With his departure drawing near, Wilson conferred with Colonel House about his role during this absence. House said he had four objectives—reducing Germany’s military forces to their peacetime footing, delineating Germany’s boundaries, reckoning Germany’s reparation bill, and determining how Germany should be treated economically. He told the President he thought he could “button up everything” during the four weeks the President would be away. Wilson looked startled, even alarmed, knowing how long drafting the Covenant had taken—and those talks had begun with a general consensus. Wilson now perceived a change within House, an increasing sense of empowerment over the last few weeks, one that seemed to grow as Wilson’s embarkation approached. House hastily added that he did not intend to settle all these matters, merely to “have them ready” for Wilson’s return. House asked the President to bear in mind that “it was sometimes necessary to compromise in order to get things through. Not a compromise of principle, but a compromise of detail.” He reminded Wilson of his own compromises since their meetings began. “I did not wish him to leave expecting the impossible in all things,” House wrote in his diary. In fact, Wilson never expected House to broker any deals in his absence, nor did he desire it.
Turning to domestic politics, House suggested that the President sail not to New York or even Virginia, as planned, but to Boston. He thought it would prove beneficial if the Europeans could see Wilson receive an enthusiastic homecoming after his two months away and that he could expect that from New England, which he had seldom visited. With legislators already preparing for battle, it would also allow him to plant his flag in the home state of his archrival, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. House further proposed a dinner at the White House for the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees as soon as was practicable. Wilson thought an address to Congress would provide an adequate platform from which to describe his peace efforts. But House convinced him that it would deprive the essential legislators of a chance for “discussion, consultation, or explanation.” Wilson agreed.
As this meeting in Paris was the biggest story of the century, the press questioned its access to the proceedings, always expecting more from the man who demanded open covenants of peace, openly arrived at. Wilson believed in the transparency of their business, but he also understood the fragility of the situation—dozens of nations, often with conflicting desires. The fate of the League of Nations was too delicate to leave to journalists to misrepresent. More than impractical, allowing newspapermen to sit in on intimate discussions among the Council of Ten or the Big Four seemed impertinent. Befriending the press might have helped his cause, especially in having to proselytize to a skeptical Senate and an agnostic public; but Wilson never believed journalistic access could guarantee greater support. He wanted to offer the public a fully realized plan rather than some half-baked ideas. He fretted over leaks in the press and European portrayals of him as a dreamer with little practical sense.
Within days of Wilson’s arrival in Paris, George Creel had recommended a daily press conference, a concept to which Wilson subscribed. Immediate demands, however, made it clear that the President would rarely have time for such an exercise, and the constantly changing situation would make it impossible to talk “with any degree of certainty” until things were in writing and approved. And so, even before formal talks had begun, Wilson had invited Ray Stannard Baker to join the Peace Commission as its press representative, an intermediary between the Commission and the other journalists. Ironically, this lack of direct access to the President forced the newspapermen to rely on less reliable outsiders—representatives of smaller countries or low-level diplomats who did not know the entire picture. Major players realized they could control stories through the very leaks Wilson feared.
“It is highly important that the right news be given out,” Wilson had said, at a time when the volatility of the talks fueled rumors on a daily basis. He had asked Baker to visit him every night at seven o’clock, at which time he would recap that day’s events, suggesting that any completed business be furnished to the press but that pending matters be omitted. Edith Wilson said that she could set her watch to the nightly arrival of Baker, who never missed an appointment, though he sometimes had to wait more than an hour if the President was detained. She sat in on the briefings so that she could be fully apprised of the work of the Conference without her husband’s having to repeat himself.
On February 14, 1919, the President awakened to what would be the most momentous day of the Conference thus far. As he would be leaving for home that night, he made a point of providing an hour-long interview with almost twenty American correspondents, his first press conference since arriving in Europe. As House observed, he addressed them “in the pleasantest and frankest way.” He expressed his regret that he had not been able to converse with them daily, adding, with a laugh, that “every one else had had his ear.” And though his own schedule in the last few weeks had been filled with League activity, he gravely emphasized that “the most tremendous issue in the world to-day concerns the economic situation.” Everything else, he said, could wait until the wheels of industry were again in motion. “You can’t talk government with a hungry people,” held the President. That said, he diplomatically added that all the participating nations wanted to reassure France that “what she has just gone through never will occur again.” While the weeks of talks had been full of tension, Wilson confessed that he learned how to take advantage of long speeches by stealing catnaps, knowing he could awaken in time to hear the translations. Colonel House marveled at Wilson’s performance before the press. “It is to be remembered that he did not want to see them,” House told his diary, “and yet when he got to talking, he was so enthused with what he had to say that it looked as if he would never stop.”
As much as anybody, Edith Wilson knew that Colonel House had been of “inestimable help” to her husband, and she liked him personally; but she could not help voicing a long-held suspicion that spoke to the root of his character: House almost never disagreed with her husband. “It seems to me that it is impossible for two persons always to think alike,” she told Woodrow. “I find him absolutely colourless and a ‘yes, yes’ man.” As in the past, Wilson defended him; but it was not the first time Edith had cast a baleful eye on her husband’s most trusted adviser.
Even though she knew the meetings in Paris permitted participants only, Edith had set her heart on attending that Valentine’s Day session of the Conference at which her husband was to submit the report of the League of Nations Commission. It was nothing less than the Covenant for the League, for which he had garnered the unanimous approval of the fourteen nations on his committee. Knowing that her husband reflexively resisted asking for favors, Edith disclosed her desire to Dr. Grayson, who hoped to attend the session as well. He thought of approaching Clemenceau, who, he believed, would permit their attendance. Edith presented this plan to Woodrow, who said, “In the circumstances it is hardly a request, it is more a command, for he could not very well refuse you.” That suited Edith. “Wilful woman,” he said, “your sins be on your own head if the Tiger shows his claws.” And Edith replied, “Oh, he can’t, you know; they are always done up in grey cotton.”
Clemenceau did consent to Edith’s eavesdropping on the session—with conditions. At the far end of the grand salon, opposite the great clock, heavy red brocade curtains concealed a narrow alcove, which had space for two chairs. If she and Grayson agreed to remain concealed—so that the wives of other delegates would not pester him in the future—they could take their places before the diplomats arrived and remain until the last of them had exited. By peeking through the curtains, they could witness this moment of history.
At 3:30 that afternoon, Edith and Dr. Grayson were in their places, able to see President Wilson open the third plenary session. “I had arranged most of the program,” House wrote in his diary; but Woodrow Wilson had prepared all his life for this day. With only a few expository
detours, Wilson read out loud the Covenant for a new world order, while delegates followed along with their reading copies. The most eye-popping article remained the defensive alliance to which the United States and all the other signatories would be committed. This article allowed that certain cases might require the Executive Council “to recommend what effective military or naval force the members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.” The members would further pledge to “support one another in the financial and economic measures which are taken under this Article.” He insisted that this armed force would be used only as a last resort, “because this is intended as a constitution of peace, not as a league of war.”
“Your speech was as great as the occasion. I am very happy,” Colonel House jotted on a slip of paper, which he passed to the President. “Bless your heart,” Wilson replied. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” House would note the exchange in his journal entry for the day, writing that the President was unfailingly interesting when he spoke. But the Colonel, about to exercise his new authority with the delegation, could not help himself from adding, “The President . . . talks entirely too much.”
A number of speeches in approval of the Covenant filled the rest of the plenary session, after which Wilson ducked into a second press conference. The Covenant presentation behind him, Wilson relaxed and turned anecdotal. He told of one private conversation between him and Clemenceau, in which the old Tiger accused the President of having “a heart of steel.” Wilson disagreed, saying, “I have not the heart to steal.” Wilson prophesied that the difficult portion of the Conference lay ahead—upon his return from America—when they would approach the great territorial questions, many of which were snarled by secret treaties. For now, Wilson rejoiced that the concept of the League that had been adopted at the plenary session of January 25 had on this day received near unanimous approbation. The first phase of the Peace Conference had produced the tangible results the President had sought. Observed one junior member of the American Commission in his diary, “It seems impossible now that what Wilson has started out to do will not be done. . . . Today will be perhaps the greatest date in the history of the world. The birth of the brotherhood of man.”
Wilson attended one more conference on February 14, at the Quai d’Orsay. Under Lloyd George’s aegis, Britain’s new War Secretary, Winston Churchill, hoped to address the leaders on the subject of Russia before the President sailed for home. Clemenceau said the subject seemed too important for such a brief and unexpected meeting; but Wilson politely allowed that Churchill had made the effort to anticipate his departure, and so they should at least hear his concerns. Wilson insisted that they were all in need of more intelligence on the subject, which was why he had hoped the conference at Prinkipo might have come to fruition. “What we were seeking was not a rapprochement with the Bolsheviks,” Wilson said, “but clear information.” And if the Bolsheviks would not come to Prinkipo, Wilson was now thinking that emissaries should go to them.
In fact, he and House had discussed just such a plan raised by William Bullitt, a brilliant Yale-educated Philadelphian. Only twenty-eight years old, this member of the American delegation proposed his own mission to Moscow to meet with the Lenin government—not to negotiate but to investigate. As Wilson strongly felt “there should be no interference with internal affairs of Russia, but that the Allies would do everything possible . . . to help the Russian people from the outside,” he approved the plan. At best it might buy some time in which some of the diverse Russian factions might consolidate; at worst it could yield facts about the cryptic Lenin government. Accompanied by legendary muckraker Lincoln Steffens, who had turned Marxist, Bullitt left on this sub rosa operation.
Fearing that the Allies might cozy up to Lenin, Churchill had crossed the Channel to warn the Supreme War Council that a complete withdrawal of Allied troops from Russia would mean the destruction of all non-Bolshevik armies there. Without further military resistance to the Red Army, he insisted, an “interminable vista of violence and misery was all that remained for the whole of Russia.” Wilson said the existing forces of the Allies were not enough to stop the Bolsheviks, and the United States, for one, was not prepared to reinforce its troops. It was “certainly a cruel dilemma,” he added. The removal of Allied soldiers would result in Russian deaths; but, Wilson said, “they could not be maintained there forever and the consequence to the Russians would only be deferred.” With the George Washington awaiting his arrival in Brest, Wilson cast his lot with the group’s decision. With no intention of acceding to Churchill’s suggestions, Wilson did not understand why Lloyd George had even allowed him to appear in the first place.
That long day over at last, Edith Wilson blended into the crowd of diplomats and well-wishers among the fleet of motorcars, each with a flag flapping in the cool night breeze. She found her husband in the blue limousine with the Presidential seal. As she entered the car, he removed his top hat and leaned back. “Are you so weary?” she asked.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” he said, “but how little one man means when such vital things are at stake.” He elaborated, articulating the very essence of his mission. “This is our first real step forward, for I now realize, more than ever before, that once established the League can arbitrate and correct mistakes which are inevitable in the Treaty we are trying to make at this time,” he said. “The resentments and injustices caused by the War are still too poignant, and the wounds too fresh. They must have time to heal, and when they have done so, one by one the mistakes can be brought to the League for readjustment, and the League will act as a permanent clearinghouse where every nation can come, the small as well as the great.” He smiled at his wife and added, “It will be sweet to go home, even for a few days, with the feeling that I have kept the faith with the people, particularly with these boys, God bless them.” Edith let Woodrow savor the moment in silence the rest of the way to their residence, where soldiers stood at salute as they entered.
Colonel House accompanied them to the train station. Despite a heavy rain, a long crimson carpet lined with palms extended from the curb to where President Poincaré, Clemenceau and his entire cabinet, and numerous diplomats were waiting. Wilson bade House adieu, placing an arm around his shoulders and all his faith in House’s hands. In Wilson’s absence, Lansing would be the titular head of the American Commission, but House was entrusted to speak on the President’s behalf. Wilson knew that France, especially, would be eager to exploit his absence by rushing into place certain terms about the geographical boundaries of Germany and the inclusion of war costs in the reparations demands. Wilson said he was unwilling to allow anything beyond mechanical basics to be determined while he was gone. With so many matters involving “the fortunes and interests of many other people,” he said, “we should not be hurried into a solution arrived at solely from the French point of view.” As he plainly expressed to House, “I beg that you will hold things steady with regard to everything but the strictly naval and military terms until I return.”
At 10:30 the next morning, the Presidential train pulled up to the pier in Brest, where American soldiers and local French officials awaited. Wilson thanked the people of France and their government for treating him as a friend. At 11:15 the ship set sail, carrying a number of hitchhikers, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. The majority of the passengers were sick and wounded soldiers. The President himself was visibly fatigued from his two-month ordeal in Europe. Still, he brimmed with optimism, his spirits soaring as high as the dove bringing the olive leaf to Noah.
• • •
Stateside, Joseph Tumulty had kept the White House functioning and the President fully briefed. He also planned Wilson’s arrival in Boston and his Foreign Relations Committee dinner at the White House, as the nation and its legislators were already taking sides. “Plain people throughout America f
or you,” he radiogrammed the President. “You have but to ask their support and all opposition will melt away.” Despite the rough crossing and another cold, the President used much of the voyage for rest and recreation—exercise in the sun by day and movies after dinner. While aboard ship, he received joyous word from his son-in-law Frank Sayre, whose message simply said: “Woodrow Wilson Sayre and Jessie send love.” The namesake was the President’s fourth grandchild.
On the morning of February 19, while Wilson was mid-Atlantic, a French anarchist shot five times at Clemenceau while he was en route to the Quai d’Orsay. One of the five bullets passed through his neck, miraculously missing any major arteries, and lodged in his shoulder. By day’s end, the old Tiger had returned to his residence and was making light of the matter. But it served as a grim reminder that this was still an age of anarchy. Three days later, Clemenceau summoned House and urged a speedy settlement with Germany.
The Wilsons threw a small shipboard luncheon in honor of Washington’s birthday on the twenty-second. They invited the Franklin Roosevelts, whom they found charming company. Conversation turned naturally to the League, which Ambassador to Russia David R. Francis said he believed the people of the United States would support. “The failure of the United States to back it,” Wilson said, “would break the heart of the world, for the world considers the United States as the only nation represented in this great conference whose motives are entirely unselfish.”
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