Behind the Mirrors: The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington

by Clinton W. Gilbert

Of recent Presidents Mr. Taft failed so completely to understand his people and express its will that after four years in office he could command the support of only two states when seeking re-election. Mr. Wilson after four years had so far failed that only the incredible stupidity of his opponents enabled him to succeed himself; and again so far, that his second term ended in a tragedy. The floundering of Mr. Harding is apparent to every eye.

Only under two Presidents has the theory of executive domination of the Government succeeded, and not completely under them. Congress rose against Mr. Roosevelt in the last year or two of his administration. Congress was not of Mr. Wilson's party, and was thus out of his control in the last two years of his administration. Mr. Taft lacked the will to rule. Mr. Harding is feebler than Mr. Taft, and party authority, one of the pillars of executive power and responsibility, is now completely broken down. A system which is successful only half the time cannot be called workable.

Let us examine the circumstances under which the Executive was able to prevail over Congress and effect a limited sort of one man government. They are not likely soon to repeat themselves.

Mr. Roosevelt was an extraordinary personality. Only Andrew Jackson, among our Presidents, was as picturesque as he, only Andrew Jackson had a popular following comparable to his.

Both of them represented strong democratic movements,—Jackson the extrusion of the landed aristocracy, in favor of the masses, from their preferred position in our political life; Mr. Roosevelt, the similar extrusion of the business aristocracy, in favor of the masses from the preferred position they had gained in our political life. Like agitations of the political depths, finding expression in personalities as unusual as those of Jackson and Roosevelt, will give us from time to time executives who may carry everything before them; but only emergencies like this and one other will make the President supreme.

And even then it is easy to overstate the power of the Executive as it was exercised by Mr. Roosevelt. The Colonel lived by picturesque exaggeration. If he went to South America it was to discover a river and find animals that the eye of man never rested on before or since. He read more books than it was humanly possible to read and not become a pallid bookworm. He pursued more interests than mere man can have. He exercised daily as only a pugilist exercises briefly when in training.

He had the gusto of the greatest amateur of all time and enjoyed the immunity which is always granted to amateurs, that of never being measured by professional standards. When you might have been noting a weakness in one direction he was diverting you by an enormous exhibition of versatility in another. He had the capacity of seeming, and the semblance was never penetrated. He seemed to bestride Washington like a Colossus. Actually his rule was one long compromise with Aldrich and Cannon, the business leaders of Congress, which he represented as a glorious triumph over them.

One man government was developed much further under Mr. Wilson than under Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Harding's predecessor entered office as the expression of that movement toward a government based on numbers rather than on wealth, which the Colonel had so imperfectly effected. There had been a reaction under Taft; there was a new determination under Wilson, and a new concentration on the executive.

Poor, bookish, without the friendships in the business world which Mr. Roosevelt had had, having few contacts with life, Mr. Wilson embraced the idea of putting business in its place passionately, where Mr. Roosevelt played with it as he played with everything else.

Mr. Wilson was by temperament an autocrat. An illustration of how personal was his government was his treatment of his enemies. His bitterness against Huntington Wilson, the Republican Ambassador to Mexico, is well known. A year or two after the dispute was over, Huntington Wilson's son came up for examination to enter the Consular service. He passed at the top of the list. President Wilson heard of his success and directed that he should receive no appointment. He carried his enmity to the second generation. The law which would have given young Mr. Wilson a place meant nothing under his personal government.