September 7, 2024 • 40 mins
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squadcaster-4125_1_09-0 (00:00):
Welcome to American POTUS.
(00:01):
I'm your host, Alan Lowe.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I'm very pleased to welcome onthis episode, Patricia O'Toole,
a former professor in the schoolof arts at Columbia university
and author of several highlyregarded books.
Now Patty's going to join usagain in a month or so to talk
about one of those books titledwhen trumpets call Theodore
Roosevelt after the white house.
(00:23):
But today we'll talk aboutanother of her books, one about
a rival of Teddy Roosevelt, andthis one is titled The Moralist,
Woodrow Wilson and the World HeMade.
Patty, thanks so much forjoining us on American POTUS.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04 (00:35):
Thanks for having me.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-202 (00:36):
So excited to talk with you.
I loved this book.
Woodrow Wilson to me is such afascinating character, and I
love learning so much more abouthim let's start as you do in his
youth and talk about the thingsyou said contributed to what you
called his lifelongpreoccupation with morality.
What were those factors
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (00:55):
the, the largest one is the fact that
his father was a Presbyterianminister, and there were lots of
other Presbyterian ministers onboth sides of his family.
So he grew up in a householdthat's saturated with the Ten
Commandments and do unto othersand doing the right thing.
I, I think that was the overallformative.
(01:16):
Influence and he's interestedas, as a young man in philosophy
and ethics.
You know, what constitutes good,what constitutes evil?
He was a deeply religious man,but not in a kind of showoffy
way.
And the version ofPresbyterianism that he was
brought up in was a kind of mix.
It wasn't wildly fundamentalist.
(01:39):
It might seem a bit that way tous now.
But his father, for example,found it easy.
In 1859, when the origin ofspecies comes along to
incorporate the idea ofevolution as part of God's plan,
he saw scientific truth as partof the larger truth and God's
plan for the universe.
So in that sense, he was keepingup with the intellectual
(02:01):
currents of the time when manyother religious leaders were
headed in the other directiondefending, The idea that we were
not descended from monkeys.
You know, that was the famousthing in Tennessee, right?
The scopes trial.
So, there's a sense of morality.
There's a sense ofjudiciousness.
There's a sense of fairness.
Didn't include everything oreveryone, but it's there...
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-2 (02:23):
now, I'm going to skip over a lot,
and I know our listeners, theyneed to read the moral list, so
I'm going to skip pretty quicklyto the adult Woodrow, and I've
always been intrigued by hisremarkably quick rise, really,
from being a universitypresident to governor to
president.
So, what factors contributed tothat meteoric rise in a short
time?
And also, if you could comment,I think in the book, you talk
(02:45):
about some of the negativethings that may have resulted
from rising up that quickly.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-202 (02:49):
It really was meteoric.
He's a professor for a long timeat Princeton, and then he
becomes president of Princeton,and he does that for seven years
and people are unhappy when itgets toward the end of the
Roosevelt and Taftadministrations.
They feel like the country hasgone, despite the talk of
progressivism, that there's atilt, away from, um.
(03:13):
Progressivism.
And then there's a sense, too,that, progressivism had gone too
far.
So both things are in playbecause, Wilson, uh, followed in
Roosevelt's footsteps in theidea that The, uh, the federal
government as the umpire on theeconomic field that it was the
only institution that they couldthink of that was big enough to
(03:36):
counter the big weight of thehuge industrial corporations
that had come along.
So.
That observation about the powerof these behemoth companies in
combination with the sense thatthey should not be able to
operate unregulated triggered alot of the fundamental aspects
of creating the modern economicsociety with the government as
(03:59):
the umpire on the field.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-20 (04:01):
So, so what about Wilson's
personality or his way ofapproaching these issues?
Lent him such credibility thathe was able to rise so quickly
from again from being universitypresident to almost the next
day.
It feels like being president ofthe United States.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (04:19):
Yes, there was only a two year
interval between, when he Andwhen he became president, that
is meteoric especially comingfrom the academy, which is kind
of a sheltered place.
He, he got lucky in one respect.
In 1912, he was a candidatewithout any political baggage
(04:39):
because he's so new to thescene.
And he's a fresh face.
He was the very best speaker.
of his generation.
He was a phenomenal orator.
He could express himself, eventhough he's an egghead, he could
express himself in ways that thecommon man could understand.
He, he's dignified, he's clean,he's tall, he's well dressed.
(05:01):
And he made a dazzlingimpression when he was a
speaker.
And that is how most campaignmessages got out, you know?
So you had to get on the trainand ride the train thousands of
miles during your campaign.
And he was really, really goodat it.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04 (05:16):
Better than Theodore Roosevelt.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (05:18):
Yes, yes, because he had trained his
voice.
He, he loved the theater and helearned to speak in a way that
didn't make it seem that he wasshouting.
Whereas most political speakers,they were shouting and they
sounded like it.
But he could do it the way theactors did it, which is by
breathing from deep in histhroat.
(05:38):
Diaphragm, and he's graduallyraising his voice as he goes,
but people don't realize it.
So he doesn't sound bombastic.
He sounds really elegant.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-20 (05:48):
You spoke about the government is a
referee and his approach toprogressivism.
He called this program, the NewFreedom.
Can you give us maybe a coupleof specifics of what he proposed
and what he enacted or tried toenact as part of that agenda?
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (06:02):
Yes, he was very successful with his
ideas.
He had a whole big pile of ideasrandomly put down, you know,
like if you and I were trying toreinvent the world, and we're
putting all our best Our ideastogether.
We might not know how toformulate them into policy
positions.
We might need help with that.
And he realized he did need helpwith that.
And the person he went to wasLouis D.
(06:25):
Brandeis, who had been verysuccessful as an antitrust
lawyer, phenomenally successful.
And Brandeis had written a bookcalled Other People's Money.
And it was basically about howtycoons were able to borrow a
lot of money.
Um, and, make tons and tons ofmoney more and pay back their
(06:47):
loans.
And his idea was that smallpeople were being hurt by this.
They weren't getting the samekind of terms.
And that the playing field hadto be leveled.
So, um, Wilson asked Brandeis, Iforget how they met, if he would
just go over his ideas and helphim synthesize, create this new
(07:08):
freedom package.
So what they came up with, andamazingly, Wilson was able to
enact in the new freedom, was, Anew antitrust act that would,
the previous one, it was hardactually for business to figure
out what was going to be amonopoly and what wasn't.
So they wanted a better set ofground rules so that people who
(07:30):
are building the company wouldbe able to take, these laws into
effect.
The United States didn't yethave a central bank like the
major European countries had,and without a central bank, you
run into these bank panics fromtime to time, and there had been
a few big ones.
So, the Federal Reserve wascreated out of this.
(07:52):
The modern income tax wasanother thing they had in mind
before, The modern income tax,the way the government got
revenue, most of his revenue wasfrom tariffs and these tariffs
had been enacted when Americanindustry was young and needed
protection from the biggermanufacturers of Europe.
(08:13):
And so that was kind of a.
A decent idea for getting yourindustrial base up and running.
But what happened over time wasthat these companies just needed
ever and ever thicker blanketsof protection and the people who
paid for that were the peoplewho bought these goods because
they were buying American goodsthat were much more expensive
(08:34):
than their European equivalents.
They were artificially,artificially Expensive because
the European goods coming in hadthis big tax on them.
And the modern income tax, wewould have loved living under
this income tax because the toprate was like 7 percent and
something like a third of thepeople didn't have to pay
(08:55):
anything at all.
And then, you know, it wasgrading up from maybe 3 percent
to 7%.
And that was after you madesomething like 500, 000, which
in 1916, when this, this Tookfull effect would have been, I
don't know, 5 million now,something like that, at least.
(09:15):
So all of these ideas, hehammered out with Brandeis and
proposes them and got them allthrough.
And the, one of the reallyinteresting things about them is
they're all still there.
You know, the Fed is stillthere.
Oh, the federal tradecommission, which was about
preventing fraud and deception,and unfair business practices
(09:36):
that was created then still hasa major function to fulfill.
So the Fed, the federal tradecommission, the new antitrust
act and the modern income tax,that was the new freedom.
It was all these economicmeasures.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-2024 (09:49):
A lot of things, as you say, still
underpin our economy and oursociety today.
Pretty amazing.
So I was intrigued throughoutthe book you talk about Wilson
sending troops here and thereand you note that even before
World War one no other presidentSent troops abroad as often as
Woodrow Wilson So, how did thoseactions conform with his views
(10:10):
of morality and foreign policydecision making
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04- (10:13):
It's, it's interesting.
Historians now sometimes use theterm to describe this as
humanitarian interventionism,you know, that we think we're
going to do a good deed, and itmight be a good deed for the
people of that country.
Or in some cases, there were alot of threats that didn't lead
to occupations, but what theywere about was the European
(10:36):
bankers would lend huge amountsof money to these, uh, Small
countries that couldn't repaythe debt.
And then gunboats would be offVenezuela or, or some other
place and usually, central orSouth America.
So to prevent a war, we werethere trying to straighten this
out.
And the way we would straightenit out would be, we would take
over the customs house.
(10:57):
So all the revenues coming in amajor portion of them would be,
dedicated to paying back theseloans.
So.
That was a big part of it.
And then when the Mexicanrevolution began, um, started in
1910.
So it's before Wilson'spresident.
And it was the first majorrevolution of the 20th century
(11:21):
and it went on for a long time.
And we thought that we could godown there.
A lot of the, the revolting wasbeing carried on by people like
Pancho Villa, all thesedifferent factional
revolutionary bands.
And there was a lot of terrorismand there was, some going across
the border to steal cattle orterrorize people who lived on
(11:42):
the border.
So it did involve the UnitedStates.
So, Wilson sent troops headed byI think he was a major then,
major Pershing, down to Mexicoto hunt for Pancho Villa.
And they spent two years tryingto find him.
They never found him.
And then in the background,World War I is kind of thrumming
(12:03):
away.
And they just decided to comehome.
That's how they ended thatintervention?
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04- (12:09):
Let's turn for a moment to the first
ladies and Ellen Wilson.
What was Ellen Wilson'sbackground?
How would you describe theirrelationship?
And then what led to her death?
She died pretty early on in 1914in the White House.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (12:24):
Well, she was a fine young Southern
woman, lots of ministers in thefamily.
So that was a comfortable thingfor her and for Woodrow.
She was more educated than mostwomen of the time.
She didn't go to.
but she went to a, uh, it wascalled a female seminary in
Ohio.
It was like a junior college.
(12:45):
It was two years of educationbeyond high school.
Love to read, devoted,homemaker.
She loved cooking and takingcare of the house.
And, they had three children,quite young, three girls.
And, She was diagnosed with thisdisease, Bright's disease,
kidney disease that would betreatable now, but wasn't then.
(13:08):
And it came on her about thetime he was running for
president in 1912.
She began being very, very tiredand everyone was attributing
that to how hard she'd had towork to prepare for this new
life.
And she just kind of faded oncethey got to the White House.
She did some nice things.
The White House decor was kindof heavy with big thick drapes
(13:32):
and that kind of thing.
She lightened things up a lot.
She was a painter, quite a goodpainter.
And she put like white and itwas kind of white and blue on
the interior when she got donewith it.
She also designed the rosegarden that was there pretty
much in the form that shecreated until JFK began using it
for photo ops and outdoorannouncements.
(13:55):
Then it was changed somewhat forvideo purposes.
And devoted to her husband.
Their love letters are quiteremarkable.
I don't know if there's a volumeof them, but they're really very
loving and his are.
They're not steamy, but they're,he's clearly, he clearly adored
her and her physical self.
(14:17):
And she died, in August 1914,just as World War I is beginning
in Europe, and he wasdevastated.
There was a family service inthe White House.
And then the body was buried inGeorgia in her family's plot.
And he went on the train downthere and the body is also on
(14:39):
the train.
And he sat with it, stayed upthe whole train trip, you know,
more than 24 hours.
Just absolutely devastated.
And he comes back to the whitehouse.
And one of the first things hedoes, he had to escape to
something, I guess, is to thinkup a peace plan for this war in
Europe, how it, how it might besettled.
(15:00):
And it actually involved an idealike the League of Nations,
which he was the champion oflater on.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (15:09):
So after that terrible loss, how
did he meet Edith?
And we're going to talk aboutthe kind of the post stroke time
later, but how would you defineher role as first lady when she
first married Woodrow?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (15:23):
Well, he met, Edith about nine months
after Ellen died, and manypeople thought that was It's way
too early for him to be thinkingabout another partner in life.
So it was kept very quiet.
It was early 1915 when they metand he assumed, pretty soon into
(15:44):
their relationship because ofthings that were happening,
strains he was having withCongress about, neutrality, for
example, the question of whetherwe should enter the war or not.
He assumed he would not bereelected in 1916.
So their original plan was towait until someone else was
elected in 1916 and then go offand get married and live happily
(16:07):
ever after somewhere other thanthe white house.
But he was reelected and theirromance came out in the fall of
1915, so they were married inDecember of 1915, which was like
a year and four months or soafter Ellen died.
And, uh, as a, first lady, shewould, I think, remind you most
(16:29):
of, uh, Nancy Reagan in her,complete adoration of and
support of her husband, thepresident.
First ladies did not yet havebig public roles the way they
came to after Eleanor Rooseveltwas first lady.
So she was mostly concerned withthings in the house and, and
with being his Constantcompanion.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2024 (16:53):
I see.
Well, we'll return to Edith abit later.
Let's talk now about the war.
What led Wilson to ask Congressfor that declaration of war
finally against Germany, a warhe had tried to avoid for so
long?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-202 (17:09):
He really didn't want the United
States to have to be involved.
He saw what was happening inEurope as basically a dynastic
quarrel among the Royal familiesof Europe, and he was a foe of
imperialism and they were, thesepowers were imperialists and he
(17:29):
just thought it was a war formore power.
more territory and you didn'twant anything to do with it.
But as a neutral power, wedidn't get to stay really
neutral for a long time.
I mean, it was very quicklyclear that American businesses
were happier selling to theallies um, the Entente powers, I
(17:51):
should say.
And Lending money to them.
So I think in the end, we maybefinance 2 percent of the Germans
war, that side of the war andthe rest of the money went
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (18:04):
Mm
squadcaster-181a_2_09 (18:05):
primarily in
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (18:06):
hmm.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (18:07):
the allies.
So neutral by policy, but notreally.
In fact, then there was anincident there was a telegram
the Zimmerman telegram that theGermans sent to their ambassador
in Mexico.
And it was a proposal thatMexico throw in its lot with
(18:29):
Germany and with Japan andattack the United States.
That was the idea.
And that was the content of thetelegram.
There's some question aboutwhether the Germans were
bluffing as a way of luring theUnited States into the war.
And their thought was if they'rebusy with their war effort,
(18:53):
they're not going to be able todo anything else.
They'll never come into the waranyway, but they won't be
helping the allies anymore andthey'll be having to help
themselves.
So it was to weaken the UnitedStates.
In terms of, the arms they wereproducing and everything they
were sending to the allies.
That was in late March of, 1917when that happened.
(19:14):
And Wilson decided that was themoment that the United States
could no longer take thisbecause there had been a number
of submarine attacks on shipscarrying American passengers
civilians.
For and he just didn't see howthat wouldn't, you know, if he
passed on this Zimmermantelegram thing, there was going
(19:35):
to be another submarine incidentand it might be some gigantic
thing.
Like the
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (19:41):
hmm.
squadcaster-181a_2_0 (19:42):
Lusitania, uh, which was a British ship and
earlier in the war and 1, 200people died and he wanted to
avoid that.
So then we're off in the war.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-20 (19:53):
And he took some grief for not
responding with a declarationafter Lusitania and those other
things.
Is that right?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (19:59):
Yes, with all these things, it's
like, well, what was hethinking?
Why didn't he seize the moment?
And one reason he didn't is thathe worried.
The population of the UnitedStates at that point, a third of
it was either immigrants orchildren of immigrants, and he
was afraid that if he took oneside, that all the people who
had come from countries on theother side Would be so angry,
(20:22):
and he would never get thecountry unified, if we had to go
to war.
So, he wanted to stay out of it,and the other reason was, he
imagined that because the UnitedStates was fairly powerful, it
could be the one, if it stayedout of the war, it could be the
one to broker the peace.
And he wanted, that's a role hevery much wanted, he made
(20:42):
several offers to mediate an endto the war.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (20:47):
So the 14 points, we've heard of
those.
What was so revolutionary aboutthose?
They really revolutionizedAmerican foreign policy.
Can you outline?
they were so important.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (21:00):
The biggest thing was that he saw a
role for internationalgovernance and not really a body
that would eliminate nationalgovernments, but that if you had
an international organization,the League of Nations was his
term for it, that was in chargeof maintaining the peace of the
(21:20):
world.
And then if you had peace andstability.
You could introduce democraticideals, and he was trying to
democratize the world, really.
And the phrase, make the worldsafe for democracy comes out of
this era.
And the reason he valueddemocracy more than any other
form of government was, in termsof international relations, was
(21:44):
that democracies didn't go towar against each other.
So he thought the more countriesyou have that are democratic,
the less likelihood there wouldbe of another big war.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2024 (21:56):
I see.
But in the war we went, formultiple reasons, and you note
that FDR later praised Wilsonfor the way he conducted the war
effort, saying he did it, quote,from the top down, unquote, what
were Wilson's main steps ingetting the nation ready for
that war?
And specifically the troops.
Oh,
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (22:16):
was a little slow.
You know, the first big shipmentof troops goes in June of 1917.
And, at that point, people arethinking the war might go on
till 1920.
And it ended, in November, 1918.
The first troops aren't actuallyin the field till, later in
1917.
(22:37):
And their first big engagementshappened in the spring of 1918.
There was a joke, the Americansoldiers wore uniforms.
That said AEF for AmericanExpeditionary Force.
And the joke is that an Americansoldier meets an English soldier
(22:57):
and the English soldier says,what does AEF stand for?
And the American soldier says,after England failed.
And the response of, the Englishsoldier was, no, it's after
everything was finished.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (23:16):
my goodness.
Yeah.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (23:17):
Yeah.
So that was, that was theattitude about it.
But it actually turns out thatthey poured two million men into
Europe very quickly, and theEuropeans were so tired.
They'd been fighting since 1914,so two million fresh troops was
a huge contribution to endingthe war so quickly.
And in terms of preparing them,Wilson, people came to him
(23:41):
beforehand and said, you know,we have to get ready.
We have a really small army.
Our army was the same size asMontenegro's, the regular army,
way, way down there.
So that was a huge buildup.
It required a draft.
And there were still peoplearound who remember the civil
war drafts, not fondly.
So it was a big task to do thisand the Southerners didn't want
(24:06):
anything.
There was a racial component tothis.
They didn't want their sonshaving to fight next to black
troops.
So the troops were allsegregated.
And there was not a lot ofsupport.
For the war beyond the EastCoast, really it was the elite
of the East Coast, basically,who saw the importance of this
(24:26):
war or I should say, consideredthis war important that the fate
of the world really hung on, onthis war.
So there were doctors who whenwe were neutral, wanted to go to
Europe because they could visitthe German doctors in the field
and the French doctors in thefield and see what modern
battlefield medicine was like,just in case they wanted to do
(24:49):
this as a matter of preparednessso that they would be prepared.
They wanted to go in 1916 andWilson wouldn't let them go
because he said that will sendthe signal that we're preparing
for war and we are decidedly notpreparing for war.
So it's a very mixed pictureuntil finally you get the
declaration and then everythingis moving at very high speed to
(25:10):
get the troops over there,trained and over there.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-20 (25:14):
And he takes some still very
controversial measures duringthat war.
Censorship, jailing of someopponents.
How did he justify thoseactions?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-202 (25:23):
In his mind it was about this is
how you get unity.
You have to suppress dissent.
And people did come to him andspeak to him about it's going
too far.
And in a couple of instances, helet people off the hook, people
who were going to be prosecutedfor this.
But mostly so many papers wereshut.
There were thousands of ethnicnewspapers in the United States.
(25:45):
At that point, a lot of peopledidn't speak English.
So there was this wholethriving, you know, couple
hundred languages, probably.
In New York City, there wouldhave been 20 ethnic newspapers
in different languages, and therule came down that, okay, you
can keep publishing yournewspaper, but you have to
produce each issue in English aswell as in whatever your
(26:10):
language is, so that we cancheck it and make sure you're
not doing anything subversive.
Well, that was enough to justput most of these newspapers out
of business.
Um,
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (26:20):
What
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (26:21):
the famous, Dissenter who got put in
prison was Eugene Debs, who wasthe head of the Socialist Party,
who basically gave a speech thatcould be taken to mean, do not,
answer your call from the draftboard.
And he was a socialist and thesocialists were at that point
opposed to all wars, so he wasspeaking his conscience and
(26:45):
ended up in prison.
Ran from prison for president in1920.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04 (26:52):
about, you've mentioned a couple of
times the League of Nations,obviously so associated with
Woodrow Wilson.
We know you talked about how youcame back from, Ellen's death
and, started writing down someof those ideas.
Where did that come from in hismind, and, and why did he focus
on it so much at Versailles?
We know now the detriment ofother parts of that treaty.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-202 (27:16):
He really thought that it was the
fundamental to peace.
That if you had this, if you hadan institution, a global
institution, that could addressthe global problem of a global,
potential global war, that thatwas the greatest contribution a
person could make to the peaceof the world.
And if you don't have peace, youdon't have stability.
(27:38):
And that in addition to all thepeople who might be killed,
there's the whole question ofpeople not wanting to make
business investments, forexample, because they don't know
who's going to win or when theremight be peace.
Um, we're seeing, I mean, it'spart of the devastation of
Ukraine, right?
That, uh, it's very hard to saywhat the future will be.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04- (28:02):
Could anything have saved the treaty
in the Senate?
We know famously it did not passthe Senate.
Uh, could anything have saved itin the form it was in?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (28:09):
Yes, if Wilson had been willing to
compromise, and he wouldn't, andthere are various thoughts about
why he wouldn't.
One of them was that he hadactually extracted a number of
concessions from the British andthe French, getting them to
lower their demands forreparations, for example, their
financial demands, they were insuch a vengeful mood and he was
(28:32):
trying to ameliorate that and,he doesn't get enough credit for
the things that he did claw backfrom them.
So when he came home, he felt hehad asked them to sacrifice a
lot and he didn't want to takeanything else.
He didn't want the Senate totake anything else away from
them.
Also, when he went to Europe andpeople said, you know, you
(28:53):
really should take someRepublicans with you because
we've never done anything likethis before, and it would be
good to have it be a bipartisanthing.
And his thought was, his ace inthe hole was, the United States
Senate has never failed toratify a treaty that the
president wanted ratified.
So it's not going to happen thistime because it's never happened
(29:15):
in the past.
But what had changed is that atexactly the moment the war is
ending in November, we havemidterm elections.
And Wilson has had majorities inboth houses of Congress for six
years.
And all of a sudden they bothflip.
So he didn't have that team onhis side and they had supported
him.
(29:35):
They had given him every bigthing he wanted during the war.
And now, they weren't going tohelp him anymore.
They said they thought theleague of nations as he
conceived it was.
really vague and sweeping andthey also thought it would
involve the United States inEvery war that came up in Europe
and he thought no no No, ifthere's a war over in Eastern
(29:58):
Europe, they're not going to askfor American troops.
They're going to ask for troopsfrom other parts of Europe to
come.
And, but there was nothing, thatwas an assumption on his part.
So there were loose things andhe wouldn't accept the
reservations to the treaty.
So it failed.
They voted on it three times.
(30:18):
Senator Lodge, who was steeringall of this in the Senate, was
no fan of Woodrow Wilson, but hegave him three shots in the
Senate to get it through, and inthe end they couldn't come up
with a two thirds majority thatthey needed to get it passed.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (30:33):
We know during the campaign for
that treaty, Wilson suffered asevere stroke in So can you
summarize the effects of thatstroke on the president?
How badly was he incapacitated?
Hm, Mm
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (30:47):
His left side was completely
paralyzed.
Um, and so much so that it wasmonths before he could sit in a
chair and then he couldn't sitin a chair unless there were
arms on both sides.
He did learn.
to walk with effort.
He had some kind of state of theart for the day, physical
(31:12):
therapy.
And it was very difficult inthose days to know how quickly a
person would recover from astroke.
There was no imaging equipment,you know, so you couldn't really
see the extent of the damage inthe brain.
You could peer into someone'seyes.
and see what had happened to theoptic nerves.
But it was not like today wherethey would have a much better.
(31:34):
Grip on that.
And he couldn't think straight.
Anymore.
He couldn't concentrate.
He couldn't read.
He could be read to for shortperiods.
So there's a cover up.
This is the biggest cover upthat had ever happened in the
White House up to that point.
And the cover up is beingcarried out by Mrs.
Wilson and Wilson's doctor,Carrie Grayson.
(31:55):
And Wilson's chief aide, JoeTumulty.
And they're not exactly, they'relying in the sense that they're
not admitting how, badly offWilson is and how he really
can't be president.
He's too disabled to bepresident anymore.
But they're putting out allthese chipper bulletins, you
(32:16):
know, like today the presidentwalked across the room on his
own steam kind of thing.
And when, uh, the strokehappened in October.
1919.
So he's, he's president, tillMarch of 1921, 17 months.
We had a disabled president thathad never happened before.
(32:38):
And every once in a while,Grayson would try to talk to him
about, wouldn't it be better foryou if you resigned?
And Wilson was just, he got thisidea that not only was he not
going to resign, he was going torun for president again in 1920.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (32:54):
That was shocking to me in your book,
I didn't realize that part, it'sthis disconnect with the reality
of his
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (33:00):
Yeah.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (33:03):
So let's turn for a moment, often
when we talk about WoodrowWilson today, you'll hear
criticisms leveled at him forhis views on race.
How would you characterize thoseviews and his actions toward
African Americans?
Thanks.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (33:18):
This is the serious stain on his
historical reputation.
The Southerners in Congress, inthe House and the Senate.
Did not like the expansion offederal power that the new
freedoms entailed, you know, theFed being in charge of the
economy, basically, and theincome tax being a national
(33:39):
thing instead of states that hadincome taxes, and they just did
not like that.
And they saw that as the.
beginning of a movement thatwould ultimately end segregation
and Jim Crow in the South.
So when he's talking about thesenew freedom things, they want to
sign from him that he's notgoing to interfere with
(34:00):
segregation in the South.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (34:02):
Mm hmm.
Mm
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (34:04):
what they wanted was for him to
segregate the civil servicewhere blacks and whites had
worked harmoniously together fordecades.
And he was willing to do this.
He thought it was more importantto get the new freedom set up
and running that the benefits ofthat would be larger than the
(34:25):
detriment to black people thatwas involved in segregating the
civil service and the civilservice was one of the few ways.
that blacks could get ahead, inthe United States in that era,
if you could get a civil servicejob from mailman on up you had a
stable life.
Um, and so the government wasadmired for that, you know, go
(34:48):
to Washington, get one of thosejobs and, you know, You, you
won't have the kind of economicworries you have when you're
farming and you don't know ifthe crops are going to come in
or when you're trying to get ajob and you can't get one
because of racialdiscrimination.
So it was a huge, huge setbackand, that's always been known.
(35:09):
Historians have always writtenabout that, but it became a big
deal in about, 2015 when somestudents at Princeton, actually,
Discovered this, you know, thattheir hero, this guy whose
statue, some black students,here's Woodrow Wilson, his
name's on buildings atPrinceton.
Nice, memorials to him here andthere.
(35:30):
And yet, he was a really bad guyin terms of race in their view.
And that prompted the biggestdiscussion we'd had about Wilson
and race in a long, long time.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (35:41):
Mm hmm.
So, with that, and all the otherthings we discussed and that you
discussed in The Moralist, wouldyou say his legacy is today?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (35:51):
It's pretty tremendous.
I was thinking about, uh, youknow, they weren't talking about
climate change back in the day,right?
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04 (35:58):
Right, right.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (35:59):
But he was in his way an
environmentalist in terms ofprotecting public lands and
natural resources.
Theodore Roosevelt was thechampion of that earlier on, and
he thought that was important.
He also created the NationalPark Service.
To manage these beautiful parks,and systematize the management
(36:20):
of it, because it was just kindof helter skelter before that,
um, there were managers of theparks, but it wasn't coordinated
into a national management of,of them.
And I think if he were around,he would see the climate change
crisis.
As a perfect example ofsomething for international
(36:41):
cooperation as he saw war is aglobal problem.
Therefore, you need a globalsolution, and I think he would
see climate change the same wayin terms of, women, he was late
in supporting women's suffrage,and I think it was because he
thought it would fail, if itcame to a national vote in some
(37:01):
way, it wouldn't pass.
But by 1918, he's had enoughconversations with women.
There's already suffrage inabout a dozen states.
And the case for taking itnational made sense to him.
Finally, he saw it as, connectedwith other things that were
better done by the nationalgovernment than the state
(37:21):
governments.
So he had something like 50meetings with suffrage
organizations, and he spoke atone of their conventions even
before this.
So he had to work his way towardwhat he thought was the right
moment to throw the full weightof the presidency behind it.
But if he hadn't done that, I'mnot sure that there would have
(37:44):
been the suffrage amendment, interms of his legacy, well, we've
touched on this briefly theFederal Trade Commission, the
Fed, the modern income tax,these things are still there.
That's not true of a lot ofgovernment programs that start.
So that's huge.
And the idea of nationalregulation, I mean, he was a
great expander of that and wecan argue.
(38:07):
about the extent of it.
Is it too much?
Is it too little?
Are the laws we have wellenforced?
But the idea of some sort ofnational regulation is largely
accepted.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (38:20):
Very good.
A fascinating man.
A really fascinating book.
Patty, what's next for you?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (38:26):
I'm still back in this era.
I'm writing a book aboutTheodore Roosevelt, a second
one.
That's about him as president.
My other book was about afterhis presidency.
And if I could call it what Iwanted to call it, it would be
called Theodore Roosevelt andthe somewhat progressive era.
Because, because it wasprogressive for, uh, white men
(38:50):
and not for women and not forpeople of color.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04- (38:57):
Well, we look forward to that.
I look forward to talking withyou soon about when trumpets
call.
And again, thank you for joiningus today for a really wonderful
discussion.
I enjoyed it so much.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2024 (39:07):
I did too.
Thank you, Ellen.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2024 (39:10):
I encourage our listeners to check
out The Moralist.
I know you'll enjoy what is asuperb history of a complicated
man, a complicated leader.
Thanks for joining us today andplease consider supporting our
work.
American POTUS is a 501c3nonprofit dedicated to promoting
a broad understanding of thehistory of the presidency and
the presidents.
Please check out our website atAmericanPOTUS.
(39:30):
org.
Thanks so much, and I'll see younext time on American POTUS.
Welcome to American POTUS.
(00:01):
I'm your host, Alan Lowe.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I'm very pleased to welcome onthis episode, Patricia O'Toole,
a former professor in the schoolof arts at Columbia university
and author of several highlyregarded books.
Now Patty's going to join usagain in a month or so to talk
about one of those books titledwhen trumpets call Theodore
Roosevelt after the white house.
(00:23):
But today we'll talk aboutanother of her books, one about
a rival of Teddy Roosevelt, andthis one is titled The Moralist,
Woodrow Wilson and the World HeMade.
Patty, thanks so much forjoining us on American POTUS.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04 (00:35):
Thanks for having me.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-202 (00:36):
So excited to talk with you.
I loved this book.
Woodrow Wilson to me is such afascinating character, and I
love learning so much more abouthim let's start as you do in his
youth and talk about the thingsyou said contributed to what you
called his lifelongpreoccupation with morality.
What were those factors
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (00:55):
the, the largest one is the fact that
his father was a Presbyterianminister, and there were lots of
other Presbyterian ministers onboth sides of his family.
So he grew up in a householdthat's saturated with the Ten
Commandments and do unto othersand doing the right thing.
I, I think that was the overallformative.
(01:16):
Influence and he's interestedas, as a young man in philosophy
and ethics.
You know, what constitutes good,what constitutes evil?
He was a deeply religious man,but not in a kind of showoffy
way.
And the version ofPresbyterianism that he was
brought up in was a kind of mix.
It wasn't wildly fundamentalist.
(01:39):
It might seem a bit that way tous now.
But his father, for example,found it easy.
In 1859, when the origin ofspecies comes along to
incorporate the idea ofevolution as part of God's plan,
he saw scientific truth as partof the larger truth and God's
plan for the universe.
So in that sense, he was keepingup with the intellectual
(02:01):
currents of the time when manyother religious leaders were
headed in the other directiondefending, The idea that we were
not descended from monkeys.
You know, that was the famousthing in Tennessee, right?
The scopes trial.
So, there's a sense of morality.
There's a sense ofjudiciousness.
There's a sense of fairness.
Didn't include everything oreveryone, but it's there...
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-2 (02:23):
now, I'm going to skip over a lot,
and I know our listeners, theyneed to read the moral list, so
I'm going to skip pretty quicklyto the adult Woodrow, and I've
always been intrigued by hisremarkably quick rise, really,
from being a universitypresident to governor to
president.
So, what factors contributed tothat meteoric rise in a short
time?
And also, if you could comment,I think in the book, you talk
(02:45):
about some of the negativethings that may have resulted
from rising up that quickly.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-202 (02:49):
It really was meteoric.
He's a professor for a long timeat Princeton, and then he
becomes president of Princeton,and he does that for seven years
and people are unhappy when itgets toward the end of the
Roosevelt and Taftadministrations.
They feel like the country hasgone, despite the talk of
progressivism, that there's atilt, away from, um.
(03:13):
Progressivism.
And then there's a sense, too,that, progressivism had gone too
far.
So both things are in playbecause, Wilson, uh, followed in
Roosevelt's footsteps in theidea that The, uh, the federal
government as the umpire on theeconomic field that it was the
only institution that they couldthink of that was big enough to
(03:36):
counter the big weight of thehuge industrial corporations
that had come along.
So.
That observation about the powerof these behemoth companies in
combination with the sense thatthey should not be able to
operate unregulated triggered alot of the fundamental aspects
of creating the modern economicsociety with the government as
(03:59):
the umpire on the field.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-20 (04:01):
So, so what about Wilson's
personality or his way ofapproaching these issues?
Lent him such credibility thathe was able to rise so quickly
from again from being universitypresident to almost the next
day.
It feels like being president ofthe United States.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (04:19):
Yes, there was only a two year
interval between, when he Andwhen he became president, that
is meteoric especially comingfrom the academy, which is kind
of a sheltered place.
He, he got lucky in one respect.
In 1912, he was a candidatewithout any political baggage
(04:39):
because he's so new to thescene.
And he's a fresh face.
He was the very best speaker.
of his generation.
He was a phenomenal orator.
He could express himself, eventhough he's an egghead, he could
express himself in ways that thecommon man could understand.
He, he's dignified, he's clean,he's tall, he's well dressed.
(05:01):
And he made a dazzlingimpression when he was a
speaker.
And that is how most campaignmessages got out, you know?
So you had to get on the trainand ride the train thousands of
miles during your campaign.
And he was really, really goodat it.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04 (05:16):
Better than Theodore Roosevelt.
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (05:18):
Yes, yes, because he had trained his
voice.
He, he loved the theater and helearned to speak in a way that
didn't make it seem that he wasshouting.
Whereas most political speakers,they were shouting and they
sounded like it.
But he could do it the way theactors did it, which is by
breathing from deep in histhroat.
(05:38):
Diaphragm, and he's graduallyraising his voice as he goes,
but people don't realize it.
So he doesn't sound bombastic.
He sounds really elegant.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-20 (05:48):
You spoke about the government is a
referee and his approach toprogressivism.
He called this program, the NewFreedom.
Can you give us maybe a coupleof specifics of what he proposed
and what he enacted or tried toenact as part of that agenda?
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04-2 (06:02):
Yes, he was very successful with his
ideas.
He had a whole big pile of ideasrandomly put down, you know,
like if you and I were trying toreinvent the world, and we're
putting all our best Our ideastogether.
We might not know how toformulate them into policy
positions.
We might need help with that.
And he realized he did need helpwith that.
And the person he went to wasLouis D.
(06:25):
Brandeis, who had been verysuccessful as an antitrust
lawyer, phenomenally successful.
And Brandeis had written a bookcalled Other People's Money.
And it was basically about howtycoons were able to borrow a
lot of money.
Um, and, make tons and tons ofmoney more and pay back their
(06:47):
loans.
And his idea was that smallpeople were being hurt by this.
They weren't getting the samekind of terms.
And that the playing field hadto be leveled.
So, um, Wilson asked Brandeis, Iforget how they met, if he would
just go over his ideas and helphim synthesize, create this new
(07:08):
freedom package.
So what they came up with, andamazingly, Wilson was able to
enact in the new freedom, was, Anew antitrust act that would,
the previous one, it was hardactually for business to figure
out what was going to be amonopoly and what wasn't.
So they wanted a better set ofground rules so that people who
(07:30):
are building the company wouldbe able to take, these laws into
effect.
The United States didn't yethave a central bank like the
major European countries had,and without a central bank, you
run into these bank panics fromtime to time, and there had been
a few big ones.
So, the Federal Reserve wascreated out of this.
(07:52):
The modern income tax wasanother thing they had in mind
before, The modern income tax,the way the government got
revenue, most of his revenue wasfrom tariffs and these tariffs
had been enacted when Americanindustry was young and needed
protection from the biggermanufacturers of Europe.
(08:13):
And so that was kind of a.
A decent idea for getting yourindustrial base up and running.
But what happened over time wasthat these companies just needed
ever and ever thicker blanketsof protection and the people who
paid for that were the peoplewho bought these goods because
they were buying American goodsthat were much more expensive
(08:34):
than their European equivalents.
They were artificially,artificially Expensive because
the European goods coming in hadthis big tax on them.
And the modern income tax, wewould have loved living under
this income tax because the toprate was like 7 percent and
something like a third of thepeople didn't have to pay
(08:55):
anything at all.
And then, you know, it wasgrading up from maybe 3 percent
to 7%.
And that was after you madesomething like 500, 000, which
in 1916, when this, this Tookfull effect would have been, I
don't know, 5 million now,something like that, at least.
(09:15):
So all of these ideas, hehammered out with Brandeis and
proposes them and got them allthrough.
And the, one of the reallyinteresting things about them is
they're all still there.
You know, the Fed is stillthere.
Oh, the federal tradecommission, which was about
preventing fraud and deception,and unfair business practices
(09:36):
that was created then still hasa major function to fulfill.
So the Fed, the federal tradecommission, the new antitrust
act and the modern income tax,that was the new freedom.
It was all these economicmeasures.
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04-2024 (09:49):
A lot of things, as you say, still
underpin our economy and oursociety today.
Pretty amazing.
So I was intrigued throughoutthe book you talk about Wilson
sending troops here and thereand you note that even before
World War one no other presidentSent troops abroad as often as
Woodrow Wilson So, how did thoseactions conform with his views
(10:10):
of morality and foreign policydecision making
squadcaster-181a_1_09-04- (10:13):
It's, it's interesting.
Historians now sometimes use theterm to describe this as
humanitarian interventionism,you know, that we think we're
going to do a good deed, and itmight be a good deed for the
people of that country.
Or in some cases, there were alot of threats that didn't lead
to occupations, but what theywere about was the European
(10:36):
bankers would lend huge amountsof money to these, uh, Small
countries that couldn't repaythe debt.
And then gunboats would be offVenezuela or, or some other
place and usually, central orSouth America.
So to prevent a war, we werethere trying to straighten this
out.
And the way we would straightenit out would be, we would take
over the customs house.
(10:57):
So all the revenues coming in amajor portion of them would be,
dedicated to paying back theseloans.
So.
That was a big part of it.
And then when the Mexicanrevolution began, um, started in
1910.
So it's before Wilson'spresident.
And it was the first majorrevolution of the 20th century
(11:21):
and it went on for a long time.
And we thought that we could godown there.
A lot of the, the revolting wasbeing carried on by people like
Pancho Villa, all thesedifferent factional
revolutionary bands.
And there was a lot of terrorismand there was, some going across
the border to steal cattle orterrorize people who lived on
(11:42):
the border.
So it did involve the UnitedStates.
So, Wilson sent troops headed byI think he was a major then,
major Pershing, down to Mexicoto hunt for Pancho Villa.
And they spent two years tryingto find him.
They never found him.
And then in the background,World War I is kind of thrumming
(12:03):
away.
And they just decided to comehome.
That's how they ended thatintervention?
squadcaster-4125_1_09-04- (12:09):
Let's turn for a moment to the first
ladies and Ellen Wilson.
What was Ellen Wilson'sbackground?
How would you describe theirrelationship?
And then what led to her death?
She died pretty early on in 1914in the White House.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (12:24):
Well, she was a fine young Southern
woman, lots of ministers in thefamily.
So that was a comfortable thingfor her and for Woodrow.
She was more educated than mostwomen of the time.
She didn't go to.
but she went to a, uh, it wascalled a female seminary in
Ohio.
It was like a junior college.
(12:45):
It was two years of educationbeyond high school.
Love to read, devoted,homemaker.
She loved cooking and takingcare of the house.
And, they had three children,quite young, three girls.
And, She was diagnosed with thisdisease, Bright's disease,
kidney disease that would betreatable now, but wasn't then.
(13:08):
And it came on her about thetime he was running for
president in 1912.
She began being very, very tiredand everyone was attributing
that to how hard she'd had towork to prepare for this new
life.
And she just kind of faded oncethey got to the White House.
She did some nice things.
The White House decor was kindof heavy with big thick drapes
(13:32):
and that kind of thing.
She lightened things up a lot.
She was a painter, quite a goodpainter.
And she put like white and itwas kind of white and blue on
the interior when she got donewith it.
She also designed the rosegarden that was there pretty
much in the form that shecreated until JFK began using it
for photo ops and outdoorannouncements.
(13:55):
Then it was changed somewhat forvideo purposes.
And devoted to her husband.
Their love letters are quiteremarkable.
I don't know if there's a volumeof them, but they're really very
loving and his are.
They're not steamy, but they're,he's clearly, he clearly adored
her and her physical self.
(14:17):
And she died, in August 1914,just as World War I is beginning
in Europe, and he wasdevastated.
There was a family service inthe White House.
And then the body was buried inGeorgia in her family's plot.
And he went on the train downthere and the body is also on
(14:39):
the train.
And he sat with it, stayed upthe whole train trip, you know,
more than 24 hours.
Just absolutely devastated.
And he comes back to the whitehouse.
And one of the first things hedoes, he had to escape to
something, I guess, is to thinkup a peace plan for this war in
Europe, how it, how it might besettled.
(15:00):
And it actually involved an idealike the League of Nations,
which he was the champion oflater on.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (15:09):
So after that terrible loss, how
did he meet Edith?
And we're going to talk aboutthe kind of the post stroke time
later, but how would you defineher role as first lady when she
first married Woodrow?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (15:23):
Well, he met, Edith about nine months
after Ellen died, and manypeople thought that was It's way
too early for him to be thinkingabout another partner in life.
So it was kept very quiet.
It was early 1915 when they metand he assumed, pretty soon into
(15:44):
their relationship because ofthings that were happening,
strains he was having withCongress about, neutrality, for
example, the question of whetherwe should enter the war or not.
He assumed he would not bereelected in 1916.
So their original plan was towait until someone else was
elected in 1916 and then go offand get married and live happily
(16:07):
ever after somewhere other thanthe white house.
But he was reelected and theirromance came out in the fall of
1915, so they were married inDecember of 1915, which was like
a year and four months or soafter Ellen died.
And, uh, as a, first lady, shewould, I think, remind you most
(16:29):
of, uh, Nancy Reagan in her,complete adoration of and
support of her husband, thepresident.
First ladies did not yet havebig public roles the way they
came to after Eleanor Rooseveltwas first lady.
So she was mostly concerned withthings in the house and, and
with being his Constantcompanion.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2024 (16:53):
I see.
Well, we'll return to Edith abit later.
Let's talk now about the war.
What led Wilson to ask Congressfor that declaration of war
finally against Germany, a warhe had tried to avoid for so
long?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-202 (17:09):
He really didn't want the United
States to have to be involved.
He saw what was happening inEurope as basically a dynastic
quarrel among the Royal familiesof Europe, and he was a foe of
imperialism and they were, thesepowers were imperialists and he
(17:29):
just thought it was a war formore power.
more territory and you didn'twant anything to do with it.
But as a neutral power, wedidn't get to stay really
neutral for a long time.
I mean, it was very quicklyclear that American businesses
were happier selling to theallies um, the Entente powers, I
(17:51):
should say.
And Lending money to them.
So I think in the end, we maybefinance 2 percent of the Germans
war, that side of the war andthe rest of the money went
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (18:04):
Mm
squadcaster-181a_2_09 (18:05):
primarily in
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (18:06):
hmm.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (18:07):
the allies.
So neutral by policy, but notreally.
In fact, then there was anincident there was a telegram
the Zimmerman telegram that theGermans sent to their ambassador
in Mexico.
And it was a proposal thatMexico throw in its lot with
(18:29):
Germany and with Japan andattack the United States.
That was the idea.
And that was the content of thetelegram.
There's some question aboutwhether the Germans were
bluffing as a way of luring theUnited States into the war.
And their thought was if they'rebusy with their war effort,
(18:53):
they're not going to be able todo anything else.
They'll never come into the waranyway, but they won't be
helping the allies anymore andthey'll be having to help
themselves.
So it was to weaken the UnitedStates.
In terms of, the arms they wereproducing and everything they
were sending to the allies.
That was in late March of, 1917when that happened.
(19:14):
And Wilson decided that was themoment that the United States
could no longer take thisbecause there had been a number
of submarine attacks on shipscarrying American passengers
civilians.
For and he just didn't see howthat wouldn't, you know, if he
passed on this Zimmermantelegram thing, there was going
(19:35):
to be another submarine incidentand it might be some gigantic
thing.
Like the
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (19:41):
hmm.
squadcaster-181a_2_0 (19:42):
Lusitania, uh, which was a British ship and
earlier in the war and 1, 200people died and he wanted to
avoid that.
So then we're off in the war.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-20 (19:53):
And he took some grief for not
responding with a declarationafter Lusitania and those other
things.
Is that right?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (19:59):
Yes, with all these things, it's
like, well, what was hethinking?
Why didn't he seize the moment?
And one reason he didn't is thathe worried.
The population of the UnitedStates at that point, a third of
it was either immigrants orchildren of immigrants, and he
was afraid that if he took oneside, that all the people who
had come from countries on theother side Would be so angry,
(20:22):
and he would never get thecountry unified, if we had to go
to war.
So, he wanted to stay out of it,and the other reason was, he
imagined that because the UnitedStates was fairly powerful, it
could be the one, if it stayedout of the war, it could be the
one to broker the peace.
And he wanted, that's a role hevery much wanted, he made
(20:42):
several offers to mediate an endto the war.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (20:47):
So the 14 points, we've heard of
those.
What was so revolutionary aboutthose?
They really revolutionizedAmerican foreign policy.
Can you outline?
they were so important.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (21:00):
The biggest thing was that he saw a
role for internationalgovernance and not really a body
that would eliminate nationalgovernments, but that if you had
an international organization,the League of Nations was his
term for it, that was in chargeof maintaining the peace of the
(21:20):
world.
And then if you had peace andstability.
You could introduce democraticideals, and he was trying to
democratize the world, really.
And the phrase, make the worldsafe for democracy comes out of
this era.
And the reason he valueddemocracy more than any other
form of government was, in termsof international relations, was
(21:44):
that democracies didn't go towar against each other.
So he thought the more countriesyou have that are democratic,
the less likelihood there wouldbe of another big war.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2024 (21:56):
I see.
But in the war we went, formultiple reasons, and you note
that FDR later praised Wilsonfor the way he conducted the war
effort, saying he did it, quote,from the top down, unquote, what
were Wilson's main steps ingetting the nation ready for
that war?
And specifically the troops.
Oh,
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (22:16):
was a little slow.
You know, the first big shipmentof troops goes in June of 1917.
And, at that point, people arethinking the war might go on
till 1920.
And it ended, in November, 1918.
The first troops aren't actuallyin the field till, later in
1917.
(22:37):
And their first big engagementshappened in the spring of 1918.
There was a joke, the Americansoldiers wore uniforms.
That said AEF for AmericanExpeditionary Force.
And the joke is that an Americansoldier meets an English soldier
(22:57):
and the English soldier says,what does AEF stand for?
And the American soldier says,after England failed.
And the response of, the Englishsoldier was, no, it's after
everything was finished.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (23:16):
my goodness.
Yeah.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (23:17):
Yeah.
So that was, that was theattitude about it.
But it actually turns out thatthey poured two million men into
Europe very quickly, and theEuropeans were so tired.
They'd been fighting since 1914,so two million fresh troops was
a huge contribution to endingthe war so quickly.
And in terms of preparing them,Wilson, people came to him
(23:41):
beforehand and said, you know,we have to get ready.
We have a really small army.
Our army was the same size asMontenegro's, the regular army,
way, way down there.
So that was a huge buildup.
It required a draft.
And there were still peoplearound who remember the civil
war drafts, not fondly.
So it was a big task to do thisand the Southerners didn't want
(24:06):
anything.
There was a racial component tothis.
They didn't want their sonshaving to fight next to black
troops.
So the troops were allsegregated.
And there was not a lot ofsupport.
For the war beyond the EastCoast, really it was the elite
of the East Coast, basically,who saw the importance of this
(24:26):
war or I should say, consideredthis war important that the fate
of the world really hung on, onthis war.
So there were doctors who whenwe were neutral, wanted to go to
Europe because they could visitthe German doctors in the field
and the French doctors in thefield and see what modern
battlefield medicine was like,just in case they wanted to do
(24:49):
this as a matter of preparednessso that they would be prepared.
They wanted to go in 1916 andWilson wouldn't let them go
because he said that will sendthe signal that we're preparing
for war and we are decidedly notpreparing for war.
So it's a very mixed pictureuntil finally you get the
declaration and then everythingis moving at very high speed to
(25:10):
get the troops over there,trained and over there.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-20 (25:14):
And he takes some still very
controversial measures duringthat war.
Censorship, jailing of someopponents.
How did he justify thoseactions?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-202 (25:23):
In his mind it was about this is
how you get unity.
You have to suppress dissent.
And people did come to him andspeak to him about it's going
too far.
And in a couple of instances, helet people off the hook, people
who were going to be prosecutedfor this.
But mostly so many papers wereshut.
There were thousands of ethnicnewspapers in the United States.
(25:45):
At that point, a lot of peopledidn't speak English.
So there was this wholethriving, you know, couple
hundred languages, probably.
In New York City, there wouldhave been 20 ethnic newspapers
in different languages, and therule came down that, okay, you
can keep publishing yournewspaper, but you have to
produce each issue in English aswell as in whatever your
(26:10):
language is, so that we cancheck it and make sure you're
not doing anything subversive.
Well, that was enough to justput most of these newspapers out
of business.
Um,
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (26:20):
What
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (26:21):
the famous, Dissenter who got put in
prison was Eugene Debs, who wasthe head of the Socialist Party,
who basically gave a speech thatcould be taken to mean, do not,
answer your call from the draftboard.
And he was a socialist and thesocialists were at that point
opposed to all wars, so he wasspeaking his conscience and
(26:45):
ended up in prison.
Ran from prison for president in1920.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04 (26:52):
about, you've mentioned a couple of
times the League of Nations,obviously so associated with
Woodrow Wilson.
We know you talked about how youcame back from, Ellen's death
and, started writing down someof those ideas.
Where did that come from in hismind, and, and why did he focus
on it so much at Versailles?
We know now the detriment ofother parts of that treaty.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-202 (27:16):
He really thought that it was the
fundamental to peace.
That if you had this, if you hadan institution, a global
institution, that could addressthe global problem of a global,
potential global war, that thatwas the greatest contribution a
person could make to the peaceof the world.
And if you don't have peace, youdon't have stability.
(27:38):
And that in addition to all thepeople who might be killed,
there's the whole question ofpeople not wanting to make
business investments, forexample, because they don't know
who's going to win or when theremight be peace.
Um, we're seeing, I mean, it'spart of the devastation of
Ukraine, right?
That, uh, it's very hard to saywhat the future will be.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04- (28:02):
Could anything have saved the treaty
in the Senate?
We know famously it did not passthe Senate.
Uh, could anything have saved itin the form it was in?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (28:09):
Yes, if Wilson had been willing to
compromise, and he wouldn't, andthere are various thoughts about
why he wouldn't.
One of them was that he hadactually extracted a number of
concessions from the British andthe French, getting them to
lower their demands forreparations, for example, their
financial demands, they were insuch a vengeful mood and he was
(28:32):
trying to ameliorate that and,he doesn't get enough credit for
the things that he did claw backfrom them.
So when he came home, he felt hehad asked them to sacrifice a
lot and he didn't want to takeanything else.
He didn't want the Senate totake anything else away from
them.
Also, when he went to Europe andpeople said, you know, you
(28:53):
really should take someRepublicans with you because
we've never done anything likethis before, and it would be
good to have it be a bipartisanthing.
And his thought was, his ace inthe hole was, the United States
Senate has never failed toratify a treaty that the
president wanted ratified.
So it's not going to happen thistime because it's never happened
(29:15):
in the past.
But what had changed is that atexactly the moment the war is
ending in November, we havemidterm elections.
And Wilson has had majorities inboth houses of Congress for six
years.
And all of a sudden they bothflip.
So he didn't have that team onhis side and they had supported
him.
(29:35):
They had given him every bigthing he wanted during the war.
And now, they weren't going tohelp him anymore.
They said they thought theleague of nations as he
conceived it was.
really vague and sweeping andthey also thought it would
involve the United States inEvery war that came up in Europe
and he thought no no No, ifthere's a war over in Eastern
(29:58):
Europe, they're not going to askfor American troops.
They're going to ask for troopsfrom other parts of Europe to
come.
And, but there was nothing, thatwas an assumption on his part.
So there were loose things andhe wouldn't accept the
reservations to the treaty.
So it failed.
They voted on it three times.
(30:18):
Senator Lodge, who was steeringall of this in the Senate, was
no fan of Woodrow Wilson, but hegave him three shots in the
Senate to get it through, and inthe end they couldn't come up
with a two thirds majority thatthey needed to get it passed.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (30:33):
We know during the campaign for
that treaty, Wilson suffered asevere stroke in So can you
summarize the effects of thatstroke on the president?
How badly was he incapacitated?
Hm, Mm
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (30:47):
His left side was completely
paralyzed.
Um, and so much so that it wasmonths before he could sit in a
chair and then he couldn't sitin a chair unless there were
arms on both sides.
He did learn.
to walk with effort.
He had some kind of state of theart for the day, physical
(31:12):
therapy.
And it was very difficult inthose days to know how quickly a
person would recover from astroke.
There was no imaging equipment,you know, so you couldn't really
see the extent of the damage inthe brain.
You could peer into someone'seyes.
and see what had happened to theoptic nerves.
But it was not like today wherethey would have a much better.
(31:34):
Grip on that.
And he couldn't think straight.
Anymore.
He couldn't concentrate.
He couldn't read.
He could be read to for shortperiods.
So there's a cover up.
This is the biggest cover upthat had ever happened in the
White House up to that point.
And the cover up is beingcarried out by Mrs.
Wilson and Wilson's doctor,Carrie Grayson.
(31:55):
And Wilson's chief aide, JoeTumulty.
And they're not exactly, they'relying in the sense that they're
not admitting how, badly offWilson is and how he really
can't be president.
He's too disabled to bepresident anymore.
But they're putting out allthese chipper bulletins, you
(32:16):
know, like today the presidentwalked across the room on his
own steam kind of thing.
And when, uh, the strokehappened in October.
1919.
So he's, he's president, tillMarch of 1921, 17 months.
We had a disabled president thathad never happened before.
(32:38):
And every once in a while,Grayson would try to talk to him
about, wouldn't it be better foryou if you resigned?
And Wilson was just, he got thisidea that not only was he not
going to resign, he was going torun for president again in 1920.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (32:54):
That was shocking to me in your book,
I didn't realize that part, it'sthis disconnect with the reality
of his
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04- (33:00):
Yeah.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (33:03):
So let's turn for a moment, often
when we talk about WoodrowWilson today, you'll hear
criticisms leveled at him forhis views on race.
How would you characterize thoseviews and his actions toward
African Americans?
Thanks.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (33:18):
This is the serious stain on his
historical reputation.
The Southerners in Congress, inthe House and the Senate.
Did not like the expansion offederal power that the new
freedoms entailed, you know, theFed being in charge of the
economy, basically, and theincome tax being a national
(33:39):
thing instead of states that hadincome taxes, and they just did
not like that.
And they saw that as the.
beginning of a movement thatwould ultimately end segregation
and Jim Crow in the South.
So when he's talking about thesenew freedom things, they want to
sign from him that he's notgoing to interfere with
(34:00):
segregation in the South.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (34:02):
Mm hmm.
Mm
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (34:04):
what they wanted was for him to
segregate the civil servicewhere blacks and whites had
worked harmoniously together fordecades.
And he was willing to do this.
He thought it was more importantto get the new freedom set up
and running that the benefits ofthat would be larger than the
(34:25):
detriment to black people thatwas involved in segregating the
civil service and the civilservice was one of the few ways.
that blacks could get ahead, inthe United States in that era,
if you could get a civil servicejob from mailman on up you had a
stable life.
Um, and so the government wasadmired for that, you know, go
(34:48):
to Washington, get one of thosejobs and, you know, You, you
won't have the kind of economicworries you have when you're
farming and you don't know ifthe crops are going to come in
or when you're trying to get ajob and you can't get one
because of racialdiscrimination.
So it was a huge, huge setbackand, that's always been known.
(35:09):
Historians have always writtenabout that, but it became a big
deal in about, 2015 when somestudents at Princeton, actually,
Discovered this, you know, thattheir hero, this guy whose
statue, some black students,here's Woodrow Wilson, his
name's on buildings atPrinceton.
Nice, memorials to him here andthere.
(35:30):
And yet, he was a really bad guyin terms of race in their view.
And that prompted the biggestdiscussion we'd had about Wilson
and race in a long, long time.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-202 (35:41):
Mm hmm.
So, with that, and all the otherthings we discussed and that you
discussed in The Moralist, wouldyou say his legacy is today?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2 (35:51):
It's pretty tremendous.
I was thinking about, uh, youknow, they weren't talking about
climate change back in the day,right?
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04 (35:58):
Right, right.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (35:59):
But he was in his way an
environmentalist in terms ofprotecting public lands and
natural resources.
Theodore Roosevelt was thechampion of that earlier on, and
he thought that was important.
He also created the NationalPark Service.
To manage these beautiful parks,and systematize the management
(36:20):
of it, because it was just kindof helter skelter before that,
um, there were managers of theparks, but it wasn't coordinated
into a national management of,of them.
And I think if he were around,he would see the climate change
crisis.
As a perfect example ofsomething for international
(36:41):
cooperation as he saw war is aglobal problem.
Therefore, you need a globalsolution, and I think he would
see climate change the same wayin terms of, women, he was late
in supporting women's suffrage,and I think it was because he
thought it would fail, if itcame to a national vote in some
(37:01):
way, it wouldn't pass.
But by 1918, he's had enoughconversations with women.
There's already suffrage inabout a dozen states.
And the case for taking itnational made sense to him.
Finally, he saw it as, connectedwith other things that were
better done by the nationalgovernment than the state
(37:21):
governments.
So he had something like 50meetings with suffrage
organizations, and he spoke atone of their conventions even
before this.
So he had to work his way towardwhat he thought was the right
moment to throw the full weightof the presidency behind it.
But if he hadn't done that, I'mnot sure that there would have
(37:44):
been the suffrage amendment, interms of his legacy, well, we've
touched on this briefly theFederal Trade Commission, the
Fed, the modern income tax,these things are still there.
That's not true of a lot ofgovernment programs that start.
So that's huge.
And the idea of nationalregulation, I mean, he was a
great expander of that and wecan argue.
(38:07):
about the extent of it.
Is it too much?
Is it too little?
Are the laws we have wellenforced?
But the idea of some sort ofnational regulation is largely
accepted.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2 (38:20):
Very good.
A fascinating man.
A really fascinating book.
Patty, what's next for you?
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-20 (38:26):
I'm still back in this era.
I'm writing a book aboutTheodore Roosevelt, a second
one.
That's about him as president.
My other book was about afterhis presidency.
And if I could call it what Iwanted to call it, it would be
called Theodore Roosevelt andthe somewhat progressive era.
Because, because it wasprogressive for, uh, white men
(38:50):
and not for women and not forpeople of color.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04- (38:57):
Well, we look forward to that.
I look forward to talking withyou soon about when trumpets
call.
And again, thank you for joiningus today for a really wonderful
discussion.
I enjoyed it so much.
squadcaster-181a_2_09-04-2024 (39:07):
I did too.
Thank you, Ellen.
squadcaster-4125_2_09-04-2024 (39:10):
I encourage our listeners to check
out The Moralist.
I know you'll enjoy what is asuperb history of a complicated
man, a complicated leader.
Thanks for joining us today andplease consider supporting our
work.
American POTUS is a 501c3nonprofit dedicated to promoting
a broad understanding of thehistory of the presidency and
the presidents.
Please check out our website atAmericanPOTUS.
(39:30):
org.
Thanks so much, and I'll see younext time on American POTUS.
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