Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  13. New York Times, Feb. 23, 1916. See also William J. Stone to WW, Feb. 23, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  14. New York Times, Feb. 26, 1916; Mar. 3, 1916.

  15. WW to William J. Stone, Feb. 24, 1916, PWW, vol. 36; WW to Edward W. Pou, Feb. 29, 1916, PWW, vol. 36; WW to Albert S. Burleson and William Gibbs McAdoo, Mar. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. For an analysis of these moves, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  16. WW to William Gordon, Mar. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. For the vote on the Gore resolution, see Cooper, Vanity of Power.

  17. Statement by Cyrus Cline, Democrat of Indiana, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 3706 (Mar. 7, 1916). See also New York Times, Mar. 8, 1916. For an analysis of the vote on the McLemore resolution, see Cooper, Vanity of Power, 229–32.

  18. EMHD, entry for Mar. 7, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  19. House-Grey Memorandum, Feb. 22, 1916, PWW, vol. 36, n. 2.

  20. Participants and historians alike have written extensively about the House-Grey Memorandum, including not only House in his subsequently published diary but also Sir Edward Grey and David Lloyd George in their memoirs. The most incisive historical accounts and analysis are in ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, and Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson’s Neutrality (New York, 1975). Devlin lays particular stress on personal and psychological elements in the relationship between House and Wilson.

  21. Walter Hines Page diary, entry for Feb. 13, 1916, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Jonathan Daniels, The End of Innocence (Philadelphia, 1954). On House’s dealings with Clifford Carver, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., Walter Hines Page: The Southerner as American, 1855–1918 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1977), 353.

  22. It is not clear how much of a personal stake Edward Grey felt he had in the scheme. When he brought the plan up before the cabinet’s War Committee, he argued for it somewhat tepidly, but he later revised the meeting’s minutes to show himself backing it more vigorously, though not wholeheartedly. See John Milton Cooper, Jr., “The British Response to the House-Grey Memorandum: New Evidence and New Questions,” Journal of American History 59 (Mar. 1973). This article reproduces the minutes of the meeting and Grey’s revisions, which are in “Addendum to the Proceedings of the War Committee on March 21, 1916,” CAB [Cabinet] 22, 13 (1), Public Record Office, London.

  23. “Conversation du Colonel House avec M. Jules Cambon,” Feb. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 36, n. 1; EMH to WW, Feb. 3, 1916, PWW, vol. 36; WW to EMH, Dec. 24, 1915, PWW, vol. 35.

  24. EMH to WW, Feb. 9, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  25. “Deuxieme Entrevue du Colonel House,” Feb. 7, 1916, PWW, vol. 36, n. 1; Jonathan Daniels to John Milton Cooper, Jr., Sept. 6 and 22, 1977, Jonathan Daniels Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.

  26. EMHD, entry for Mar. 6, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. Wilson wrote House no letters while he was abroad and sent him just four telegrams. Only the first of those telegrams, right after House arrived in London, concerned his mission: “Would be glad if you would convey my assurance that I shall be willing and glad when the opportunity comes to cooperate in a policy seeking to bring about and maintain permanent peace among the civilized nations.” WW to EMH, Jan. 9, 1916, PWW, vol. 35. The other three telegrams dealt with submarine and blockade matters.

  27. Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George (Boston, 1933), vol. 2. On the intelligence interception and code breaking, see Devlin, Too Proud to Fight, and on Grey’s equivocation, see n. 22 above.

  28. For an account of the raid, see Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Stanford, Calif., 1998). Army reports of the raid are reproduced in PWW, vol. 36.

  29. WW statement, [Mar. 10, 1916], PWW, vol. 36. See also New York Times, Mar. 10 and 11, 1916, and ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  30. “Memorandum to the Adjutant General,” PWW, vol. 36.

  31. Much has been written about the Punitive Expedition and the political and diplomatic circumstances surrounding it. The most detailed account from the American side is found in ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, 280–318, and ASL, Wilson, vol. 5, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917 (Princeton, N.J., 1965), 131–34, 328–38. For an account that takes in the Mexican side, see Katz, Pancho Villa.

  32. For an estimate of Villa, see Katz, Pancho Villa. A junior officer on the expedition would also find future glory in combat: Lieutenant George S. Patton, Jr. He typified many of his fellow officers when he chafed at not being able to wage a wider war, and he unleashed the sharp tongue, if not the foul mouth, for which he would later become famous when he complained to his father about Wilson, “He has not the soul of a louse nor the mind of a worm or the backbone of a jellyfish.” George S. Patton, Jr., to George S. Patton, Sept. 28, 1916, in Martin Blumenson, ed., The Patton Papers (Boston, 1972), vol. 1. Ironically, the senior Patton was running on the same ticket with Wilson as the Democratic nominee for senator in California.

  33. JPT, Wilson As I Know Him (Garden City, N.Y., 1921). The remarks about valor are from a speech the president had given at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington two weeks earlier.

  34. RSB memorandum, [May 12, 1916], PWW, vol. 37.

  35. WW speech, June 30, 1916, PWW, vol. 37.

  36. EMHD, entry for Mar. 17, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  37. On the attack on the Sussex and Wilson’s routine, see New York Times, Mar. 25, 26, and 27, 1916.

  38. RL to WW, Mar. 27, 1916, PWW, vol. 36; EMHD, entry for Mar. 29, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. See also WW draft, [Apr. 10, 1916], PWW, vol. 36.

  39. On House’s effort, see EMHD, entry for Apr. 11, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. On Lansing’s activities, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  40. WW speech, Apr. 13, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  41. WW speech, Apr. 19, 1916, PWW, vol. 36. See also New York Times, Apr. 20, 21, and 22, 1916, and ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  42. On the German debates and decision, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4.

  43. WW statement, [May 7, 1916], PWW, vol. 36. For Lansing’s amended version, see PWW, vol. 36.

  44. WW statement, May 8, 1916, in Charles Swem transcript of meeting, PWW, vol. 36.

  45. HCL, War Addresses, 1915–1917 (Boston, 1917); WW speech, May 27, 1916, PWW, vol. 37. Ironically, as it turned out, Lodge’s phrase would lead to the later internationalist watchwords and the title of a future international peacekeeping organization: “united nations.”

  46. WW speech, May 27, 1916, PWW, vol. 37.

  47. WW speech, May 27, 1910, PWW, vol. 37. The best exposition of the difference between Wilson and the LEP, or “conservative internationalists,” and Wilson’s affinity for socialist- and progressive-inspired “liberal internationalists” is found in Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992).

  48. WW speech, May 30, 1916, PWW, vol. 37; draft of Democratic Party platform, [June 10, 1916], PWW, vol. 37. On Democrats’ and insurgent Republicans’ attraction to Bryan’s isolationism, see Cooper, Vanity of Power.

  49. Asbury F. Lever to RSB, Mar. 22, 1927, RSBP, box 109.

  50. Gus Karger to WHT, Jan. 29, 1916, WHTP, microfilm ed., reel 162. House was reportedly appalled when he heard the news. See Chandler P. Anderson diary, entry for Feb. 10, 1916, Chandler P. Anderson Papers, LC.

  51. On the House Democrats’ program, see PWW, vol. 36, n. 1.

  52. On the public and senatorial controversies over Brandeis’s nomination, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, Alpheus T. Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life (New York, 1946), and Philippa Strum, Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People (Cambridge, Mass., 1984). The following paragraphs are based on those accounts.

  53. WW to Charles Culberson, May 5, 1916, PWW, vol. 36.

  54. WW to Henry Morgenthau, June 5, 1916, PWW, vol. 37; Hapgood, The Changing Years: Reminiscences of Norman Hapgood (New York, 1930).

  55. Memoir. On their early months together in the White House.

  56. Memoir.

  16 TO RUN AGAIN

  1. WW speech, Apr. 13, 1916, PWW, vol. 36; Robert Owen to WW, June 2, 1916, P
WW, vol. 37.

  2. WW draft platform, [ca. June 10, 1916], PWW, vol. 37.

  3. WW speech, July 4, 1916, PWW, vol. 37; WW draft platform, [ca. June 10, 1916], PWW, vol. 37. For statements of the interpretation of the conversion from the New Freedom to the New Nationalism, see ASL, “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 volumes of his full-scale biography produced later, Link modified, downplayed, and finally abandoned this interpretation. For a counterargument see John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, Mass., 1983); 400, n. 9.

  4. TR statement, Mar. 9, 1916, in TR, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Hermann Hagedorn (New York, 1926), vol. 17. The Republican platform is in Kirk H. Porter and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds., National Party Platforms, 1840–1956 (Urbana, Ill., 1956).

  5. The best biography of Hughes is Merlo J. Pusey’s two-volume Charles Evans Hughes (New York, 1951).

  6. Daily News Bulletin, Feb. 4, 1924, quoted in Alpheus T. Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life (New York, 1946). For Hughes’s recollection of meeting Wilson, see Hughes, The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes, ed. David J. Danelski and Joseph S. Tulchin (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).

  7. TR to Austin Wadsworth, June 23, 1916, in TR, Letters, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 8, The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954). Roosevelt’s biographers have described the Progressive convention and his treatment of the delegates many times. For two good recent treatments, see Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York, 2002), and Patricia O’Toole, When the Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House (New York, 2005). The fullest treatment of this convention is in John A. Gable, The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party Movement (Port Washington, N.Y., 1978).

  8. On the Democratic campaign organization, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917 (Princeton, N.J., 1965).

  9. EMHD, entry for May 24, 1916, PWW, vol. 37.

  10. Ibid..

  11. EMHD, entry for May, 24, 1916, PWW, vol. 34. On the possible impact of this decision on the later crisis of disability, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York, 2001).

  12. Martin Glynn speech, June 14, 1916, official reporter’s transcript of the Democratic convention, copy in WWP, series 2, box 136. See also New York Times and New York World, June 15 and 16, 1916. For an account of the convention, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  13. Ollie James and WJB speeches, June 15, 1916, in official reporter’s transcript of the Democratic convention, copy in WWP, series 2, box 136.

  14. Democratic Party platform, June 16, 1916, in official reporter’s transcript of the Democratic convention, copy in WWP, series 2, box 136.

  15. WW to EMH, July 23, 1916, PWW, vol. 37. On these controversies, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  16. “About Washton,” [ca. Sept. 1916], Walter Hines Page diary, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Page memorandum, [Sept. 23, 1916], PWW, vol. 38. For an account of Page’s visit home, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., Walter Hines Page: The Southerner as American, 1855–1918 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1977).

  17. WW statement, Sept. 1, 1916, PWW, vol. 38. Ten of the no votes in the Senate came from southern Democrats, but nine other senators from the South voted in favor. Two Republicans, George Oliver and Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania, also voted no.

  18. Among Democrats, 196 voted for the bill and only one voted against it. Among Republicans, 139 voted against it and 37 voted for it. All but four of the Republican dissidents came from the West or the farther reaches of the Midwest, and most of them were insurgents. On the framing and passage of the revenue bill, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 4, Confusions and Crises, 1915–1916 (Princeton, N.J., 1964).

  19. The senators who nearly came to blows were Henry Ashurst, Democrat of Arizona, and Charles Curtis, Republican of Kansas. On the retaliatory measures, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  20. On Wilson’s appearance, see New York Times, Aug. 30, 1916. On the bargaining that led to the strike threat, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  21. Of House Democrats voting, 167 supported the bill and only 3 opposed it. Republicans split almost down the middle: 70 in favor and 53 against, with most of the no votes coming from northeasterners. For the signing of the bill, see New York Times, Sept. 4, 1916.

  22. Hughes speech, July 31, 1916, Charles Evans Hughes Papers, box 182, LC; WW to Bernard Baruch, Aug. 19, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; WW to RL, Oct. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 38. For Hughes’s explanation, see Hughes, Autobiographical Notes.

  23. Farmer’s remark quoted in Pusey, Hughes, vol. 1.

  24. For accounts of the Long Beach incident, see Hughes, Autobiographical Notes, and Pusey, Hughes, vol. 1.

  25. WW speeches, July 4 and 20, 1916, PWW, vol. 37.

  26. WW speech, Sept. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 38.

  27. WW speech, Sept. 8, 1916, PWW, vol. 38.

  28. See Memoir.

  29. Vance McCormick to EMH, Sept. 11, 1916, EMH Papers, Yale University Library.

  30. New York Times, Sept. 6, 1916; Charles Evans Hughes to WHT, Sept. 16, 1916, WHTP microfilm ed., reel 169.

  31. New York Times, Sept. 30, 1916, Oct. 1, 1916; TR speech, Nov. 3, 1916, in TR, Works of Roosevelt, vol. 18.

  32. WW speech, Sept. 23, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; WW to Jeremiah O’Leary, Sept. 29, 1916, PWW, vol. 38.

  33. WW speech, Sept. 30, 1916, PWW, vol. 38. Before making this speech, Wilson spent an hour and a half talking with the young New Republic editor Walter Lippmann, who evidently advised him to make such an appeal to Progressives. On Lippmann’s visit and influence, see WW to Lippmann, Sept. 29, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; WW to NDB, Sept. 30, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; and Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston, 1980).

  34. JD, interview by RSB, Mar. 20, 1929, RSBP, box 103. For the speculation that it was the sight of the young men that moved Wilson to make those statements, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  35. WW speech, Nov. 4, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; EMHD, entry for Nov. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 38.

  36. EMHD, entry for Sept. 30, 1916, Yale University Library. On the smears and efforts to counteract them, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  37. New York Times, Oct. 28, 1916; WW to Walter [sic; i.e., Jonas] Lippmann, Oct. 30, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; TR speech at New York, Nov. 3, 1916, in TR, Works of Roosevelt, vol. 18.

  38. On socialist and other liberal support for Wilson, see Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992).

  39. New Republic, Oct. 14, 1916, and Oct. 21, 1916.

  40. On the Catholic opposition to Wilson, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  41. WW to J. R. Wilson, Jr., Oct. 16, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; EMHD, entry for Oct. 19, 1916, PWW, vol. 38. See also ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  42. WW to RL, Nov. 5, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; EMHD, entry for Nov. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 38.

  43. Curiously, the plan did not begin to become well known until Arthur Link reproduced Wilson’s letter to Lansing in “President Wilson’s Plan to Resign in 1916,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 23 (summer 1962). At some point, Hughes obtained a copy of the letter. It is in the Charles Evans Hughes Papers, LC. Edith Wilson makes no mention of the plan in her memoirs. In 1926, excerpts from House’s diary and his letter to Wilson about possibly resigning were published in EMH, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, ed. Charles Seymour (Boston, 1926), vol. 2. In 1937, Ray Stannard Baker also published Wilson’s letter to Lansing, in RSB, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, vol. 6, Facing War, 1915–1917 (Garden City, N.Y., 1937). On the later interregnum, see Jordan A. Schwarz, The Interregnum of Despair: Hoover, Congress, and the Depression (Urbana, Ill., 1970).

  44. Memoir.

  45. WW to J. R. Wilson, Jr., Nov. 27, 1916, PWW, vol. 40.

  46. Hiram Johnson won his race for the Senate by mo
re than 300,000 votes, defeating the father of Lieutenant George S. Patton.

  47. Hughes believed that he carried Michigan only because he did some last-minute campaigning there. See Hughes, Autobiographical Notes. This seems exaggerated, because he carried Michigan by a comfortable margin. Wilson’s least impressive showings came in New York and New Jersey, where he barely increased his share of the vote over 1912. The result in New York was not surprising because it was Hughes’s home state, and Democrats there were divided, as usual. New Jersey, however, was a big disappointment.

  48. EMHD, entry for Nov. 2, 1916, PWW, vol. 38. The Rhode Island winner, Peter Gerry, had a name that sounded Irish, but he was an old-stock Yankee and a descendant of Elbridge Gerry, the vice president and Massachusetts politician for whom the gerrymander was named.

  49. W. E. B. DuBois to WW, Oct. 10, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; WW to JPT, [ca. Oct. 17, 1916], PWW, vol. 38.

  50. WW to J.A.H. Hopkins, Nov. 16, 1916, PWW, vol. 38.

  17 PEACE AND WAR

  1. EMHD, entry for Nov. 14, 1916, PWW, vol. 38; WW, Prolegomenon to a Peace Note, [ca. Nov. 25, 1916], PWW, vol. 40.

  2. WW draft peace note, [ca. Nov. 25, 1916], PWW, vol. 40.

  3. EMHD, enties for Nov. 26, 1916; Jan. 3, 1917, PWW, vol. 40.

  4. RL memorandum, “What Will the President Do?” Dec. 3, 1916, RL Papers, LC.

  5. WW to W.P.G. Harding, Nov. 26, 1916, PWW, vol. 40. On these machinations with the Federal Reserve Board, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5, Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917 (Princeton, N.J., 1965), and John Milton Cooper, Jr., “The Command of Gold Reversed: American Loans to Britain, 1915–1917,” Pacific Historical Review 45 (May 1976).

  6. David Lawrence, The True Story of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1924). On the attempt to remove Tumulty, see also John M. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era (Boston, 1951), and ASL, Wilson, vol. 2, The New Freedom (Princeton, N.J., 1956).