Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him Part 10

At the time of his espousal of the Wilson cause he was the only leader in the New York financial world ready and courageous enough to take up the cudgels for Mr. Wilson. His influence thrown to the Wilson side strengthened the Wilson cause in every part of the country. Every intimation that reached McCombs during the campaign that Mr. McAdoo, as vice-chairman of the National Committee, was engaged in doing this or that thing in connection with his duties as vice-chairman, was always calculated to stir anew the fires of envy and jealousy which seemed always burning in the breast of McCombs.

I was in close touch with Mr. Wilson and all the phases of his campaign at the time, and on several occasions was asked to act as mediator in the differences between Mr. McAdoo and Mr. McCombs, and I am, therefore, in a position calmly to a.n.a.lyze and a.s.sess the reasons for McCombs' implacable hatred of Mr. McAdoo. I found that the motives which actuated McCombs were of the pettiest and meanest sort. At their base lay the realization that Mr. McAdoo had, by his gallant and helpful support of Mr. Wilson, won his admiration and deep respect, and now everything must be done by McCombs and his friends to destroy Mr. McAdoo in the estimation of the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. In the efforts put forth by McCombs and his friends to destroy Mr. Wilson's high opinion of Mr. McAdoo every contemptible and underhanded method was resorted to. Mr. McAdoo reacted to these unfair attacks in the most kindly and magnanimous way. Never for a single moment did he allow the McCombs campaign against him to stand in the way of Woodrow Wilson's advancement to the Presidency.

During the whole time that Mr. McCombs was engaged in his vendetta, Mr.

McAdoo was generous, gallant, big, and forgiving, even suggesting to the Democratic candidate, in my presence, that it might be wiser for him (McAdoo) to withdraw from the campaign, so that "things at headquarters might run easier and more smoothly." Mr. Wilson would not by any act of his permit the sniping methods of McCombs to be rewarded in the withdrawal of McAdoo from his campaign.

After the election and when it was certain that McAdoo was being seriously considered for the post of Secretary of the Treasury, McCombs' jealousy began to exert itself in the most venomous way. He tried to persuade Mr.

Wilson that the selection of Mr. McAdoo for the post of Secretary of the Treasury would be too much a recognition of the Wall Street point of view, and would be considered a repudiation of McCombs' leadership in the National Committee.

The campaign of McCombs to prevent the nomination of Mr. McAdoo for a post in the Cabinet failed utterly. His poison brigade then gathered at the Sh.o.r.eham Hotel in Washington on the day of the Inauguration and, attempting to reform their broken lines, now sought to prevent his confirmation at the hands of the Senate. Every agency of opposition that McCombs could invoke to accomplish this purpose was put into action, but like all his efforts against Mr. McAdoo they met with failure. Mr. McAdoo was confirmed and took his place as Secretary of the Treasury, where his constructive genius in matters of finance was soon brought into play, and under his magnificent leadership the foundation stones of the Federal Reserve system were laid, the fruitage of which is now being realized in every business throughout the country.

Frequent conferences were held at Princeton with reference to the selection of the President's Cabinet, and in these conferences Colonel House and I partic.i.p.ated. At a luncheon at the Sterling Hotel at Trenton Mr. Bryan was offered the post of Secretary of State.

On the first of March the post of Secretary of War was still open. It had been offered to Mr. A. Mitch.e.l.l Palmer of Pennsylvania and had been declined by him for an unusual reason. The President requested Mr. Palmer to meet him at Colonel House's apartment in New York. When the President tendered him the position of Secretary of War, Mr. Palmer frankly told the President that he was a Quaker and that the tenets of his religion prevented his acceptance of any position having to do with the conduct of war. The President tried to overcome these scruples, but his efforts were unavailing. The President then telephoned me and informed me of Palmer's declination and asked if I had any suggestion regarding the vacancy in his Cabinet. I told him that I was anxious to see a New Jersey man occupy a place at his Cabinet table, and we discussed the various possibilities over the 'phone, but without reaching any definite conclusion. I informed the President that I would suggest the name of someone within a few hours.

I then went to the library in my home in New Jersey and in looking over the _Lawyers' Diary_ I ran across the name of Lindley Garrison, who at the time was vice-chancellor of the state of New Jersey. Mr. Garrison was a resident of my home town and although I had only met him casually and had tried a few cases before him, he had made a deep impression upon me as a high type of equity judge.

I telephoned the President-elect that night and suggested the name of Lindley Garrison, whose reputation as a distinguished judge of the Chancery Court was known to the President-elect. He was invited to Trenton the next day and without having the slightest knowledge of the purpose of this summons, he arrived and was offered the post of Secretary of War in Mr. Wilson's Cabinet, which he accepted.

CHAPTER XIX

THE INAUGURATION

A presidential inauguration is a picturesque affair even when the weather is stormy, as it frequently is on the fourth of March in Washington. It is a brilliant affair when the sun shines bright and the air is balmy, as happened on March 4, 1913, when Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office at noon, delivered his inaugural address a few minutes later, reviewed the parade immediately after luncheon, and before nightfall was at his desk in the White House transacting the business of the Government. To the popular imagination Inauguration Day represents crowds and hurrahs, bra.s.s bands and processions. The hotels, restaurants, and boarding houses of Washington overflow with people from all parts of the country who have come to "see the show." The pavements, windows, and housetops along Pennsylvania Avenue from the east front of the Capitol to the western gate of the White House are crowded with folk eager to see the procession with its military column and marching clubs. From an improvised stand in front of the White House, surrounded by his friends, the new President reviews the parade.

Every four years the newspaper boys describe Inauguration Day, but I am not aware of any novelist who has put it in a book. Why not? It offers material of a high order for literary description. "Human interest"

material also in abundance, not merely in the aspects of the retiring and incoming Presidents with their respective retinues of important officials, but in the comedies and tragedies of the lesser figures of the motley political world. Familiar faces vanish, new faces appear--especially when a change of administration brings a change of party control. An evacuating column of ousted and dejected office-holders, prophesying national disaster at the hands of parvenus, meets an advancing column of would-be office-holders rejoicing in general over their party's success and palpitantly eager for individual advantage. As in life, so in Washington on Inauguration Day, humour and pathos mingle. Inauguration Day is the beginning of a period of uprooting and transplanting.

So it was when the Democrats came into office on March 4, 1913, after sixteen years of uninterrupted Republican control and for only the third time in the fifty-two years since Buchanan had walked out of the White House and Lincoln had walked in. Hungry Democrats flocked to Washington, dismayed Republicans looked on in silence or with sardonic comment.

Democratic old-timers who had been waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for "something to turn up" through long lean years, mingled in the hotel lobbies with youths flushed with the excitement of a first experience In the political game and discussed the "prospects," each confident that he was indispensable to the new administration. Minor officeholders who had, so they said, been political neutrals during the past administration, anxiously scanned the horizon for signs that they would be retained.

"Original Wilson men" from various parts of the country were introducing themselves or being introduced by their friends. And there were the thousands, with no axes to grind, who had come simply to look on, or to partic.i.p.ate in a long-postponed Democratic rejoicing, or to wish the new President G.o.dspeed for his and the country's sake. It is not my business in a book wholly concerned with the personal side of Woodrow Wilson's political career to attempt a description of Inauguration Day, with its clamours and its heartaches and its hopes. To the new President the day was, as he himself said, not one of "triumph" but of "dedication." For him the occasion had a significance beyond the fortunes of individuals and parties. Something more had happened than a replacement of Republicans by Democrats. He believed that he had been elected as a result of a stirring of the American conscience against thinly masked "privilege" and, a reawakening of American aspiration for government which should more nearly meet the needs of the plain people of the country. He knew that he would have to disappoint many a hungry office-seeker, whose chief claim to preferment lay in his boast that he "had always voted the Democratic ticket." Among the new President's first duties would be the selection of men to fill offices and, of course, in loyalty to his party, he would give preference to Democrats, but it did not please him to think of this in terms of "patronage" and "spoils." With the concentration of a purposeful man he was anxious chiefly to find the best people for the various offices, those capable of doing a day's work and those who could sense the opportunities for service in whole-hearted devotion to the country's common cause. His inaugural address met the expectations of thoughtful hearers. It was on a high plane of statesmanship, uncoloured by partisanship. It was the announcement of a programme in the interest of the country at large, with the idea of trusteeship strongly stressed.

There was nothing very radical in the address: nothing to terrify those who were apprehensive lest property rights should be violated. The President gave specific a.s.surance that there would be due attention to "the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected, safeguarding of property," but he also immediately added "and of individual right." Legitimate property claims would be scrupulously respected, but it was clear that they who conceived that the chief business of government is the promotion of their private or corporate interests would get little aid and comfort from this administration. The underlying meaning of the President's progressivism was clear: the recovery of old things which through long neglect or misuse had been lost, a return to the starting point of our Government, government in the interest of the many, not of the few: "Our work is a work of restoration"; "We have been refreshed by a new insight into our life."

A deep humanity pervaded the message. To the thoughtful hearer it must have been clear that the President's mind was more occupied with the ma.s.ses than with special cla.s.ses. He was not hostile to the cla.s.ses. He was simply less interested in them. He suggested a social as well as a political programme: "Men and women and children" must be "shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with." "The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves." Such was the first utterance of the President who in a few weeks was to appear as the champion, not of the special interests, native and foreign, in Mexico, but of the fifteen million Mexican people, groping blindly, through blood and confusion, after some form of self-government, and who in a few years was to appear as the champion of small nations and the ma.s.ses throughout the world in a t.i.tanic struggle against the old principles of autocracy.

Mingled with the high and human tone of it all was a clear and itemized forecast of proposed legislation: a revised tariff, a federal reserve banking system, a farmers' loan bank. And all who knew Woodrow Wilson's record in New Jersey were aware that the Executive would be the leader in the enactment of legislation. The executive and legislative branches of the Government in this administration would, all informed people knew, be in partnership in the promotion of an enterprise as practical as it was inspiring.

After Chief Justice White administered the oath of office, the President read the brief address, of which the following are the concluding words:

This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward- looking men, to my side. G.o.d helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!

CHAPTER XX

MEXICO

Many grave matters inherited from the Taft regime pressed upon the new Administration for immediate solution. One of the most serious was the situation in Mexico, growing out of the revolution against the Madero Government which broke out in Mexico City on February 9, 1913. The murder of ex-President Madero and Vice-President Suarez, and the usurpation of presidential authority by General Victoriano Huerta, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the general industrial and social chaos of Mexico, made it necessary for the new administration, only a month in power, quickly to act and to declare its policy with reference to the question then pending as to the recognition of the provisional government, the head of which was Huerta. After becoming "President" of Mexico, the usurper had brazenly addressed the following telegram to President Taft: "I have overthrown the Government and, therefore, peace and order will reign," and boldly a.s.serted a claim to recognition by the Government of the United States.

This was the state of affairs in Mexico when President Wilson was inaugurated. The duly-elected President of Mexico, Francisco Madero, had been overthrown by a band of conspirators headed by Huerta. Were the fruits of the hard-won fight of the Mexican ma.s.ses against the arbitrary rule of the favoured few to be wasted? President Wilson answered this question in his formal statement of March 12, 1913, eight days after his inauguration. With respect to Latin-American affairs, he said:

One of the chief objects of my administration will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America, and to promote in every proper and honorable way the interests which are common to the peoples of the two continents. I earnestly desire the most cordial understanding and cooperation between the peoples and leaders of America, and, therefore, deem it my duty to make this brief statement:

"Cooperation is possible only when supported at every turn by the orderly processes of just government based upon law, not upon arbitrary or irregular force. We hold, as I am sure all thoughtful leaders of republican governments everywhere hold, that just government rests always upon the consent of the governed, and that there can be no freedom without order based upon law and upon the public conscience and approval. We shall look to make these principles the basis of mutual intercourse, respect, and helpfulness between our sister republics and ourselves.... _We can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambition._"

Two considerations animated the President in the formulation of his Mexican policy and compelled his adherence in it throughout his administration, namely:

_The firm conviction that all nations, both the weak and the powerful, have the inviolable right to control their internal affairs.

The belief, established from the history of the world, that Mexico will never become a peaceful and law-abiding neighbour of the United States until she has been permitted to achieve a permanent and basic settlement of her troubles without outside interference._

Steadfastly, Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize Huerta as the Provisional President of Mexico. He said: "Huerta, the bitter, implacable foe of everything progressive and humane in Mexico, boldly defending the privileges of the old scientifico group which he represented, openly defied the authority of the United States and sneered at the much- ridiculed policy of 'watchful waiting' proclaimed by the new administration, and laughed to scorn the high idealism which lay behind it." To him the declaration of the American President that "we can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambition" was a mere gesture, too puerile to be seriously considered.

While Huerta in Mexico was blatantly denouncing this benevolent policy of cooperation and helpfulness, aid and comfort were rendered the usurper by the jingoistic criticisms of the President's enemies in the United States Congress and throughout the country, many of whom, urged on by the oil interests, in their mad delirium, cried out for a blood-and-iron policy toward Mexico. Resisting the American interests in Mexico was a part of the President's task. Those who cried loudest for intervention were they who had land, mineral, and industrial investments in Mexico. The "vigorous American policy" which they demanded was a policy for personal enrichment.

It was with this phase of the matter in mind that the President said: "I have to pause and remind myself that I am President of the United States and not of a small group of Americans with vested interests in Mexico."

But the new President, having mapped out the course he was to follow, a course fraught with a great deal of danger to his administration, seeking to bring about the moral isolation of Huerta himself, calmly moved on, apparently unmindful of the jeers and ridicule of his critics in America and elsewhere. "I am willing," he said, "no matter what my personal fortunes may be, to play for the verdict of mankind. Personally, it will be a matter of indifference to me what the verdict on the 7th of November is, provided I feel any degree of confidence that when a later jury sits I shall get their judgment in my favour. Not my favour personally--what difference does that make?--but my favour as an honest and conscientious spokesman of a great nation."

What an utterly foolish thing, said his critics, it is to attempt in this day to oust a Mexican dictator by mere rhetoric and high-sounding phrases!

When Wilson said: "The situation must be given a little more time to work itself out in the new circ.u.mstances; I believe that only a little while will be necessary.... We must exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it," his enemies smugly shrugged their shoulders and said, with disgust: "Well, what's the use? what can you expect from a dreamer of dreams, a mere doctrinaire? Doesn't Wilson, the historian, know that force and force alone can bring that grizzly old warrior Huerta to his senses?"

What was the President seeking to do in proclaiming his policy of "watchful waiting"? He was merely seeking to establish in Pan-American affairs the principle that no president of a South American republic who came to power by usurpation and a.s.sa.s.sination should receive, while he was president, the recognition of the United States. This doctrine was not only good statesmanship, but it was likewise sound in morals.

It was disheartening to find bitter criticism of this policy from the outside, and depressing to find the enemies of watchful waiting "boring from within" through his own Cabinet officers. Lindley Garrison, his own Secretary of War, had no sympathy for this idealistic policy. His only antidote for what was happening in Mexico was force and intervention and he honourably urged this view upon the President, but without succeeding in bringing about the consummation so dear to his heart.

And one denies, and one forsakes, and still unquestioning he goes, who has his lonely thoughts.

But the President stood firm in his resolve that the people of Mexico should not be punished for the malefactions of their usurping president, and steadily, against great odds, he moved forward to vindicate his policy, unmindful of the jeers and criticisms of his enemies. The heart of that policy he eloquently exposed when he said: "I am more interested in the fortunes of oppressed men, pitiful women and children, than in any property rights whatever. The people of Mexico are striving for the rights that are fundamental to life and happiness--fifteen million oppressed men, overburdened women, and pitiful children in virtual bondage in their own home of fertile lands and inexhaustible treasure! Some of the leaders of the revolution may often have been mistaken and violent and selfish, but the revolution itself was inevitable and is right. The unspeakable Huerta betrayed the very comrades he served, traitorously overthrew the government of which he was a trusted part, impudently spoke for the very forces that had driven his people to rebellion with which he had pretended to sympathize. The men who overcame him and drove him out represent at least the fierce pa.s.sion of reconstruction which lies at the very heart of liberty; and so long as they represent, however imperfectly, such a struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve their ends when I can. So long as the power of recognition rests with me the Government of the United States will refuse to extend the hand of welcome to any one who obtains power in a sister republic by treachery and violence."

But the President's policy of watchful waiting did win. The days of the Huerta regime slowly wended their uneasy way. Huerta suspended the Mexican Const.i.tution and, having imprisoned half of the Mexican Congress, proceeded to administer the Government as an arbitrary ruler. Slowly but surely he began to feel the mighty pressure of the unfriendly Government of the United States upon him. Still defiant, he sought to unite behind him the Mexican people, hoping to provoke them to military action against the United States. To hold his power he was willing to run the risk of making his own country a b.l.o.o.d.y shamble, but President Wilson had the measure of the tyrant Huerta from the beginning, and soon his efforts to isolate him began to bear fruit. Even now his bitter critics gave a listening ear to the oft-repeated statement of the American President, as if it contained the germ of a prophecy:

The steady pressure of moral force will before many days break the barriers of pride and prejudice down, and we shall triumph as Mexico's friends sooner than we could triumph as her enemy--and how much more handsomely and with how much higher and finer satisfactions of conscience and of honour!

Little by little the usurper was being isolated. By moral pressure every day his power and prestige were perceptibly crumbling. His collapse was not far away when the President declared: "We shall not, I believe, be obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting." The campaign of Woodrow Wilson to force Huerta finally triumphed. On July 15th, Huerta resigned and departed from Mexico. Wilson's humanity and broad statesmanship had won over the system of cruel oppression for which the "unspeakable Huerta"

had stood.

During the Huerta controversy a thing happened which aggravated the Mexican affair, and which culminated in the now-famous Tampico incident.

On April 9, 1914, a paymaster of the United States steamship _Dolphin_ landed at the Iturbide bridge at Tampico with a whaleboat and boat's crew to obtain supplies needed aboard the _Dolphin._ While loading these supplies the paymaster and his men were arrested by an officer and squad of the army of General Huerta. Neither the paymaster nor any of the boat's crew were armed. The boat flew the United States flag both at the bow and stern. Two of the men were in the boat when arrested and hence were taken from United States "soil." Admiral Mayo, senior American officer stationed off Tampico, immediately demanded the release of the sailors. Release was ordered after the paymaster and the sailors had been detained about an hour. Not only did Admiral Mayo demand the release of the sailors but insisted on a formal apology by the Huerta Government consisting of a twenty-one-gun salute to the flag.

During the critical days following the refusal of Huerta to accede to Admiral Mayo's request the State Department was notified that there would arrive at Vera Cruz the German steamship _Ypirango_ about to deliver to Huerta 15,000,000 rounds of ammunition and 500 rapid-fire guns.

About 2.30 o'clock in the morning of the 21st day of April, 1914, the telephone operator at the White House called me at my home, and rousing me from bed, informed me that the Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, desired to speak to me at once upon a very urgent and serious matter. I went to the telephone and was informed by Mr. Bryan that he had just received a wireless informing him that the German steamship _Ypirango,_ carrying munitions would arrive at Vera Cruz that morning about ten o'clock and that he thought the President ought to be notified and that, in his opinion, drastic measures should at once be taken to prevent the delivery of these munitions to the Customs House at Vera Cruz. While Mr. Bryan and I were talking, Mr. Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy, got on the wire and confirmed all that Mr. Bryan had just told me. Soon the President was on the 'phone, and in a voice indicating that he had just been aroused from sleep, carried on the following conversation with Messrs. Bryan, Daniels, and myself: Mr. Bryan reported to him the situation at Vera Cruz and informed him of the receipt of the wireless: