Woodrow Wilson

by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

  32. On the coal crisis, see James P. Johnson, “The Wilsonians as War Managers: Coal and the 1917–18 Winter Crisis, “Prologue 9 (winter 1977).

  33. On the early months of the War Industries Board, see Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations during World War I (Baltimore, 1973).

  34. WW to Thomas W. Gregory, July 7, 1917, PWW, vol. 43. On this incident, see Elliott M. Rudwick, Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917 (Carbondale, Ill., 1964).

  35. JPT to WW, Aug. 1, 1917, PWW, vol. 43; JDD, entry for Aug. 24, 1917, PWW, vol. 44. For the black leaders’ statement, see Washington Post, Aug. 17, 1917. On the violence in Houston, see Robert V. Haynes, A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917 (Baton Rouge, La., 1976).

  36. Crisis, August 1917. On the army’s rare policies, see Coffman, War to End All Wars, and Kennedy, Over Here. For Wilson’s involvement in the Charles Young incident, see WW to NDB, June 28, 1917, PWW, vol. 43, and WW to John Sharp Williams, June 28, 1917, PWW, vol. 43. Young was called back from retirement for active duty in late 1918 but was never given the opportunity to serve in Europe.

  37. Charles H. Williams, quoted in Coffman, War to End All Wars. On the labor battalion’s experience.

  38. Johnson, Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson (New York, 1933). The petition is reprinted on and in PWW, vol. 48.

  39. Robert R. Moton to WW, June 15, 1918, PWW, vol. 48; WW to Moton, June 18, 1918, PWW, vol. 48.

  40. WW statement, July 26, 1918, PWW, vol. 49.

  41. For an examination of Wilson’s political thought that emphasizes southern influences, see Stephen Skowronek, “The Reassociation of Ideas and Purposes: Racism, Liberalism, and the American Political Tradition,” American Political Science Review 100 (Aug. 2006), and for an examination that puts him in a larger context of “racial nationalism,” see Gary Gerstle, “Race and Nation in the Thought and Politics of Woodrow Wilson,” in Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson: Progressivism, Internationalism, War, and Peace, ed. John Milton Cooper, Jr. (Washington, D.C., 2008).

  42. For accounts of the NWP incident see Washington Post, July 15, 18, 19, and 20, 1917, and New York Times, July 17 and 19, 1917.

  43. Louis Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity: The Autobiography of Louis Brownlow, Second Half (Chicago, 1958); WW to EMH, July 29, 1917, PWW, vol. 43. On the break with Malone, see also EMHD, entry for July 26, 1917, PWW, vol. 43; WW to EMH, July 26 1917, PWW, vol. 43; and Dudley Field Malone to WW, Sept. 7, 1917, PWW, vol. 44.

  44. Carrie Chapman Catt to WW, May 7, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; WW to Edward W. Pou, May 14, 1917, PWW, vol. 42. See also Helen Hamilton Gardener to WW, May 10, 1917, PWW, vol. 42. For an account of how Catt, Gardener, and other NAWSA leaders skillfully appealed to Wilson, see Victoria Brown, “Did Woodrow Wilson’s Gender Politics Matter?” in Cooper, Reconsidering Wilson.

  45. WW statement, [Oct. 25, 1917], PWW, vol. 44; Elizabeth Merrill Bass to WW, Jan. 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 45.

  46. WW statement, Jan. 10, 1918, PWW, vol. 45.

  47. Carrie Chapman Catt to WW, Sept. 29, 1918, PWW, vol. 49; McAdoo, Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo (Boston, 1931).

  48. WW speech, Sept. 30, 1918, PWW, vol. 50. See also New York Times, Oct. 1, 1918.

  49. This assessment agrees with the one in the excellent treatment in Christine A. Lunardini and Thomas J. Knock, “Woodrow Wilson and Woman Suffrage: A New Look,” Political Science Quarterly 95 (winter, 1980–81).

  50. On the veto and Wilson’s likely lack of knowledge about it, see PWW, vol. 63, n. 3.

  51. WW to Henry B. Fine, May 14, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; Memoir.

  52. EMHD, entry for Nov. 15, 1916, vol. 38; Memoir. On the conversations between Wilson and John Singer Sargent, see also Sargent to WW, Nov. 6, 1917, WWP, series 2, box 473, and WW to Sargent, Nov. 8, 1917, PWW, vol. 44.

  53. Sargent to Mary Hale, Oct. 20, 1917, quoted in Evan Charteris, John Sargent (New York, 1927). Cf. Sargent to Isabella Stewart Gardner, n.d., also quoted.

  54. Memoir; EMHD, entry for Dec. 30, 1917, PWW, vol. 45; RB to WW, Feb. 2, 1918, PWW, vol. 46.

  55. EMH to WW, June 27, 1917, PWW, vol. 43. On Wiseman’s meeting with Wilson, see Arthur Willert, The Road to Safety: A Study in Anglo-American Relations (London, 1952), and on Reading’s appointment and work in Washington, see Fowler, British-American Relations.

  56. Root, quoted in Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root (New York, 1938), vol. 2; Creel, Rebel at Large. On the Root mission, see Jessup, Root, vol. 2, and George F. Kennan, Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920, vol. 1, Russia Leaves the War (Princeton, N.J., 1956).

  57. WW speech, June 14, 1917, PWW, vol. 42; WW to EMH, July 21, 1917, PWW, vol. 43.

  58. WW reply to Pope Benedict XV’s peace appeal, Aug. 27, 1917, PWW, vol. 44.

  59. EMHD, entry for Aug. 15, 1917, PWW, vol. 43.

  60. EMHD, entries for Sept. 9 and 10, 1917, PWW, vol. 45, 184–86.

  61. WW to EMH, Sept. 2, 1917, PWW, vol. 44; EMH to WW, Sept. 4, 1917, PWW, vol. 44.

  62. On the beginning of the Inquiry, see the excellent account in Lawrence E. Gelfand, The Inquiry: American Preparations for Peace, 1917–1919 (New Haven, Conn., 1963).

  63. WW speech, Dec. 4, 1917, PWW, vol. 45.

  64. EMHD, entry for Dec. 18, 1917, PWW, vol. 45.

  65. Margaret Axson Elliott, My Aunt Louisa and Woodrow Wilson (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1944).

  66. EMHD, entries for Jan. 4 and 9, 1918, PWW, vol. 45. On the Inquiry memorandum, see Gelfand, Inquiry.

  67. EMHD, entry for Jan. 9, 1918, PWW, vol. 45.

  68. WW speech, Jan. 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 45.

  69. Ibid..

  70. Ibid..

  19 VICTORY

  1. On the senatorial attacks and the Chamberlain bill, see Seward W. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916–1918 (Middletown, Conn., 1966). On Oregon’s political culture, see Robert D. Johnston, The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon (Princeton, N.J., 2003).

  2. WW press release, Jan. 21, 1918, PWW, vol. 46; JDD, entry for Jan. 22, 1918, PWW, vol. 46.

  3. Ollie James quoted in RSB, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, vol. 7, War Leader, April 6, 1917–February 28, 1918 (Garden City, N.Y., 1966).

  4. WW to Bernard Baruch, Mar. 4, 1918, PWW, vol. 46.

  5. On the WIB under Baruch, see Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations during World War I (Baltimore, 1973). In the 1930s, Johnson drew upon his experience with the WIB as director of the National Recovery Administration under the New Deal.

  6. WW speech, Feb. 11, 1918, PWW, vol. 46.

  7. WW to Theodore Marburg, Mar. 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 46. For the cracks about “butters-in” and “woolgathers,” see WW to EMH, Mar. 20, 1918, PWW, vol. 47. On the LEP’s wartime activities, see Ruhl J. Bartlett, The League to Enforce Peace (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1944). See also John Milton Cooper, Jr., “The Not So Vital Center: The League to Enforce Peace and the League of Nations, 1919–1920,” in Gesellschaft und Diplomatie im transatlantischen Kontext: Festschrift für Reinhard R. Dorries, ed. Michael Wala (Stuttgart, Germany, 1999).

  8. WHT memorandum, [ca. Mar. 29, 1918], PWW, vol. 47.

  9. EMHD, entry for Jan. 27, 1918, PWW, vol. 46. During this discussion, Edith chimed in, “I thought you and Woodrow would go alone,” PWW, vol. 46.

  10. On William Howard Taft and the NWLB, see Valerie Jean Conner, The National War Labor Board: Stability, Social Justice, and the Voluntary State in World War I (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1983).

  11. No minutes were taken at the meetings of the War Cabinet, and virtually the only record of its deliberations comes from Josephus Daniels’s diary. On the War Cabinet, see Robert D. Cuff, “We Band of Brothers—Woodrow Wilson’s War Managers,” Canadian Review of American Studies 5 (fall 1974).

  12. On the efforts to appease the Bolsheviks and deter the Japanese, see George F. Kennan, Soviet-American Relations, 19
17–1920, vol. 1, Russia Leaves the War (Princeton, N.J., 1956). and on the flap with David Lloyd George, see W. B. Fowler, British-American Relations, 1917–1918: The Role of Sir William Wiseman (Princeton, N.J., 1969).

  13. WW speech, Apr. 6, 1918, PWW, vol. 47.

  14. WW remarks, Apr. 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 47.

  15. On the Sedition Act, see Harry N. Scheiber, The Wilson Administration and Civil Liberties, 1917–1921 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960). Gregory’s doubts about censorship are expressed in Thomas Gregory to WW, May 14, 1918, PWW, vol. 48.

  16. Eugene V. Debs, “Statement to the Court,” [Sept. 14, 1918], in Debs, Writings and Speeches of Eugene V. Debs (New York, 1948).

  17. WW to Thomas Gregory, Oct. 7, 1918, PWW, vol. 51. The recommendation against prosecuting Debs is in John Lord O’Brian to E. S. Wertz, June 20, 1919, Records of the Department of Justice, record group 60, box 687, file 77175, National Archives, College Park, Md.

  18. SA, interview by RSB, Sept. 2, 1931, RSBP, box 99; EMHD, entry for Feb. 24, 1918, PWW, vol. 46. Wilson made the same statement about government ownership a year later to Bernard Baruch and Vance McCormick. See Vance McCormick diary, entry for July 1–2–3, 1919, in PWW, vol. 63.

  19. The intricacies of dealing with the manpower crisis are ably covered in Fowler, British-American Relations. See also Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I (New York, 1968).

  20. On both Gutzon Borglum and the congressional restiveness, see Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned.

  21. WW speech, May 18, 1918, PWW, vol. 48.

  22. WW address, May 27, 1918, PWW, vol. 48; WW to Joseph E. Davies, Mar. 18, 1918, PWW, vol. 47. Davies would later serve as ambassador to the Soviet Union and would write a controversial memoir about his experience, which was made into a Hollywood movie.

  23. James Slayden, who had originated the idea of the Pan-American Pact, had voted for the McLemore resolution, and he had run afoul of both Albert Burleson and Colonel House in Texas politics. His wife, as a young woman in Charlottesville, had known Wilson when he was a law student at Virginia and had disliked him ever since. In her diary, she wrote that the president had never forgiven her husband for having “committed the unpardonable sin of not wanting him nominated.” Ellen Maury Slayden, entry for July 25, 1918, in Slayden, Washington Wife: Journal of Ellen Maury Slayden from 1897–1919 (New York, 1963). Her nephew, Maury Maverick, later served as congressman from the same district and as mayor of San Antonio.

  24. WW to Frank P. Glass, Aug. 9, 1918, PWW, vol. 49. On the campaigns against John Shields and George Huddleston, see Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned.

  25. WW to Myron S. McNeil, Aug. 5, 1919, PWW, vol. 49. On Vardaman’s campaign, see William F. Holmes, The White Chief: James Kimble Vardaman (Baton Rouge, La., 1970).

  26. WW to Clark Howell, Aug. 7, 1918, PWW, vol. 49. On Watson’s bid for a House seat, see C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (New York, 1938). Georgia politics had not seen the last of Thomas Hardwick and Tom Watson. Two years later, they brought off a spectacular comeback, with Hardwick winning the governorship and Watson a Senate seat, defeating Wilson’s sometime supporter and onetime nemesis Hoke Smith.

  27. The transformation of the Democrats on foreign policy is insightfully recounted and analyzed in Anthony Gaughan, “Woodrow Wilson and the Rise of Militant Interventionism in the South,” Journal of Southern History 65 (Nov. 1999).

  28. Jean le Pierrefeu, quoted in Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 4, 1916–1918 (London, 1927). On the AEF operations, see Coffman, War to End All Wars.

  29. On the controversy over Wood, see Hermann Hagedorn, Leonard Wood: A Biography (New York, 1931), vol. 2, and Jack McCallum, Leonard Wood: Rough Rider, Surgeon, Architect of American Imperialism (New York, 2006).

  30. On the Czechs in Russia and the seizure of Vladivostock, see George F. Kennan, Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920, vol. 2, The Decision to Intervene (Princeton, N.J., 1958), 393–94.

  31. WW to EMH, July 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 48; William Wiseman, “Notes of an Interview with the President at the White House, Wednesday, October 16th, 1918,” PWW, vol. 51.

  32. Wiseman to Lord Reading, Aug. 16, 1918, PWW, vol. 49.

  33. Ibid.; EMHD, entry for Aug. 15, 1918, PWW, vol. 49.

  34. EMHD, entry for Aug. 18, 1918, PWW, vol. 49.

  35. For Brandeis’s speculation, see Louis Brandeis, interview by RSB, Jan. 23, 1929, RSBP, box 102. For speculation about Wilson’s health at this time, see Edwin A. Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography (Princeton, N.J., 1981).

  36. WW speech, July 4, 1918, PWW, vol. 48.

  37. WW press statement, Sept. 9, 1918, PWW, vol. 49.

  38. WW speech, Sept. 27, 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  39. WW statement, Sept. 16, 1916, PWW, vol. 51.

  40. Thomas Lamont memorandum of interview with WW, Oct. 4, 1918, PWW, vol. 51. Lamont must have had a near-photographic memory, because right after this meeting he dictated an eight-page typewritten account that reads like a stenographic transcript. The typewritten-manuscript account of the interview is in the Thomas W. Lamont Papers, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

  41. RL to Frederich Oederlin, Oct. 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 51. For the Senate debate, see 65th Cong., 2nd Sess., Congresisonal Record 11155–63 (Oct. 7, 1918).

  42. Jean-Jules Jusserand to French foreign ministry, enclosed in Jusserand to Colville Barclay, Oct. 11, 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  43. Henry F. Ashurst diary, entry for Oct, 14, 1918, PWW, vol. 51; Homer Cummings diary, entry for Oct. 20, 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  44. WW note, [Oct. 14, 1918], PWW, vol. 51.

  45. EMHD, entry for Oct. 15, 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  46. WW diplomatic note, Oct. 23, 1918, PWW, vol. 51. For an incisive and detailed treatment of House’s views and negotiations in Europe, see Inga Floto, Colonel House in Paris: A Study of American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (Princeton, N.J., 1980).

  47. WW statement, [Oct. 25, 1918], PWW, vol. 51. On the meeting with Cummings and McCormick, see Homer Cummings memorandum, Oct. 20, 1918, PWW, vol. 51; Vance McCormick, interview by RSB, July 21, 1926, RSBP, box 116; and Cummings memorandum, Nov. 21, 1928, RSBP, box 104.

  48. Franklin K. Lane memorandum, Nov. 1, 1918, PWW, vol. 51. For McCormick’s and Daniels’s judgments, see McCormick, interview by RSB, July 21, 1926, RSBP, box 116, and Josephus Daniels memorandum, Aug. 8, 1936, RSBP, box 105. For the claim that the Democrats might have won without the appeal, see Albert S. Burleson, interview by RSB, Mar. 27, 1927, RSBP, box 103, and Thomas Gregory, interviews by RSB, Mar. 14–15, 1927, RSBP, box 109.

  49. EBGW, interview by RSB, Jan. 4, 1926, RSBP, box 124; Franklin K. Lane memorandum, Nov. 1, 1918, PWW, vol. 51. On party machinations leading up to the appeal, see Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned.

  50. On the campaign and salient issues, see Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned.

  51. For an analysis of the results, see Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned.

  52. For contemporary analyses that stress Republican use of patriotic appeals, particularly in the West, see memorandum enclosed with Homer Cummings to WW, Nov. 7, 1918, PWW, vol. 49, and George Creel to WW, Nov. 8, 1918, PWW, vol. 49.

  53. TR to Arthur James Balfour, Dec. 15, 1918, TR, Letters, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 8, The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954).

  54. TR to Balfour, Dec. 15, 1918, TR, Letters, vol. 8; HCL to Balfour, Nov. 25, 1918, HCLP. For Lodge’s visits to the embassies, see Colville Barclay to Balfour, Nov. 21, 1918, Arthur James Balfour Papers, British Museum. These contacts are also covered in Fowler, British-American Relations.

  55. Homer Cummings memorandum, Nov. 8 or 9, 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  56. WW to EMH, [Oct. 30, 1918], PWW, vol. 51.

  57. EMH to WW, [Oct. 31], 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  58. WW to EMH, [Oct. 30, 1918], PWW, vol. 51; Harold Nicolson, Peacemaking, 1919 (London, 1933). Frank Cobb and Walter Lippmann’s memorand
um is in EMH to WW, Oct. 29, 1918, PWW, vol. 51.

  59. On the final negotiations, see Harry R. Rudin, Armistice, 1918 (New Haven, Conn., 1944).

  60. Memoir; WW statement, [ca. Nov. 11, 1918], PWW, vol. 53; EMH to WW, [Nov. 11, 1918], PWW, vol. 53; David Lloyd George, Parliamentary

  61. Debates, H.C. Deb., 110, 2463 (Nov. 11, 1918). Lloyd George appears to have taken the phrase from the title of a book by H. G. Wells: The War That Will End War (London, 1914). 61. WW address, Nov. 11, 1918, PWW, vol. 53. For a description of the scene in the House chamber, see Henry F. Ashurst diary, entry for Nov. 11, 1918, PWW, vol. 51

  20 COVENANT

  1. CTGD, entry for Dec. 28, 1918, PWW, vol. 53; WW remarks, Dec. 29, 1918, PWW, vol. 53.

  2. EMH to WW, Nov. 14, 1918, PWW, vol. 53; WW to EMH, Nov. 16, 1918, PWW, vol. 53; EMHD, entry for Dec. 3, 1918, and EMH, “Memories,” ca. 1928, EMH Papers, Yale University Library.

  3. RL memorandum, “Will the President Go to the Peace Congress?” Nov. 12, 1918, PWW, vol. 53; Key Pittman to WW, Nov. 15, 1918, PWW, vol. 53. The editors of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson raise doubts about whether Lansing did confront Wilson the way he said he did. See PWW, vol. 53, n. 1.

  4. William Emmanuel Rappard memorandum of conversation with WW, [Nov. 20, 1918], PWW, vol. 53.

  5. One appealing choice might have been the second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Porter J. McCumber of North Dakota, who would be his party’s strongest advocate of League membership in the Senate. This possibility is discussed in John Milton Cooper, Jr., Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York, 2001).

  6. Thomas Gregory, interviews by RSB, Mar. 14–15, 1927, RSBP, box 109.

  7. HCL to James Bryce, Dec. 14, 1918, HCLP; WW to Richard Hooker, Nov. 29, 1918, PWW, vol. 53; WW to Frank Morrison, Nov. 22, 1918, PWW, vol. 53.

  8. For a discussion of this failure of bipartisanship, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart of the World. FDR’s first major bipartisan overture—appointing Henry Stimson secretary of war and Frank Knox secretary of the navy—did not result in any appreciable rise in Republican support for his foreign policies. Such support came only after Pearl Harbor, when the Republicans felt badly burned by their earlier support for isolationism.