“Wilson” by A. Scott Berg 2013
Woodrow Wilson may have been our most intelligent, educated,
morally driven president but his arteries hardened just a quickly as his
idealism. Both lead to a man who had
amazing ideals but the inability to achieve many of them. However, his popular image as a cold,
unbending man does not at all match the driven, passionate man portrayed in
this book.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia in 1856 to a
Presbyterian minister father and mother from a well to do Ohio family. The family moved to several different
southern cities as he was growing up, spending the majority of his years in
Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. He was the favorite child in his family
and constantly told how God had great plans for him. He was a slow learner,
unable to read until age 10 due to dyslexia.
However, upon learning shorthand he was able to write and read much
faster. Using a typewriter much of his
life also compensated for this issue. His father helped him compensate by
emphasizing his oral skills, having him recite famous speeches over and over.
Wilson headed to
Princeton for college and just blossomed there.
He became involved in many clubs- becoming editor of the school paper
and one of the best debaters on campus. While there he developed a desire to get into
politics. However, he was a bit lost after finishing his undergrad degree and
went to Virginia law school for a year before passing the bar in Georgia. His brief attempt to start a law practice was
a failure and he headed back to school at Johns Hopkins to earn a doctorate in
history and political science in 1886.
His incentive to earn a good living as a college teacher was driven by
his desire to marry and support a family.
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| Ellen Axson Wilson |
Woodrow met Ellen Wilson in 1883 in Georgia. Her father was a minister who had mental
problems and she was having to raise all her siblings. Ellen was a very talented and educated artist
who had sold paintings and had exhibitions in New York and Paris. But after they married in 1885, she put all
of her art ambitions aside as they had 3 daughters in the first four years of
their marriage. If you read their love
letters, the physical and emotional passion and total connection of their lives
was amazing. Ellen struggled with
depression off and on much of her life but usually tried to hide it from her
family. Her painting was a source of
release for much of her emotional issues.
Honestly, Woodrow Wilson would never have become president without her
guidance, advice and support.
Fascinating woman.
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| Painting by Ellen Axson Wilson |
In 1892, Wilson was named president of Princeton University
and immediately began to enhance the academic rigor, expand its program
offerings, and build new facilities. His
ability to schmooze money from rich alumni and his popularity in the community
helped this process. One of the other
teachers was his best friend, but when he confronted Wilson about his most
drastic desired change at the college, Wilson cut him off completely, feeling
betrayed and never speaking to the man again. This set a pattern with Wilson of
his taking any criticism very personally from those close to him and his ability
to hold a grudge for life.
Wilson’s struggled to
establish a graduate school and then in 1906 he had a stroke which left him temporarily
blind in one eye. He was diagnosed with
very high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries. This condition can be linked to his
increasing emotional swings and irritability. To recover from this, he took a vacation
to Bermuda where he met a married woman named Mary Peck. While their letters reveal a passion and
closeness, it is unknown if it became a physical affair. However, it did upset Ellen and so Wilson
ended it. In later years Mary Peck was
used by political opponents as a scandal.
However, Mary Peck never released her letters from him until after his
death even though she was offered a huge amount of money for them by republicans.
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| Every college kid needs this poster size in his room. |
Wilson returned to Princeton and became disenchanted with
the resistance to his ideas. His
inability to compromise was becoming an issue and his desire to eliminate the
socially elite clubs at Princeton caused conflict with wealthy, snooty
donors. State democratic leaders
convinced him to run for governor, thinking that his political inexperience
would make him a perfect puppet for the party bosses in New Jersey. Wilson accepted the nomination but after
winning he immediately cut off contact with the corrupt party bosses and instituted
laws that eliminated their control in New Jersey. His progressive changes in the state led to
national exposure and after just two years as governor, he was asked to run for
president.
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| Would have made a great campaign picture. |
The Democratic convention of 1912 was full of drama as
William Jennings Bryan (a two time loser for president) and Champ Clark from
Missouri were also battling for the nomination.
Bryan was never going to be selected so eventually he swung his support
to Wilson. (Ellen invited Bryan over for dinner without telling her husband and
got the two men to discuss their differences.
If she had not done this, who knows how history would have turned out!)
On the 46th ballot, he got the Democratic nomination.
The election of 1912 was historic because the republican
vote was split when Theodore Roosevelt started his own Bull Moose party and the
incumbent republican president Taft also ran.
TR was a progressive with ideas very similar to Wilson, but their
personalities were totally opposite.
Wilson was seen as academic and cold while TR was passionate and hot
headed. The main difference was their
views on monopolies and tariffs. Wilson
felt they needed restrictions and Roosevelt was much friendlier to
monopolies. Wilson’s appeal to the
common man and support by labor, women and blacks helped him squeak by and win.
During his first term in office Wilson lowered tariffs,
created the Federal Reserve system, began the income tax, created child labor
laws, and passed an anti-trust act. He
was totally hands off with his cabinet leaders and their departments, a move
which allowed him a pretty cushy daily work schedule and time for 9 holes of
golf every day. The official
presidential doctor, Dr Grayson, encouraged lots of exercise for his high blood
pressure but in times of stress Wilson would get massive headaches, a sure sign
of problems.
Wilson knew nothing
about foreign affairs when he came to office and stumbled in dealing with the
Mexican Revolution. William Jennings
Bryan was his secretary of state and they frequently clashed on issues. Wilson began relying on an “unofficial adviser” named Colonel House and they became very close. As the First World War began in Europe in 1914,
Wilson struggled to keep the US neutral, especially after the sinking of the
Lusitania in 1915.
Wilson was also very distracted because Ellen was dying of
Bright’s Disease, a kidney ailment.
After her death in August 1914, he fell into a deep depression until Dr.
Grayson introduced him to a wealthy widow named Edith Galt in Feb 1915 and he
fell deeply in love. He would write her
2 or 3 love letters a day and proposed soon after they met, even though it had
not been long since his wife’s death.
They tried to keep it hidden but people actually spotted them necking in
the presidential car and so they finally married in a small ceremony in her
house in Washington DC in December 2015.
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| Europe treated Wilson like a rock star. |
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| Clemenceau was very stubborn |
Wilson came up with “Fourteen Points” which would allow the
Germans to lose with dignity and prevent future world wars by a creation of a
League of Nations. The Germans surrendered with the assumption that a treaty
would be based on this. Wilson was hailed as a hero in Europe. But
when Wilson went to Paris for the 1918 peace talks, he was constantly blocked
by French President Georges Clemenceau, who wanted vengeance and the destruction
of Germany. Wilson had to return to
Washington briefly to deal with republican opposition to his ideas and by the
time he returned to Paris, his friend and adviser Colonel House had compromised
on many of Wilson's ideas and the League of Nations. Wilson was furious and struggled to win back
his points from the allies, eventually only succeeding in clinging to his League
idea and letting most of the other points go.
He never forgave House and soon stopped speaking to him forever.
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| Carefully staged pictures to hide his disability |
When Wilson returned to the US to get the Treaty of
Versailles ratified, the republicans had taken control of the house and senate.
He was exhausted and in poor health with blinding headaches, unpredictable mood
swings and an obsession about his beloved League of Nations becoming his legacy
to the world. The republicans, who felt
left out of the peace talks, blocked all attempts to ratify it so Wilson
decided to sell it directly to the people by doing a massive national train and
speaking tour. He was very popular at
all his speeches but towards the end of the tour in Pueblo, Colorado he had a
stroke. He immediately returned to
Washington where he had a massive stroke four days later in October of 1919. His left side was paralyzed, left eye
completely blind and minimal vision in his right eye even though his mind was
fairly sharp apart from wild mood swings and depression. His wife and Dr. Grayson, hid him from the
world for weeks as she filtered the information and access to him. Wilson eventually recovered enough to walk a
bit with a cane and attend cabinet meetings.
For the remainder of his
presidency, he was essentially a lame duck and many claim his wife Edith was
actually in charge. This inability of anyone to force a president to resign for
being incapacitated eventually led to the passage of the 25th
Amendment to the constitution.
After the presidency, Wilson and his wife Edith bought a
house in Washington DC but he lived a pretty secluded life. He tried to practice law briefly or write a
book but both were just too much physically or mentally. He was seen each week at a local theater in
Washington and gave his last brief speech in 1923 on Armistice Day. He continued to deteriorate physically and
never recovered emotionally from the loss of his League of Nations… which the
US never joined. After his death he was
buried in the National Cathedral in Washington DC and his Washington home is
now a museum.
History has not been kind to Woodrow Wilson. The massive violation of civil rights during
the war was pretty horrible. However, Wilson also claimed he would help blacks
in order to get their votes in 1912, but he did nothing for them. In fact he tolerated segregation in his own administration and ignored Jim
Crow laws. He was known to view blacks and women as intellectually inferior,
making derogatory comments about both.
He offered minimal support for women’s suffrage and only finally
supported it when it would obviously pass.
A sad legacy for a man who thought his ideas would end war forever.
