Woodrow
Wilson (No. 28) – Washington, DC
December 3,
2017
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| Woodrow Wilson |
Thomas Woodrow Wilson’s
life started in 1856 in Staunton, Virginia only about 2 1/2 hours away from our
home in the Potomac Valley of Maryland. That is where the Woodrow Wilson
Presidential Library and Research Center is housed. But his family moved away
when he was only three. His dad, a minister, moved the family to Augusta, Ga.,
and then later to South Carolina during Reconstruction. There, young Wilson saw the destruction of
cities and towns, and learned of the thousands of soldiers who were
killed. His mother tended to the wounded Confederate soldiers.
He
began his college life at Davidson College in North Carolina but dropped out
and went to the College of New Jersey—later renamed Princeton. He went to law school at the University of Virginia
and then practiced law for a short time in Atlanta, but law bored him.
He
enrolled at Johns Hopkins University to study history and political science and
was awarded a PhD in 1886. In his published and acclaimed PhD thesis, Congressional Government: A Study in American
Politics, he argued for a stronger executive branch and touted Britain’s
parliamentary system of government as better than the American model. (He
would become the only president with a PhD.)
He later
found teaching positions at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan before finding a more
permanent home at Princeton. In 1902, he
became president of the university.
All
the while, he was catching the notice of Democratic politicians who recruited him to run for governor of New Jersey. He won and demonstrated his honesty by rejecting
control from Democratic Party bosses.
Wilson’s last house
We decided to begin our Wilsonian
journey by visiting his last home. So in
December 2017 we drove to the house where Woodrow and Edith Wilson lived after
they left the White House in 1921. The
house is on S Street Northwest in the ritzy neighborhood of Kalorama, just
above Dupont Circle. How ritzy? Kalorama is where former President Obama and
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are living. The Wilson house’s next-door
neighbor is Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos (who was doing some
renovations when we visited).
The spacious Georgia
Revival home was built in 1916. Edith discovered it while attending a dinner
party there and talked the owner into selling it. The Wilsons paid three
times the value of the house--$150k vs. the $50k actual value.
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| Sheep wool in a frame |
Consensus candidate
When the presidential
election season of 1912 began, Wilson’s name was mentioned. But he was not the consensus candidate of the
Democrats. As they had the last two
elections, the Democrats were focused on perennial presidential loser William
Jennings Bryan. But he wasn’t getting
the votes this time. The momentum
shifted to Wilson and finally on the 46th ballot, he was
nominated. Wilson was seen as a consensus
candidate who could appeal to all the regions.
According to Brands (2003), “in the South he was a Virginian; in the
North and West he was a Jerseyman.”
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| Taft accompanying Wilson to inauguration. Note the people in the trees. |
Wilson worked to reduce
protectionist tariffs. The Democratic
Congress supported him and the tariffs were lowered. Wilson also worked with Congress to put in
place a progressive income tax. Before WWI, three-quarters of the nation’s
revenue came from tariffs and excise taxes.
After the war, three-quarters of the revenue came from income and estate
taxes.
Wilson was the first president since
John Adams to give the State of the Union in person —shocking Congress. It had been read by a clerk for the past 100+
years.
Wilson’s domestic achievements
Wilson set up the
Federal Reserve system. Andrew Jackson shut down the Second Bank of the United States
1836 and there was no central bank to help moderate the economy. The
U.S. had bank runs and financial panics on a frequent basis. During the Panics of 1893 and 1907, J.P.
Morgan, personally intervened to stabilize the financial system. Louis Brandeis, future associate justice on
the Supreme Court, suggested to Wilson
that the U.S. needed some kind of a central bank. In 1913, Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act,
which included a bank oversight board with members appointed by the president.
Wilson
was the president who presided over the abolition of alcohol in the United
States. In the 1830s and 1840s, the Protestant
anti-slavery movement included an initiative to abolish the use of
alcohol. In the late 1800s, the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) argued that alcohol contributed to societal
ills. And during the Great War, the Anti
Salon League tied beer to evil Germany. In 1917, with America’s entry into the
war, Wilson put in place a temporary prohibition to save grain for the war
effort. Prohibition was easily passed by
Congress in December 1917. It was
ratified in 1919 and was supported by a Congressional law called the Volstead
Act. It went into effect in January
1920. Prohibition would lead to a huge black market and the rise of gangsters
such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Bugsy Siegel.
Wilson
supported the right of women to vote. African
Americans had won the right to vote following the Civil War, but that was only for
black men. Women were still denied the right to
vote. Women had been fighting for that
right for decades led by pioneers Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Lucretia
Mott (1793-1880), and Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906).
By
1918, Wilson supported the women’s cause, especially after noting the contribution
of women to America’s efforts in the war. He told the Senate: “I regard the extension of suffrage to women
as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity
in which we are engaged.” Congress
passed the 19th Amendment which forbid denying the right to vote on the basis
of sex.
But
seven southern states opposed ratification:
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and
Maryland. What IS it about the South
(including our home state of Maryland) anyway?
But luckily Tennessee came through by one vote 49-48, and the amendment
became part of the Constitution. (Mississippi
was the last state to ratify the amendment in March 22, 1984, while Tom was
living in Vicksburg).
House reflects accomplishments
While Wilson’s house is
not as crazy-interesting as Teddy Roosevelt’s, it is still chock full of
history and interesting decor, including plenty of state gifts that show how
much Europeans loved him for his work. And the house is gorgeous.
The spacious drawing
room on the second floor, up the wide, grand staircase, features a grand
Steinway piano on one side, with a gigantic tapestry covering the wall. The
tapestry was given to Wilson by France following the war. The piano had been in the White House, played by Wilson's oldest daughter, Margaret, was was a professional musician (until she moved to India to become a nun).
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| Piano and giant tapestry |
Photos of major
historical figures such as Queen Victoria are scattered around the
room. And a framed mosaic of St. Peter done by the Vatican workshop and given
to Wilson by Pope Benedict is highlighted.
His library is on the
same floor, and is the typical, dark wood, bookcase-lined library that you see
in so many presidential houses. His collection contained 8,000 books. Wilson
himself wrote 17.
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| Wilson's library |
The curio cabinet in the
library houses the pen that he used to sign the declaration of war against
Germany. On the floor is a huge rug of the Statue of Liberty, which got
electricity when Wilson was in office.
He also was the first
president to address the nation by radio.
The library also has a graphiscope, a movie
projector. Monday nights were movie nights in the Wilson household,
as he was a big movie buff as well as technology enthusiast. Wilson screened the 1915
firm Birth of a Nation at the White
House. The movie, originally titled, The Clansman, is a portrayal of the
South during and after the Civil War.
Blacks are portrayed unkindly, to put it mildly. History.com
calls it “one of the most
offensive films ever made.” Wilson later said that
he was unaware of what it was about.
The NAACP protested the movie.
But the movie was seen by millions and is tied to the resurgence of the
KKK. Our excellent tour guide Kelsey explained that one reason he might
have admired the movie was because it was one of the first movies done in
color. “Despite the subject matters, it
was a cinematic marvel,” she told us.
Wilson’s
race relations
When
he entered office, Wilson resegregated
the Post Office and the Treasury Department.
This included separate washrooms and lunch areas. This did not sit well with blacks who had
faithfully served the country in the Great War.
In
his 1902 book, A History of the American
People, Wilson revealed his prejudices when he wrote “Adventurers swarmed
out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen,
beguile and use the negroes. The white men were aroused by a mere instinct of
self-preservation — until at last there sprung into existence a great Kuklux Klan, a veritable empire of
the South, to protect the Southern country.”
The Klan contributed to
the continued lynchings of black Americans, including of black veterans still
wearing their uniforms.
There
were 20 race riots throughout the country during the summer of 1919, with
dozens dying in St. Louis in particular.
Rioting also occurred in Chicago when a young black man was stoned by
white youths when he visited a segregated beach. He drowned.
By August 38 people had been killed.
In
Washington, DC, a rumor circulated of sexual assault of a white woman by a
black man. On July 19, 1919, a gang of
400 whites attacked Washington, D.C. blacks and severely injured two. Police got involved but arrested more blacks
than whites. On July 21, blacks fought
back and 10 whites and five blacks were killed.
Troops were brought in to stop the rioting.
Wilson and the Great War
Wilson
is best remembered for World War I, but he tried hard to avoid it, with his
upbringing in the post-Civil War South framing his attitude toward war. What was expected to be a short war slogged
on and on.
The
U.S. was officially neutral and actually allowed both the Allied (Britain,
France, Italy, Russia) and the Axis (Germany, Austro-Hungary) powers to apply for loans. Allied ships stopped American ships and
confiscated their cargo—but provided reparations for them. The Axis simply attacked U.S. ships—military
and civilian alike.
The
Germans were using a new technology — undersea boats — to attack Allied shipping. The Germans called these “unterseeboots”
U-boats. In April 2015, the Imperial
German government published a warning in American newspapers that stated: “…that vessels flying the flag of Great
Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction…” The warning was specifically aimed at the Lusitania.
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| The Lusitania |
Unknown
to the passengers, their nearly 800-ft. long boat was under surveillance by a smaller
boat—the 200-ft. long German U-boat, the U-20.
At first it appeared that the Lusitania was out of the submarine’s range
but then the ocean liner turned toward it.
The crew of the U-20 calculated the speed and direction of the Lusitania
and waited. At just the right moment,
the U-20 fired a single torpedo. The
torpedo powered by compressed air and a double propeller system that rotated in
opposite directions to ensure stability headed on an intersecting route with
the large ship.
It
was 2 p.m. and most of the passengers had just finished lunch. They were enjoying a bright blue sky and a preternaturally
calm sea. Many strolled the deck.
Some
of the passengers spied the “dead wake” of the torpedo heading for the ship. There
was nothing they could do. The torpedo
struck the starboard bow. There was an
initial explosion followed by another (either a boiler or possibly the
ammunition). A gaping hole opened below
the waterline. The ship quickly listed sharply
to starboard. Open portholes on the
starboard side allowed tons of water to flood the ship.
It
was nearly impossible to launch the 48 lifeboats. They were wither hanging too far out to sea
or were hanging over the deck. Many
people simply jumped into the sea—some without lifejackets. Most wore heavy woolen clothing.
After
an initial dive, the U-20 returned to periscope depth. The captain watched the distressed ship and
knew another torpedo would not be needed.
He noted in his log: “I couldn't
have fired another torpedo into this mass of humans desperately trying to save
themselves." (Larsen, 2015)
In
18 minutes, the ship was gone and the sea was full of hundreds of people,
debris and only six lifeboats. The water
temperature was 55 degrees.
A
British cruiser in port nearby was ordered not to render aid because of the
possibility that the U-20 was still lurking (it wasn’t).
The
1,195 dead included 128 Americans.
Wilson sent a strong
note of condemnation to Kaiser Wilhelm II but still resisted getting involved
in the war. The Kaiser assured America
that it would be more careful going forward.
For a while Germany stopped targeting passenger ships but this did not
last long.
One of the reasons
Wilson didn’t want to enter war was because it would distract Congress from his
domestic reform efforts. Teddy Roosevelt
called Wilson a traitor for not getting involved.
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| Edith Wilson's portrait hangs in the house. She didn't like it. |
Wilson’s
1916 campaign slogan became: “He kept us
out of war.” And he won, becoming the
first Democrat incumbent to win re-election since Andrew Jackson in 1832.
But in 1917, Germany
started torpedoing U.S. ships again. And now Germany had increased the submarine
fleet from around 30 around the time the Lusitania was destroyed to more than
100.
On April 2, 1917, Wilson
asked Congress to declare war so the world could be “made safe for democracy.” They complied and also instituted a draft. They also passed the controversial Sedition
Act of 1918 which made it a crime to criticize the government much as the Alien
and Sedition Acts of 1798 had done during John Adams’ presidency. Five-time presidential candidate, socialist,
Eugene V. Debbs was convicted under the act and sentenced to 10 years in
jail. (Warren G. Harding later commuted
his sentence.)
General
John J. Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in Europe. Pershing was supported by
Generals Billy Mitchell, Hunter Liggett, and John Lejeune. His army also included many soldiers who
would go on to greater fame in World War II and after: George Patton, George C. Marshall, Omar
Bradley, Douglas MacArthur and a 34 year old infantry captain named Harry S
Truman. France and Britain wanted the
AEF to be part of their troops but Pershing insisted on total command of
American forces.
Pershing
demanded strict accountability and achievement of objectives. Some said he pushed his men as hard as Grant
had a half-century earlier.
It
was a war mostly on the ground with men living in and fighting for
trenches. It was a war that introduced
the world to chemical weapons: chlorine
gas, mustard gas, phosgene/diphosgene gas.
Both sides used such weapons. And it was the first war that featured
aircraft—biplanes—shooting at troops, at observation balloons and at each
other. America was introduced to heroes
such as Sergeant York who won a Medal of Honor for an attack on a German
machine gun nest and Eddie Rickenbacker, a flying ace with 26 kills.
African
American troops fought in the Great War but were not used well. They were mostly used for supply and repair
duties.
As
the end neared in 1918, a Spanish flu pandemic hit, adding to the misery both
in Europe and at the U.S. training camps.
(By 1919, 21 million people had died of flue worldwide)
It
was in the Great War that a young Ernest Hemingway worked as volunteer Red
Cross ambulance driver. He was badly wounded by shrapnel. His experiences including his love affair
with a nurse served as the basis for his first novel, A Farwell to Arms.
When the war ended about
20 million people were dead, including more than 100,000 Americans.
In January 1918, Wilson
gave a speech outlining 14 points for bringing peace to Europe. As one of his 14 Points, he said “a general
association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose
of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial
integrity to great and small states alike.”
This would be known as the “League of Nations.”
Wilson decided to travel
to Europe to tout his vision—the first the president to go to Europe as an acting
president. He traveled to London, Paris,
and Rome. He was greeted with great
enthusiasm and was seen as a savior.
But in the United
States, the now Republican Congress did not share Wilson’s vision. They didn’t like the
provision that the U.S. would be responsible for coming to the aid of any
nation in the League of Nations. Wilson
was not interested in modifying the language.
He decided to take his case to the people. He and Edith traveled by rail across the
country to build support. They traveled
8,000 miles in just 21 days. And it went
well for a while. But Wilson collapsed partway
through and the trip had to be cancelled.
When he got back to Washington, he had a full on stroke. Wilson’s stroke was debilitating and Edith
covered up how sick he was.
When
Wilson was ill, Edith cut off access to him.
Some historians claim that during Wilson’s illness, she was in fact a de
facto president.
Without
Wilson, Congress rejected the League of Nations and it would go forward as a
European institution without American participation. Wilson was devastated and
embittered by the Congressional rejection.
But he would be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Wilson left the White
House in March 1921 and retired to the big house in Kalorama. He would live there for only three years,
suffering the effects of his stroke, before dying in his big Lincoln replica
bed on February 3, 1924.
Living in
comfort
That brings us back to
the house.
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| Wilson's bedroom. The bed was a replica of Lincoln's bed. |
Since Wilson’s stroke left
his left side paralyzed, they had an elevator installed so he could move up and
down the house. He also had at least 60-70 canes, many of which are displayed
in his closet, as is a coat made of kangaroo and wombat given to him by
Australia.
The nurse’s room, which
is attached to his room, has a small bed as well as an electroshock therapy
machine to treat Wilson.
Edith’s room is on the
other side of the nurse’s room. Of note are her pictures of Pocahontas, from
whom she was descended.
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| Electroshock therapy machine |
Downstairs, the kitchen
is enormous. It still features the original stove, which is fueled with coal
and natural gas. It houses a dumb waiter.
The dining room displays
china that was a gift from the Belgian king. The stoneware features drawings by
Belgian artists of how world cities looked before they were bombed during the
war.
The White House china
can be found in the butler’s pantry. Wilson was the first president to use the
presidential seal as the art on the china, with a simple look. It is still used
by presidents today.
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| Presidential china now has a modern look |
The butler’s pantry is
above the kitchen and was used to transfer the food onto fancy plates. The
Wilsons had only two servants, the husband and wife team of Isaac and Mary
Scott.
Edith remained in the
house until her death at age 89 in December 1961. Her life had spanned an era from Ulysses
Grant to Lyndon Johnson.
Directions
The President Woodrow
Wilson House is located at 2340 S St., NW in Washington, DC. The cost is $10 for adults and $5 for
students. The first Wednesday of every night is Vintage Game Night—an evening
of playing period games. Our guide told
us that some people show up in costume!
References
Brands,
H.W., 2003. Woodrow Wilson. The American
Presidents, Times Books, Henry Holt and Company. New York, NY.
Cooper,
John Milton, Jr. 2009. Woodrow
Wilson, A Biography. Alfred A.
Knopf. New York, New York.
Yockelson,
Mitchell. 2016. Forty-Seven
Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of
Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I. New American Library. New York, New York.
Larson,
Erik. 2015. Dead
Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. Crown Publishing Group. New York, NY.
Levin,
Phyllis Lee. 2001. Edith
and Woodrow. Scribner. New York, NY.
Videos
History
Channel. 2005. The
Presidents: The Lives and Legacies of
the 43 Leaders of the United States.
Websites
http://www.lostgeneration.com/ww1.htm
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/
