. William Monroe Trotter statement, Nov. 12, 1914, PWW, vol. 31; transcript of meeting, Nov. 12, 1914, PWW, vol. 31.

  21. New York Times, Nov. 13, 1914; JD to Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 10, 1933, quoted in PWW, vol. 3, n. 2. The exchange between Trotter and Wilson survived only because Wilson had his stenographer, Charles Swem, record what was said. No published transcript would appear until the editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson deciphered Swem’s shorthand sixty-five years later.

  22. WW remarks, [Dec. 15, 1914], PWW, vol. 31.

  23. Thomas Dixon to JPT, May 1, 1915, PWW, vol. 32, n. 5.

  24. The “history with lightning” remark appeared in Milton MacKaye, “The Birth of a Nation,” Scribner’s Magazine, Nov. 1937. The recollection of the last survivor of the showing, Marjorie Brown King, comes from an interview by Arthur Link. See PWW, vol. 32, n. 1.

  25. WW to JPT, Apr. [24 and] 28, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; WW to JPT, [ca. Apr. 22, 1918], PWW, vol. 47, n. 3.

  26. TR to William Allen White, Nov. 7, 1914, TR, Letters, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 8, The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954).

  27. WW to Nancy Saunders Toy, Nov. 9, 1914; Jan. 31, 1915, PWW, vol. 31, vol. 32; WW speeches, Dec. 8, 1914; Jan. 8, 1915, PWW, vol. 31; vol. 32.

  28. On the Dacia affair, see Ross Gregory, “A New Look at the Case of the Dacia,” Journal of American History 55 (Sept. 1968). On the Asian controversy, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3.

  29. The best discussions in English of the background to the submarine declaration are ASL, Wilson, vol. 3, and Ernest R. May, The World War and American Isolation, 1914–1917 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).

  30. WJB to James W. Gerard, Feb. 10, 1915, PWW, vol. 32; WW to MAH, Feb. 14, 1915, PWW, vol. 32. For an analysis of “strict accountability,” see May, World War and American Isolation.

  31. Herbert B. Brougham, memorandum, Dec. 14, 1914, PWW, vol. 31.

  32. SA, interviews by RSB, Feb. 8, 10, and 11, 1925, RSBP, box 99. I agree with Thomas Knock in dating this statement February 1915, not August 1914. See Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992).

  33. EMHD, entry for Jan. 25, 1915, PWW, vol. 32; WW to EMH, Jan. 29, 1915, PWW, vol. 32.

  34. WW to WJB, Apr. 3, 1915, PWW, vol. 32; WJB to WW, Apr. 6 and 7, 1915, PWW, vol. 32.

  35. WW speech, Apr. 20, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  36. WW to WJB, Apr. 22, 1915, PWW, vol. 33, 81; WJB to WW, Apr. 23, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  37. Nancy Saunders Toy, diary, entry for Jan. 3, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  38. EMHD, entry for Jan. 13, 1915, PWW, vol. 33 WW to Nancy Saunders Toy, Dec. 12, 1914, PWW, vol. 21; Toy diary, entry for Jan. 3, 1915, PWW, vol. 32.

  39. WW speech, [Oct. 24, 1914], PWW, vol. 31.

  40. Memoir. The exact date of the meeting is not known.

  41. On Edith Galt’s background, see Memoir, and Phyllis Lee Levin, Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House (New York, 2001).

  42. Memoir. See also Levin, Edith and Woodrow.

  43. CTG, Woodrow Wilson: An Intimate Memoir (New York, 1960); EBG to Annie Litchfield Bolling, Mar. 23, 1915, PWW, vol. 32; Memoir.

  44. Memoir.

  45. Ibid..

  46. EBG to WW, May 4 [sic], 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  47. WW to EBG, May 7, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  14 THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION

&
nbsp; 1. See Mark Sullivan, Our Times, 1900–1925, vol. 5, Over Here, 1914–1918 (New York, 1933), n. 5.

  2. WW to WJB, June 7, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. On the newspaper poll and public reactions, see David Lawrence, The True Story of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1924).

  3. WW to EBG, [May 8, 1915], PWW, vol. 33. See also New York Times, May 8, 1915; New York World, May 8, 1915.

  4. For the statement, see New York Times, May 10, 1915.

  5. Charles E. Swem diary, entry for May 10, [1915], PWW, vol. 33.

  6. WW speech, May 10, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  7. WW to EBG, May 11, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; WW press conference, May 11, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; Frank Parker Stockbridge memorandum, RSBP, box 11. Wilson tried to unsay the words, after a fashion. In the fall of 1915, when a publisher printed a volume of his presidential speeches, he deleted the sentence that contained “too proud to fight.” See PWW, vol. 33, n. 3

  8. EMH to WW, May 9, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; WW to WJB, May 11, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; WW draft diplomatic note, [May 11, 1915], PWW, vol. 33. For an account of the cabinet meeting by Attorney General Thomas Gregory, see EMHD, entry for June 20, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  9. WW to WJB, May 13, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  10. For accounts of this affair, see EMHD, entry for Nov. 3, 1916, Yale University Library, Lindley M. Garrison to RSB, Nov. 12, 1928, RSBP, box 1, and memorandum on “postscript,” RSB chronology, RSBP, box 63. The speculation that Wilson may have changed his mind on his own comes from Joseph V. Fuller, a historian who advised Ray Stannard Baker.

  11. Johann von Bernstorff to Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, May 29, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. On Wilson’s planting the newspaper stories, see WW to WJB, May 14, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. For the interpretation of Bernstorff’s dispatch by the editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, see PWW, vol. 33, n. 1.

  12. EBG to WW, May 24, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; WW to EBG, May 28, [1915], PWW, vol. 33. On the encounter in the automobile, see PWW, vol. 33, n. 1.

  13. EBG to WW, [May 28, 1915], PWW, vol. 33. For Edith’s admission of attraction to the presidency, see Memoir.

  14. Johann von Bernstorff to German Foreign Office, June 2, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  15. Draft of second Lusitania note [June 4, 1915], PWW, vol. 33; WW to WJB, June 7, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. For the visit from Senator Martin and Congressman Flood, see WJB to WW, June 4, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  16. WJB to WW, June 5, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; WW to WJB, June 5, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  17. EBG to WW, May [June] 5–6, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; McAdoo, Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo (Boston, 1931).

  18. EBG to WW, May [June], 5–6, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. On Tumulty’s advice, see James Kerney, The Political Education of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1926).

  19. EMHD, entry for June 24, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. The story about Bryan’s spilling the water comes from RSB, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, vol. 5, Neutrality, 1914–1915 (Garden City, N.Y., 1935).

  20. WJB to George Derby, Aug. 1, 1924, RSBP, box 103; WW, quoted in David F. Houston, Eight Years with Wilson’s Cabinet, 1913 to 1920 (Garden City, N.Y., 1926), vol. 1.

  21. Grace Bryan Hargreaves manuscript biography of Bryan, WJB Papers, box 65, LC; WJB quoted in Houston, Wilson’s Cabinet, vol. 1.

  22. WW to EBG, June 19, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  23. SA comments on manuscript of RSB biography of WW, Aug. 29, 1928, RSBP, box 100.

  24. WHT to Mabel T. Boardman, May 10, 1915, WHTP, series 8, letterbook 31. For the story of Wilson’s holding up his fingers, see Gus J. Karger to WHT, May 12, 1915, WHTP, box 309.

  25. EMHD, entries for June 14 and 24, 1915, PWW, vol. 33; EMH to WW, June 16, 1915, PWW, vol. 33. See also Houston, Wilson’s Cabinet, vol. 1.

  26. Lansing later wrote that when Wilson offered him the post, he objected that he had no political influence, to which the president replied, “By experience and training you are especially equipped to conduct the foreign affairs of the United States. This, under present conditions, is far more important than political influence.” RL, War Memoirs of Robert Lansing, Secretary of State (Indianapolis, 1935). Lansing was also the son-in-law of John W. Foster, who had served as secretary of state under President Benjamin Harrison. Two of Lansing’s nephews, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, would later play large roles in foreign policy.

  27. EMHD, entry for June 24, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  28. Memoir, 71–72.

  29. WW to EMH, July 7, 1915, PWW, vol. 33.

  30. Lindley M. Garrison memorandum, July 20, 1916, PWW, vol. 33; WW to EBG, July 20, 1916, PWW, vol. 33.

  31. WW statement, July 21, 1915, PWW, vol. 34.

  32. New York Times, July 25, 1915.

  33. On the navy proposals, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, Confusion and Crises, 1915–1916 (Princeton, N.J., 1964). The best treatment of the cultural conflict and personal divisions surrounding Josephus Daniels is the part memoir, part history of this time by his son, Jonathan Daniels, The End of Innocence (Philadelphia, 1954).

  34. WW to EBG, Aug. 31, 1915, PWW, vol. 34. On the army plan, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  35. WW to EBG, Aug, 5, 1915, PWW, vol. 34; EBG to WW, Aug. 26, 1915, PWW, vol. 34.

  36. WW to EBG, Aug. 28, 1915, PWW, vol. 34.

  37. EMHD, entry for July 31, 1915, EMH Papers, Yale University Library.

  38. On the cotton affair, see ASL, “The Cotton Crisis, the South, and Anglo-American Diplomacy, 1914–1915,” in Studies in Southern History in Memory of Albert Ray Newsome, ed. J. Carlyle Sitterson (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1957). For assessments of public opinion, see New York Times, Aug. 20 and 21, 1915, and “The Attack on the Arabic,” Literary Digest, Aug. 28, 1915.

  39. New York World, Aug. 23, 1915. On the German response, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3, The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914–1915 (Princeton, N.J., 1960).

  40. New York Evening Post, Sept. 2, 1915.

  41. JD, The Wilson Era, vol. 1, Years of Peace, 1910–1917 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1944). For the story of McAdoo’s confrontation, see EMHD, entry for Sept. 25, 1915, PWW, vol. 34. According to Edith’s recollection, McAdoo later told her that the story about the anonymous letter had been House’s idea. Memoir.

  42. WW shorthand drafts, [ca. Sept. 20, 1915], PWW, vol. 34; WW to EBG, Sept. 18 and 19, 1915, PWW, vol. 34. The editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson admit that the dating of the shorthand drafts is “somewhat conjectural.” PWW, vol. 34, n. 1.

  43. EBG to WW, Sept. 19, 1915, PWW, vol. 34.

  44. WW to EBG, Sept. 19, 1915, PWW, vol. 34; Edmund W. Starling with Thomas Sugrue, Starling of the White House: The Story of the Man Whose Secret Service Detail Guarded Five Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York, 1946).

  45. EMHD, entries for Sept. 22 and 24, 1915, PWW, vol. 34, 518; EBG to WW, Sept. 24, PWW, vol. 34.

  46. A good deal of preparation preceded the announcement. Stockton Axson wrote a draft of the statement, and Wilson privately told Mary Hulbert and his friend Edith Gittings Reid in advance. The draft and letters are in PWW, vol. 35, 153–54.

  47. WW statement, Oct. 6, 1915, PWW, vol. 35.

  48. WW to EMH, Sept. 20, 1915, PWW, vol. 34. On the submarine negotiations, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 3.

  49. On the anti-preparedness activity, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4; on Villard’s activities, see Oswald Garrison Villard, Fighting Years: Memoirs of a Liberal Editor (New York, 1939).

  50. WW speeches, Oct. 6 and 28, 1915; Nov. 4, 1915, PWW, vol. 35.

  51. WW speech, Dec. 7, 1915, PWW, vol. 35.

  52. WW speeches, Dec. 8 and 10, 1915, PWW, vol. 35.

  53. Starling, Starling of the White House. For descriptions of the wedding, see New

  54. York Times, Dec. 19, 1915; Memoir; and Irwin Hood Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House (Boston, 1934). 54. JPT memorandum, Jan. 4, 1916, PWW, vol. 35.

  15 SECOND FLOOD TIDE

  1. JPT memorandum, Jan. 4, 1916, PWW, vol. 35.

  2. On these negotiations, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, Confusions and Crises, 1915
–1916 (Princeton, N.J., 1964).

  3. JPT to WW, Jan. 17, 1916, PWW, vol. 35.

  4. Wilson speeches, Jan. 27 and 29, 1916, PWW, vol. 36, 41–48.

  5. Arthur Capper to Oswald Garrison Villard, Feb. 3, 1916, Oswald Garrison Villard Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University. For a description of the tour, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  6. WW speeches, Feb. 1 and 3, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. Wilson seems to have realized that he got carried away in speaking about the navy: he changed the officially published text of the speech to read “incomparably the most adequate navy in the world.” The original wording could have been interpreted as a challenge to Britain. See n. 2.

  7. WJB to JD, Feb. 4, 1916, JD Papers, box 37, LC; Claude Kitchin to WJB, Feb. 9, 1916, Claude Kitchin Papers, box 8, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. On the congressional opposition to Wilson’s preparedness program, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Vanity of Power: American Isolationism and the First World War, 1914–1917 (Westport, Conn., 1969).

  8. The main advocate of the armor-plate factory was South Carolina’s aging senator Pitchfork Ben Tillman. On the navy bill, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, 335–38.

  9. On the role of James Hay, see George C. Herring, Jr., “James Hay and the Preparedness Controversy, 1915–1916,” Journal of Southern History 30 (Nov. 1964).

  10. Lindley M. Garrison to WW, Feb. 9, 1916, PWW, vol. 36; WW to Garrison, Feb. 10, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  11. James Hay to WW, Feb. 11, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. On the subsequent fortunes of the army bill, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4. The nitrate plant, with a hydroelectric power–generating facility, would be located on the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. This power-generating facility would become a political football in the 1920s when successive Republican administrations tried to sell it to private utilities. A coalition of Democrats and Republican insurgents, led by Senator George Norris, successfully prevented the sale, and this plant would later serve as the nucleus of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

  12. EMH to RL, Feb. 14, 1916, in U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States: The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920 (Washington, D.C., 1939), vol. 1. On the modus vivendi, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, and Ernest R. May, The World War and American Isolation, 1914–1917 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).