Mrs. Wilson must have left the White House for that ill-omened journey with a sinking heart, for she knew, none better, that her husband was suffering from accumulated fatigue, and that he should be starting on a long vacation instead of a fighting tour that would tax the strength of an athlete in the pink of condition. For seven practically vacationless years he had borne burdens too great for any constitution; he had conducted his country through the greatest of all wars; he had contended, at times single-handed, in Paris with the world's most adroit politicians; he had there been prostrated with influenza, that treacherous disease which usually maims for a time those whom it does not kill, and he had not given himself a chance to recuperate; he had returned to America to engage in the most desperate conflict of his career with the leaders of the opposition party; and now, when it was clear even to his men friends, and much clearer to the intuition of a devoted wife, that nature was crying out for rest, he was setting out on one of the most arduous programmes of public speaking known even in our country, which is familiar with these strenuous undertakings. Mrs. Wilson's anxieties must have increased with each successive day of the journey, but not even to we of the immediate party did she betray her fears. Her resolution was as great as his.
When the great illness came she had to stand between him and the peril of exhaustion from official cares, yet she could not, like the more fortunately obscure, withdraw her husband from business altogether and take him away to some quiet place for restoration. As head of the nation he must be kept in touch with affairs, and during the early months of his illness she was the chief agent in keeping him informed of public business. Her high intelligence and her extraordinary memory enabled her to report to him daily, in lucid detail, weighty matters of state brought to her by officials for transmission to him. At the proper time, when he was least in pain and least exhausted, she would present a clear, oral resume of each case and lay the documents before him in orderly arrangement.
As woman and wife, the first thought of her mind and the first care of her heart must be for his health. Once at an acute period of his illness certain officials insisted that they must see him because they carried information which it was "absolutely necessary that the President of the United States should have," and she quietly replied: "I am not interested in the President of the United States. I am interested in my husband and his health."
With loving courage she met her difficult dilemma of shielding him as much as possible and at the same time keeping him acquainted with things he must know. When it became possible for him to see people she, in counsel with Admiral Grayson, would arrange for conferences and carefully watch her husband to see that they who talked with him did not trespass too long upon his limited energy.
When it became evident that the tide of public opinion was setting against the League, the President finally decided upon the Western trip as the only means of bringing home to the people the unparalleled world situation.
At the Executive offices we at once set in motion preparations for the Western trip. One itinerary after another was prepared, but upon examining it the President would find that it was not extensive enough and would suspect that it was made by those of us—like Grayson and myself—who were solicitious for his health, and he would cast them aside. All the itineraries provided for a week of rest in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, but when a brief vacation was intimated to him, he was obdurate in his refusal to include even a day of relaxation, saying to me, that "the people would never forgive me if I took a rest on a trip such as the one I contemplate taking. This is a business trip, pure and simple, and the itinerary must not include rest of any kind." He insisted that there be no suggestion of a pleasure trip attaching to a journey which he regarded as a mission.
As I now look back upon this journey and its disastrous effects upon the President's health, I believe that if he had only consented to include a rest period in our arrangements, he might not have broken down at Pueblo.
Never have I seen the President look so weary as on the night we left Washington for our swing into the West. When we were about to board our special train, the President turned to me and said: "I am in a nice fix. I am scheduled between now and the 28th of September to make in the neighbourhood of a hundred speeches to various bodies, stretching all the way from Ohio to the coast, and yet the pressure of other affairs upon me at the White House has been so great that I have not had a single minute to prepare my speeches. I do not know how I shall get the time, for during the past few weeks I have been suffering from daily headaches; but perhaps to-night's rest will make me fit for the work of tomorrow."
No weariness or brain-fag, however, was apparent in the speech at Columbus, Ohio. To those of us who sat on the platform, including the newspaper group who accompanied the President, this speech with its beautiful phrasing and its effective delivery seemed to have been carefully prepared.
Day after day, for nearly a month, there were speeches of a similar kind, growing more intense in their emotion with each day. Shortly after we left Tacoma, Washington, the fatigue of the trip began to write itself in the President's face. He suffered from violent headaches each day, but his speeches never betrayed his illness.