Wilson

by A. Scott Berg

  “I could go to Congress to-morrow and advocate war with Germany,” Wilson said, “and I feel certain that Congress would support me, but what would the country say when war . . . finally came, and we were witnessing all of its horrors and bloody aftermath.” He knew that once the people began poring over the casualty lists, they would wonder why Wilson had not tried to settle the matter with Germany peaceably. “When we move against Germany,” he said, suggesting that day would come, “we must be certain that the whole country not only moves with us but is willing to go forward to the end with enthusiasm. I know that we shall be condemned for waiting, but in the last analysis I am the trustee of this nation, and the cost of it all must be considered in the reckoning before we go forward.” Wilson insisted he was not afraid to fight; but the deaths of 128 Americans who had been warned against sailing on a belligerent’s ship into a war zone did not demand a declaration of war. The next day, the President received unexpected support from his predecessor and former rival: William Howard Taft urged Wilson to stick to his guns. He believed it was the duty of every patriotic citizen to resist the “impulse of deep indignation which the circumstances naturally arouse” and not to second-guess the President.

  In the quiet of his study, Wilson typed his nation’s response to the loss of American lives at German hands. He reminded the Imperial German government that its current policy was infringing upon the “sacred freedom of the seas.” He said its delineation of a war zone touched upon the coasts of many neutral nations (which, in fact, was not true, as the Netherlands was the only neutral country in the war zone) and further infringed upon the rights of noncombatants bound on lawful errands. Submarines, Wilson wrote, “cannot be used against merchantmen without an inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity.” Wilson called upon the German government to disavow its recent unjust acts, to make reparations, and to take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence of further subversion of the principles of warfare. American citizens were within their rights to travel on the high seas, he insisted, especially as the United States and Germany were bound by “special ties of friendship.”

  Wilson sent the draft to Bryan for his and Lansing’s suggestions—in diction, not direction. Bryan still thought the American government should condemn Allied violations and urge arbitration; Lansing, on the other hand, urged a tougher position. The President followed his instincts and instructed the Secretary of State to transmit his message. Bryan did so, but—he made clear to his boss—“with a heavy heart.” Without doubting Wilson’s “patriotic purpose,” Bryan disagreed with his approach. He believed in “playing the part of a friend to both sides in the role of peace maker,” and he feared this note would upset the balance. Bryan did not convey that he felt further compromised by Wilson’s increased reliance on Colonel House. Indeed, House was digging back channels, trying to get Britain to lift its embargo if Germany would curb its use of submarines and lethal gases.

  At the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, May 11, the President shared House’s latest dispatch from London, which questioned American neutrality. Bryan was hurt that the President had not shared the cable with him before discussing it with the Cabinet as a whole. He became visibly perturbed as the meeting progressed, until he heatedly accused some members of the Cabinet of no longer being neutral. With that, the President turned his steely gaze on the Secretary of State and fixed his jaw. “Mr. Bryan,” he said, “you are not warranted in making such an assertion. We all doubtless have our opinions in this matter, but there are none of us who can justly be accused of being unfair.” Bryan apologized.

  The President and several family members escaped that weekend to the Mayflower, which was sailing to New York for the President to review the Atlantic Fleet. “The night was clear and the Potomac River like silver,” Edith recalled; and after dinner she and Wilson drifted off alone into the moonlight. He did not speak of romance that night; instead, he leaned on the rail and discussed something she sensed had been troubling him. “I am very much distressed over a letter I had late today from the Secretary of State,” he allowed, “saying he cannot go on in the Department as he is a pacifist and cannot follow me in wishing to warn our own country and Germany that we may be forced to take up arms; therefore he feels it is his duty to resign.” Edith was no student of politics, but Woodrow was surely testing her instincts. “Good,” she said, without a moment of hesitation; “for I hope you can replace him with someone who . . . would in himself command respect for the office both at home and abroad.”

  When Wilson said he was thinking of appointing Robert Lansing in his place, she replied, “But he is only a clerk in the State Department, isn’t he?” In truth, Lansing was more than that—indeed, a counselor to the Department and a son-in-law of John W. Foster, a former Secretary of State who, Wilson thought, might provide some guidance to the less experienced Lansing. Edith realized she had much to learn if she was to become First Lady; Woodrow realized Edith was full of knee-jerk opinions—all of which would always be what she considered were in his best interests.

  At the end of the month, Wilson received a reply from the Germans. They expressed deep regret to the neutral nations that lost lives in the sinking of the Lusitania but asked the United States to examine further the details of the event: the Lusitania had been constructed with government funds as an auxiliary cruiser in the British navy; and the ship had been transporting ammunition and arms, including guns “which were mounted under decks and masked.” In addition, the ship had been known to sail under neutral flags and, in this instance, had been transporting Canadian troops. The German government said it had acted in “just self-defense,” that it was protecting the lives of its soldiers by destroying ammunition destined for its enemy. The note suggested that the British had been using Americans as human shields, violating American law, which prohibited the carrying of passengers on ships with explosives on board. Wilson found those paragraphs “wholly unsatisfactory.”

  But the nation sighed in relief, as the rest of the German note assured the United States of its intentions to renew its instructions to avoid attacking neutral vessels. Wilson and Bryan continued to disagree on the tone with which they should proceed. The President’s excruciating headaches returned, but he continued to draft a second note to the Germans. He challenged their assertion that the Lusitania was transporting troops and masked guns, and argued that the sinking of a passenger ship involved principles of humanity—“a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers . . . was sent to the bottom without so much as a challenge or a warning and that men, women, and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare.”

  Bryan disapproved. The note omitted any mention of his preference for mediation; there was to be no simultaneous protest sent to England; and it did not bar Americans from traveling on ships carrying ammunition. Worst of all, Bryan felt it offered Germany “no chance to do anything but refuse to discontinue her submarine warfare.” Refusing to sign the document, Bryan preferred to resign from office.

  After a few sleepless nights, he met with the President for an hour. “Mr. Wilson would not yield a point, nor would Mr. Bryan,” recalled Mrs. Bryan. At last her husband said, “Colonel House has been Secretary of State, not I, and I have never had your full confidence.” Wilson could not deny the charge. He accepted the Secretary’s resignation that night, though they waited a day to make it public. Strangely, after all his doubts about Bryan, the severance hurt Wilson. “It is always painful to feel that any thinking man of disinterested motive, who has been your comrade and confidant, has turned away from you,” Wilson told Edith, “. . . and it is hard to be fair and not think that the motive is something sinister. But . . . I have been deserted before. The wound does not heal, with me, but neither does it cripple.” In a touching note of valediction that would be published, Wilson wrote Bryan, “Even now we are not separated in the object we seek but only in the method by wh
ich we seek it. . . . We shall continue to work for the same causes even when we do not work in the same way.”

  “Hurrah! old Bryan is out!” Edith wrote Woodrow the morning of June 9. “I know it is going to be the greatest possible relief to you to be rid of him. Your letter is much too nice, and I see why I was not allowed to see it before publication.” Jubilantly she told him “that at last the world will know just what he is.” William Jennings Bryan had been, in fact, an earnest and principled public servant, making the most of a position in which he was never fully empowered. But Edith called him “that awful Deserter.” Wilson realized he would not have to carry grudges so long as he had Edith by his side. “I will be glad when he expires from an overdose of peace or grape juice,” she wrote ten days after Bryan’s resignation, “and I never hear of him again.” With a loving but objective eye, Woodrow wrote Edith, “You are, oh, so fit for a strong man! . . . What a dear partisan you are!” He loved her for that—“and how you can hate, too. Whew! . . . In my secret heart (which is never secret from you) . . . he is a traitor, though I can say so, as yet, only to you.”

  The second Lusitania note went to Germany signed by Robert Lansing, the interim Secretary, who would soon officially assume the post. The German response, sent through Ambassador Gerard in Berlin, showed a willingness to cooperate but asked for the same. Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow said submarine warfare was his nation’s only chance of breaking the Allies’ blockade. While Germany would not consider the mere presence of Americans on a ship enough to spare it, he did promise protection for American vessels and Americans on neutral vessels—so long as they were not transporting contraband. The seas were calm well into the summer.

  Then on August 19, 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the White Star Liner Arabic off the coast of Ireland. Submarines carried orders not to sink passenger ships without warning, but the commander of U-24 said he interpreted the Arabic’s zigzag route as an indication that it was about to ram his boat. Two Americans died. A stern rebuke from Lansing elicited several demotions within the Kaiser’s navy and a renewed pledge from the German government not to attack unarmed liners without warning. Less than three months later, U-38 torpedoed the Italian passenger liner Ancona off the coast of Tunisia, taking two hundred lives, nine Americans among them; but in dealing with Germany, America continued to rely on epistolary diplomacy.

  Never had so many parts of the world demanded a President’s attention. In Mexico, the Carranza forces appeared strong enough to overpower Zapata and Villa and warrant American recognition, vindicating Wilson’s policy of “watchful waiting.” But Wilson felt obligated to tell the factional leaders that “if they cannot accommodate their differences and unite for this great purpose within a very short time, this Government will be constrained to decide what means should be employed by the United States in order to help Mexico save herself and serve her people.” Cotton remained a political football. Great Britain vacillated on its status as contraband, expecting the right to buy American munitions, but then confiscated shipments of America’s great export staple intended for even neutral countries. Secretary Garrison continued discussing a regular Army of 300,000 men at the astronomical cost of $1 billion, though Wilson still believed too strong an Army created the compulsion to unleash it. At the same time, delegations of women petitioned the President to support their right to vote; the NAACP pressured the President to demonstrate sympathy for the Negro’s cause; while in the Ottoman Empire, the party of “Young Turks” was now helping massacre Armenians; in Denmark, the government negotiated for the American purchase of its territories in the West Indies; and in America, citizens anxiously anticipated the next submarine attack. And through it all, the President wrote Edith Galt, “love has set me free from all real distress.” Until May 27.

  Woodrow and Edith went for a ride after dinner that night for almost two hours. The driver and Helen Bones sat up front, offering the couple privacy in the back. Only they knew what transpired behind the drawn curtains; but their letters to one another the next morning suggest that Woodrow made advances, which an unready Edith rebuffed. “For God’s sake try to find out whether you really love me or not,” Woodrow wrote in frustration. “You owe it to yourself and you owe it to the great love I have given you. . . . Remember that I need strength and certainty for the daily task and that I cannot walk upon quicksand.” Edith wished she could ease his pain. The young widow was not prudish so much as inexperienced, and in insisting that she loved him, she promised to get past her own barriers. “But you,” she said, “must conquer!”

  The President launched a relentless campaign. “You have invited me to make myself the master of your life and heart,” he wrote, coaxing her to trust her instincts. “The rest is now as certain as that God made us . . . and I shall win, by a power not my own, a power which has never been defeated, against which no doors can be locked, least of all the doors of the heart.” He added, “We will take hands now and walk together without fear withersoever our infallible guide may lead us.”

  At this ticklish moment in their courtship, an unfortunate guest arrived in Washington—Mary Hulbert. On May 31, Helen Bones was dispatched to meet Mary’s early morning train; and Mrs. Jaffray gave her a private tour of the White House. The President made time to take a long drive with her—with Helen Bones chaperoning. It turned out that Mary had not come for romance but for money. Her hard-luck son had suffered a streak of bad health, and he needed cash to close a deal on some land in California’s San Fernando Valley, where he intended to grow avocados.

  For $7,500 the President assumed the mortgages on two properties the Hulberts held in the Bronx. And he supplemented that by recommending Mary’s writing to a few publishers. She left the East Coast for several hapless years in Los Angeles, where neither her literary efforts nor the avocados ripened into sustainable careers. Wilson wrote Mary that he would miss her, but bade her farewell with polite “sympathy and hope,” closing that chapter of their lives. From then on, she cobbled together a life of shabby gentility—publishing a cookbook, calling upon the friends she had once stylishly entertained, even picking up work as an extra in motion pictures—one of which, The Great Love, was directed by D. W. Griffith.

  The day after seeing Mary Hulbert, Woodrow presented Edith with a ring. It was not an engagement ring, for he knew not to force the issue; but he knew enough to keep pressing. “There is no one else in the world for me now,” he wrote her on June 1. Edith was accustomed to removing her rings each night, but this one, she said, would remain, as it gave her “the most exquisite pleasure.” In addition to his inundation of love letters—which now spoke of “gentle caresses” and “precious kisses”—Woodrow filled Edith’s house with roses and orchids. She became a more frequent visitor to the White House, arriving for tea with Helen but stealing moments with Woodrow. She made herself comfortable in Wilson’s study among all his books.

  In June, Wilson intensified his campaign by arranging a vacation with Edith in Cornish. Helen Bones and Margaret Wilson invited her to be their guest, and the women left by automobile on the first day of summer, stopping in Princeton, where Helen gave Edith a tour of the campus. As they arrived at Harlakenden, Wilson set out from Washington with Dr. Grayson, stopping in Roslyn, New York, to spend the day with Colonel House.

  They spoke of international matters for a while, until Wilson leaned in, saying he had “an intimate personal matter” to discuss. “What would you think of my getting married again?” he asked. Wilson explained that he had met “a delightful woman” and was thinking of asking for her hand. “Do you believe I would lessen my influence with the American people by taking such a step? And when do you think I could do it? I have led such a lonely life that I feel it is necessary for me to have companionship of that sort, and my dear dead wife would be the first to approve.” Although House did not let on to the President, Dr. Grayson and Attorney General Gregory had both intimated that such rumors had been swirling wi
thin the White House.

  House himself approved—if only because the President’s health demanded it and because he believed “Woodrow Wilson today is the greatest asset the world has.” House confessed to his diary, “If he should die or become incapacitated, it is doubtful whether a right solution of the problems involved in this terrible conflict and its aftermath would be possible.” But he cautiously urged postponement until the following spring.

  House’s advice made sense; but once Woodrow and Edith were reunited in Cornish, all logic went out the window. For the first time, the middle-aged lovers could spend extended periods alone, sometimes even away from the eyes of the Secret Service. “He was like a boy home from school,” Edith recalled of those Arcadian days that summer, whenever the President was able to leave Washington. After breakfast they would sit on the terrace together and fish through the pouch of official mail, examining the catch together. When finished, they walked along the banks of the Connecticut River; in the afternoons, they invited the rest of their party to join them on long motor rides through the countryside, after which Dr. Grayson and the family took turns reading aloud from Wilson’s History of the American People. Edith’s favorite time came after a late dinner, when just the two of them sat before a fire in a room where the curtains had been drawn to shut out the cold night air. Together they would read the latest dispatches from around the world. “The President would clarify each problem for me,” Edith recalled, “and outline the way he planned to meet it.”

  “Those days in Cornish had brought the banishment of any doubt of my love for Woodrow Wilson,” she later recorded, “but had not overcome my reluctance to marry him while he was in the White House.” She was, at heart, a provincial girl unready for a public international life. “I told him if he were defeated for re-election I would marry him, but if not I felt still uncertain.” Then on June 29, 1915, she consented, in a note she composed on the West Porch of Harlakenden, while he was close at hand.