W. W.)
Dear Tumulty,
There is absolutely nothing new in Root's speech and I do not see any necessity to answer it. Certainly I would not be willing to have so conspicuous a representative of the Administration as Mr. Colby take any notice of it. Let me say again that I am not willing that answers to Republican speakers or writers should emanate from the White House or the Administration.
The President.
C.L.S.
Some characteristic White House memoranda]
As my duty held me in Washington, I am dependent upon others, especially Mr. Creel and Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, a member of the President's official family, for a connected narrative of events in Europe.
Speaking of his attitude in the trials that confronted the President on the other side, Mr. Baker said:
No one who really saw the President in action in Paris, saw what he did in those grilling months of struggle, fired at in front, sniped at from behind—and no one who saw what he had to do after he came home from Europe in meeting the great new problems which grew out of the war—will for a moment belittle the immensity of his task, or underrate his extraordinary endurance, energy, and courage.
More than once, there in Paris, going up in the evening to see the President, I found him utterly worn out, exhausted, often one side of his face twitching with nervousness. No soldier ever went into battle with more enthusiasm, more aspiration, more devotion to a sacred cause than the President had when he came to Paris; but day after day in those months we saw him growing grayer and grayer, grimmer and grimmer, with the fighting lines deepening in his face.
Here was a man 63 years old—a man always delicate in health. When he came to the White House in 1913, he was far from being well. His digestion was poor and he had a serious and painful case of neuritis in his shoulder. It was even the opinion of so great a physician as Dr. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, that he could probably not complete his term and retain his health. And yet such was the iron self-discipline of the man and such was the daily watchful care of Doctor Grayson, that instead of gradually going down under the tremendous tasks of the Presidency in the most crowded moments of our national history, he steadily gained strength and working capacity, until in those months in Paris he literally worked everybody at the Peace Conference to a stand-still.