Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him Part 13

was that Mr. Bryan was not disposed to support him in the matter of the Federal Reserve Act. It was evident that Mr. Bryan felt a keen sympathy for the President and that he was honestly trying to find a way out of his difficulties that would enable him to give the President his whole-hearted support. He showed real emotion when I disclosed to him the personal feelings of the President toward him, and I feel sure I left him in a more agreeable frame of mind. I told him that I would talk with the President, Mr. McAdoo, and Mr. Gla.s.s and report to him on the following day.

I returned to the President's study and reported to him in detail the results of my conference with Mr. Bryan. I called his attention to Mr.

Bryan's criticism of the bill and then ventured the opinion that Mr.

Bryan, according to the traditional policy of the Democratic party, was right in his att.i.tude and that I felt that he [Mr. Wilson] was wrong. For a moment the President showed a little impatience with this statement and asked me to point out to him where the party in the National platforms had ever taken the view Mr. Bryan indicated in his discussion with me. I then showed him the book Mr. Bryan had given me, containing the Democratic platforms, and he read very carefully plank after plank on the currency.

He finally closed the book, placed it on his desk, and said: "I am convinced there is a great deal in what Mr. Bryan says." We then discussed ways of adjusting the matter. I finally suggested that the President allow me to talk with Mr. Gla.s.s and place before him Mr. Bryan's position and that he have Mr. Gla.s.s confer with Secretary McAdoo and Senator Owen. This was arranged. I had no way of ascertaining just what took place at this conference, but after the Cabinet meeting on the following Tuesday Mr.

Bryan walked around to where the President was sitting, and said to him: "Mr. President, we have settled our differences and you may rely upon me to remain with you to the end of the fight." The President thanked him cordially, and thus the first break in the Cabinet line was averted.

CHAPTER XXIII

RENOMINATED

As the days of the 1916 Convention at St. Louis approached, it was a foregone conclusion that there would be no serious contender against the President for the nomination and that he would win the prize by a practically unanimous vote. While at times the friends of Mr. Bryan and Mr. Clark were hopeful that the President might withdraw from the contest, after the Democrats at the Convention were a.s.sured that the President was ready to accept a renomination, the field was made clear for the setting of the Convention stage to accomplish that end.

It was thought that the St. Louis Convention would be a trite affair; that there would be no enthusiasm in it. This antic.i.p.ation arose from the idea expressed by many of the devoted friends of the Democratic party, that the cause of Democracy in 1916 was little less than hopeless. Much of this feeling came from the inordinately high estimate which many placed upon Mr. Justice Hughes both as a candidate and as a campaigner. Indeed, many Democrats who had canva.s.sed the national situation felt that without a continuation of the split in the ranks of the Republican party the road to Democratic success was indeed a hard and difficult one to travel.

There is no doubt that in the opinion of the country Mr. Justice Hughes was the strongest man the Republicans could put forward. The fact that he was resigning from the Supreme Court bench and that he had a remarkably progressive record as Governor of New York added a glamour and prestige to this nomination. I, myself, never lost confidence, however, in our ability to win. The Congressional elections of 1914, when the Democratic majority in the House was reduced to thirty-five, had dispirited Democratic friends throughout the country and made them feel that the nomination at St. Louis would be a purely formal matter and without fruitful results.

In a letter addressed to Colonel Harvey in 1914 I had expressed the opinion that the reduced Democratic majority in the Congressional elections of 1914, which was being construed as an apparent defeat of the party, was not a final judgment upon the work of the President and the achievements of his administration; that it was not a reversal irretrievable in character; that it should not depress the Democratic workers throughout the country, and that the field of conquest for the Democratic party in 1916 _was the West and the Pacific coast_. A calm a.n.a.lysis of the election results in 1914 convinced me that if the Presidential election of 1916 was to be won, our efforts for victory had to be concentrated upon a cultivation of sentiment throughout the West in favour of the Democratic cause.

My letter to Colonel Harvey is as follows:

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON

November 7, 1914.

DEAR COLONEL HARVEY:

Now that the clouds have cleared away, let me send you just a line or two expressing an opinion of last Tuesday's election.

It is my feeling that we are making unmistakable gains in sections of the country where Democratic hopes never ran high before this time.

Note the results in the states of Utah, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, Washington and California. It now appears from the returns, regardless of what the Eastern papers may say, that our majority in the House will be approximately from thirty-five to forty; that our majority in the Senate will be sixteen.

We have elected for the first time in the history of the Democratic party, so far as I can recall, Democratic Senators in the great Republican States of California, Wisconsin and South Dakota. The gains we have made in the West, along the Pacific coast, are mighty interesting and show a new field of conquest for the Democratic party in 1916. To elect a congress, retaining a majority of the party in power, after a revision of the tariff, is unprecedented. Once before it happened, in 1897, after the pa.s.sage of the Dingley Tariff Act when the Republican majority was reduced from 47 to 10. We are not in the least bit disturbed by the situation. We have for the first time elected Democratic Congressmen from the states of Utah, Washington, South Dakota and North Dakota.

With best wishes, I am, Cordially and sincerely yours, J. P. TUMULTY, Secretary To The President.

COLONEL GEORGE HARVEY, Hotel Chamberlain, Old Point Comfort, Virginia.

While the Democratic Convention was in session at St. Louis the President remained in the White House, keeping in close touch by direct telephonic communication with affairs there.

What at first appeared to be an ordinary and rather spiritless convention was quickly turned into a most enthusiastic and fervent one by the notable speeches of Governor Glynn, of New York, the temporary chairman of the Convention, and Senator Ollie M. James, of Kentucky, the permanent chairman.

The key-note speech delivered by Governor Glynn, contained this ringing defense of the President's policy of neutrality:

"This policy may not satisfy those who revel in destruction and find pleasure in despair. It may not satisfy the fire-eater or the swashbuckler but it does satisfy those who worship at the altar of the G.o.d of peace. It does satisfy the mothers of the land at whose hearth and fireside no jingoistic war has placed an empty chair. It does satisfy the daughters of the land from whom bl.u.s.ter and brag have sent no loving brother to the dissolution of the grave. It does satisfy the fathers of this land and the sons of this land who will fight for our flag, and die for our flag when Reason primes the rifle, when Honor draws the sword, when Justice breathes a blessing on the standards they uphold."

And Senator James in a masterly oration paid this splendid tribute to Woodrow Wilson:

"Four years ago they sneeringly called Woodrow Wilson the school- teacher; then his cla.s.ses were a.s.sembled within the narrow walls of Princeton College. They were the young men of America. To-day he is the world teacher, his cla.s.s is made up of kings, kaisers, czars, princes, and potentates. The confines of the schoolroom circle the world. His subject is the protection of American life and American rights under international law. The saving of neutral life, the freedom of the seas, and without orphaning a single American child, without widowing a single American mother, without firing a single gun, without the shedding of a single drop of blood, he has wrung from the most militant spirit that ever brooded above a battlefield an acknowledgment of American rights and an agreement to American demands."

These eloquent utterances prepared the way for the great slogan of the 1916 campaign: "_He kept us out of war._"

The President himself never used that slogan, however. From the first declaration of hostilities in Europe he realized the precarious position of the United States and the possibility that, whether we would or not, we might be swept into the conflict. As early as August, 1914, he expressed his anxious apprehension that "something might occur on the high seas which would make our neutrality impossible." He emphatically believed at that time that America's neutrality would best serve the interests of the world; he respected the American tradition of noninterference in European quarrels; with his almost mystic ability to a.s.sess and understand the opinion of the people of the country at large he knew that the American people did not want war; in his comparative seclusion he read the mind of America clearer than did the "mixers" of the Pullman smoking compartments who mistook the clamour for intervention among certain cla.s.ses along the north Atlantic seaboard for the voice of America at large; while the German rape of Belgium stirred his pa.s.sionate indignation, he knew that there was no practical means by which the United States could stop it, that we could not immediately transport armies to the theatre of war, and that public opinion, especially in the West and South, was not prepared for active intervention; and in addition to all this he was genuinely, not merely professedly, a pa.s.sionate lover of peace. But with all this he, realizing the magnitude of the war, had already glimpsed its wider significance, which caused him to say later that "this is the last war of its kind, or of any kind that involves the world, that the United States can keep out of. The business of neutrality is over." He saw that if the war should continue long, as it promised to do, our partic.i.p.ation might be inevitable and the American tradition of isolation for ever destroyed by circ.u.mstances beyond human control. With patience mingled with firmness, he trod his difficult path, doing all he could to keep us from getting involved without sacrificing fundamental principles of human and national rights, but he neither believed nor pretended to believe that he could give guaranties for the future. Nor did any of those who were closest to him make rash promises. For instance, the Cabinet officers who actively partic.i.p.ated in the campaign were careful to say in their speeches that he had done all that a president could honourably do to keep us out of war and that he could be depended upon to continue in the future the same course so long as it should prove humanly possible, for "peace" was not merely a word on his lips but a pa.s.sion in his heart, but that neither he nor any other mortal could "look into the seeds of time" and say what would be and what would not be. The event was on the knees of the G.o.ds.

Those who spoke with responsibility adhered strictly to the tense of the verb, the past tense: "kept." None rashly used, explicitly or by implication, the future tense: "will keep." In strictest truth they recited what had been, and, from their knowledge of the President's character and convictions, said that he would not be driven into war by the clamour of his critics, that he would refrain from hostility so long as it was humanly and honourably possible to refrain.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

CORNISH, N. H., August 6, 1915

Dear Tumulty:

Thank you for sending me the editorials from the World and from Life.

You don't need to have me tell you that I say Amen to everything that Life says in the article "Tumulty and Rome." The att.i.tude of some people about this irritates me more than I can say. It is not only preposterous, but outrageous, and of course you know it never makes the slightest impression on me.

Always Affectionately yours, (signed) Woodrow Wilson

Hon. Joseph P. Tumulty, Secretary to the President.

Showing the President's confidence in and loyalty toward his secretary.]

The President had sent Secretary of War Baker to the Convention to represent him before the various committees and to collaborate with the Committee on Resolutions in the preparation of a suitable platform.

Shortly after Mr. Baker's arrival in St. Louis the question of the att.i.tude of the Convention and the party toward the "hyphen" vote came up for consideration, and there were indications that certain members of the Committee on Resolutions were inclined to ignore the matter of the hyphen and to remain silent on this grave issue.

While the Committee on Resolutions was meeting at St. Louis, it was reported to me by Mr. Henry C. Campbell, one of the editors of the Milwaukee _Journal_, and a devoted friend, that the Democratic party, through its representatives on the Committee on Resolutions, was engaged in "p.u.s.s.yfooting" on the hyphen issue and that this would result in bitter disappointment to the country. At the time of the receipt of this telephone message from St. Louis the President was away from town for a day and I called his attention to it in the following letter:

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON

June 13, 1916.

DEAR GOVERNOR:

It is clear, as the editorial appearing in this morning's New York _World_ says, that the "hyphenate vote is a definite factor that cannot be discredited"; and that from the activities of the German- American Alliance every effort, as their own supporters declare, should be made to elect Justice Hughes. That there is abundant proof of this is clear, so that he who runs may read. This is evident from the att.i.tude of the German-American press, and from the statements of professional German agitators, and from the campaign that has been carried on against you from the very beginning.

I have not read the platform to be proposed by you. The only part that I have any knowledge of is that which you read to me over the telephone some nights ago; that had to do with the question of Americanism.

Frankly, your mention of Americanism is on all fours with the declarations found in the Bull Moose and regular Republican platforms.

The characteristic of all these references to Americanism is vagueness and uncertainty as to what is really meant. I believe that the time has come when the Democratic party should set forth its position on this vital matter in no uncertain terms. Efforts will soon be made, from stories now appearing in the newspapers, by professional German- Americans, to dominate our Convention, either in an effort to discredit you or to have embodied in the platform some reference to the embargo question, or a prohibition against the sale of munitions of war. We ought to meet these things in a manly, aggressive and militant fashion. It is for that reason that I suggest an open letter to the chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, setting forth your position in this matter so that the Convention may know before it nominates you the things for which you stand. Mr. Baker at the Convention will doubtless know when the representatives of the German- American Alliance make their appearance, asking for consideration at the hands of the Committee of their resolutions. As soon as they do, it appears to me to be the time for you to strike.

I discussed this matter over the telephone yesterday with Mr. Henry C.

Campbell, one of our devoted friends, and editor of the Milwaukee _Journal_. Mr. Frank Polk, Counsellor of the State Department, who was at the Convention, tells me that he was discussing this matter with Mr. Nieman, of the Milwaukee _Journal_, and that Mr. Nieman made the statement that both parties were "p.u.s.s.yfooting" and that he would not support the Democratic party unless its att.i.tude in this matter was unequivocal. When Mr. Campbell discussed this matter with me over the telephone, I told him to send me a telegram, setting forth what he thought ought to find lodgment in the platform, by way of expressing our att.i.tude in the matter. This morning I received the attached telegram from Senator Husting, expressing Mr. Campbell's and Mr.

Nieman's views. The part I have underlined I think should be expressed in less emphatic language.