Despite suspecting his motives and disapproving his actions, Wilson kept Taft’s Ambassador Wilson on the job. If nothing else, he would protect current American business interests in Mexico. But President Wilson also dispatched an emissary of his own to gather intelligence, somebody who could quickly ascertain the Ambassador’s role in the coup as well as the legitimacy of Huerta’s government. This first secret intelligence agent in the Wilson Administration, William Bayard Hale, had no connection to Mexico and could not even speak Spanish; but, as an Episcopalian priest who had written a campaign biography of Wilson, he could be trusted.
Hale reported a shocking tale of cold-blooded treachery, in which Ambassador Wilson had conspired with Huerta and several other sympathetic foreign ministers to overthrow Madero. Furthermore, Hale noted, “Madero would never have been assassinated had the American Ambassador made it thoroughly understood that the plot must stop short of murder.” Hale thought this tale of “treason, perfidy and assassination in an assault on constitutional government” was the most shocking ever to involve an American diplomatic officer. And though it had transpired on President Taft’s watch, it was Wilson’s problem now. What was worse, Hale concluded, “thousands of Mexicans believe that the Ambassador acted on instructions from Washington and look upon his retention under the new American President as a mark of approval and blame the United States Government for the chaos into which the country has fallen.”
Within days, Wilson set in motion the recalling of the “unspeakable” Henry Lane Wilson; and within two months he had been replaced by John Lind, a former Minnesota Congressman and Governor whose knowledge of the territory was negligible. Lind arrived in Mexico with an invitation from Wilson to Huerta—to abandon his office. He suggested that the country hold a general election, in which Huerta would not run. Even Madero’s Foreign Relations Secretary Manuel Calero would later write that Wilson’s not choosing to recognize Huerta was well within his rights; to destroy him, however, was not. “Huerta was a usurper,” Calero granted. “But did it belong to the President of the United States to drive him from the place usurped? This was a matter that concerned exclusively the people of Mexico.”
Wilson’s initial attempts to push Huerta out of office only strengthened the Mexican leader. As Calero observed, American nonrecognition offered Huerta “the occasion of exhibiting himself as champion of the national dignity, as defender of the sovereignty of Mexico against the intrusion of a foreign government.” Resorting to a policy Wilson called “watchful waiting,” he and his new diplomatic team in Mexico appraised the alcoholic Huerta’s regime one day at a time.
At the Cabinet meeting on March 12, 1913, Secretary Bryan brought up another country going through a revolution. After four thousand years of dynastic rule, Sun Yat-sen had recently declared a Republic of China and was encouraging foreign investment there. The Taft Administration had approved the participation of American banks in an international consortium that might lend $125 million. Wilson had been in office a week when representatives from J. P. Morgan & Company and Kuhn, Loeb & Company called upon Bryan, saying they would not close the deal without express authorization from the government. Wilson was sympathetic to the emerging nation—in part because of almost a century of Presbyterian missionary work in China. In May, the United States recognized China as a republic, one of the first nations to do so. Bryan called it “one of the pleasant duties of this administration.” But Wilson strongly disapproved of this so-called Six Power Loan.
The next day, he composed his official response: “The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch very nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this administration does not feel that it ought, even by implication, to be a party to those conditions.” Wilson felt the problem lay in certain demands the loan placed upon the Chinese, who were pledging to secure the loan with burdensome taxes and supervision by foreign agents. His primary objection, however, was that “it gave the monopoly of this nation’s interests in China’s finances to a small group of American bankers to the exclusion of all other American financiers”—for the present and in the future. That representatives of J. P. Morgan & Company further expected the United States government “to utilize both its military and naval forces to protect the interest of the lenders” in the event of the Chinese defaulting was all Wilson needed to hear. Such responsibilities, he stated, were “obnoxious to the principles upon which the government of our people rests.”
Wilson’s statement assured the citizens of both the United States and China that he wanted to promote “the most extended and intimate trade relationship between this country and the Chinese republic,” and that he hoped to pursue opportunities through “the open door—a door of friendship and mutual advantage.” But, he added, this loan overly entangled America in the affairs of China. Ever since the Spanish-American War, the United States had been navigating an imperialistic course, guided most recently by “dollar diplomacy.” With Wilson’s quashing the China deal, he semaphored a change in direction.
That meant immediate reconsideration of agreements the Roosevelt and Taft administrations had made with a number of other countries whose governments were in turmoil. Chief among them were the Philippines, an American territory, fought and paid for in 1898—a takeover the Republican administrations had justified by insisting the Filipinos were not prepared to govern themselves. Hostilities between the islands and the United States had existed ever since. Wilson considered whether the Philippines were, in fact, “prepared for independence”; and he decided they were not. Nor did he believe that the United States had made its best efforts to help them. To the dismay of many Americans, including a few of his own Cabinet members, Wilson announced that American policy there was no longer to be “for the advantage of the United States, but for the benefit of the people of the Philippine Islands.” Toward that end, he announced that a majority of seats on the governing Philippine Commission, which the American President appointed, would be filled by Filipinos. Tensions dramatically abated, as the Philippines were, at last, on a track toward independence.
And then there was a political temblor in California that was felt as far as Tokyo and Washington, D.C., one that also called for moral adjudication. Americans had for the last decade invested in Asia, and now Asians wanted to own land in America. There had long been an overt prejudice against “Orientals” in California, which only intensified as Japanese immigrants especially prospered in agriculture. When enough started to buy land, the state legislature proposed a bill forbidding foreign ownership. Japan was deeply insulted. Foreign policy was suddenly conjoined to domestic policy, in a state whose leader, the great Progressive Governor Hiram Johnson, was also a racist. For the next several months, Wilson attempted to get California to temper the language of the law, but not only did he wish to avoid trespassing onto states’ rights, he also needed all the Congressional support he could muster for his legislative agenda.
In Washington, he introduced another kind of “open door” policy, one in which the executive branch of government was literally open to the public. By the second week of the Administration, the press and the public were startled to find that anybody was welcome to observe their officials at work. Nobody had ever seen a government so candid and accessible. War Secretary Garrison would swivel in his desk chair and answer questions from strangers who had entered his office; Josephus Daniels said he intended to become the first Secretary of the Navy who would actually visit the Navy yards across the country. Even in the White House, citizens could walk back to the executive offices.
At 12:45 on March 15, 1913, the Wilson Administration made history when it established what would become a convention of the Presidency. That Saturday afternoon, Tumulty ushered 125 members of the press corps into Wilson’s office; and for the first time, a President held a White House press conference. Wilson was hardly the first President to talk to a journalist; indeed, Taft met occasionally with newspapermen after hour
s and granted them a few minutes of questions; and TR cherry-picked members of his “newspaper cabinet,” allowing them to transcribe what he chose to dictate. To promote government transparency, Wilson announced that he intended to schedule regular conferences at which any journalist could ask whatever he wanted.
If nothing else, the exercise was a good publicity tool for Wilson. Few could speak off the cuff with such ease, and he sometimes simply chose not to answer a question. Most of his responses—terse and precise—revealed nothing more than necessary, but his witty interplay with the press set the tone for relations between the press and future Presidents. “As he went on talking, the big hit he was making with the crowd became evident,” reported The New York Times after the first gathering. “There was something so unaffected and honest about his way of talking . . . that it won everybody, despite the fact that many of the men there had come prejudiced against him.” Between March and December 1913 alone, Wilson appeared at sixty press conferences.
At the second conference—which moved to the much larger East Room—Wilson took the press into his confidence and asked for its help. “The only way I can succeed is by not having my mind live in Washington,” he said. “My body has got to live there, but my mind has got to live in the United States, or else I will fail.” Wilson hoped the newspapermen would bring him a sense of the nation beyond the city in which they worked, considering themselves importers as much as exporters. And with that metaphor in mind, Wilson turned to what he believed would be his administration’s defining piece of legislation, one that had eluded his predecessors for decades and that required a radical presentation.
In the northwest corner on the second floor of the United States Capitol—just off the Senate chamber—is an anomalous gilt-trimmed salon with a vaulted frescoed ceiling and a brilliantly colored tile floor. It is called the President’s Room. George Washington had proposed such a room so that the Chief Executive and Senators might conduct their joint business; but not until the mid-nineteenth century, when the great legislative edifice was expanded and crowned with its iron dome, did it come into existence. In the interim, the Chief Executive almost never came to Capitol Hill. After John Adams left the Presidency in 1801, Presidents virtually discontinued their visits to the two legislative houses. Ostensibly to keep “the President’s Annual Message to Congress” from becoming a throne speech—though possibly because he was not a good speaker—Thomas Jefferson messengered his texts to the legislature for a clerk to read, and that practice became standard. Because new Congressional sessions began on the fourth of March every other year, a President might visit his special room but twice a term, to sign any bills passed under the wire on the third. Beyond that, this jewel of a room remained a museum piece.
The Constitution states that the President shall from time to time not only give to the Congress information on the state of the Union but also “recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them.” The morning after his election, Woodrow Wilson had contemplated that clause, thanks to a journalist named Oliver P. Newman. In an off-the-record interview about executive style, Newman had suggested that Wilson might abandon the 112-year-old tradition and deliver important speeches in person. Wilson had stood at the window in his library on Cleveland Lane and stared out, as if into the future. “Newman,” he said, “that would set them by the ears.”
On second thought, Wilson did not want to antagonize Congress. But the idea kept growing. Thinking it would emphasize the cruciality of all that he wished to propose, Wilson asked the legislature to convene. Reaction from Capitol Hill was swift. Republicans, such as William O. Bradley of Kentucky, cautioned him to remember the separation of powers, saying, “If Mr. Wilson comes to the Capitol to influence legislation, he will be more foolish than the donkey that swam the river to get a drink of water.” Several Democrats, such as John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, denounced the notion as a reversion to royalty. “The practice instituted by Jefferson was more American than the old pomposities and cavalcadings between the White House and the Capitol,” Williams said. On April 8, 1913—for the first time since November 22, 1800, when John Adams delivered his fourth annual message—a President of the United States rode the mile and a half from the White House to the Capitol for the purpose of addressing a joint session of Congress.
Wilson staged the appearance with predictable simplicity, arriving by automobile with only a Secret Service guard. He wore a black frock coat and light trousers, his cravat a gray four-in-hand. A small committee of Representatives greeted him, ushering him to Speaker Champ Clark’s office for a moment while the Representatives took their places in the House chamber. Then the House doorkeeper stepped into the main aisle and announced, “The Vice President of the United States and members of the United States Senate.” They filed in, the Senators sardining themselves on the benches in the first two rows, as Vice President Marshall went to a big armchair on the rostrum facing the crowd, to the Speaker’s right. The gallery was packed with visitors who had requested tickets, the President’s wife and three daughters, and members of the Cabinet, who were invited to attend informally on their own, so as not to give the appearance of a state occasion. Just before one o’clock, the President appeared in the chamber, escorted by members of each house; and everybody rose and applauded. Wilson shook hands with the Speaker and the Vice President before taking his stand at the Reading Clerk’s desk. Speaker Clark formally introduced the President; and everybody applauded again. Wilson bowed.
The President began by stating his primary reason for delivering this message in person, which was his long-held belief in humanizing institutions. He said he wanted them to know that the President of the United States “is a person, not a mere department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with his own voice—that he is a human being trying to cooperate with other human beings in a common service.” The audience applauded.
In a natural voice—stressing history over histrionics—Wilson explained that he had summoned the Congress to emphasize the essential need for tariff reform. This extraordinary session, he said, was a task laid upon him and his party that it had to perform promptly, “in order that the burden carried by the people under existing law may be lightened as soon as possible and in order, also, that the business interests of the country may not be kept too long in suspense as to what the fiscal changes are to be to which they will be required to adjust themselves.” While industrial and commercial life had drastically changed in America, the tariff schedules had not; certain manufacturers were benefiting at the expense of consumers. The sooner rates were adjusted, Wilson said, “the sooner our men of business will be free to thrive by the law of nature (the nature of free business) instead of by the law of legislation and artificial arrangement.”
“Consciously or unconsciously,” Wilson told America’s lawmakers, “we have built up a set of privileges and exemptions from competition behind which it was easy . . . to organize monopoly.” He said it was necessary to “abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privilege or of any kind of artificial advantage, and put our business men and producers under the stimulation of a constant necessity to be efficient, economical, and enterprising, masters of competitive supremacy, better workers and merchants than any in the world.” He insisted this was not only the best thing for American business in an increasingly global economy but also the right thing. His speech lasted nine minutes. Amid the applause, Wilson left the chamber.
In the car with his wife, on the way back to the White House, Wilson kept chuckling under his breath. When, at last, Ellen asked what he was laughing about, he said, “Wouldn’t Teddy have been glad to think of that—I put one over on Teddy and am totally happy.”
Doubtless, the speech got the better of Teddy Roosevelt, who never shook his con
tempt for Wilson. At a luncheon in Oyster Bay, during which TR made one snide remark after another about “Professor” Wilson, a New York newspaper editor took the former President to task, suggesting that Wilson also embraced progressive principles. “I am a little hard on Wilson,” Roosevelt conceded. “What I object to about him is his mildness of method. I suppose, as a matter of fact,” he said, thumping his chest, “Wilson is merely a less virile me.”
Washington was agog over the precedents Wilson appeared to be breaking every day, and the very next afternoon he returned to the lion’s den. With the eleven Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee, he sat for an hour and a half around the hand-carved table in the middle of the President’s Room. In a cloud of cigar smoke, the men strategized passage of the tariff bill, despite political opposition and the power of special interests. Wilson had always been persuasive; now the Senate was realizing that he could also be relentless in getting what he wanted. There had not been a systemic reduction of rates since 1857; and after months of working with Representatives Clark, Underwood, Palmer, and Glass, Wilson was not about to see this bill turn back on itself as the Payne-Aldrich bill had under Taft.
The protective tariff had played an important role in the economy of America, protecting its young industries against foreign competition; but over time, as monopolies evolved, it became, in the words of Treasury Secretary McAdoo, “a general tax on the entire population for the benefit of private industry.” If a few vendors of a particular product conspired to fix its price even one cent below the foreign import price, they could continue to monopolize the domestic market and share the wealth among themselves. Wilson believed the reduction, if not the removal, of these tariffs would drive a stake into the heart of the various trusts—whether they controlled the manufacture and sale of steel rails, leather gloves, or sugar. The aim of his administration was to allow high duties on luxury items but to lower those on raw materials and necessities, optimally to no tariff.
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