Wilson

by A. Scott Berg

  Wilson considered Brandeis a more obvious choice to serve as Attorney General, but giving him that even more sensitive position would have created an even greater outcry. Wilson hoped to enlist Pennsylvania Congressman A. Mitchell Palmer, who had been an ardent supporter at the Baltimore convention. Further study, however, revealed that Palmer had been involved with a few clients with tenuous ties to trusts. And so House lobbied for James C. McReynolds, an attorney who carried Progressive credentials. A Kentucky-born graduate of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee who had studied law in Charlottesville, McReynolds taught and then became an Assistant Attorney General in the Taft Administration. In that capacity, he prosecuted the government’s cases against the tobacco and the anthracite coal monopolies. House persisted, and Wilson relented, as both embraced McReynolds’s independent spirit. They did not yet realize that his outspokenness included a repugnant personality and name-calling racism.

  Still hoping to include Palmer in his Cabinet, Wilson offered him the War Department. Palmer seriously considered the honor up until a week before the inauguration, when he declined. As he explained in a letter to Wilson: “I am a Quaker. Many generations of my people have borne strong testimony against ‘war and the preparations for war.’ Of course, as a Representative in Congress, I vote for the great supply bills to maintain the military establishment . . . but I do this in response to the sentiment and opinion of a vast majority of the people whom I represent. . . . As a Quaker War Secretary, I should consider myself a living illustration of a horrible incongruity.” The very thought of such an appointment revealed how little Wilson considered possible international conflagration. Palmer stood by his conscience and chose not to “sit down in cold blood in an executive position and use such talents as I possess to the work of preparing for such a conflict.” With only days remaining before Wilson took office, Tumulty urged him to name somebody from their home state. He suggested Lindley M. Garrison, who had been an attorney in Camden and Jersey City before he became a Vice-Chancellor of New Jersey. Wilson summoned him to Trenton the next day and on the spot offered Garrison the position, which he accepted.

  For six decades the Department of the Interior had been the grab bag of the executive branch, looking after Indian affairs, patents, and the District of Columbia jails, among many concerns. Theodore Roosevelt had elevated its stature and deepened its purpose with his drive to protect America’s wealth of natural resources, as water, oil, coal, and lumber had become lucrative enterprises. Taft had alienated TR, in fact, when he replaced his friend Gifford Pinchot, who headed the Division of Forestry, with a man more inclined toward private development than public use. There was no question where Wilson stood on the matter: “The raw materials obtainable in this country for every kind of manufacture and industry must be at the disposal of everybody in the United States upon the same terms.” Thus, he considered several top Progressives for the Cabinet post, including Franklin K. Lane, a California Democrat who was then chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, having been appointed by Roosevelt.

  Lane thought himself unworthy of the position; and when Colonel House sounded him out, he recommended another man. Beyond the self-effacement of Lane’s letter, Wilson was impressed with his understanding of the job requirements. When his first choice, Mayor Newton D. Baker of Cleveland—a former student of Wilson’s at Johns Hopkins and currently a reform Mayor only one year into his position—declined the nomination, Wilson nominated Lane, just four days before the inauguration.

  “I must have the best men in the nation,” Wilson had written Walter Hines Page at the start of the appointment process, when he had imagined only the most qualified would answer his calls to service. But as McAdoo would later write, “The judging of men is difficult at its best. When it happens to be entangled in a web of extraneous political considerations, it becomes frequently a matter of luck.” Page pronounced the Cabinet “distinctly mediocre.” In the end, Colonel House said only, “I think, in all the circumstances, we have done well.”

  Unlike modern Presidential cabinets, which portray as many facets of America as possible, the Wilson Cabinet of 1913 was a ten-way mirror, each panel of which reflected a different aspect of the man at the center. This was mostly a team of Rebels—lawyers from the South who had pursued other professions and never shed their Confederate biases, Anglo-Saxon Protestants all, mostly newcomers to Washington, if not politics altogether. Within the Wilson Cabinet, there would be much discussion but little debate. For the most part, the President would delegate power to his Secretaries (all younger than he) to run their own departments, as he seldom found reason to countermand any of them. Every decision from this administration, noted one close observer, would contain a moral component, inspired by “the breath of God.”

  For the position of secretary to the President himself—a combination of political adviser and chief of staff—Wilson considered nobody but Tumulty. Although his experience was limited and he had seen little of the world beyond New Jersey, he had ably and loyally served Governor Wilson, keeping the Trenton office running smoothly during the months of transition. Many Democrats challenged Tumulty’s understanding of national politics; and hundreds tried to block him from office because of his Catholicism. One letter asked Wilson if he was willing to have “the secrets of the White House relayed to Rome.” But Wilson discarded the letter, saying only, “Asinine.” In truth, Wilson trusted nobody’s understanding of hand-to-hand politics more than Tumulty’s. As he always remained behind the scenes, not even Wilson himself knew all that Tumulty did for him in the way of public relations and political maneuvering.

  Among these appointments, two men remained conspicuously absent. The first was Colonel House, whom Wilson invited to join his “official family.” Beyond the compliment of the offer, House never considered it. “I very much prefer being a free lance, and to advise with him regarding matters in general,” House told his diary. He had no inclination to hold office, preferring “to have a roving commission to serve wherever and whenever possible.” House created a niche for himself, with as much influence and as little responsibility as he desired. “Had I gone into the Cabinet,” he admitted, “I could not have lasted eight weeks.” In no time, anyone seeking Woodrow Wilson’s attention realized that Colonel House provided the most direct access.

  The second missing person was the most covetous of all the office seekers. After months of consideration, campaign manager William McCombs remained on Wilson’s mind but never on a list. Wilson praised McCombs’s intelligence but felt “he is never satisfied unless he plays the stellar role.” Where Lincoln thrived on a gadfly such as William Seward in his Cabinet, Wilson said he feared McCombs could not “work in harness with the other men and that I should never get any real team work from him.” More to the point, Wilson simply did not like him and resented even having to spend time with him. After McCombs had accompanied the Wilsons to Staunton, during which time the two men had been alone together for more than an hour, Woodrow told Ellen he felt as if he had been “sucked by a vampire and had been left weak and ill.”

  When McCombs realized that Wilson favored McAdoo over him for Secretary of the Treasury, he bid to become Attorney General. Wilson’s displeasure with the man turned into distaste. He asked McCombs why he suddenly preferred that position, and McCombs said that since he was a lawyer, the appointment would help him enormously when his term of office expired. “What a surprising statement for any man to make!” Wilson exclaimed to his secretary. “Why, Tumulty, many of the scandals of previous administrations have come about in this way, Cabinet officers using their posts to advance their own personal fortunes. It must not be done in our administration. It would constitute a grave scandal to appoint such a man to so high an office.”

  Many would later denounce Wilson for failing to reward McCombs with any spoils of victory. Unfortunately, he became his own worst enemy. His petty jealousies and grand insecurities became rampant, as did his co
nsumption of alcohol—a bottle of whiskey a day, said Tumulty. And Wilson did remain loyal, offering him the ambassadorship to France. McCombs considered the posting for several months, vacillating daily—even after refusing it. Money was the mitigating factor, as Ambassadors had long been expected to foot the entertainment bills for their embassies, which excluded all but the rich from serving as diplomats in the major capitals. Wilson kept the position open for another year, allowing McCombs to change his mind once more, but he never did.

  In his last Annual Message, President George Washington had urged the Congress of 1796 to compensate governmental officers sufficiently, suggesting that “it would be repugnant to the vital principles of our government virtually to exclude from public trusts talents and virtue unless accompanied by wealth.” Wilson’s overseas appointments reflected the dilemma at hand. He felt uncomfortable turning these positions into political rewards, but because the United States was at peace with the rest of the world and because there were so many envoys to name, he succumbed to repaying several men who were “conspicuous for [their] money.” He had hoped to send his friend and former colleague Henry Fine to Germany; but even with the promise of a private stipend from Cleveland Dodge, Fine believed life in the foreign court would strain his financial means. Wilson settled on James W. Gerard, a New York State Justice and onetime Tammany candidate, in part because Gerard had wealth and powerful friends in his influential home state. William Graves Sharp, a Congressman from Ohio whom Wilson sent to France, was a man of more modest means, as was Walter Hines Page, his newspaper friend, whom he named as Ambassador to Great Britain (after two others refused). Another writer, Thomas Nelson Page (no relation), came from an old Virginia family and became famous for his romantic evocations of the antebellum South before Wilson posted him to Rome. Frederic Courtland Penfield, a Wilson supporter with time and money, would spend the next several years in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Henry van Dyke, from the Princeton faculty, agreed to serve in the Hague; and Henry Morgenthau accepted the ambassadorship to the Ottoman Empire, which then included the Holy Land, where Wilson thought a Jew might provide the necessary balance between the Muslim and Christian populations. While Wilson’s diplomatic corps was a diversified group, it lacked the academic heft he had once envisioned; few were expert in their territories, though such proficiency hardly seemed a prerequisite for any of the jobs during that international lull.

  While most of Wilson’s supplicants pressed for jobs, some pressured for a cause. Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, went to Trenton expecting a ten-minute conference. Wilson gave the Jewish former cigar maker an hour and a half, during which time Gompers called for more protection of labor in upcoming anti-trust legislation. The appointment of William B. Wilson, a “labor man,” pleased him.

  Then came advocates of the Negro cause. In the final moments of the campaign, Wilson had sent an open letter to civil rights leader Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, assuring “my colored fellow citizens of my earnest wish to see justice done them in every matter, and not mere grudging justice, but justice executed with liberality and cordial good feeling.” He said, “They may count upon me for absolute fair dealing and for everything by which I could assist in advancing the interests of their race in the United States.” Since the election, rumblings from the South especially suggested that what little progress Negroes had made would be rolled back. Hoping that was not the case, Walters reminded Wilson that the Negro vote numbered 750,000, scattered among several large states; more important were the “moral, religious and industrial uplift of my people.” Giles B. Jackson, an African American lawyer who had organized the National Negro Wilson League, hoped Wilson might even refer to the “Negro Question” in his forthcoming inaugural address.

  Wilson’s pre-inaugural rhetoric suggested that he was grappling with the issue and preparing to stand up to America’s sectionalism. At the Mary Baldwin Seminary he had spoken of Jefferson’s efforts to “divest his mind of the prejudices of race and locality and speak for those permanent issues of human liberty which are the only things that render human life upon this globe itself immoral.” To the businessmen of Chicago, he made an odd argument for fighting monopoly, saying, “We are of the same race, that splendid mixed race into which has been drawn all the riches of a hundred bloods. And now, as a united people we are going to redeem the ancient pledges of America.” When Mrs. Oscar Underwood invited the Wilsons to attend the Southern Democratic League ball in early March, Wilson declined, explaining to the Speaker himself, “While I myself am deeply glad to be a Southern man and to have the South feel a sense of possession in me, we shall have to be careful not to make the impression that the South is seeking to keep the front of the stage and take possession of the administration.”

  New thoughts were bound to collide with old ideas. Wilson’s major campaign promises involved reforming the country’s financial structure. He was already communicating regularly with Congressman Carter Glass—who represented Staunton, Virginia. Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, Glass was also a staunch proponent of poll taxes and literacy tests for Negroes. They were also discussing a measure that would divide the country into financial zones, each of which would have a federal bank that issued currency, instead of requiring creditors to borrow from a single central bank. Even with “the full power of the administration,” Glass warned, enacting legislation in this area would be difficult. Discussion of increased rights for African Americans could only make it more so. As Wilson drafted his inaugural address, he would refer to equality and justice in America, but as a matter of the economy, not ethnicity.

  Among all the radical changes that faced the nation, Wilson had to uproot his family. For almost a quarter of a century, his home had been Princeton—“where we have enjoyed and suffered so much.” Frankly, he admitted to Mary Hulbert, “we dread the change,—not so much the new duties as the novel circumstances in which they must be performed.” And yet, for all the anxiety, his neuritis and his headaches had quieted since he left academia for politics. His digestion remained delicate, but he was enjoying his longest stretch of good health in years.

  At the start of 1913, Wilson wrote the sitting President about domestic matters at the White House, and Taft took the liberty of replying to Mrs. Wilson. He recommended retaining Mrs. Elizabeth Jaffray, a widow of great efficiency and initiative, in her position as housekeeper in the White House, and Arthur Brooks, the official custodian and valet. Taft called him “the most trustworthy colored man in the District of Columbia” and praised his efficiency in recording every delivery to the Executive Mansion and in preparing for trips and entertainments. Taft wrote Wilson himself that Congress would be willing to spend $5,000 to refurbish a number of bedrooms on the third floor to accommodate guests; and he offered to recommend to the Appropriations Committee a small provision so that the President could have a military aide at his disposal. Beyond that, he informed his successor, “Your laundry is looked after in the White House, both when you are here and when you are away. Altogether, you can calculate that your expenses are only those of furnishing food to a large boarding house of servants and to your family, and your own personal expenses of clothing, etc.” With the Presidential salary of $75,000 per annum, and another $25,000 for traveling expenses, the Tafts had been able to save $100,000 during their four years.

  To assist further, Ellen Wilson hired a social secretary—a “cave dweller,” as the locals referred to the city’s permanent residents—named Belle Hagner. Nell Wilson fretted because she was known to be a friend of the Roosevelts; and so Ellen invited their favorite cousin, Helen Bones, to live with them as well, to serve as a personal secretary.

  While organizing her move, Ellen disappeared to New York one day on a mysterious errand. That night she handed each of her daughters an “inauguration present”—pearl necklaces for Jessie and Margaret and a bar
pin set with small diamonds for Nell. They were the first pieces of jewelry any of them had ever owned. As it had not even occurred to Ellen to get something for herself, Woodrow presented her the next day with a diamond pendant. Ever after the family called it the “crown jewel.” Because of all the relocation expenses (on top of this small indulgence) before his new salary kicked in, Wilson secured a $5,000 bank loan, the most he had ever borrowed in his life. “He hated to do it,” Nell remarked, “but we could not have made the move to Washington without it.”

  Bidding New Jersey farewell, the Governor attended a series of meetings and meals with the legislators who had been his allies in reforming the state, what he called the New Jersey “surprise.” In an after-dinner talk to the Senators gathered in Atlantic City, he recalled the night he had led them in a cakewalk, which was the first time they had realized “that my long, solemn face was not a real index to my countenance, and that I was . . . a human being.” On this occasion Wilson led the twenty-one Senators along the boardwalk for a two-mile midnight stroll in the brisk winter air. He resigned from office on March 1, 1913, and, upon handing the seal of office to his successor, he said, “The rarest thing in public life is courage, and the man who has courage is marked for distinction; the man who has not is marked for extinction, and deserves submersion.”