Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him

by Joseph P. Tumulty

"With him freedom was no nebulous figure, aureoled with shining rhetoric, blowing her own trumpet, but Free Trade, Free Speech, Free Education. He did not rail against the Church as the enemy, but he did not count on it as a friend. His Millennium was earthly, human; his philosophy sunny, untroubled by Dantesque depths or shadows; his campaign unmartial, constitutional, a frank focussing of the new forces emergent from the slow dissolution of Feudalism and the rapid growth of a modern world. Towards such a man the House of Commons had an uneasy hostility. He did not play the game. Whig and Tory, yellow and blue, the immemorial shuffling of Cabinet cards, the tricks and honours—he seemed to live outside them all. He was no clubman in 'The best club in England.' He did not debate for argument's sake or to upset Ministers. He was not bounded by the walls of the Chamber nor ruler from the Speaker's chair; the House was resentfully conscious it had no final word over his reputation or his influence. He stood for something outside it, something outside himself, something large, vague, turbulent, untried, unplumbed, unknown—the People."

A little incident illustrating the warmth of the heart of Woodrow Wilson and the sympathetic way he manifested his feeling came to me in a letter received at the White House in 1920 from a Red Cross nurse, who was stationed at the Red Cross Base Hospital at Neuilly, France. An excerpt from it follows:

I might interest you to recite an incident within my own personal knowledge that proves the depths of his sympathy—his sincerity. I was one of the unit of Red Cross Workers who went to France to help our soldiers blinded in battle. I was at the time of this incident stationed at the Red Cross Base Hospital No. I at Neuilly. After a visit of the President and Mrs. Wilson to the hospital, one of my charges, a totally blind private to whom Mr. Wilson had spoken, said to me: "Miss Farrell, I guess the President must be very tired." I said, "Why do you think that, Walter?" "Well, because," replied the soldier, "he laughed and joked with all the other fellows but was so quiet when he talked with me and just said, 'Honourable wound, my boy,' so low I could hardly hear him. But say," continued Walter, "look at my hand please and see if it is all there, will you? The President sure has some hand and he used it when he shook hands. I'll say."

The fact was, Walter was the first blind soldier the President had met in France and knowing from experience the appeal the blind make to our emotions, I knew the President was so touched that he was overcome and couldn't joke further—he was scarcely able to manage the one remark and could not trust himself to venture another, 'Twas with tears in his eyes and a choking voice that he managed the one. Both he and Mrs. Wilson wept in that blind ward.

As a political fighter, he was gallant and square. No one ever heard him call an opponent a name or knew him unworthily to take advantage of an opponent.

Illustrative of the magnanimous attitude of the President toward his political enemies was the striking incident that occurred a few weeks before the close of the last Presidential campaign, 1920. Early one afternoon two Democratic friends called upon me at the Executive offices and informed me that they could procure certain documents that would go a long way toward discrediting the Republican campaign and that they could be procured for a money consideration. They explained the character of the documents to me and left it to me to say what I considered a fair price for them. They explained the serious nature of these documents, and it was certainly a delicate situation for me to handle and embarrassed me greatly. I was reluctant to offend these gentlemen, and yet I was certain from what they said that the documents, as they explained them to me, even though they might discredit the Republican campaign, were not of a character that any party of decent men ought to have anything to do with. When the gentlemen told me the name of the person who claimed to have these damaging papers in his possession, I at once recalled that we had in the files of the White House certain letters that could be used to discredit this very man who claimed to possess these incriminating documents. I thought it wise, therefore, to listen politely to these gentlemen until I could get a chance to confer with the President. I did this at once.

At this time the President was lying ill in his sick room at the White House. The nurse raised him up in the bed and I explained the whole situation to him, saying to him that it was my opinion that the Democratic party ought not to have anything to do with such a matter and that I thought we should at once apprise the Republican managers of the plan that was afoot to discredit by these unfair means the Republican candidate and campaign. When I told the President of the character of these documents that had been offered to me he was filled with indignation and said, "If we can't win this fight by fair means, we will not attempt to win it by unfair means. You have my authority to use whatever files we have against this party who would seek unfairly to attack the Republican nominee and you must at once notify the Republican managers of the plan proposed and explain the whole situation to them. Say to the Attorney General that he must place at the disposal of Mr. Harding and his friends every officer he has, if necessary, to disclose and overcome this plot. I am sure that Governor Cox will agree with me that this is the right and decent thing to do."

Acting upon the President's suggestion, I at once called upon a certain Republican senator from the West, now a member of President Harding's Cabinet, and told him of the proposed plot that was afoot to discredit the Republican campaign. I told him I was acting upon the express authority of the President. He expressed his high appreciation of the information I had brought him and informed me that he would place the matter in our hands with the utmost confidence in us to handle it honourably.

It ought to be said here that upon investigation, personally made by myself, I found that there was nothing in this whole matter that in the slightest degree reflected upon the honour or the integrity or high standing of President Harding.

One of the things for which President Wilson was unduly censured shortly after he took office was the recognition he gave to his political enemies in the Democratic party. The old-line politicians who had supported him in 1912 could not understand why the loaves and fishes were dealt out to these unworthy ones. Protests were made to the President by some of his close personal friends, but he took the position that as the leader of the party he was not going to cause resentment and antagonisms by seeming to classify Democrats; that as leader of his party he had to recognize all factions, and there quickly followed appointments of Clark men, Underwood men, Harmon men, all over the country. A case in point illustrates the bigness of the President in these matters—that of George Fred Williams as Minister to Greece. In the campaign of 1912 Mr. Williams had travelled up and down the state of Massachusetts making the bitterest sort of attacks upon Woodrow Wilson. I remember how I protested against this appointment. The President's only reply was that George Fred Williams was an eccentric fellow, but that he believed he was thoroughly honest. "I have no fault to find, Tumulty, with the men who disagree with me and I ought not to penalize them when they give expression to what they believe are honest opinions."