Wilson

by A. Scott Berg

  Before leaving Washington, Bryan told Wilson not to give another thought to the Joline letter. He knew the gibe had not been personal, simply a disagreement over policy. “All I can say, Mr. Bryan,” Wilson told him, “is that you are a great, big man.” The Democratic National Committee met, and thirty-two of the fifty-two members declared themselves Wilson supporters.

  For years, Colonel Harvey had been carrying the torch for Woodrow Wilson, but now that flame dimmed. Although he was an ardent Democrat, his business interests were strongly tied to Wall Street. With Wilson listing to the left, Harvey and his cohort had second thoughts about the candidate they had tapped. Financial heavyweights—including J. P. Morgan himself, who had not forgotten Wilson’s stinging public rebuke of bankers right in front of his nose—leaned on Harvey, assuring him that any amount of money would always be available to fight Wilson.

  Wilson, Harvey, and Marse Watterson met in New York to discuss the situation. Exiting the dining room of the Manhattan Club, Harvey linked arms with Wilson and said, “Governor, there is a question I want to ask you, to which I want your very frank answer.” It was whether he found the support of his Harper’s Weekly in any way embarrassing. Wilson said, “I very much wish you would not ask me that question, because the answer to it embarrasses me severely. Some of my friends have told me that the support of Harper’s Weekly is not doing me any good in the West, but I am very sorry you compel me to tell you this.” Harvey said he had feared such a response, and that “we shall have to soft pedal.” Watterson said that he would “sing low” himself. And with that, the banner that had long graced the editorial page of Harper’s Weekly—“For President, Woodrow Wilson”—quietly disappeared.

  Fearing his boss might have created a formidable enemy, Tumulty urged Wilson to send a letter to Harvey. Wilson complied, writing: “Every day I am confirmed in the judgment that my mind is a one-track road and can run only one train of thought at a time!” He explained that in responding that night to a simple matter of fact, he had failed to express “a word of sincere gratitude to you for all your generous support, or of my hope that it might be continued.” He apologized.

  Replying in an equally matter-of-fact tone, Harvey said the only thing possible for him to do “in simple fairness to you, no less than in consideration of my own self-respect, was to release you of your embarrassment so far as it lay within my power to do so, by ceasing to advocate your nomination.” He maintained that Wilson’s gracious words had compensated for whatever small hurt he may have felt. Wilson realized the damage he had done and hoped a second letter of apology might make amends. He reextended his gratitude for Harvey’s generous support and reexpressed his admiration of his “unhesitating courage and individuality.” Although the men remained cordial with each other, their relationship never recovered. Harvey publicly shifted his support to Champ Clark.

  Stockton Axson considered the Harvey maneuver “as deliberate a frameup as was ever concocted”—politics, plain and simple. Like Boss Smith, Harvey and his friends realized that Wilson was beyond their control, and they did not like the direction in which he was headed. He was not going to serve their interests; and so, after having planted the seed, they wanted to nip this candidacy in the bud. The editorial pages of nonprogressive newspapers across the country became a Greek chorus issuing fatalistic prophecies of what would happen should Wilson’s standing improve. Curiously, this new Harvey offensive backfired, as Wilson proved once more that he was beholden to nobody.

  A few special benefactors—such as Cleveland Dodge and Edward Filene of Boston, and Henry Morgenthau, a dynamic attorney and real estate investor in New York, where he was a leader in the Reform Jewish community—saw to it that Wilson’s campaign was always funded; and as the committee opened offices across the country, it constantly sought new supporters. In October 1911, McCombs had asked McAdoo to accompany him in calling upon a wealthy Texan in Manhattan, a man who could provide a lot more than money.

  Edward Mandell House was born in Houston in 1858, the youngest of seven sons. His father, Thomas William House, had emigrated from England and arrived in Texas when he and the territory were young enough for boundless dreams. T. W. House became one of the richest men in the state, amassing more than a quarter-million dollars and almost as many acres of land. Growing up in Houston and Galveston and parked in London while his parents toured the Continent, Edward inherited none of his father’s drive to succeed. When T. W. died, Edward benefited instead from a small fortune, which permitted him to drop out of Cornell. He lived as a gentleman for the rest of his life, dabbling in business and in raising cattle and cotton. Untrained for any profession, House indulged in his one passion—politics. He read widely on the subject and got to know all the players in Texas. Between 1892 and 1902, he managed the campaigns of four Texans who became Governors and whom he subsequently advised in office. One of them, James S. Hogg, bestowed upon him the honorary title by which he would be addressed for the rest of his life.

  “He has the entire state of Texas in his vest pocket,” McCombs told McAdoo on their way to “Colonel” House’s apartment at the Hotel Gotham on Fifth Avenue, where he lived much of the year. While his clout had been exaggerated, House did have friends in high places, and he was always looking higher. Ironically, his apparent lack of drive proved to be his greatest asset. As a result, as one longtime friend would say, House’s interest in the business of politics was “unselfish.”

  People called him a kingmaker, but the Colonel’s appearance suggested no powerhouse. Short and bald, with a weak chin and gentle blue eyes, House had suffered as a child from a bad fall, severely bruising his head, and from a bout of malaria. Maladies persisted, and hypochondria recurred when they did not. He appeared fragile, and he engaged in no strenuous activity; he had an aversion to the heat, which kept him from Texas for much of the time, especially in the summer; and he avoided the glare of publicity. He had money in his pockets and time on his hands.

  House impressed McAdoo and McCombs, though he was not ready to commit to Wilson. A meeting at the Gotham of the two principals on November 24, 1911, changed that. “The first hour we spent together proved to each of us that there was a sound basis for a fast friendship,” House wrote in his diary. Each of their first memories was of life in the South during the Civil War, and they shared a distaste for Reconstruction and the carpetbaggers’ mockery of government. “We found ourselves in such complete sympathy, in so many ways,” House said, “that we soon learned to know what each was thinking without either having expressed himself.”

  Shortly after their meeting, House returned to his sprawling Shingle Style home in Austin, where he came down with one of his fevers. While recuperating, he wrote a novella—a peculiar work with fifty-three chapters of one or two pages each—in which he aired many of his economic and political theories. Philip Dru: Administrator tells of a futuristic dystopia—the United States of America in the year 1920, when the eponymous hero leads forces from the democratic West against the plutocratic East, resulting in Dru’s reforming the nation. “Wealth had grown so strong, that the few were about to strangle the many,” it begins. House devoted two of the closing chapters to the constitutions Philip Dru drafted for the states and the nation, devising in great detail a government more like Britain’s parliamentary system. Anglophile Woodrow Wilson, who had been writing constitutions since boyhood, had met his alter ego.

  Once he was on his feet, Colonel House joined Wilson’s ranks, becoming a cohesive element. He linked a strong contingent of Texas supporters, which included state legislator Thomas B. Love, attorney Thomas W. Gregory, and Congressman Albert S. Burleson; he became a mediator between McAdoo and the increasingly volatile McCombs; and having maintained a personal relationship with William Jennings Bryan for more than ten years, he began to insinuate Wilson’s name into their conversations. In short order, House and Wilson were exchanging confidences. When House asked him one day if he realize
d how short a time they had known one another, the latter replied, “My dear friend, we have known one another always.” Within a year, Wilson would tell others, “House is my second personality. . . . If anyone thinks he is reflecting my opinion by whatever action he takes, they are welcome to the conclusion.”

  Although 1912 promised to keep him on the road even more than 1911, Wilson knew the family could no longer call four rooms at the Princeton Inn home. The purchase of a house was beyond their reach, especially with the future so uncertain; and even renting a house was a financial stretch. When longtime family friends from New Orleans—a pair of spinster sisters—spoke of a long visit north, Nell suggested they all share a rental. She found a charming and affordable furnished house at 25 Cleveland Lane in Princeton, practically around the corner from the Wilsons’ former house on Library Place. It had been built by an artist and included a well-lighted large studio in which Ellen could paint and a pleasant garden. The house’s only drawback was that it sat next door to his “betrayer,” Jack Hibben.

  Governor Wilson continued to commute twenty miles each day to his office in Trenton and back; and as the ex officio president of the Princeton Board of Trustees, he appeared for the occasional ceremony on campus, though he steered clear of university business. So it came as something of a shock to him in January 1912 when, as he wrote Mrs. Peck, “the worst has happened at the University: Hibben has been elected President!” The Committee on the Inauguration naturally invited Wilson not only to attend his induction but to make the welcoming address. Wilson declined, falsely claiming a prior commitment. He felt a pang of cowardice for going into New York City the night before his actual obligation, but he explained to Mrs. Peck: “To be present and silent would be deeply hypocritical: to go and speak my real thoughts and judgments would be to break up the meeting and create a national scandal.” Wilson sent no congratulations, and the installation proceeded without even the mention of his name. And Princeton settled into an era of quiet conservatism.

  Only months after Wilson’s first-year legislative victories, the State Assembly changed hands, putting the Republicans in charge of both houses. When Wilson opened the new session of the legislature by asking the lawmakers to consider a number of questions of “efficiency and economy,” he realized the legislature had developed a mind of its own. Wilson vetoed more than forty bills in one swoop, which enraged the Republicans. Even so, Wilson was able to enact laws effecting standards for milk and food, creating city planning commissions, reforming child labor practices, establishing free dental clinics, forming a commission on immigration, reorganizing the State Board of Education, and limiting the employment of women to sixty hours a week (which was the first law relating to women wage earners ever passed in New Jersey). He also appointed the first Jew to the state’s Supreme Court. Extreme partisanship contributed to more gridlock than Wilson would have liked, but so did Wilson’s absenteeism, as he visited more than fifteen states in the first half of the year. Boss Smith tried to fill the vacuum by doing everything possible to undo Wilson’s reforms and reassert his own power. His camp hoped to send New Jersey delegates to the national nominating convention with instructions to vote for “Anybody but Wilson.”

  For the first time, several states would be selecting delegates to the Democratic Convention through primaries. Because Wilson’s team of novices would be challenging veteran candidates’ political machines, it had to select its battles carefully—a strategy that paid off, at first. Wilson forwent running in Missouri and Alabama, where favorite sons Champ Clark and Oscar Underwood won, respectively, and he found early but limited momentum in the West—Utah, the Dakotas, and Montana. Then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. Despite enthusiastic receptions wherever he spoke, to say nothing of his and Ellen’s strong ties to Georgia, that state went to Underwood. Maryland and Massachusetts turned out for Champ Clark, as did Nebraska and California. Illinois, where Wilson campaigned heavily and Clark did not even appear, went for Clark by a margin of almost 3 to 1. Coffers emptied and spirits sagged; even McCombs told his candidate that the unpredictable tide was turning against them. There was no clear front-runner, and Colonel House felt Wilson’s only hope was the party’s fear of turning once again to Bryan or worse—Clark, who had the backing of newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. In the meantime, several states kept Wilson’s hopes alive. Pennsylvania supported him, and Ohio split its delegation between him and its Governor, Judson Harmon. Progressive Wisconsin, Kansas, and Senator Gore’s Oklahoma all pulled through for Wilson as well. Texas, with its unconventional procedure for determining delegates—combining a primary with caucuses—two-stepped into Wilson’s column; and New Jersey, despite Boss Smith’s efforts, went for its favorite son. Not since 1860—when slavery divided them, and their delegates deadlocked after fifty-seven ballots—had the Democratic Party been so undecided about its leadership.

  Adding to the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming convention in Baltimore was that it still operated under a “two-thirds rule,” a device meant to provide the power of unity to the emergent nominee by insisting upon a supermajority—729 votes. Political scientist Woodrow Wilson felt the rule was “a most un-Democratic regulation”; but, ironically, it might just allow him to survive and possibly succeed at a brokered convention. A tally in early June showed Clark leading with 436 pledged delegates to Wilson’s 248; Underwood followed with 84, and several other Governors could count on their delegations. Political machines controlled an estimated 224 unpledged delegates across the country, which presumably backed Clark. McCombs urged making peace with Tammany Hall, not only to gain New York’s 90 votes but to show the necessary force to attract others. Indeed, it was Tammany Hall’s intention to make one of its favorites, Alton B. Parker, the convention’s temporary chairman.

  Before the gathering of the delegates, Wilson retreated with his family to Sea Girt. As practical as he was self-protective, Wilson distanced himself by looking upon the “political game” as if he were not even a player. “Just between you and me,” he wrote Mrs. Peck on June 9, 1912, “I have not the least idea of being nominated, because the make of the convention is such, the balance and confusion of forces, that the outcome is in the hands of the professional, case-hardened politicians who serve only their own interests and who know that I will not serve them except as I might serve the party in general. . . . I have no deep stakes involved in this game.”

  William Jennings Bryan did. If he was not to be the nominee (a possibility he had not ruled out), he intended to see the party continue down the Progressive path he had blazed, which Parker would obstruct. While attending the Republican Convention in Chicago as a member of the press—and seeing that party torn asunder as it renominated incumbent President Taft instead of responding to the insurgent wing of the party behind ex-President Roosevelt—Bryan wired the Democrats’ four leading contenders, asking each to take a stand on the matter of naming a reactionary such as Parker to chair their convention. It was a shrewd political move on Bryan’s part, one that would smoke out each man’s vision of the party’s future. Conservatives Underwood and Harmon supported Parker, and Clark evaded taking a position. McCombs, heading toward a nervous breakdown, pleaded with Wilson to take the middle ground, as Clark had done—to be respectful of Bryan but in a way that would not offend Tammany Hall. Wilson went to his bedroom at Sea Girt and sought the counsel of his wife.

  “There must be no hedging,” Ellen said; and Woodrow smiled, for he had hoped that would be her response. “YOU ARE QUITE RIGHT,” he wired Bryan in response, unequivocally stating that Baltimore was to be “a convention of progressives,” and that, like Bryan, his campaign was “in the interest of the people’s cause.” Upon reading Wilson’s response, McCombs wept hysterically. McAdoo was convinced Wilson had made the right move. Bryan lost in his bid to keep the gavel out of Parker’s hands, but Wilson succeeded in emerging as the only Progressive in the race. In Sea Girt, tents sprouted on the Governor’s law
n, a camp for reporters, photographers, and telegraphers. A special telephone line ran from McCombs’s office in the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore to the house—one extension in the master bedroom, the other in a closet under the stairs.

  Although few ever know—and even fewer remember—more than a few planks in a political platform, the Democrats of 1912 proposed three dozen issues on which they took stands, all moderately Progressive without appearing radical. Their major issue was a call for the immediate lowering of the “high Republican tariff,” which they called “the principal cause of the unequal distribution of wealth.” (Every operative of the party could read in his election handbook of how a simple graduation dress made from cloth in the United States cost more to purchase at home than in England, because Republican Senator Henry Lippitt of Rhode Island had insinuated into the current law a heavy tariff for imported cloth, forcing people to buy grossly marked-up American textiles, many of which came from mills owned by Senator Lippitt.) The Democrats pledged further: to toughen anti-trust laws; to support the ratification of two recent constitutional amendments—providing for an income tax and the popular election of Senators; to endorse the recent movement to publicize contributions to Presidential elections; to promote through legislation in each state a primary to select Presidential candidates; to enact a law prohibiting any corporation from contributing to a campaign fund and limiting personal campaign contributions; to reform banking laws to counteract “the present methods of depositing government funds in a few favored banks largely situated in or controlled by Wall Street, in return for political favors”; to renounce “a policy of imperialism and colonial exploitation in the Philippines” and recognize the independence of the island nation; to protect labor, minors, civil servants, and the general public through a commitment to strengthen various governmental agencies relating to food and health. In perhaps the most forgotten item on the list, they advocated a single Presidential term.