Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  1. WW to William Allen White, Apr. 2, 1919, PWW, vol. 56; WW speech, Sept. 19, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  2. For the senatorial lineup, see Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1919. On the developments in opinion since March, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York, 2001), 90–94, 99–108.

  3. CTGD, entry for July 1, 1919, PWW, vol. 61.

  4. WW press conference, July 10, 1919, PWW, vol. 61. Wilson might have felt less touched by his reception if he had known that Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Roosevelt’s daughter, had made the sign of the evil eye as his limousine passed and muttered a curse: “A murrain on him, a murrain on him.” Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours: Reminiscences of Alice Roosevelt Longworth (New York, 1933).

  5. CTGD, entry for July 10, 1919, PWW, vol. 61. See also New York Times, July 11, 1919.

  6. WW speech, July 10, 1919, PWW, vol. 61.

  7. New York World, July 11, 1919; Henry F. Ashurst diary, entry for July 11, 1919, PWW, vol. 61. See also New York Times, July 11, 1919.

  8. See New York Times, July 11, 1919.

  9. On the race riots of 1919, see especially William M. Tuttle, Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York, 1970).

  10. Gus J. Karger to WHT, July 19, 1919, WHTP, microfilm ed., reel 211; Chandler P. Anderson diary, entry for July 30, 1919, Chandler P. Anderson Papers, microflim ed., reel 2, LC.

  11. WW speech, Aug. 8, 1919, PWW, vol. 62. On Wilson’s difficulty composing the speech and possible effects of his health on this speech, n. 1.

  12. SA memoir, quoted in PWW, vol. 61, n. 1; SA memorandum, PWW, vol. 67.

  13. WW to A. Mitchell Palmer, Aug. 4, 1919, PWW, vol. 62. For Palmer’s recommendation to wait until ratification, see Palmer to WW, July 30, 1919, PWW, vol. 6.

  14. On William Howard Taft’s and Charles Evans Hughes’s espousal of reservations, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, 131–32.

  15. 66th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 2592–2600 (July 15, 1919). On the committee’s actions, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  16. RL diary, entry for Aug. 7, 1919, RL papers, LC; Johnson to Hiram Johnson, Jr., and Arch M. Johnson, Aug. 7, 1919, in Johnson, The Diary Letters of Hiram Johnson, vol. 3, 1919–1921 (New York, 1983); HCL to Constance Lodge Gardner, Aug. 9, 1919, HCLP. Lansing’s testimony is in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Treaty of Peace with Germany Hearings, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, D.C., 1919).

  17. McAdoo, Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo (Boston, 1931). On the mild reservationists, see Herbert F. Margulies, The Mild Reservationists and the League of Nations Controversy in the Senate (Columbia, Mo., 1989).

  18. New York World, Aug. 11, 1919; HCL to Elihu Root, Aug. 15, 1919, Elihu Root Papers, LC. On these dealings, see Margulies, Mild Reservationists, and Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  19. RL diary, entry for Aug. 11, 1919, PWW, vol. 62.

  20. On Wilson’s sparring with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over the documents from the peace conference, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World. During the Civil War, Lincoln met twice at the White House with a “committee” named by the Republican caucus in the Senate. These were strictly private meetings and did not involve either a standing committee of either house of Congress or any items of legislation. See James G. Randall, Lincoln, the President, vol. 2, Springfield to Gettysburg (New York, 1945); Phillip Shaw Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence, Kans., 1994); and David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995). In the twentieth century, presidents met informally with members of committees, and in the 1950s and ‘60s, presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson would often consult with members of the Foreign Relations Committee, sometimes the whole committee, especially in times of crisis.

  21. WW statement, Aug. 19, 1919, PWW, vol. 62. For descriptions of the scene, see New York World, Aug. 20, 1919, and New York Times, Aug. 20, 1919.

  22. Transcript of meeting, Aug. 19, 1919, PWW, vol. 62.

  23. Ibid.; Hiram Johnson to Hiram Johnson, Jr., and Arch Johnson, Aug. 23, 1991, in Johnson, Diary Letters, vol. 3. On what the president knew and when he knew it about the secret treaties, see PWW, vol. 62, n. 27.

  24. Transcript of meeting, Aug. 19, 1919, PWW, vol. 62. On the lunch, see New York Times, Aug. 20, 1919.

  25. HCL to James T. Williams, Jr., Aug. 20, [1919], HCLP; HCL to W. Sturgis Bigelow, Aug. 25, 1919, HCLP; Hiram Johnson to Hiram Johnson, Jr., and Arch Johnson, Aug. 23, 1919, in Johnson, Diary Letters, vol. 3.

  26. New York Times, Aug. 21, 1919. The editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson speculate, based on circumstantial evidence, that Wilson may have authorized Pittman’s resolution as a trial balloon. See PWW, vol. 62, n. 2. Pittman, however, later said, “I purposely refrained from consulting with the president with regard to such resolution, as I realized it was not proper or advisable for him to approve … any reservation at that time.” Key Pittman to William Hard, July 27, 1926, Key Pittman Papers, LC.

  27. Entry for Aug. 30, 1919, in Henry Fountain Ashurst, A Many-Colored Toga: Diary, ed., George F. Sparks (Tucson, Ariz., 1962).

  28. New York World, Aug. 24, 1919; HCL, quoted in Chandler P. Anderson diary, entry for Aug. 22, 1919, Chandler P. Anderson Papers, microfilm ed., reel 2, LC.

  29. Memoir. For the view that the decision was “made without much thought, in anger, and on the spur of the moment” and was, therefore “irrational,” see PWW, vol. 62, n. 2. For a contrary view, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., “Fool’s Errand or Finest Hour? Woodrow Wilson’s Speaking Tour in September 1919,” in The Wilson Era: Essays in Honor of Arthur S. Link, ed. John Milton Cooper, Jr., and Charles E. Neu (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1991).

  30. New York Times, Sept. 3, 1919. For Irvine Lenroot’s recollection, see Washington Post, Mar. 4, 1945.

  31. WW, “Suggestion,” [Sept. 3, 1919], PWW, vol. 62. This is a draft; the original is enclosed with Hitchcock to EBGW, Jan. 5, 1920, PWW, vol. 64. See also Hitchcock, “Events Leading to the World War,” [Jan. 13, 1925], Gilbert M. Hitchcock Papers, LC. On the unlikelihood that the mild reservationists would have accepted these reservations, see Margulies, Mild Reservationists.

  32. WW remarks, Aug. 25, 1919, PWW, vol. 62; Memoir.

  33. On the train arrangements, see CTGD, entry for Sept. 3, 1919, PWW, vol. 62, and Memoir.

  34. On the use of outlines, see Editorial Note, “Wilson’s Speeches on His Western Tour,” PWW, vol. 63. On the distribution of speeches and on finances, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  35. WW speech, Sept. 4, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. For reports of the speech, see CTGD, entry for Sept. 4, 1919, PWW, vol. 63, and New York World, Sept. 5, 1919.

  36. CTGD, entry for Sept. 4, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  37. Kansas City Star, Sept. 6, 1919.

  38. WW speech, Sept. 8, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  39. WW speeches, Sept. 5 and 6, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  40. 66th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 5113 (Sept. 10, 1919); HCL to James T. Williams, Jr., Sept. 6, 1919, HCLP. On the reservations and the speaking tour, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  41. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Treaty of Peace Hearings, document 106, 1276–77; RL to Frank L. Polk, Oct. 1, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. On William Bullitt’s testimony and Robert Lansing’s reaction, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  42. RL to WW, Sept. 17, 1919, PWW, vol. 63; JPT, Wilson As I Know Him (Garden City, N.Y., 1921). Tumulty’s version of events is often unreliable, but this account is supported by Breckinridge Long memorandum, 1924, PWW, vol. 63, n. 4.

  43. In his diary, Grayson made comments about Wilson’s condition retrospectively, suggesting that he was covering himself after the fact. For a diagnosis of Wilson’s symptoms as stemming from hypertension and congestive heart failure, see Bert E. Park, “Woodrow Wilson’s Stroke of October 2, 1919,” PWW, vol. 63.

 
; 44. WW speech, Sept, 11, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  45. WW speeches, Sept. 13 and 15, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. For Tumulty’s advice, see JPT to WW, Sept. 12, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  46. WW speeches, Sept. 18 and 19, 1919, PWW, vol. 63, 352–61.

  47. WW speech, Sept. 19, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. On Wilson’s experience with the microphone, see CTGD, entry for Sept. 18, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. As one of Bryan’s biographers pointed out, this innovation robbed him of an advantage he had hitherto enjoyed: his powerful voice. See Paolo E. Coletta, William Jennings Bryan, vol. 3, 1915–1925 (Lincoln, Neb., 1969).

  48. Memoir; Mary Allen Hulbert, The Story of Mrs. Peck: An Autobiography (New York, 1933).

  49. CTG, quoted in Breckinridge Long memorandum, 1924, PWW, vol. 63, n. 4; WW speech, Sept. 23, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  50. Memoir; WW speech, Sept. 23, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  51. WW speeches, Sept. 24 and 25, 1919, PWW, vol. 63, 493–95.

  52. WW speech, Sept. 25, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  53. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, On the Law of Nations (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).

  54. See CTGD, entry for Sept. 25, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  55. CTGD, entry for Sept. 26, 1919, PWW, vol. 63; Memoir.

  56. RSBD, entry for Nov. 5, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  57. CTGD, entry for Sept. 26, 1919, PWW, vol. 63; JPT statement, Sept. 26, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. There are also accounts of the cancellation of the trip in Memoir, and JPT, Wilson As I Know Him. Edith’s account agrees with Grayson’s; Tumulty’s is doubtful because he says Wilson was paralyzed on his left side during the night. The paralysis did not begin until after Wilson suffered a stroke on October 2.

  58. NDB to Hugh C. Wallace, NDB Papers, box 11, LC; Charles Grasty, quoted in Gilbert Parker to Theodore Marburg, Dec. 18, 1919, in Marburg, The Development of the League of Nations Idea: Documents and Correspondence of Theodore Marburg, ed. John H. Latané (New York, 1932), vol. 2. For other assessments of the tour’s effectiveness, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, n. 58.

  59. On the possibilities of radio, see Thomas A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (New York, 1945), and Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  60. For an excellent exposition of Wilson in this great oratorical tradition, see Robert A. Kraig, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost World of the Oratorical Statesman (College Station, Tex., 2004). See also Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  61. Memoir. For the accounts closer to the event, see Francis X. Dercum memorandum [Oct. 20, 1919], PWW, vol. 64; CTG memorandum, ca. Jan. 1920, PWW, vol. 64. The White House head usher, Ike Hoover, also later claimed that Wilson fell in the bathroom, lost consciousness, and gashed his head. See Irwin Hood Hoover, “The Facts about President Wilson’s Illness,” PWW, vol. 63. It seems odd that neither physician mentioned such a traumatic fall.

  62. Frances X. Dercum memorandum, [Oct. 20, 1919], PWW, vol. 64. In a memorandum probably written in January 1920, Grayson stated, “THE DIAGNOSIS made October 2nd and confirmed in subsequent examinations was that of a thrombosis [thrombosis crossed out] involving the internal capsule of the right cerebral hemisphere.” PWW, vol. 64. For a discussion of the cause of the stroke aided by consultation with neurologists, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World, n. 3.

  63. Washington Post, Oct. 4, 1919; JDD, entries for Oct. 4 and 6, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  23 DISABILITY

  1. For a discussion of Wilson’s case in light of previous and subsequent instances of presidential incapacity, see John Milton Cooper, Jr., “Disability in the White House: The Case of Woodrow Wilson,” in The White House: The First Two Hundred Years, ed. Frank Freidel and William Pencak (Boston, 1994).

  2. Irwin Hood Hoover, “The Facts about President Wilson’s Illness,” PWW, vol. 63.

  3. Memoir.

  4. CTG memorandum, [ca. late 1919 or early 1920], PWW, vol. 64. For the judgment of a distinguished neurologist that neither Dercum nor any other physician would have said what Edith Wilson remembered, see Edwin A. Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography (Princeton, N.J., 1981).

  5. Memoir.

  6. Memoir. The editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson agree that Wilson knew nothing about this veto. See PWW, vol. 63, n. 3.

  7. RL, “Cabinet Meetings during the Illness of the President,” Feb. 23, 1920, PWW, vol. 64. In JPT, Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him (Garden City, N.Y., 1921), Tumulty depicts Lansing as actively seeking Wilson’s removal and Grayson and himself angrily quashing the idea. Lansing’s recollection seems closer to the truth. At the time, he recorded in his diary, “Conferred with Tumulty and Grayson in Cabinet room. Tumulty pointed to left side significantly. Discussed V. P. acting as Prest. Decided to call Cabinet meeting Monday.” RL diary, entry for Oct. 3, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  8. CTG memorandum, Oct. 6, 1919, PWW, vol. 63; JDD, entry for Oct. 6, 1919, PWW, vol. 63.

  9. Chandler P. Anderson diary, entry for Sept. 27, 1919, Chandler P. Anderson Papers, microfilm ed., reel 2, LC; EMHD, entry for Mar. 28, 1920, PWW, vol. 65.

  10. In May 1996, Arthur Link suggested to me in a private conversation that Lansing may have been scheming to make himself president.

  11. J. Fred Essary, quoted in Charles M. Thomas, Thomas Riley Marshall, Hoosier Statesman (Oxford, Ohio, 1939). The account of Essary’s visit to Marshall is based upon correspondence with Marshall’s secretary in July 1937. See Thomas, Marshall, 266.

  12. Marshall, Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall, Vice-President and Hoosier Philosopher: A Hoosier Salad (Indianapolis, 1925). The account of the senators’ approaching Marshall in Thomas’s biography appears to be based upon correspondence with the vice president’s secretary, his wife, and senators George Moses and James Watson in August 1937. See Thomas, Marshall.

  13. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 24, 1919, quoted in Herbert F. Margulies, The Mild Reservationists and the League of Nations, Controversy in the Senate (Columbia, Mo., 1989). On these negotiations and John Milton Cooper, Jr., Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York, 2001).

  14. 66th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 7417 (Oct. 24, 1919). On the bargaining in the Foreign Relations Committee that produced these reservations, see Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective (New York, 1987).

  15. Porter J. McCumber, who was by far the mildest of the reservationists, made the point about the absence of input from Democrats: “If we make the reservations as mild as I would wish to have them, the treaty would be defeated. I wish to concede as little as possible and still be certain of ratification. To accomplish this, I must agree to a compromise, even though that compromise is far from my convictions of what should be done.” McCumber to Courtenay Crocker, Oct. 26, 1919, A. Lawrence Lowell Papers, Harvard University Archives.

  16. Prince Edward to EBGW, Nov. 14, 1919, PWW, vol. 64. On the visits and the wheeled chair, see New York Times, Oct. 31, 1919; Nov. 12 and 16, 1919, and Washington Post, Nov. 14, 1919. Two years later, after being paralyzed with poliomyelitis, Franklin Roosevelt also found current wheelchairs unsatisfactory and designed a smaller, more mobile version using a kitchen chair.

  17. Hitchcock memoir, “Wilson’s Place in History,” Gilbert M. Hitchcock Papers, LC; New York Times, Nov. 8, 1919. The editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson claim that Hitchcock met with Wilson around October 20, but that was a visit on which he talked with Grayson and did not see the president. See PWW, vol. 64, n. 1.

  18. Hitchcock to EBGW, Nov. 13, 1919, PWW, vol. 64.

  19. EBGW note, [ca. Nov. 15, 1919], PWW, vol. 64; CTG memorandum, Nov. 17, 1919, PWW, vol. 64.

  20. CTG memorandum, Nov. 17, 1919, PWW, vol. 64.

  21. On possible psychological effects of the stroke on Wilson, see Bert E. Park, “Woodrow Wilson’s Stroke of October 2, 1919,” PWW, vol. 63.

  22. New York Times, Nov. 18, 1919; WW to Gilbert Hitchcock, Nov. 18, 1919, PWW, vol. 64. On the drafting of the l
etter, see Hitchcock to EBGW, Nov. 17, 1919, PWW, vol. 64, and letter draft with her emendations and additions.

  23. RSBD, entry for Nov. 5, 1919, PWW, vol. 63. On these efforts at compromise, including a detailed analysis of the Bonsal affair, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World. It was to Stephen Bonsal that Henry Cabot Lodge reportedly made his crack about the League Covenant as a literary performance: “It might get by at Princeton but certainly not at Harvard.” See also chapter 20, n. 40.

  24. 66th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record 8768, 8803 (Nov. 19, 1919). The four Democrats who voted for consent with reservations included Hoke Smith; those four voted against consent without reservations, joined by Park Trammell of Florida, who did not explain his vote. Another Republican, Knute Nelson of Minnesota, probably would have joined McCumber in voting for the treaty without reservations, but he had left the chamber. A sixteenth irreconcilable, Albert Fall of New Mexico, was not present but was recorded as against the treaty on both votes. On this last day of debating, maneuvering, and voting, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World.

  25. Memoir; HCL to George Harvey, Nov. 20, 1919, HCLP.

  26. HCL to John H. Sherburne, Dec. 4, 1919, HCLP; WW message, Dec. 2, 1919, PWW, vol. 64.

  27. For a recent treatment of the troubles of this year, see Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 (New York, 2007).

  28. On Wilson’s refusal to see Hitchcock, see JPT to EBGW, Dec. 1, 1919, PWW, vol. 64; Gilbert Hitchcock to WJB, Nov. 30, 1919, WJB Papers, box 32, LC; and Charles D. Warner memorandum, Nov. 29, 1919, RL Papers, vol. 49, LC.

  29. On the “smelling committee,” see New York Times, Dec. 5, 1919. On November 29, someone at the White House had also admitted Wilson’s lack of involvement in the Mexican business. See New York Times, Nov. 30, 1919.

  30. EBGW notes, [Dec. 5, 1919], PWW, vol. 64; Memoir. See also CTG memorandum, Dec. 5, 1919, PWW, vol. 64. The closest thing to “Which way, Senator?” was Houston’s recollection that sometime afterward Wilson told him, “If I could have got out of bed, I would have hit the man. Why did he want to put me in bad with the Almighty?” David F. Houston, Eight Years with Wilson’s Cabinet, 1913–1920 (Garden City, N.Y., 1926), vol. 2.