September 25, 1919—In the midst of a grueling 22-state, 8,000 railroad tour in support of the League of Nations, President Woodrow Wilson summoned his waning physical resources to delivery an address in Pueblo, Colo., that captured the best and worst aspects of his leadership style. A few hours later, about 20 miles from Pueblo, he collapsed, forcing an end to his tour and precipitating the longest, most confusing Presidential health crisis of the 20th century.
Nearly 100 years after his Presidency began, tons of ink have been spilled over Wilson. I don’t think anyone has noticed, however, the similarity between his character and Captain Ahab’s.
In Moby Dick,, Herman Melville described the “crucifixion in his face” on the obsessed Pequod skipper. The image suggests what’s often forgotten about the mad seadog: his capacity for good as much as evil. He has, after all, a charisma that binds men to him, as surely as Wilson did.
In the end, of course, Ahab’s quest exceeds the bounds of rationality. And so, too, did Wilson’s mission to persuade the American people to accept his dream of a world of peace, justice and freedom.
Ten months before his physical collapse—and the massive stroke that followed on October 2, after the Presidential train had, with virtually no explanation, returned to Washington—Wilson had arrived in Europe as the dynamic, inspirational leader of the nation that provided the margin for victory in the First World War, and which now proposed to put future such conflicts on the road to extinction.
But the intensive peace negotiations that ensued had exhausted him. Britain’s David Lloyd George and France’s Georges Clemenceau extracted so many concessions on other points that Wilson dug in his heels on the point on which they were prepared to yield: the League of Nations. When he returned home, the President grew increasingly dismissive of any dissent from his vision.
By the time the tour was called off, with little explanation, because of the President’s bad health, Wilson had identified the fight for the League of Nations with himself. Those opposed to his brainchild were opposed to him, and vice versa.
Chief among them was the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, as brilliant as he was cold and bigoted. The two men formed a mutual antipathy society.
The battle over the League boiled down to three camps: supporters; irreconcilables, who wanted nothing to do with it under any circumstances; and reservationists, who would agree to the Treaty of Versailles and the League under with certain conditions.
Nowadays, historians are more likely to view the position of at least some of the last group skeptically, largely because, we now know, Lodge admitted to colleagues that attaching reservations—his, specifically—guaranteed that the treaty would die because of Wilson's hatred for him. When a fellow Senator protested that this was “a slender thread on which to hang so great a cause,” Lodge smiled. “Why, it is as strong as any cable with its strands wired and tired together,” he said.
Lodge had his antagonist all figured out. Wilson refused even to share the same platform with the senator at a ceremony for the centennial of a Washington church. You can almost hear Wilson complaining bitterly about Lodge in Ahab’s famous rejoinder to Starbuck about “vengeance toward a dumb brute”: “He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.”
The very notion of this Western swing stemmed from Wilson’s personalization of his campaign. The year before, ignoring Americans’ traditional tendency to swing away from the President’s party in midterm elections, he had stumped vigorously toward Democrats. That had made it all the more galling when Lodge and his party ended up in power in the Senate.
Now, with his one-on-one attempts to persuade Senators going nowhere, Wilson decided on his Western tour, in the face of openly expressed concern by his wife Edith and his physician, Dr. Cary Grayson.
There were all kinds of warning signs before his collapse that something was amiss with Wilson:
* The morning of the speech, he had a splitting headache.
Nearly 100 years after his Presidency began, tons of ink have been spilled over Wilson. I don’t think anyone has noticed, however, the similarity between his character and Captain Ahab’s.
In Moby Dick,, Herman Melville described the “crucifixion in his face” on the obsessed Pequod skipper. The image suggests what’s often forgotten about the mad seadog: his capacity for good as much as evil. He has, after all, a charisma that binds men to him, as surely as Wilson did.
In the end, of course, Ahab’s quest exceeds the bounds of rationality. And so, too, did Wilson’s mission to persuade the American people to accept his dream of a world of peace, justice and freedom.
Ten months before his physical collapse—and the massive stroke that followed on October 2, after the Presidential train had, with virtually no explanation, returned to Washington—Wilson had arrived in Europe as the dynamic, inspirational leader of the nation that provided the margin for victory in the First World War, and which now proposed to put future such conflicts on the road to extinction.
But the intensive peace negotiations that ensued had exhausted him. Britain’s David Lloyd George and France’s Georges Clemenceau extracted so many concessions on other points that Wilson dug in his heels on the point on which they were prepared to yield: the League of Nations. When he returned home, the President grew increasingly dismissive of any dissent from his vision.
By the time the tour was called off, with little explanation, because of the President’s bad health, Wilson had identified the fight for the League of Nations with himself. Those opposed to his brainchild were opposed to him, and vice versa.
Chief among them was the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, as brilliant as he was cold and bigoted. The two men formed a mutual antipathy society.
The battle over the League boiled down to three camps: supporters; irreconcilables, who wanted nothing to do with it under any circumstances; and reservationists, who would agree to the Treaty of Versailles and the League under with certain conditions.
Nowadays, historians are more likely to view the position of at least some of the last group skeptically, largely because, we now know, Lodge admitted to colleagues that attaching reservations—his, specifically—guaranteed that the treaty would die because of Wilson's hatred for him. When a fellow Senator protested that this was “a slender thread on which to hang so great a cause,” Lodge smiled. “Why, it is as strong as any cable with its strands wired and tired together,” he said.
Lodge had his antagonist all figured out. Wilson refused even to share the same platform with the senator at a ceremony for the centennial of a Washington church. You can almost hear Wilson complaining bitterly about Lodge in Ahab’s famous rejoinder to Starbuck about “vengeance toward a dumb brute”: “He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.”
The very notion of this Western swing stemmed from Wilson’s personalization of his campaign. The year before, ignoring Americans’ traditional tendency to swing away from the President’s party in midterm elections, he had stumped vigorously toward Democrats. That had made it all the more galling when Lodge and his party ended up in power in the Senate.
Now, with his one-on-one attempts to persuade Senators going nowhere, Wilson decided on his Western tour, in the face of openly expressed concern by his wife Edith and his physician, Dr. Cary Grayson.
There were all kinds of warning signs before his collapse that something was amiss with Wilson:
* The morning of the speech, he had a splitting headache.
* Changing from a hot desert environment to cold, thin mountain air provoked Wilson’s asthma.
* Horrible acoustics at the City Auditorium in Denver forced him to shout, worsening his hoarseness.
* The normally smooth Wilson stumbled three times in the same sentence in the Pueblo speech.
Some historians have ranked the Pueblo speech not merely as the best of Wilson’s Presidency, but even among the top 100 speeches of the 20th century. Without a doubt, Wilson’s impassioned delivery moved many in the audience, some to the point of tears, especially toward the end, when he evoked “our pledges to the men that lie dead in Europe."
At the same time, the speech exposed, for all to see, his inflexibility and stigmatizing of dissenters. Earlier in his Presidency, in an effort to hold onto key components of the Democratic base, he had vetoed literacy requirements for immigrants.
Now, however, after some portions of the German- and Irish-American communities had opposed the war or any worldwide organization in which Britain would hold a key position, Wilson launched into one of the most savage denunciations ever delivered by an American President against ethnics:
“And I want to say—and I can’t say it too often—any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic whenever he gets the chance. If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest, I will know that I have caught an enemy of the republic."
Some historians have ranked the Pueblo speech not merely as the best of Wilson’s Presidency, but even among the top 100 speeches of the 20th century. Without a doubt, Wilson’s impassioned delivery moved many in the audience, some to the point of tears, especially toward the end, when he evoked “our pledges to the men that lie dead in Europe."
At the same time, the speech exposed, for all to see, his inflexibility and stigmatizing of dissenters. Earlier in his Presidency, in an effort to hold onto key components of the Democratic base, he had vetoed literacy requirements for immigrants.
Now, however, after some portions of the German- and Irish-American communities had opposed the war or any worldwide organization in which Britain would hold a key position, Wilson launched into one of the most savage denunciations ever delivered by an American President against ethnics:
“And I want to say—and I can’t say it too often—any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic whenever he gets the chance. If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest, I will know that I have caught an enemy of the republic."
Wilson’s stroke plunged his administration and the nation into what, in my opinion, can only be likened to the Regency Period, when the British government operated without its titular head, King George III, who was incapacitated by illness (in this case, madness). For months, Wilson’s entire Cabinet wondered what on earth was happening to the President, since he was in no condition to meet with them. Edith Wilson, afraid (probably rightly) that the loss of the Presidency would kill her husband, was intent that he serve out his term.
Edith Wilson might not have intended it, but she became, in effect, America’s first woman President. By deciding which memos needed to be shown him and acted upon, by controlling all access to the President, she became the one who made the decisions.
The subsequent government-by-paralysis—and how subsequent American Presidents dealt with their health crisis—led to the adoption in 1967 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for what to do in the event of a President’s inability to perform the duties of office any longer.
Her influence meant that Cabinet members and senior aides found themselves cut off from Wilson, and even, in the case of Secretary of State Robert Lansing, forced out (in the latter case, for conducting Cabinet meetings himself without the presence or knowledge of the President). It also meant that Wilson only heard arguments made in favor of compromise with the reservationists. He lost the two subsequent votes on the Treaty of Versailles—the first time the Senate ever rejected a peace treaty negotiated by any President.
Not only did Wilson lose the vote on the League. By not resigning in favor of Vice President Thomas Marshall (a wisecracking pol who, though terrified of his possible responsibilities, was at least prepared to accommodate the reservationists), he also left the world rudderless as an obscure, Austrian-born corporal obsessed with ridding the world of Jews and others he deemed "not worthy of life" waited for his chance at power in Munich.
Edith Wilson might not have intended it, but she became, in effect, America’s first woman President. By deciding which memos needed to be shown him and acted upon, by controlling all access to the President, she became the one who made the decisions.
The subsequent government-by-paralysis—and how subsequent American Presidents dealt with their health crisis—led to the adoption in 1967 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for what to do in the event of a President’s inability to perform the duties of office any longer.
Her influence meant that Cabinet members and senior aides found themselves cut off from Wilson, and even, in the case of Secretary of State Robert Lansing, forced out (in the latter case, for conducting Cabinet meetings himself without the presence or knowledge of the President). It also meant that Wilson only heard arguments made in favor of compromise with the reservationists. He lost the two subsequent votes on the Treaty of Versailles—the first time the Senate ever rejected a peace treaty negotiated by any President.
Not only did Wilson lose the vote on the League. By not resigning in favor of Vice President Thomas Marshall (a wisecracking pol who, though terrified of his possible responsibilities, was at least prepared to accommodate the reservationists), he also left the world rudderless as an obscure, Austrian-born corporal obsessed with ridding the world of Jews and others he deemed "not worthy of life" waited for his chance at power in Munich.
Several years ago, on a visit to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, Va., I saw a display that occupies an entire room. It contains a Pierce-Arrow limousine, which transported Wilson from New York to Washington after his return from France, then bought by friends after Wilson left the White House. Visitors love to stop and stare at this car, which was specially equipped with a button to enable the incapacitated President to direct his driver.
At the same time, the car vividly symbolizes power at the service of a paralyzed Presidency. For all its wonders, the Pierce-Arrow could not ease the frustrations of Wilson, who had not only lost power but his chance to reorder the world.
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