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Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him

J >> Joseph P. Tumulty >> Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him




It ought to be said here that upon investigation, personally made by
myself, I found that there was nothing in this whole matter that in the
slightest degree reflected upon the honour or the integrity or high
standing of President Harding.

One of the things for which President Wilson was unduly censured shortly
after he took office was the recognition he gave to his political enemies
in the Democratic party. The old-line politicians who had supported him in
1912 could not understand why the loaves and fishes were dealt out to
these unworthy ones. Protests were made to the President by some of his
close personal friends, but he took the position that as the leader of the
party he was not going to cause resentment and antagonisms by seeming to
classify Democrats; that as leader of his party he had to recognize all
factions, and there quickly followed appointments of Clark men, Underwood
men, Harmon men, all over the country. A case in point illustrates the
bigness of the President in these matters--that of George Fred Williams as
Minister to Greece. In the campaign of 1912 Mr. Williams had travelled up
and down the state of Massachusetts making the bitterest sort of attacks
upon Woodrow Wilson. I remember how I protested against this appointment.
The President's only reply was that George Fred Williams was an eccentric
fellow, but that he believed he was thoroughly honest. "I have no fault to
find, Tumulty, with the men who disagree with me and I ought not to
penalize them when they give expression to what they believe are honest
opinions."

I have never seen him manifest any bitterness or resentment toward even
his bitterest, most implacable enemies. Even toward William Randolph
Hearst, whose papers throughout the country have been his most unrelenting
foes, he never gave expression to any ill feeling or chagrin at the unfair
attacks that were made upon him. I remember a little incident that shows
the trend of his feelings in this regard, that occurred when we were
discussing the critical Mexican situation. At this time the Hearst papers
were engaged in a sensational propaganda in behalf of intervention in
Mexico. The President said to me, "I heard of a delightful remark that
that fine old lady, Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, made with reference to what she
called her 'big boy Willie.' You know," he continued, "Mrs. Hearst does
not favour intervention in Mexico and it was reported to me that she
chided her son for his flaming headlines urging intervention, and told him
that unless he behaved better she would have to take him over her knee and
spank him."

The President has one great failing, inherent in the very character of the
man himself, and this is his inborn, innate modesty--his unwillingness to
dramatize the part he played in the great events of the war, so that the
plain people of the country could see him and better understand him. There
is no man living to-day who has a greater power of personal appeal or who
is a greater master in the art of presenting ideals, facts, and arguments
than Woodrow Wilson. As his secretary for nearly eleven years, I was often
vexed because he did not, to use a newspaper phrase, "play up" better, but
he was always averse to doing anything that seemed artificially contrived
to win applause. Under my own eyes, seated in the White House offices, I
have witnessed many a great story walk in and out but the President always
admonished us that such things must not be pictured or capitalized in any
way for political purposes; and thus every attempt we made to dramatize
him, as Colonel Roosevelt's friends had played him up, was immediately
placed under the Presidential embargo.

His unwillingness to allow us in the White House to "play him up" as the
leading actor in this or that movement was illustrated in the following
way: On July 1, 1919, a cable reached the White House from His Holiness,
Pope Benedict, expressing the appreciation of His Holiness for the
magnificent way in which the President had presented to the Peace
Conference the demands of the Catholic Church regarding Catholic missions,
and conveying to the President his thanks for the manner in which the
President had supported those demands. The cable came at a time when
certain leaders of my own church, the Roman Catholic Church, were
criticizing and opposing the President for what they thought was his anti-
Catholic attitude. I tried to induce the President to allow me to give
publicity to the Pope's cable, but he was firm in his refusal. The cable
from the Pope and the President's reply are as follows:

Rome, The Vatican.
1 July, 1919.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY,
Doctor Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States.

EXCELLENCY:

Monsignor Carretti, upon his return from Paris, hastened to inform us
with what spirit of moderation Your Excellency examined the demands
regarding the Catholic Missions which we presented to the Peace
Conference, and with what zeal Your Excellency subsequently supported
these demands. We desire to express to you our sincere gratitude and
at the same time we urge Your Excellency to be good enough to employ
your great influence, also, in order to prevent the action, which
according to the Peace Treaty with Germany it is desired to bring
against the Kaiser and the highly placed German commanders. This
action could only render more bitter national hatred and postpone for
a long time that pacification of souls for which all nations long.
Furthermore, this trial, if the rules of justice are to be observed,
would meet insurmountable difficulties as may be seen from the
attached article from the _Osservatore Romano_, which deals
exclusively with the trial of the Kaiser, the newspaper reserving
right to treat in another article the question of the trial of the
generals.

It pleases us to take advantage of this new occasion to renew to Your
Excellency the wishes which we entertain for your prosperity and that
of your family, as well as for the happiness of the inhabitants of the
Confederation of the United States.

(Signed) BENEDICTUS PP. XV.

* * * * *

The White House,
Washington, D. C.

15 August, 1919.

YOUR HOLINESS:

I have had the pleasure of receiving at the hands of Monsignor Cossio
the recent letter you were kind enough to write me, which I now beg to
acknowledge with sincere appreciation. Let me assure you that it was
with the greatest pleasure that I lent my influence to safeguarding
the missionary interests to which you so graciously refer, and I am
happy to say that my colleagues in the Conference were all of the same
mind in this wish to throw absolute safeguards around such missions
and to keep them within the influences under which they had hitherto
been conducted.

I have read with the gravest interest your suggestion about the
treatment which should be accorded the ex-Kaiser of Germany and the
military officers of high rank who were associated with him in the
war, and beg to say that I realize the force of the considerations
which you urge. I am obliged to you for setting them so clearly, and
shall hope to keep them in mind in the difficult months to come. With
much respect and sincere good wishes for your welfare,

Respectfully and sincerely yours,
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

His Holiness,
Pope Benedict XV.

[Illustration: Correspondence with the Pope
(Transcriber's note: contains a reproduction of the two above-quoted
letters.)]

There was something too fine in his nature for the dramatics and the
posturings of the political game, as it is usually played. He is a very
shy man, too sincere to pose, too modest to make advances. He craves the
love of his fellow-men with all his heart and soul. People see only his
dignity, his reserve, but they cannot see his big heart yearning for the
love of his fellow-men. Out of that loving heart of his has come the
passion which controlled his whole public career--the passion for justice,
for fair dealing, and democracy.

Never during the critical days of the war, when requests of all kinds
poured in upon him for interviews of various sorts, did he lose his good-
nature. Nor did he show that he was disturbed when various requests came
from this or that man who claimed to have discovered some scientific means
of ending the war.

The following letter to his old friend, Mr. Thomas D. Jones of Chicago, is
characteristic of his feeling toward those who claimed to have made such a
scientific discovery:

The White House, Washington,
25 July 1917.

My dear friend:

It was generous of you to see Mr. Kenney and test his ideas. I hope
you derived some amusement from it at least. I am afraid I have grown
soft-hearted and credulous in these latter days, credulous in respect
to the scientific possibility of almost any marvel and soft-hearted
because of the many evidences of simple-hearted purpose this war has
revealed to me.

With warmest regard,

Cordially and faithfully yours,
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

Nor did the little things of life escape him, as is shown by the following
letter to Attorney General Gregory:

The White House, Washington,
1 October, 1918.

MY DEAR GREGORY:

The enclosed letter from his wife was handed to me this morning by a
rather pitiful old German whom I see occasionally looking after the
flowers around the club house at the Virginia Golf Course. I must say
it appeals to me, and I am sending it to you to ask if there is any
legitimate way in which the poor old fellow could be released from his
present restrictions.

In haste,

Faithfully yours,
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

[Illustration: An evidence of the tender-heartedness which Mr. Tumulty
claims for the President.
(Transcriber's note: contains a reproduction of the above-quoted letter.)]

I recall a day when he sat at his typewriter in the White House, preparing
the speech he was to deliver at Hodgensville, Kentucky, in connection with
the formal acceptance of the Lincoln Memorial, built over the log cabin
birthplace of Lincoln. When he completed this speech, which I consider one
of his most notable public addresses--perhaps in literary form, his best--
he turned to me and asked me if I had any comment to make upon it. I read
it very carefully. I then said to him, "Governor, there are certain lines
in it that might be called a self-revelation of Woodrow Wilson." The
lines that I had in mind were:

I have read many biographies of Lincoln; I have sought out with the
greatest interest the many intimate stories that are told of him, the
narratives of nearby friends, the sketches at close quarters, in which
those who had the privilege of being associated with him have tried to
depict for us the very man himself "in his habit as he lived"; but I
have nowhere found a real intimate of Lincoln. I nowhere get the
impression in my narrative or reminiscence that the writer had in fact
penetrated to the heart of his mystery, or that any man could
penetrate to the heart of it. That brooding spirit had no real
familiars. I get the impression that it never spoke out in complete
self-revelation, and that it could not reveal itself complete to any
one. It was a very lonely spirit that looked out from underneath those
shaggy brows, and comprehended men without fully communing with them,
as if, in spite of all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt
apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on. There is a very
holy and very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who
seeks to read the destiny in the affairs for others as well as for
himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man
can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right
perhaps no man can assist.

To Woodrow Wilson the business of government was a solemn thing, to which
he gave every ounce of his energy and his great intellectual power. No
President in the whole history of America ever carried weightier
responsibilities than he. Night and day, with uncomplaining patience, he
was at his post of duty, attending strictly to the pressing needs of the
nation, punctiliously meeting every engagement, great or small. Indeed, no
man that I ever met was more careless about himself or thought less of
vacations for the purpose of rest and recuperation.

There are three interesting maps which show the mileage covered by
Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. These maps show the states
traversed by each of the Presidents. Great black smudges show the trail
covered by President Roosevelt, which included every state in the Union,
and equally large black marks show the territory covered by President
Taft, but only a thin line shows the peregrinations and wanderings of
President Wilson. The dynamic, forceful personality of Mr. Roosevelt,
which radiated energy, charm, and good-nature, and the big, vigorous,
lovable personality of Mr. Taft, put the staid, simple, modest, retiring
personality of the New Jersey President, Mr. Wilson, at a tremendous
disadvantage. Into the atmosphere created by these winning personalities
of Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft the personality of Mr. Wilson did not easily
fit, and he realized it, when he said to me one day, "Tumulty, you must
realize that I am not built for the dramatic things of politics. I do not
want to be displayed before the public, and if I tried it, I should do it
badly."

Without attempting to belittle the great achievements of former Presidents
of the United States, particularly Roosevelt, it is only fair to say that,
comparing the situations which confronted them with those that met
President Wilson from the very beginning of his incumbency, their jobs
were small. As a genial Irishman once said to me, "Hell broke loose when
Wilson took hold." Every unusual thing, every extraordinary thing, seemed
to break and break against us. From the happening of the Dayton flood,
which occurred in the early days of the Wilson Administration, down to the
moment when he laid down the reins of office, it seemed as if the world in
which we lived was at the point of revolution. Unusual, unprecedented, and
remarkable things began to happen, things that required all the patience,
indomitable courage, and tenacity of the President to hold them steady.
The Mexican situation, left on our door-step, was one of the great burdens
that he carried during his administration. Then came the fight for the
revision of the tariff, the establishment of the Federal Reserve System,
all items that constituted the great programme of domestic reform which
emanated from the brain of Woodrow Wilson, and then in the midst of it all
came the European war, the necessity for neutrality, the criticism which
was heaped upon the President for every unusual happening which his
critics seemed to think called for intervention of the United States in
this great cataclysm. It was not a time for the camaraderie and good-
fellowship that had characterized the good old days in which Mr. Roosevelt
served as President.

And yet no man was less exclusive in dealing with the members of the
Senate and House. In preparing the Federal Reserve Act in collaboration
with Senator Glass, he was constantly in touch with the members of the
Senate Banking and Currency Committee, in an endeavour to make clear the
road for the passage of this important piece of constructive legislation.
Constant demands were made upon his time and he gave of his energy and of
the small reserve of strength that he had uncomplainingly and without a
protest. No rest, no recreation, no vacation intervened. Every measure
that he sought to press to enactment was the challenge to a great fight,
as, for instance, the tariff, the currency, the rural credits, and the
Panama tolls acts.

I have often been asked whether anger or passion ever showed itself in the
President, and I am reminded of a little incident that happened at the
White House during one of those conferences with the newspaper men, which,
before the days of the war, and for a long time afterward, took place in
the Executive offices. At the time of this particular conference, the
President's first wife lay seriously ill at the White House, and stories
were carried in the various newspapers exaggerating the nature of her
illness, some of them going so far as to say she was suffering from this
or from that disease. At the very time these stories were appearing in the
newspapers there were also articles that his daughter, Margaret, was
engaged to marry this man or that man. The President came to the newspaper
men's conference this morning fighting mad. It was plain that something
serious was afoot. Taking hold of the back of the chair, as if to
strengthen himself for what he had to say, he looked squarely at the
newspaper men and said, "I hope that you gentlemen will pardon me for a
personal word this morning. I have read the stories that have appeared in
certain newspapers of the country, containing outrageous statements about
the illness of my wife and the marriage of my daughter. I realize that as
President of the United States you have a perfect right to say anything
you damn please about me, for I am a man and I can defend myself. I know
that while I am President it will be my portion to receive all kinds of
unfair criticism, and I would be a poor sport if I could not stand up
under it; but there are some things, gentlemen, that I will not tolerate.
You must let my family alone, for they are not public property. I acquit
every man in this room of responsibility for these stories. I know that
you have had nothing to do with them; but you have feelings and I have
feelings, even though I am President. My daughter has no brother to defend
her, but she has me, and I want to say to you that if these stories ever
appear again I will leave the White House and thrash the man who dares to
utter them."

A little letter came to my notice in which the President replies to an old
friend in Massachusetts who had asked him to attempt to interpret himself:

MY DEAR FRIEND:

You have placed an impossible task upon me--that of interpreting
myself to you. All I can say in answer to your inquiry is that I have
a sincere desire to serve, to be of some little assistance in
improving the condition of the average man, to lift him up, and to
make his life more tolerable, agreeable, and comfortable. In doing
this I try hard to purge my heart of selfish motives. It will only be
known when I am dead whether or not I have succeeded.

Sincerely your friend,
WOODROW WILSON.




CHAPTER XLV

THE SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION


During the winter of 1919-1920 President Wilson was the target of vicious
assaults. Mrs. Wilson and Admiral Grayson with difficulty curbed his
eagerness to take a leading hand in the fight over the Peace Treaty in the
Senate, and to organize the Democratic party on a fighting basis. It was
not until after the Chicago Convention had nominated Mr. Harding and
enunciated a platform repudiating the solemn obligations of the United
States to the rest of the world that the President broke his silence of
many months. Because he had something he wanted to say to the country he
asked me to send for Louis Seibold, a trusted friend and an experienced
reporter, then connected with the New York _World_. When Mr. Seibold
arrived in Washington on the Tuesday following Mr. Harding's nomination,
the President talked unreservedly and at length with him, discussed the
Republican Convention, characterized its platform as "the apotheosis of
reaction," and declared that "it should have quoted Bismarck and Bernhardi
rather than Washington and Lincoln." During the two days of Mr. Seibold's
visit to the White House he had abundant opportunity to observe the
President's condition of health which had been cruelly misrepresented by
hostile newspapers. Mr. Seibold found him much more vigorous physically
than the public had been given to understand and mentally as alert and
aggressive as he had been before his illness. Mr. Seibold's article, which
by the way was regarded as a journalistic classic and for which Columbia
University awarded the author the Pulitzer prize for the best example of
newspaper reporting of the year, exposed the absurd rumours about the
President's condition and furnished complete evidence of his determination
to fight for the principles to establish which he had struggled so
valiantly and sacrificed so much.

As the days of the San Francisco Convention approached those of us who
were intimately associated with the President at the White House were
warned by him that in the Convention fight soon to take place we must play
no favourites; that the Convention must be, so far as the White House was
concerned, a free field and no favour, and that our attitude of "hands
off" and strict neutrality must be maintained. Some weeks before the
Convention met the President conferred with me regarding the nominations,
and admonished me that the White House must keep hands off, saying that it
had always been charged in the past that every administration sought to
use its influence in the organization of the party to throw the nomination
this way or that. Speaking to me of the matter, he said, "We must make it
clear to everyone who consults us that our attitude is to be impartial in
fact as well as in spirit. Other Presidents have sought to influence the
naming of their successors. Their efforts have frequently brought about
scandals and factional disputes that have split the party. This must not
happen with us. We must not by any act seek to give the impression that we
favour this or that man."

This attitude was in no way an evidence of the President's indifference to
the nominee of the Convention, or to what might happen at San Francisco.
He was passionately anxious that his party's standard bearer should win at
the election if for no other reason than to see his own policies continued
and the League of Nations vindicated.

There was another and personal reason why he insisted that no White House
interference should be brought into play for any particular nominee. His
son-in-law, Mr. William G. McAdoo, was highly thought of in connection
with the nomination, and therefore the President felt that he must be more
than ordinarily strict in insisting that we keep hands off, for anything
that savoured of nepotism was distasteful to him and, therefore, he
"leaned backward" in his efforts to maintain a neutral position in the
Presidential contest and to take no part directly or indirectly that might
seem to give aid and comfort to the friends of his son-in-law. While Mr.
McAdoo's political enemies were busily engaged in opposing him on the
ground of his relationship to the President, as a matter of fact, the
President was making every effort to disassociate himself and his
administration from the talk that was spreading in favour of McAdoo's
candidacy. While every effort was being made by Mr. McAdoo's enemies to
give the impression that the Federal machine was being used to advance his
candidacy, the President was engaged wholly in ignoring Mr. McAdoo's
candidacy.

Every family visit which Mr. McAdoo and his wife, the President's
daughter, paid the White House, was distorted in the newspaper reports
carried to the country into long and serious conferences between the
President and his son-in-law with reference to Mr. McAdoo's candidacy. I
know from my own knowledge that the matter of the nomination was never
discussed between the President and Mr. McAdoo. And Mr. McAdoo's real
friends knew this and were greatly irritated at what they thought was the
gross indifference on the part of the President to the political fortunes
of his own son-in-law. So meticulously careful was the President that no
one should be of the opinion that he was attempting to influence things in
Mr. McAdoo's behalf, that there was never a discussion even between the
President and myself regarding Mr. McAdoo's candidacy, although we had
canvassed the availability of other Democratic candidates, as well as the
availability of the Republican candidates.

I had often been asked what the President's attitude would be toward Mr.
McAdoo's candidacy were he free to take part in the campaign. My only
answer to these inquiries was that the President had a deep affection and
an admiration for Mr. McAdoo as a great executive that grew stronger with
each day's contact with him. He felt that Mr. McAdoo's sympathies, like
his own, were on the side of the average man; and that Mr. McAdoo was a
man with a high sense of public service.

And while the President kept silent with reference to Mr. McAdoo, the
basis of his attitude was his conviction that to use his influence to
advance the cause of his son-in-law was, in his opinion, an improper use
of a public trust.

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