Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him

by Joseph P. Tumulty

A little letter came to my notice in which the President replies to an old friend in Massachusetts who had asked him to attempt to interpret himself:

MY DEAR FRIEND:

You have placed an impossible task upon me—that of interpreting myself to you. All I can say in answer to your inquiry is that I have a sincere desire to serve, to be of some little assistance in improving the condition of the average man, to lift him up, and to make his life more tolerable, agreeable, and comfortable. In doing this I try hard to purge my heart of selfish motives. It will only be known when I am dead whether or not I have succeeded.

Sincerely your friend,
WOODROW WILSON.

CHAPTER XLV

THE SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION

During the winter of 1919-1920 President Wilson was the target of vicious assaults. Mrs. Wilson and Admiral Grayson with difficulty curbed his eagerness to take a leading hand in the fight over the Peace Treaty in the Senate, and to organize the Democratic party on a fighting basis. It was not until after the Chicago Convention had nominated Mr. Harding and enunciated a platform repudiating the solemn obligations of the United States to the rest of the world that the President broke his silence of many months. Because he had something he wanted to say to the country he asked me to send for Louis Seibold, a trusted friend and an experienced reporter, then connected with the New York World. When Mr. Seibold arrived in Washington on the Tuesday following Mr. Harding's nomination, the President talked unreservedly and at length with him, discussed the Republican Convention, characterized its platform as "the apotheosis of reaction," and declared that "it should have quoted Bismarck and Bernhardi rather than Washington and Lincoln." During the two days of Mr. Seibold's visit to the White House he had abundant opportunity to observe the President's condition of health which had been cruelly misrepresented by hostile newspapers. Mr. Seibold found him much more vigorous physically than the public had been given to understand and mentally as alert and aggressive as he had been before his illness. Mr. Seibold's article, which by the way was regarded as a journalistic classic and for which Columbia University awarded the author the Pulitzer prize for the best example of newspaper reporting of the year, exposed the absurd rumours about the President's condition and furnished complete evidence of his determination to fight for the principles to establish which he had struggled so valiantly and sacrificed so much.

As the days of the San Francisco Convention approached those of us who were intimately associated with the President at the White House were warned by him that in the Convention fight soon to take place we must play no favourites; that the Convention must be, so far as the White House was concerned, a free field and no favour, and that our attitude of "hands off" and strict neutrality must be maintained. Some weeks before the Convention met the President conferred with me regarding the nominations, and admonished me that the White House must keep hands off, saying that it had always been charged in the past that every administration sought to use its influence in the organization of the party to throw the nomination this way or that. Speaking to me of the matter, he said, "We must make it clear to everyone who consults us that our attitude is to be impartial in fact as well as in spirit. Other Presidents have sought to influence the naming of their successors. Their efforts have frequently brought about scandals and factional disputes that have split the party. This must not happen with us. We must not by any act seek to give the impression that we favour this or that man."

This attitude was in no way an evidence of the President's indifference to the nominee of the Convention, or to what might happen at San Francisco. He was passionately anxious that his party's standard bearer should win at the election if for no other reason than to see his own policies continued and the League of Nations vindicated.

There was another and personal reason why he insisted that no White House interference should be brought into play for any particular nominee. His son-in-law, Mr. William G. McAdoo, was highly thought of in connection with the nomination, and therefore the President felt that he must be more than ordinarily strict in insisting that we keep hands off, for anything that savoured of nepotism was distasteful to him and, therefore, he "leaned backward" in his efforts to maintain a neutral position in the Presidential contest and to take no part directly or indirectly that might seem to give aid and comfort to the friends of his son-in-law. While Mr. McAdoo's political enemies were busily engaged in opposing him on the ground of his relationship to the President, as a matter of fact, the President was making every effort to disassociate himself and his administration from the talk that was spreading in favour of McAdoo's candidacy. While every effort was being made by Mr. McAdoo's enemies to give the impression that the Federal machine was being used to advance his candidacy, the President was engaged wholly in ignoring Mr. McAdoo's candidacy.