Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him

by Joseph P. Tumulty

It was said at the time that the President was forcing settlement upon the military leaders of the Allies. General Foch disposed of this by saying, in answer to a question by Colonel House and Lloyd George: "The conditions laid down by your military leaders are the very conditions which we ought to and could impose after the success of our further operations, so that if the Germans accept them now, it is useless to go on fighting."

It was all over, and the protagonist of the grand climax of the huge drama was Woodrow Wilson, the accepted spokesman of the Allies, the Nemesis of the Central Powers, who by first isolating them through his moral appeal to the neutral world was now standing before them as the stern monitor, demanding that they settle not on their terms, but on his terms, which the Allies had accepted as their terms.

I shall never forget how happy he looked on the night of the Armistice when the throngs surged through Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, and he, unable to remain indoors, had come to the White House gates to look on, in his face a glow of satisfaction of one who realizes that he has fought for a principle and won. In his countenance there was an expression not so much of triumph as of vindication.

As a light ending to a heavy matter, I may say here that when the Armistice terms were finally accepted, the President said: "Well, Tumulty, the war's over, and I feel like the Confederate soldier General John B. Gordon used to tell of, soliloquizing on a long, hard march, during the Civil War: 'I love my country and I am fightin' for my country, but if this war ever ends, I'll be dad-burned if I ever love another country.'"

CHAPTER XXXV

APPEAL FOR A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

The President's appeal to the country of October 24, 1918, asking for the election of a Democratic Congress, brought down upon him a storm of criticism and ridicule. Many leading Democrats who had strongly urged an appeal by the President as a necessary and proper thing in the usual war situation which confronted him, as the criticism directed toward it grew more bitter, turned away from it and criticized what they said was the ineptitude and lack of tact of the President in issuing it. As a matter of fact, opinion in the Democratic ranks as to the wisdom and necessity of a general appeal was unanimous prior to the issuance of the statement. What the President was seeking to do when he asked the support of the country through the election of a Democratic Congress was to prevent divided leadership at a moment when the President's undisputed control was a necessity because of the effect a repudiation of his administration would work upon the Central Powers. He realized that the defeat of his administration in the midst of the World War would give aid and comfort to the Central Powers, and that the Allied governments would themselves interpret it as a weakening of our war power and while the enemy would be strengthened, our associates would be distressed and disheartened.

He looked upon it, therefore, not as a partisan matter but as a matter involving the good faith of America.

At previous elections the White House had been inundated with requests from particular senators and congressmen, urging the President to write letters in their behalf, and this had resulted in so much embarrassment to the Chief Executive that as the critical days of the November elections of 1918 approached, the President was forced to consider a more general and, if possible, a more diplomatic method of handling this difficult situation. The gentlemen who criticized the appeal as outrageously partisan evidently forgot that for months Will Hays, chairman of the Republican National Committee, had been busily engaged in visiting various parts of the country and, with his coadjutors in the Republican National Committee, openly and blatantly demanding an emphatic repudiation of the Administration from the country.

The President and I discussed the situation in June, 1918, and I was asked by him to consider and work out what might be thought a tactful, effective plan by which the President, without arousing party rancour or bitterness, might make an appeal to the country, asking for its support. I considered the matter, and under date of June 18, 1918, I wrote him a letter, part of which was given over to a discussion of the way the matter might discreetly be handled: