Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him

by Joseph P. Tumulty

The newspaper men asked me this morning what the attitude of the Administration was toward the proposed super-cabinet. I hedged as much as I could, but I asked if it was not the same proposition that came up some months ago, advocated by Senator Weeks, in a new disguise—if it was not the same kind of a commission that had harassed Mr. Lincoln. I think we ought to let our attitude be known unofficially for the guidance of men who wish to help us. If we do nothing at this time to let it be known, it would seem that our opposition to this kind of legislation had been silenced by the furore over the fuel order. In other words, we ought to show by our attitude that the tantrums on the Hill are making no impression on us whatever.

TUMULTY.

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DEAR TUMULTY:

Of course, I am opposed to the idea of a "super-cabinet," and regard it as nothing more nor less than a renewal of the perpetual effort of the Republicans to force representation in the Administration. Republicans of the finest sort and of the finest capacity are working for and with the Administration on all hands and there is no need whatever for a change at the head of the administering departments. I am utterly opposed to anything of the sort and will never consent to it. You will know how to create the impression on the minds of the newspaper men that I regard it as merely a partisan effort to hamper and embarrass the Administration.

THE PRESIDENT.

There were many misgivings in the minds of the people when war was declared in April, 1917, and the nation embarked upon the most gigantic of all its wars, under the leadership of a college professor, a doctrinaire, who did not believe in war as a method of permanently solving international problems, and a Secretary of War who was an avowed pacifist. There was another matter which greatly disturbed the peace of mind of the average American. The political party that was conducting the struggle was the Democratic party, the party of the plain folk, of the average men and women of America. Our Republican friends had so cleverly "advertised" their conduct of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, that many people in the country felt that the Republican party, because of its leading minds and the business genius of its masters, was the only political organization that could be depended upon successfully to carry on a great war.

Colonel Roosevelt's diary, first made public on September 28, 1921, throws interesting light on Republican claims of efficient management by Republicans of the Spanish-American War. Under date of May 7, 1898, the Colonel, then a lieutenant-colonel, recorded in his diary: "The delays and stupidity of the Ordnance Department surpass belief. The Quartermaster's Department is better, but bad. The Commissary Department is good. There is no management whatever in the War Department. Against a good nation we should be helpless," and these animadversions are reiterated in subsequent entries. Interesting comments from the greatest of contemporary Republicans on the divine right of the Republican party to conduct all American wars and transact all other American business of importance. But doubtless the Colonel had forgotten all this in 1917, and many other good Americans had also forgotten what was notorious in 1898 and the ineptitude of the Republican War Department, which, as Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt said under date of May 21, 1898, had "no head, no energy, no intelligence." But the old myth sedulously cultivated by Republicans continued in 1917, that only Republicans are fit to govern, no matter how badly they govern. Direful prophecies and predictions of disaster to the country by reason of the Democratic auspices under which the war was to be conducted were freely made.

It is an unpleasant fact that some of the leading Republicans in the Senate and the House harboured for the President a partisan and personal hatred which made the wish father to the thought. Yet the expected did not happen, to the amazement and chagrin of the Republican enemies of the President. No other war was attended with so little scandal and with greater expedition. The cause was plain. It was the magnificent and aggressive leadership of Woodrow Wilson exerting itself all along the line, and that leadership was based upon certain fundamental resolutions which had been taking form in the President's mind for many months previous to his appearance before Congress asking for the passage of a war declaration. They were as follows: (1) There was to be no "politics" in the conduct of the war; (2) no political generals would be selected; (3) every ounce of energy and force in the nation was to be put back of the heads of the Army and the Navy in a supreme effort to make our influence, moral and physical, quickly felt. Every effort was made to cut out scandal and to put an absolute embargo on the activities of army speculators, contractors, and profiteers.

Speaking to me one day about the conduct of the war, shortly after the delivery of his war message, he said: "We must not in our conduct of this war repeat the scandals of the Civil and the Spanish-American wars. The politics of generals and admirals must be tabooed. We must find the best trained minds that we can get and we must back them up at every turn. Our policy must be 'the best man for every job,' regardless of his political affiliations. This must be the only test, for, after all, we are the trustees of the boys whose lives will be spent in this enterprise of war."