Saturday, February 17, 2018

Woodrow Wilson (No. 28) - Washington, DC - Dec. 3, 2017



Woodrow Wilson (No. 28) – Washington, DC
December 3, 2017


Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson’s life was a kaleidoscope of achievements:  PhD, President of Princeton University, Governor of New Jersey, President of the United States, and Nobel laureate. 

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.

Sheep wool in a frame
Our tour began on the ground level, with a short film discussing the highlights of Wilson’s life and presidency. The room also houses some wool, encased high on a wall, to the left of the door. The wool is from sheep that Wilson brought in to munch on the White House lawn during the Great War. The nation was facing labor shortages since so many men were fighting, so he eliminated the White House maintenance staff and used sheep. The wool was given to the Red Cross for auctioning.

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.” 

Taft accompanying Wilson to inauguration. 
Note the people in the trees.
As we learned previously, Wilson ran against Taft, the Republican nominee, and Teddy Roosevelt, who was running in the newly formed progressive Bull Moose party.  Teddy split the vote, and 56-year old Wilson was the winner.  And with his win, the Democrats controlled all of Congress and the presidency.

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).
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. 
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.

The Lusitania
The Lusitania was an American luxury Cunard ocean liner about to sail to Liverpool carrying 1,959 passengers and crew and some badly needed munitions for the British army.  Most of the trip was uneventful.  As Erik Larsen describes in his excellent book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015), the passengers enjoyed eating, conversing, lounging and strolling the spacious deck.  The ship was so huge that one would see new people every day.  On a sparkling clear May 7, the ship reached the south coast of Ireland.

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. 

Edith Wilson's portrait hangs in the house.
She didn't like it.
In the early part of the war in Europe, Wilson was distracted by the sudden death of his wife, Ellen, to kidney disease in 1914 and was deeply depressed since he felt he had nobody in whom to confide.  In March 1915, his cousin introduced him to divorcee Edith Galt.  She was beautiful and exotic—she wore the latest fashions and drove her own motorcar.  He was smitten. Wilson was so infatuated with Edith that he continually wrote her notes.  He was preoccupied with her when he should have been paying more attention to the sinking of the Lusitania (Brands, 2003).  They married in December 1915.

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.

Wilson's bedroom.  The bed
was a replica of Lincoln's bed.
Woodrow’s and Edith’s bedrooms are on the top floor, separated by a small nurse’s room. All of them have doors that open to a small half-oval balcony overlooking the back yard.

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.

Electroshock therapy machine
The second floor houses the solarium, a beautiful little room for plants with the curved outside wall lined with windows, looking out the back yard and gardens. The windows open, so you can get a nice cross breeze when opening both the solarium windows and those at the front of the house. It also has a useful intercom.  On our visit, it displayed a giant decorated Christmas tree.

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.
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/

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