The Mystery of Woodrow Wilson

1916

Oswald Garrison Villard writes in part in the North American Review: There are many mysteries connected with Woodrow Wilson. But the greatest is the transformation the day he became President and was no longer governor. He left Woodrow Wilson, the accessible tribune of the people, and became Woodrow Wilson the least accessible and most secluded of all our Presidents. It was not merely that he was oppressed by magnitude of his new task; not that the office of President has grown enormously in routine duties since the days of the last democratic President; not that a private bereavement soon bore him down; not that a physical strength none too great must be husbanded, nor even that problems of state almost unparalleled in gravity and import took their toll of hours for waking and for sleeping. These all had their influence, but at bottom it was the policy that was changed.

He no longer worked in any degree in the open; he sought council of fewer and fewer; his door no longer stood ajar; even his cabinet knew him not for days and weeks, becoming often a mere chorus of ratification. Visitor and volunteer advisers were no longer welcome — more than that, they were under suspicion of some ulterior motive. The burden of proof that they were not secretly in pay of the magnates of Wall street rested upon them. Notably has this been the case with those having knowledge of Mexico. To have capital invested in that country is as effective a disbarment from the Presidential ear as to be doing business in Wall street itself. Our leading financiers have been denied a hearing — to their complete puzzlement. He will not stoop to smuggle captains of industry into the White House by the back door. They are beyond the pale and must be kept there. The President in a recent speech has made it clear that success in business puts one without the Presidential ken. He stated that he did not care to hear from men who had done well under present conditions; when he wished a real insight into conditions he wanted to hear from the little fellows who were bucking the tide and the currents that make against success.

But there are still other tests employed to keep men and women out of the White House. Can they interest the Presidential mind? Have they anything to give to one who communes so freely with himself and works out such vital problems of state on his little typewriter? If not, they may cool their heels in Mr. Tumulty's outer office as long as they please. It availeth them not. Some of the strongest and most loyal supporters of Mr. Wilson have been denied a word, and the sole explanation is the Presidential theory that they had nothing to give him. Here we have considerable light on much that is puzzling. The President seems never to ask what he can do for others, particularly those who have worked for him with complete and devoted enthusiasm. Their homage is accepted; but it never occurs to Mr. Wilson there might be a reciprocal obligation. He has been a stranger even to his own lieutenants.

In May, 1915, I met an official of high position in one of the departments, in whose hands were matters of the utmost moment. His confidential reports would profoundly have affected the whole country had they seen the light of the day. They were constantly placed upon the President's desk. Yet I found this official had never seen the President except to shake hands with him in the lineup at an official reception. Dozens of similar cases could be cited. Even diplomatic officers returning from positions on some of our international "fronts" with first-hand information have been thunderstruck to find their opinions were neither sought nor desired.

Take the case of the federal reserve board. A year after its appointment its members had never met the President save at an official reception to which they were not even invited until attention of some White House functionary was called. Toward members of Congress his attitude is similar, save that these are sent for when the President wants them to do something for him.

Being completely self-sufficient, it never occurs to Mr. Wilson that a word of instruction or inspiration or praise or just a bit of human interest would mean much.

It must be said in Mr. Wilson's favor that he plays no favorites beyond one or two intimates. Men who expended large sums for him in 1912, who nearly worked their heads off for him in New Jersey, have all experienced equality of treatment.

Sometimes, however, the President's refusal of himself to others has more important results. Thus there was a governor once, who, being in Washington, had to go his way without a glimpse of the head of the nation. I have always wondered whether the governor did not remember this when, a few weeks later, the President was asking him to spare the life of a convict of international interest, only to have his request refused.

The Cabinet does not come in for many special privileges. Some of his ablest ministers have known him only in so far as routine demanded his attention. One of the strongest assured me he had never been asked an opinion in three years save at Cabinet meetings — not even during the Lusitania crisis.

In the Lusitania crisis we can see clearly the theory of office of President maintained by the author of congressional government and constitutional government in the United States. The writer believes Mr. Wilson laid the country under lasting obligation by his successful handling of that situation, and that history will accord a high place to the extraordinary series of Lusitania notes. But even an admirer of this fine statesmanship may look with uneasiness upon a policy by which in so great a crisis the way out is found in almost solitary[*] communion. Mr. Wilson held no Cabinet meetings at that grave time save to lay before his constitutional advisers the fruits of his meditation. Mr. Wilson, in the midst of the crisis, went to Cornish and secluded himself absolutely for 25 days.

Wilson government is one-man government. It is not party leadership, but party dictatorship.

The democratic party has been committed by Mr. Wilson personally to various new policies. Until he swung the party to advocacy of a large army and navy, to government by protectorate of Haiti and San Domingo, to purchase the Danish West Indies, the party had always been the anti-imperialistic party. When Mr. Wilson decided the time had come to reverse his position on "preparedness," he neither took a vote of his Cabinet nor of the party leaders. He refused to receive a group of citizens, chiefly of his supporters, who wished to urge him not to change his position. This kind of leadership is not responsible party leadership. His changes of base on the trade commission, woman suffrage, a child-labor law, and the tariff itself — to mention only a few complete reversals — were made without party consultation. The President's policy appears to be purely opportunist as well as purely individual. Members of Congress have been afraid to utter the usual campaign speeches lest the President in his bed chamber change the party policy overnight.

The mystery of the change in Mr. Wilson is intensified by his treatment of Washington newspaper men. The first day upon which he greeted them they were to be his bosom friends. Unfortunately they had a habit of asking searching questions. Soon there were subjects about which correspondents were forbidden to ask — for state reasons. Next, the conference became irregular, and ceased in July, 1915.

It is now reported that in deference to political exigencies and urging of Vance McCormick these conferences are to be resumed. Nothing can make them a success, for mutual trust and cordial friendship are lacking.

What is true of these relationships is true of Mr. Wilson's life in the White House. It is reserved and retired, notably so in contrast to the Roosevelt regime. Mr. Wilson entertains but little. What his warmest admirers have kept on hoping for is that others besides themselves might have access to that bonhomie they enjoy, and thus be disabused of any idea that the President is a mere thinking-machine without any heart and interested in people only so far as they have something to give.

If Mr. Wilson's failure in these relationships merely affected himself, they could be dismissed as individual idiosyncrasies. But these Wilson traits have a distant bearing on the future of the democracy. They must be taken into account by any voter who would forecast the kind of President Mr. Wilson would be in a second term, when temptation will be behind him to lower the public service by bestowing offices for political reasons, by surrendering to organized labor, by frequently reversing his positions. They throw important light upon Mr. Wilson's attitude toward his office.

They explain why whereas there were once notable bodies of young Cleveland men, there has been no similar raising up of young Wilson men to carry on the standard in years to come. There was a beginning in early efforts to oppose Tammany Hall, but with surrender to Murphy, as illustrated by the Johnson case, no more is heard of a reform democracy in New York.

As for the leader in the White House, no fair man doubts his extraordinary ability, his frequent lofty statesmanship, his rare wit, his unbounded power to charm when he will but unbend. He can rise to great heights both in words and deeds. Despite many base anonymous rumors, his private life is all that it should be.

The tragedy of it is that there are those who ought to know who believe the President desires nothing so much as to be loved, not for what he has achieved, nor for his intellectual powers, but for himself alone.

Note: [*] The article used the word 'coliary,' which isn't a word so far as I can determine, and 'solitary' fits the context a lot better.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 8.