Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  7. WW speech, Dec. 5, 1916, PWW, vol. 40.

  8. WW to EMH, Dec. 8, 1916, PWW, vol. 40.

  9. RL to WW, Dec. 10, 1916, PWW, vol. 40, pp, 209–11; EMHD, entry for Dec. 14, 1916, PWW, vol. 40.

  10. WW draft, Dec. 17, 1916, PWW, vol. 40; EMHD, entry for Dec. 20, 1916, PWW, vol. 40–5.

  11. Jean-Jules Jusserand’s reports to Paris are paraphrased in ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  12. New York Times, Dec. 22, 1916; JPT to WW, Dec. 21, 1916, PWW, vol. 40.

  13. WW to RL, Dec. 21, 1916, PWW, vol. 40. See also RL, War Memoirs of Robert Lansing, Secretary of State (Indianapolis, 1935).

  14. The closest Lansing came to explaining his actions was when he wrote to a friend a month later, “I will one of these days tell you the whole story. The inside facts are most interesting, and I believe that you will find my course was justified.” RL to E. N. Smith, Jan. 21, 1917, RL Papers, LC. In a memorandum to himself, Lansing justified his statement by saying that he wanted to dissociate the United States from the German overture and reassure the Allies. He explained his backing down by saying that after Wilson wrote and talked to him, “I saw that my words were open to such an erroneous interpretation” (i.e., that America was abandoning neutrality). RL, “Confidential Memorandum in re: The Two Statements I Issued to the Press on December 21, 1916,” RL Papers, Princeton University Library.

  15. Sir Horace Plunkett to Arthur James Balfour, Dec. 22, 1916, PWW, vol. 40, n. 1; Roy Howard, quoted in Lord Northcliffe to David Lloyd George, Dec. 27, 1916, PWW, vol. 40, n. 1; EMHD, entry for Dec. 23, 1916, PWW, vol. 40. On House’s dealings with Plunkett, see also Sir Horace Plunkett diary, entry for Dec. 21, 1916, PWW, vol. 40, n. 2, and Plunkett to EMH, Dec. 27, 1916, PWW, vol. 40.

  16. 64th Cong., 2nd Sess., Congressional Record 792–97 (Jan. 3, 1917); New York Times, Jan. 4, 1917.

  17. 64th Cong., 2nd Sess., Congressional Record 792–97 (Jan. 3, 1917); 892–95 (Jan. 5, 1917). The senators voting in favor included thirty-eight Democrats and ten Republicans; eight of those Republicans were insurgents, including Borah. Lodge had been privately edging away from the league idea for several months. See HCL to W. Sturgis Bigelow, Apr. 5, 1916, HCLP; HCL to TR, Dec. 21, 1916, TR Papers, LC, box 316. On Borah’s conversion to isolationism, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Vanity of Power: American Isolationism and the First World War, 1914–1917 (Westport, Conn., 1969).

  18. For two expressions of these conflicting views of Lloyd George’s response, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5, 237–39, and Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson’s Neutrality (New York, 1975).

  19. On the German reply, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  20. EMHD, entries for Jan. 3 and 4, 1917, PWW, vol. 40.

  21. EMHD, entry for Jan. 11, 1917, PWW, vol. 40; WW press conference, Jan. 15, 1917, PWW, vol. 40. Some question has arisen about whether, in writing this speech, Wilson was influenced by The New Republic editors. House had sent him two editorials from the magazine: “Peace without Victory” (Dec. 23, 1916) and an unsigned piece (Jan. 6, 1917). Wilson later told Herbert Croly, “I was interested and encouraged, when preparing my recent address to the Senate, to find an editorial in the New Republic which was not only written along the same lines but which served to clarify and strengthen my thought not a little.” WW to Croly, Jan. 25, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. Wilson may have taken the speech’s signature phrase, “peace without victory,” from The New Republic, but its main ideas were ones that he had formulated on his own. Walter Lippmann later doubted that he and Croly had much influence on Wilson, and he believed there was only a coincidental congruence of thinking. See Lippmann, “Notes for a Biography,” New Republic, July 16, 1930.

  22. WW speech, Jan. 22, 1917, PWW, vol. 40.

  23. Ibid..

  24. New York Times, Jan. 23 and 27, 1917; 64th Cong., 2nd Sess. Congressional Record 1950 (Jan. 25, 1917); 2361–64 (Feb. 1, 1917); 2749 (Feb. 7, 1917). Other senators who attacked the league idea were James Reed, Democrat of Missouri, and Albert Cummins, Republican of Iowa.

  25. 64th Cong., 2nd Sess., Congressional Record 2364–70 (Feb. 1, 1917).

  26. New York Times, Jan. 27 and 29, 1917; WJB to WW, Jan. 26, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. On Republican defections from the LEP and other unfavorable reactions to “peace without victory,” see Cooper, Vanity of Power.

  27. WW to Cleveland Dodge, Jan. 25, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. On foreign reactions to “peace without victory,” see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  28. Johann-Heinrich von Bernstorff to RL, Jan. 31, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  29. Comment about “a shopkeeper’s peace” quoted in von Bernstorff to RL, Jan. 31, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. For analyses of this decision, see Cooper, “Command of Gold Reversed,” and “The United States,” in The Origins of World War I, ed. Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig (New York, 2003).

  30. Arthur Zimmermann to Heinrich von Eckhardt, Jan. 16, 1917, in Official German Documents Relating to the World War (New York, 1923), vol. 2. The classic work on this affair is Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram (New York, 1958). Tuchman follows William Reginald Hall’s biographer in maintaining that the captain sat on the telegram until after February 1 in order to protect his operation. That is extremely doubtful. See John Milton Cooper, Jr., Walter Hines Page: The Southerner as American, 1855–1918 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1977).

  31. RL memorandum, Feb. 4, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. On Wilson’s possible acceptance of limited submarine warfare, see WW to RL, Jan. 31, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. See also the interpretation of this exchange in ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  32. EMHD, entry for Feb. 1, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; Louis Lochner memorandum, Feb. 1, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. House did not come to Washington at Wilson’s request. The number two person in the State Department, Frank L. Polk, had telephoned and asked the colonel to come.

  33. David F. Houston, Eight Years with Wilson’s Cabinet, 1913–1920 (Garden City, N.Y., 1926), vol. 1; William B. Wilson to RSB, Sept. 17, 1932, RSBP, series 1, box 58. For an account of the meetings at the Capitol, see New York World, Feb. 3, 1917. Evidently the most energetic gesticulator was Hoke Smith of Georgia.

  34. JD to WW, Feb. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; JD, The Wilson Era, vol. 1, Years of Peace, 1910–1917 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1944); WW speech, Feb. 3, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. Daniels incorrectly recalled this conversation taking place in January.

  35. HCL to TR, Feb. 13, 1917, TR Papers, LC; TR to Hiram Johnson, Feb. 17, 1917, Hiram Johnson Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, part 2, box 28. For a description of the speech, see New York Times, Feb. 4, 1917. The no votes on the Senate resolution came from three insurgent Republicans—La Follette, Asle Gronna of North Dakota, and John Works of California—and two Bryanite Democrats, William F. Kirby of Arkansas and James K. Vardaman of Mississippi; another Democrat, Harry Lane of Oregon, announced that he also opposed the resolution.

  36. WW to EMH, Feb. 12, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. The Junkerthum was Germany’s militarist big business clique.

  37. WW veto message, Jan. 29, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. On this legislative session, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  38. Franklin K. Lane to George W. Lane, Feb. 25, 1917, Lane, The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political, ed. Anne W. Lane and Louise H. Wall (Boston, 1922).

  39. WW speech, Feb. 26, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. On the scene in the Capitol, see New York Times, Feb. 27, 1917, and RSBD, entry for Feb. 26, 1917, RSBP. On the Laconia sinking, see New York Times, Feb. 27, 1917. On editorial reactions to the speech and the sinking of the Laconia, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  40. On the British operation to cover the tracks of their interception, see Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, and on the decision to publish the telegram, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  41. For a survey of editorial opinion, see Literary Digest, Mar. 17, 1917. For an analysis of the votes on the armed-ships bill and the amendment to bar munitions shipments, see Cooper, Vanity of Power, 233–35.

  42. See New York Times, Mar. 4 and 5, 1917.

  43. Robert M. La Follette, Jr., to Rob
ert M. La Follette, [Mar. 4, 1917], La Follette Family Papers, LC. This note and others exchanged between La Follette and his son are reprinted, along with a description of the scene, in Belle Case La Follette and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925 (New York, 1953), vol. 1.

  44. EMHD, entry for Mar. 5, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; WW statement, Mar. 4, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  45. WW speech, Mar. 5, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  46. EMHD, entries for Mar. 5 and 28, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  47. Winston S. Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 3, 1916–1918 (London, 1927). On armed neutrality and the financial situation, see ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  48. For estimates of congressional opinion, see Gus J. Karger to WHT, Apr. 6, 1917, WHTP, box 374; David Starr Jordan to Jessie Jordan, Apr. 6, 1917, David Starr Jordan Papers, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University; David Starr Jordan, The Days of a Man: Being Memories of a Naturalist, Teacher, and Minor Prophet of Democracy (Yonkers, N.Y., 1922), vol. 2, n. 1; Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A Personal Narrative, Covering a Third of a Century, 1888–1921 (New York, 1922), vol. 2, and Fiorello H. La Guardia, The Making of an Insurgent: An Autobiography, 1882–1919 (Philadelphia, 1948).

  49. Thomas W. Brahany diary, entry for Mar. 26, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. Brahany, a member of the stenography staff, got the story from John Mays, the president’s barber.

  50. William C. Adamson memorandum, RSBP, box 99.

  51. Frank Irving Cobb, Cobb of “The World,” ed. John L. Heaton (New York, 1924). A heated academic debate has raged over the authenticity of Cobb’s recollection. In 1965, Arthur Link pointed out that the meeting took place on March 19, not April 1, as Cobb had stated. See ASL, Wilson, vol. 5, n. 33. Two years later, Jerold S. Auerbach called much of the interview into question, particularly the prediction of the repression of civil liberties. See Auerbach, “Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Prediction’ to Frank Cobb: Words Historians Should Doubt Ever Got Spoken,” Journal of American History 54 (Dec. 1967). Several other historians subsequently weighed in, and one uncovered the manuscript of Cobb’s account. Link eventually rejoined the debate, upholding the authenticity of the interview in his presidential address to the Organization of American Historians. See ASL, “That Cobb Interview,” Journal of American History 72 (June 1985). On balance, Link has the better of the argument, not only because of his unparalleled knowledge of Wilson but also because Cobb’s recollection is consonant with what Wilson said to other people in February and March 1917.

  52. JDD, entry for Mar. 20, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; RL, “Memorandum of the Cabinet Meeting, 2:30–5 p.m., Tuesday, March 20, 1917,” PWW, vol. 41. For Attorney General Thomas Gregory’s brief account of the meeting, see EMHD, entry for Mar. 22, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. For a later recollection of this meeting, see Houston, Wilson’s Cabinet, vol. 1.

  53. EMHD, entries for Mar. 27 and 28, 1917, PWW, vol. 41, 497–98.

  54. WW to Matthew Hale, Mar. 31, 1917, WWP, series 2, box 148; RL memorandum, Mar. 20, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; EMHD, entry for Mar. 29, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  55. RL memorandum, Mar. 20, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  56. Irwin Hood Hoover, quoted in Thomas W. Brahany diary, entry for Mar. 31, 1917, PWW, p. 515; EMHD, entry for Apr. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  57. WW speech, Apr. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. For the description of the scene and Edward White’s clapping, see New York Times, Apr. 3, 1917.

  58. WW speech, Apr. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; New York Times, Apr. 3, 1917.

  59. WW speech, Apr. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41; New York Times, Apr. 3, 1917.

  60. WW speech, Apr. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 41. Wilson made a slip when he said “Gentlemen of the Congress.” Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana had just taken her seat as the first woman to serve in either house.

  61. JPT, Wilson As I Know Him (Garden City, N.Y., 1921). On the reactions to the speech, see also New York Times, Apr. 3, 1917; New York World, Apr. 3, 1917; and ASL, Wilson, vol. 5.

  62. 65th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 261 (Apr. 4, 1917). The Republicans were Robert La Follette, George Norris, and Asle Gronna, and the Democrats were William Stone, James K. Vardaman, and Harry Lane. One other Democrat, Thomas Gore, announced against the war but did not vote.

  63. Lawrence, True Story. For a description of Claude Kitchin’s speech, see New York Times, Apr. 7, 1917, and New York World, Apr. 7, 1917. On Bryan’s opposition to intervention, see WJB to Louis Lochner, Apr. 2, 1917, Louis Lochner Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, box 52, and WJB to David Starr Jordan, Mar. 28, 1917, David Starr Jordan Papers.

  64. New York Times, Apr. 7, 1917. Four representatives also announced against the resolution.

  65. For a description of Wilson signing the war resolution, see Thomas W. Brahany diary, entry for Apr. 6, 1917, PWW, vol. 41.

  18 WAGING WAR

  1. Fitz W. Woodrow to Arthur C. Walworth, Apr. 12, 1948, quoted in Walworth, Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1958), vol. 2. Walworth claimed that Woodrow verified this statement in May 1956. n. 1, and “Interview with Col. FitzWilliam McMaster Woodrow at his home, 4409 Que St., Washington, D.C., April 12, 1948, March 16, 1955, and over the phone on March 15, 1956,” Arthur C. Walworth Papers, Yale University Library, folder 61. The original of the letter is not among these papers. Wilson had not criticized Lincoln’s war leadership in any of his published work.

  2. WW, “Programme,” Apr. 7, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; WW to Walter Lippmann, Apr. 7, 1917, PWW, vol. 42.

  3. WW to Carter Glass, Apr. 9, 1919, PWW, vol. 42; JDD, entry for Apr. 9, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; WW executive order, [Apr. 13, 1917], PWW, vol. 42. On George Creel, see his autobiography, Rebel at Large: Recollections of Fifty Crowded Years (New York, 1947).

  4. On Baruch’s personality and background, see Jordan A. Schwarz, The Speculator: Bernard Baruch in Washington, 1917–1965 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981).

  5. WW statement, Apr. 15, 1917, PWW, vol. 42.

  6. WW to Guy T. Helvering, Apr. 19, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; 65th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 1120 (Apr. 25, 1917). On the passage of the draft act, see John Whiteclay Chambers II, To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America (New York, 1987).

  7. Their fears were justified. As soon as word got out that the ex-president wanted to lead a division to fight on the Western Front, officers of all ranks scrambled to climb aboard, including a young lieutenant from Kansas less than two years out of West Point—Dwight Eisenhower.

  8. Thomas W. Brahany diary, entry for Apr. 10, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; Roosevelt to J. Callan O’Laughlin, Apr. 13, 1917, TR, Letters, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 8, The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954); JPT, Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him (Garden City, N.Y., 1921).

  9. John J. Leary, Jr., Talks with T.R. (Boston, 1920); NDB to TR, Apr. 10, 1917, PWW, vol. 42.

  10. J. H. Whitehouse, “The House Report, 14 November 1916 to 14 April 1917,” PWW, vol. 42.

  11. W.B. Fowler, British-American Relations, 1917–1918: The Role of Sir William Wiseman (Princeton, N.J., 1969). On Wiseman and the beginning of his relationship with House. For an example of their conspiring together.

  12. EMHD, entries for Apr. 26, 28, and 30, 1917, PWW, vol. 42.

  13. Jean-Jules Jusserand to council of ministers, May 1 and 3, 1917, PWW, vol. 42.

  14. On the draft registration and the choosing of the first inductees, see Chambers, To Raise an Army.

  15. On the suspension of these publications, see also Harry N. Scheiber, The Wilson Administration and Civil Liberties, 1917–1921 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), and James Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1915 (New York, 1967).

  16. WW to Max Eastman, Sept. 13, 1917, PWW, vol. 44; EMH to WW, Oct. 17, 1917, PWW, vol. 44.

  17. On the plight of German Americans during World War I, see Frederick C. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans and World War I (Dekalb, Ill., 1974).

  18. On these incidents, see Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the W
orld (Chicago, 1969).

  19. JDD, entry for July 31, 1917, PWW, vol. 43. On the raids and indictments, see Dubofsky, We Shall Be All.

  20. Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (New York, 1931); WW speech, Dec. 4, 1917, PWW, vol. 44.

  21. On the choice of Pershing and the internal politics of the military, see Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (New York, 1968), and Frank E. Vandiver, Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing (College Station, Tex., 1977), vol. 2.

  22. NDB to Pershing, May 26, 1917, PWW, vol. 42. On Pershing’s arrival in France, see Vandiver, Black Jack, vol. 2.

  23. NDB to Pershing, Dec. 18, 1917, PWW, vol. 45.

  24. WW speech, Aug. 11, 1914, PWW, vol. 43. On William Sims’s dealings with the British over the convoy system, see Elting E. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (Boston, 1942).

  25. For a concise account of the shipbuilding program, see Robert H. Ferrell, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921 (New York, 1985).

  26. Benjamin Tillman to WW, July 17, 1917, PWW, vol. 43.

  27. On the railroad situation, see David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York, 1982).

  28. WW speech, Jan. 4, 1918, PWW, vol. 45.

  29. WW to Asbury F. Lever, July 23, 1917, PWW, vol. 43. On the debate over the Lever Act, see Seward W. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916–1918 (Middletown, Conn., 1966). On Hoover’s role in drafting the Lever Act, see Witold S. Sworakowski, “Herbert Hoover, Launching the Food Administration,” in Herbert Hoover—the Great War and Its Aftermath, 1914–1923, ed. Lawrence E. Gelfand (Iowa City, Iowa, 1979).

  30. Charles Seymour, Woodrow Wilson and the World War: A Chronicle of Our Own Times (New Haven, Conn., 1921).

  31. Slogans quoted in Ferrell, Wilson and World War I. On Hoover’s work as food administrator, see George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, vol. 3, Master of Emergencies, 1917–1918 (New York, 1996).