Woodrow Wilson_ A Biography

Chapter 7

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When Woodrow Wilson used the word fighting fighting in talking about the Senate and the League of Nations with Colonel House, he was not indulging in a spasm of pugnacity. He was voicing his considered view of the upcoming debates over the peace treaty. Republican attacks on his foreign policy in the previous fall"s campaign and the reception given the Draft Covenant in March by Senator Lodge and others had left little doubt that he would have a fight on his hands when he went back with this treaty incorporating the League Covenant. In April, he had urged William Allen White to "get into the fight at home" for the League. Nothing that would happen in coming months would change his mind about this fight and what he thought was at stake in it. On the speaking tour that he would make in September 1919, he would look at the children who flocked to see him and say, "I know, if by chance, we should not win this great fight for the League of Nations, it would be their death warrant." This was going to be the fight of his life-one that would cost him more dearly than any other and would, if he lost it, he believed, "break the heart of the world." in talking about the Senate and the League of Nations with Colonel House, he was not indulging in a spasm of pugnacity. He was voicing his considered view of the upcoming debates over the peace treaty. Republican attacks on his foreign policy in the previous fall"s campaign and the reception given the Draft Covenant in March by Senator Lodge and others had left little doubt that he would have a fight on his hands when he went back with this treaty incorporating the League Covenant. In April, he had urged William Allen White to "get into the fight at home" for the League. Nothing that would happen in coming months would change his mind about this fight and what he thought was at stake in it. On the speaking tour that he would make in September 1919, he would look at the children who flocked to see him and say, "I know, if by chance, we should not win this great fight for the League of Nations, it would be their death warrant." This was going to be the fight of his life-one that would cost him more dearly than any other and would, if he lost it, he believed, "break the heart of the world."1 All evidence pointed to a hard fight against great odds in an unpromising arena. Public opinion, as well as positions in the Senate, had hardened since Wilson"s trip home in March. A rival organization to the League to Enforce Peace had entered the field: the League for the Preservation of American Independence. Usually called the Independence League, this organization would mobilize anti-League opinion and send oratorical stars such as senators Borah and Hiram Johnson and former senator Albert J. Beveridge out on speaking tours. Meanwhile, Lodge and Elihu Root had adopted a strategy of attacking provisions of the Covenant, particularly Article X, and demanding "reservations"-binding statements in the instrument of ratification-to limit American commitments and partic.i.p.ation. Revisions to the Covenant after Wilson"s return to Paris had not won over Republican senators, and in May, once Congress convened, senators Borah, Brandegee, and Philander Knox had attacked the Covenant root and branch. In June, four days before the signing of the treaty, the All evidence pointed to a hard fight against great odds in an unpromising arena. Public opinion, as well as positions in the Senate, had hardened since Wilson"s trip home in March. A rival organization to the League to Enforce Peace had entered the field: the League for the Preservation of American Independence. Usually called the Independence League, this organization would mobilize anti-League opinion and send oratorical stars such as senators Borah and Hiram Johnson and former senator Albert J. Beveridge out on speaking tours. Meanwhile, Lodge and Elihu Root had adopted a strategy of attacking provisions of the Covenant, particularly Article X, and demanding "reservations"-binding statements in the instrument of ratification-to limit American commitments and partic.i.p.ation. Revisions to the Covenant after Wilson"s return to Paris had not won over Republican senators, and in May, once Congress convened, senators Borah, Brandegee, and Philander Knox had attacked the Covenant root and branch. In June, four days before the signing of the treaty, the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune published a lineup of senators, which showed forty as pro-League-all but one of them Democrats-forty-three as reservationists, eight as die-hard opponents-who proudly called themselves irreconcilables-and four as undecided. Months later, when the Senate came to vote on the treaty, this forecast would prove remarkably accurate. published a lineup of senators, which showed forty as pro-League-all but one of them Democrats-forty-three as reservationists, eight as die-hard opponents-who proudly called themselves irreconcilables-and four as undecided. Months later, when the Senate came to vote on the treaty, this forecast would prove remarkably accurate.2 Wilson faced a choice at the outset between an inside and an outside strategy. An inside strategy required him to stay in Washington and try to deal with the senators. An outside strategy required him to make speaking tours and try to educate the public. He had been getting advice both ways. Tumulty and McAdoo had written and cabled urging him to take his case to the public soon after his return home; in Paris, Thomas Lamont had recommended the same course. Democratic senators and Postmaster General Burleson had counseled the opposite, urging him to respect the sensibilities on Capitol Hill and let some time elapse before making any appeal to the public. Simple logistics favored staying put initially, and the two strategies dovetailed with the presentation of the treaty to the Senate early in July, which everyone expected to be a widely watched event.

Wilson wanted to deliver a great speech that would rank beside "peace without victory," the war address, and the Fourteen Points. He started working on this speech on the second day of the voyage home. As usual, he enjoyed the respite offered by the ten-day crossing on the George Washington George Washington. He slept late, dined with a few fellow pa.s.sengers, watched movies with the crew, and walked on the deck with Edith. Yet the upcoming speech vexed him as none had ever done before. He excused the difficulty to Grayson by saying that "he had very little respect for the audience."3 That was a lame rationalization. By this time, he had addressed joint sessions of Congress or the Senate twenty-two times, and never before had he had any trouble preparing a speech. He also did something now he had never done before with a speech: he rehea.r.s.ed with a small group of advisers, including Baruch, Lamont, and Vance McCormick. Oddly, however, he did not consult with the one person on board the That was a lame rationalization. By this time, he had addressed joint sessions of Congress or the Senate twenty-two times, and never before had he had any trouble preparing a speech. He also did something now he had never done before with a speech: he rehea.r.s.ed with a small group of advisers, including Baruch, Lamont, and Vance McCormick. Oddly, however, he did not consult with the one person on board the George Washington George Washington who could have given him sound advice-Ray Stannard Baker. As press secretary to the delegation, Baker had been in daily contact with American journalists, and he had stayed abreast of opinion about the League and the treaty. Nor did Wilson consult with Tumulty or others in Washington, except about whether to speak to a joint session of Congress or to the Senate alone. who could have given him sound advice-Ray Stannard Baker. As press secretary to the delegation, Baker had been in daily contact with American journalists, and he had stayed abreast of opinion about the League and the treaty. Nor did Wilson consult with Tumulty or others in Washington, except about whether to speak to a joint session of Congress or to the Senate alone.

The presidential party enjoyed a festive homecoming on July 8. Crowds packed the sidewalks of New York, where a ticker tape parade took Wilson to Carnegie Hall for a brief speech. A train then took the Wilsons to Washington, where a crowd estimated at 100,000 gathered around Union Station to greet their arrival at midnight. The president did not speak to the crowd, but on the way to the White House he said he was touched by the reception. After a day of seclusion to work further on the speech, Wilson opened his campaign for the League and the treaty on July 10. In the morning, he held a press conference with more than 100 reporters in the East Room of the White House. Speaking on the record for a change, he gave newspaper readers a taste of the way he performed at press conferences; he was clear, to the point, and informative while holding his ground and remaining noncombative. Some of his answers were just a few words, but on Article X and proposed reservations he gave longer explanations. Asked if he would discuss criticisms of the article, he replied, "No, only to say that if you leave that out, it is only a debating society, and I would not be interested in a debating society." He maintained that reservations would be "a complicated problem," but he did not rule them out. He closed by affirming, "The Senate is going to ratify the treaty." It looked like a promising opener to his effort to gain acceptance of the treaty.4 At noon, he went to the Capitol to present the doc.u.ment to the Senate and give his speech. Grayson noted in his diary that as Wilson entered the chamber, Lodge asked him, "Mr. President, can I carry the Treaty for you?" To that, Wilson smiled and answered, "Not on your life." That exchange and Borah"s presence among the escort committee drew laughs in the chamber. This was the first time a president had presented a treaty to an open session of the Senate. Even though it was raining heavily and only ticket holders could enter the building, a large crowd had been milling around the Capitol for hours. When Wilson came into the Senate chamber, loud applause greeted him, mixed with rebel yells, but reporters noted that nearly all the applause came from the galleries and Democratic senators. Only a few Republicans joined in, and at the end only one, Porter Mcc.u.mber of North Dakota, an outspoken supporter of the League, applauded again. The chamber was silent during the thirty-seven-minute speech, and the senators appeared to be listening intently.5 Wilson maintained that the treaty was too complicated to explain in this address, although he did talk in general terms about some parts of the settlement. He paid tribute to the American forces, and he expatiated on the hopes raised for a better, more peaceful world, which the League of Nations was a first step toward fulfilling. "Shall we or any other free people hesitate to accept this great duty?" he asked rhetorically. "Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world?" He answered that such was impossible, and he closed with what he thought was a burst of eloquence by intoning, "The stage is set, the destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of G.o.d who led us this way. We cannot turn back. We can only go forward, with lifted eyes and a freshened spirit, to follow the vision. It was of this that we dreamed at our birth. America shall show the way. The light streams upon the path ahead, and nowhere else."6 The speech was a flop. In comments to reporters, Democratic senators sounded upbeat while Republicans were often scathing. "Soap bubbles and a souffle of rhetorical phrases," snorted Brandegee, while George Norris of Nebraska called it "a fine lot of glittering generalities." The senators had antic.i.p.ated explanations of such things as the Shantung settlement, the workings of Article X, and the future of Ireland. A Democrat, Henry Ashurst of Arizona, thought it was as if the head of a business had been asked to explain its obligations to his board of directors "and tone-fully read Longfellow"s Psalm of Life. ... His audience wanted red meat, he fed them cold turnips." Why Wilson did so badly is puzzling. His health may have played a part. One reporter noted that he skipped several words in reading from his typewritten text and then reread the sentences. Ashurst noted tight muscles in his neck and the paleness of his ears. Those were signs of tension, probably a headache, and perhaps insufficient blood to the brain-possibly symptoms of the underlying condition that would bring on a stroke three months later. Even more than poor delivery, the speech suffered from poor judgment. Ashurst was not alone in thinking that Wilson had given the wrong speech at the wrong time in the wrong place. Something more along the lines of what he had said in the press conference would have better filled the bill. He was showing impaired political judgment, which did not augur well for his performance in the League fight.7 When the president finished his speech, he placed the bound copy of the treaty on the vice president"s lectern. He left the chamber in good spirits and went into a reception room to meet with some senators, all but one of whom were Democrats. In what newspaper accounts described as a frank, open discussion, Wilson talked about reservations, which he again called complicated and perilous; the Monroe Doctrine, which he explained was now recognized by the European powers for the first time; the Shantung settlement, which he admitted he disliked; Ireland, which he called one of the most difficult problems of the conference; and Article X, which he believed did not infringe on Congress"s power to declare war. This exchange went some way toward repairing omissions in the speech, and on advice from Burleson and others, he decided to have meetings with individual senators. That meant again shelving plans for a speaking tour, which relieved a number of people close to him.8 Staying in Washington spared Wilson the rigors of summer travel, but it did not offer him a pleasant respite. The summer of 1919 was torrid even by the capital city"s standards, and racial violence exploded there as in other urban centers. This came to be called the Red Summer, because of the blood that figuratively and literally flowed in the streets. Before this time, race riots had occurred almost entirely in the South, but now, thanks to the migration of African Americans to northern cities, these white-instigated attacks on blacks in their neighborhoods spread to such places as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington. More than 100 people were killed and thousands injured, the great bulk of them African Americans. Homes and stores went up in flames. Soldiers from National Guard units and the regular army patrolled thoroughfares and gradually restored order. In Washington, much of the violence broke out in African American neighborhoods less than a mile from the White House, and troops patrolled Lafayette Square and the Mall and around the Capitol. In all, it was a frightening and unnerving spectacle.9 The president seemed removed from the racial violence as well as other serious domestic problems, such as a rash of strikes, unemployment, inflation, and the continuing anti-radical crusade that would culminate in a full-fledged Red scare at the end of the year. His posture may have stemmed from concern about his health. On July 19, Wilson fell ill after a meeting at the Capitol and canceled his other appointments. A cruise on the Mayflower Mayflower the next day did not help, and Grayson told the press that the president was suffering from dysentery. Whether something more serious was involved cannot be determined. the next day did not help, and Grayson told the press that the president was suffering from dysentery. Whether something more serious was involved cannot be determined.

When he was not resting in the White House, Wilson was meeting with senators. Between July 18 and August 1, he saw twenty-six of them: twenty-two Republicans and four Democrats; two other Republicans were invited but declined. The meetings took place one-on-one in the East Room and lasted about an hour apiece. Afterward, each Republican senator told waiting reporters that his conversation with the president had been cordial but that he had not changed his mind about the need for reservations. In private, accounts of the meetings contradicted one another. Taft"s chief informant in the capital told the ex-president that Wilson"s "att.i.tude had been courteous and even gracious ... and I believe he has done some good." On the same day, Truman H. Newberry, a newly elected Republican from Michigan, told the state"s other Republican senator he had had an agreeable meeting but said to a Washington lawyer that Wilson had given "the impression of a spoiled society belle, who considered herself irresistible to me." Wilson"s usual persuasiveness in personal encounters evidently did not change any senator"s mind, and the meetings took a lot out of him.10 He broke off these meetings at the beginning of August because domestic problems finally demanded his attention. He had resumed cabinet meetings, and on July 31 the discussion for the first time dealt exclusively with troubles at home: inflation and another threatened railroad strike. Inflation, which had earned the initials HCL (for "high cost of living"), was particularly troubling, and the Republicans were trying to reap partisan gain from it. In response, Wilson spoke to a joint session of Congress on August 8. As with the speech to the Senate a month earlier, this one gave him great trouble in writing, and his delivery was rambling and disorganized. Substantively, aside from vigorous enforcement of laws and the dissemination of economic information, he had little to recommend: "We must, I think, freely admit that there is no complete immediate remedy from legislation and executive action." He digressed with a description of the destruction wrought by the war, he attempted to link problems at home with delay in ratifying the peace treaty, and he delivered vague injunctions. It was the last address he would deliver to Congress in person.11 The threatened strike posed only one part of the railroad problem. Management, business groups, and conservatives were demanding an end to wartime control of the lines, while railroad unions, organized labor in general, and progressives were demanding continued government control under the Plumb plan, named after the rail unions" lawyer, Glenn Plumb. The night after his speech to Congress, Wilson read aloud a summary of the Plumb plan to Edith and Stockton Axson, who was visiting. "There is nothing radical in this," Axson recalled him saying. "It is a proposition for serious consideration." Another evening, while sitting on the rear portico of the White House, Wilson said he did not want to run for a third term, and as possible successors he mentioned Newton Baker, David Houston, and McAdoo. He did not think Baker and Houston were abler than McAdoo, but they were "both reflective reflective men-and I am not sure Mac is a reflective man." He linked having a "reflective" successor to his openness to the Plumb plan. He believed that a measure of socialism was necessary to ensure opportunity for individuals: "I am perfectly sure that the state has got to control everything that everybody needs and uses," and the next president must therefore be "a man who reflects long and deeply on these complicated relationships of our time." men-and I am not sure Mac is a reflective man." He linked having a "reflective" successor to his openness to the Plumb plan. He believed that a measure of socialism was necessary to ensure opportunity for individuals: "I am perfectly sure that the state has got to control everything that everybody needs and uses," and the next president must therefore be "a man who reflects long and deeply on these complicated relationships of our time."12 Wilson might have said he did not want a third term, but he sounded as if he was leaving the door open to the possibility. Wilson might have said he did not want a third term, but he sounded as if he was leaving the door open to the possibility.

Ironically, he had first expressed those views about the need for a greater government role in the economy at the same time that his administration was cracking down on socialists and other radicals for opposing the war. Now he was expressing these views again, after he had proposed releasing those dissidents from prison with the signing of the peace treaty. This issue had not faded away since his return home. During the summer of 1919, such prominent figures as the novelist Upton Sinclair and the attorney Clarence Darrow wrote to urge the president to pardon Eugene Debs, but no supplicant on behalf of imprisoned dissenters carried greater weight with the president than John Nevin Sayre, the Episcopal clergyman who had performed the wedding ceremony in the White House between his brother Frank and Jessie Wilson. At the beginning of August, Sayre wrote on behalf of the National Civil Liberties Board to ask for release of all persons convicted under the Espionage Act as a gesture of healing and reconciliation. Forwarding Sayre"s letter to Attorney General Palmer, Wilson said he knew and trusted Sayre, and he affirmed, "I am anxious to act at an early date." Palmer had already recommended against releasing Debs and others until the peace treaty was ratified, and he never responded directly to the president-possibly because he was already hatching his plans for an anti-radical crusade. Failure to move now toward freeing Debs and other dissenters was a fateful missed opportunity.13 Another missed opportunity was the failure to deal with reservations to the peace treaty. The Republican senators who came to the White House all told Wilson that reservations were essential to Senate approval. Likewise, Taft impulsively-and, in the view of some, unwisely-broke the LEP"s united front in favor of outright ratification of the treaty and proposed some fairly mild reservations. Hughes also put forward some of his own, which were more stringent than Taft"s but less stringent than the ones Root had earlier proposed.14 Tumulty, McAdoo, and Lamont recommended that Wilson regain the initiative by speaking out about acceptable reservations to the Monroe Doctrine, Shantung, and Article X. At mid-July, Sir William Wiseman reported to the Foreign Office that the president admitted he might have to agree to some reservations. Yet Wilson waited until the beginning of August, when he fretted for a week about what to say in a public statement, and finally let Tumulty draft most of it for him. Such fretting, like his difficulty in writing speeches, was out of character for him and also probably stemmed from his deteriorating health. Where Wilson had joked in the past about his "single-track mind" while easily attending to multiple tasks, he now seemed to have real problems dealing with domestic and foreign policy at the same time. Tumulty, McAdoo, and Lamont recommended that Wilson regain the initiative by speaking out about acceptable reservations to the Monroe Doctrine, Shantung, and Article X. At mid-July, Sir William Wiseman reported to the Foreign Office that the president admitted he might have to agree to some reservations. Yet Wilson waited until the beginning of August, when he fretted for a week about what to say in a public statement, and finally let Tumulty draft most of it for him. Such fretting, like his difficulty in writing speeches, was out of character for him and also probably stemmed from his deteriorating health. Where Wilson had joked in the past about his "single-track mind" while easily attending to multiple tasks, he now seemed to have real problems dealing with domestic and foreign policy at the same time.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Senate appeared to be in no hurry to deal with the peace treaty. In July, the only notable speech on the floor came from Norris, who spent three days denouncing the settlement as infected with "the germs of wickedness and injustice" and heaping special scorn on the Shantung cession and j.a.pan"s treatment of Korea. The Foreign Relations Committee took its time too. In his capacity as Republican leader, Lodge had packed the committee at the beginning of this Congress with other critics and opponents of the League, who now included Borah, Brandegee, Albert Fall of New Mexico, Hiram Johnson, and Knox. In his capacity as chairman, Lodge ruled that the treaty must be read aloud to the committee, which consumed several days, and then he got a majority to request all confidential doc.u.ments from the negotiations and to block appointments to the Reparations Commission set up under the treaty.15 Lodge did not begin to hold hearings in the committee"s ornate room in the Capitol until August. The first witnesses were members of the delegation to the peace conference, including Lansing, who laconically and unemotionally underwent five hours of mostly hostile interrogation. It was a "disagreeable experience," Lansing noted, but mainly because "I felt I could not tell the truth as to the negotiations"-meaning his disagreements with Wilson, especially about the League, which he disliked. Hiram Johnson told his sons that the secretary"s performance was "the picture of indifference, vacillation, hesitation and downright ignorance." Lodge found Lansing"s performance pathetic and told his daughter, "One of the Democratic Senators turned around to me and said, "What do you suppose Lansing did while he was in Paris?"" The person the committee most wanted to hear from was the president, and Lansing"s uninformative testimony only whetted their appet.i.te to grill him.16 On his side, Wilson was wrestling with how to deal not only with the Foreign Relations Committee but also, apparently more promisingly, with a group of nine Republican senators known as mild reservationists, who supported the League but wanted some safeguards and needed political cover for siding with a Democratic president. Two LEP representatives, A. Lawrence Lowell and Oscar Straus, who had served as secretary of commerce and labor under Roosevelt, met with Wilson on August 6 and found him willing to get in touch with the milder reservationists but unsure about the best way to go about it. McAdoo later recalled suggesting compromise on reservations to his father-in-law at this time and getting the answer, "Mac, I am willing to compromise on anything but the Ten Commandments." But Wilson also feared that willingness to accept mild reservations might open the door to stronger and more objectionable ones.17 On Capitol Hill, prospects for bipartisan cooperation briefly looked bright. Some mild reservationists were reaching across party lines, although the New York World World reported that "a get-together movement" between them and Democrats was "still in the conference stage." Key Pittman of Nevada, a Democrat, later recalled that he felt confident about reaching an agreement. That confidence was excessive. The mild reservationists were divided among themselves; a few blew hot and cold about how far to go in accommodating the Democrats, and some of them supported reservations that were not so mild. At the middle of August, Lodge enlisted Root"s help in trying to bring two of them, LeBaron Colt of Rhode Island and Frank Kellogg of Minnesota, back into line behind "a real reservation" on Article X-one that would limit American commitments to enforce collective security actions by the League Council. In the end, those two senators and all but one of the mild reservationists-Mcc.u.mber of North Dakota-would support Lodge"s position on Article X and the whole treaty. reported that "a get-together movement" between them and Democrats was "still in the conference stage." Key Pittman of Nevada, a Democrat, later recalled that he felt confident about reaching an agreement. That confidence was excessive. The mild reservationists were divided among themselves; a few blew hot and cold about how far to go in accommodating the Democrats, and some of them supported reservations that were not so mild. At the middle of August, Lodge enlisted Root"s help in trying to bring two of them, LeBaron Colt of Rhode Island and Frank Kellogg of Minnesota, back into line behind "a real reservation" on Article X-one that would limit American commitments to enforce collective security actions by the League Council. In the end, those two senators and all but one of the mild reservationists-Mcc.u.mber of North Dakota-would support Lodge"s position on Article X and the whole treaty.18 Wilson dashed these hopes for bipartisan cooperation. On August 11, when Lansing also suggested an accommodation with the mild reservationists, the president "would have none of it, and his face took on that stubborn and pugnacious expression which comes whenever anyone tells him a fact which interferes with his plans."19 Four days later, Wilson authorized the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Gilbert Hitchc.o.c.k, to tell the press that the president did not believe any compromise should be discussed or negotiated yet, although one might be eventually. Wilson"s reasons for this intransigent turn evidently sprang from the fear he expressed to McAdoo about opening the door to more stringent reservations. He was making a serious mistake: an accommodation with the mild reservationists could have strengthened his hand with the Senate and put pressure on other Republicans. This was another significant missed opportunity, and the likeliest explanation lay once again in the effects of fatigue and nervous strain. Also, these overtures came just when Wilson had to turn from dealing with the Senate over the treaty to address domestic problems. His mind did appear to be having trouble shifting gears. Four days later, Wilson authorized the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Gilbert Hitchc.o.c.k, to tell the press that the president did not believe any compromise should be discussed or negotiated yet, although one might be eventually. Wilson"s reasons for this intransigent turn evidently sprang from the fear he expressed to McAdoo about opening the door to more stringent reservations. He was making a serious mistake: an accommodation with the mild reservationists could have strengthened his hand with the Senate and put pressure on other Republicans. This was another significant missed opportunity, and the likeliest explanation lay once again in the effects of fatigue and nervous strain. Also, these overtures came just when Wilson had to turn from dealing with the Senate over the treaty to address domestic problems. His mind did appear to be having trouble shifting gears.

Curiously, no howl of protest greeted Wilson"s rejection of reservations. The silence in the Capitol seems to have stemmed from distraction by the antic.i.p.ation of an encounter that dominated almost everyone"s attention: Wilson"s upcoming meeting with the Foreign Relations Committee, which the president had authorized Hitchc.o.c.k to announce. Previously, he had planned to release his statement on reservations as a public letter to Lodge. Instead, showing a flash of his old boldness, he decided to read the statement to the committee and submit to questioning by its members. This was a historic break with precedent and with the const.i.tutional separation of powers. The only comparable encounter between a president and a congressional committee had been his inviting the Foreign Affairs and Foreign Relations committees to the White House in February to discuss the Draft Covenant. That meeting, however, had been an informal gathering, with no stenographer present, and it had not involved any business before Congress. Wilson had never liked the separation of powers, although he did a.s.sert executive privilege in refusing the Foreign Relations Committee"s request to turn over the doc.u.ments from the peace negotiations. In this case, he again observed const.i.tutional niceties by inviting the committee to the White House rather than going to the Capitol himself.20 At ten o"clock in the morning on August 19, the senators gathered with the president around a large table in the East Room. Wilson sat at one corner, between Lodge and John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, opposite Borah and Brandegee. Two stenographers and the head usher of the White House were the only others present during the three-and-a-half-hour meeting, which was followed by lunch. The president opened the discussion by reading his statement on reservations. He a.s.serted that the only barrier to ratification of the peace treaty lay in "certain doubts with regard to the meaning and implication of certain articles of the covenant of the league of nations," which he found groundless. Article X imposed "a moral, not a legal obligation" and left Congress to interpret what actions to take. He did not object to reservations so long as they were not "part of the instrument of ratification"-incorporating them into that instrument would require the agreement of other nations and would create ambiguity about America"s obligations.21 Though largely drafted by Tumulty, the statement captured Wilson"s thought and language, and the distinction between a legal and a moral obligation under Article X could have offered an opening to a compromise between his insistence on international commitment and Lodge and other Republicans" insistence on freedom of action. Yet the statement was not adequate to the occasion. Agreeing to reservations that were not part of the instrument of ratification was a meager sop that did not satisfy even the mild reservationists. If Wilson had been willing to work with them earlier, he might have been able to unveil an agreement on a specific set of reservations. That would have been a stupendous coup and would have sent his critics and opponents reeling. Instead, he was adding to the pile of missed opportunities.

Lodge opened for the committee by stating that he and his fellow senators had "no thought of entering into an argument as to interpretations" but sought only information. He asked specific questions about other treaties besides the one with Germany and about the drafting of the Covenant. Wilson answered him crisply and knowledgeably. Other senators quickly got into interpretations of the Covenant. Borah asked who besides the United States, in the event of American withdrawal from the League, would judge whether the United States had fulfilled its obligations; Wilson answered, "n.o.body." Several senators probed him about Article X, and he reiterated his distinction between a legal and moral obligation-"Only we can interpret a moral obligation"-and he maintained that a reservation attached to the instrument of ratification would make it "necessary for others to act upon it." Lodge disagreed, saying that only an amendment to the treaty required such action; a reservation did not-and Knox concurred. Warren Harding of Ohio reportedly tried the president"s patience by going on at length about obligations under Article X. "Now a moral obligation is of course superior to a legal obligation," Wilson snapped, "and, if I may say so, has a greater binding force."22 Questioning by Borah then led him to stumble. Asked about the French security treaty, he maintained incorrectly that it also imposed only a moral obligation: "In international law, "legal" does not mean the same thing as in national law, and the word hardly applied." Asked when he first learned about the Allies" wartime secret treaties, he answered that he had not known about them until the peace conference. Some critics would call that answer a lie, but Hiram Johnson, who had learned from Walter Lippmann that the president had known about the treaties in 1917, told his sons only that Wilson"s "memory played him false." When Johnson and Brandegee asked about Shantung, he first denied and then admitted that he had agreed to the cession because j.a.pan threatened not to sign the treaty. Brandegee and Harding further badgered him about Article X, but Wilson stuck by its moral obligation, which "steadies the whole world by its promise that it will stand with other nations of similar judgment and maintain the right in the world." By all accounts, the tensest time in the meeting came when Brandegee relentlessly, and at times insolently, needled the president about Article X, but Wilson maintained his poise and good humor. When the senator pushed the idea of separating the treaty from the Covenant, the president called that an "unworkable peace, because the league is necessary to the working of it." Brandegee countered that the United States could opt out of any obligations under the treaty, and Wilson replied, "We could, sir, but I hope the people of the United States would never consent to it." Brandegee shot back, "There is no way by which the people can vote on it."23 The meeting had now gone on for more than three hours, and Lodge broke up this confrontation by inquiring about the resumption of trade with Germany. Other Republicans asked about eastern Europe and mandates over former German colonies. In response, Wilson stated erroneously that America was not involved in those matters. Harry New of Indiana, a Republican, asked how the Covenant might have affected the United States during the War of 1812 and the Spanish-American War, to which Wilson responded, "I have tried to be a historical student, but I could not quite get the league back to those days clearly enough in my mind to form a judgment." Lodge then interjected, "Mr. President, I do not wish to interfere in any way, the conference has now lasted about three hours and a half, and it is half an hour after the lunch hour." Wilson replied, "Will not you gentlemen take luncheon with me? It will be very delightful." All but two of the senators accompanied the president into the State Dining Room, where, according to newspaper reports, the president genially played host and told his guests stories from the peace conference; this time, although no alcohol was served, no senator complained about the meal.24 Memory lapses and mistakes aside, Wilson had stood up well under a barrage of hostile questions. Democrats on the committee took next to no part, although an occasional friendly question came from Pittman, as well as from the mild reservationist Mcc.u.mber, a Republican. Lodge privately told friends that Wilson"s performance "amounted to nothing" and that he "displayed ignorance and disingenuousness in his slippery evasions." By contrast, a League opponent, Fall, publicly praised Wilson for his frankness and manliness. Johnson said privately, "I rather think the day was his." That praise was strictly backhanded: Johnson thought Lodge and their colleagues should have seen through Wilson"s "foxy and cunning manner." He found the president"s expression "quite wicked" and his face "hard, and cold, and cruel. ... His ponderous lower jaw gives a very vague appearance of a vicious horse."25 The delayed outcry in the Senate at Wilson"s rejection of reservations exploded the day after his meeting with the Foreign Relations Committee. Pittman introduced a resolution stating four propositions as the basis for interpretation of the treaty; they covered withdrawal, domestic questions, the Monroe Doctrine, and Article X, which imposed a moral obligation subject to voluntary construction and compliance. The mild reservationists immediately repudiated Pittman"s scheme; with the exception of Mcc.u.mber, they demanded that any reservations be part of the instrument of ratification. The White House likewise pulled the rug out from under Pittman, authorizing Hitchc.o.c.k to tell reporters, "The President had no knowledge of the resolution or its introduction." It was a case of a good intention gone awry.26 Meanwhile, Wilson"s enemies were not idle. Lodge turned his committee"s hearings into a sounding board for representatives of groups and nationalities that harbored grievances against the peace treaty, especially regarding Shantung and Ireland. After a delegation of leading Irish Americans spent six hours regaling the senators with stories about their frustration in trying to gain the president"s support for Irish independence, Ashurst privately lamented, "These Irishmen, alas, are lost lost to the Democratic party in the next election." to the Democratic party in the next election."27 Floor debate in the Senate also quickened, with twelve speeches on the treaty and the League during August. The most important of those came from Lodge on August 12 and Knox on August 29. Lodge self-consciously aimed at oratorical distinction and larded his long speech with literary allusions. Knox took a clear stand against the League-now definitively aligning himself with the irreconcilables-and other features of the treaty as well. He also unexpectedly condemned the settlement with Germany as a "hard and cruel peace," and he excoriated the economic clauses in a way that uncannily antic.i.p.ated Keynes"s as yet unpublished denunciation. Floor debate in the Senate also quickened, with twelve speeches on the treaty and the League during August. The most important of those came from Lodge on August 12 and Knox on August 29. Lodge self-consciously aimed at oratorical distinction and larded his long speech with literary allusions. Knox took a clear stand against the League-now definitively aligning himself with the irreconcilables-and other features of the treaty as well. He also unexpectedly condemned the settlement with Germany as a "hard and cruel peace," and he excoriated the economic clauses in a way that uncannily antic.i.p.ated Keynes"s as yet unpublished denunciation.

For Wilson, the unkindest cut of all came four days after his meeting with the Foreign Relations Committee. Right after the lunch at the White House, the irreconcilables on the committee-Borah, Brandegee, Johnson, and George Moses of New Hampshire-huddled to plot strategy. The following day, they met again in Knox"s office, with reporters correctly reading the conclave as a sign that the former secretary of state was about to come out as an irreconcilable. The cabal decided to press Lodge and other Republicans to amend the text of the treaty, a move that if successful in the full Senate would indisputably require new negotiations and delay ratification. On August 23, they scored their first victory when the Republican majority on the committee, minus Mcc.u.mber, voted to strike the Shantung clauses from the treaty. Democrats protested that the Allies, especially j.a.pan, would never agree to this amendment, but Knox chortled, "The committee decided it would take independent action." Lodge gladly accepted the amendment and said he also wanted a reservation to Article X that was "much more drastic than anything hitherto drafted," declaring that "no compromise was possible."28 An angry Wilson was not slow to respond to what he saw as a slap in the face. On August 27, the White House announced that the president would undertake a speaking tour that would begin early in September and take him across the country and back. This decision struck some people as an impulsive act committed in anger, and some interpreters would read it as yet another sign of Wilson"s declining health. Both Edith and Grayson tried to talk him out of making this trip, but according to Edith"s recollection, he said, "I promised our soldiers, when I asked them to take up arms, that this was a war to end wars; and if I do not do all in my power to put the Treaty into effect, I will be a slacker and never able to look those boys in the eye. I must go."29 Although his wife"s recollection may have embellished his words, Wilson probably did say something like that. This did not mean, however, as some interpreters would later claim, that he was courting martyrdom, seeking to sacrifice himself in a holy cause. Roosevelt might have wanted to do that, but Wilson did not think that way. He had always enjoyed campaigning, and he believed that a democratic leader-like the mythical figure Antaeus, who renewed his strength through contact with the earth-renewed his strength through contact with his people. He may have decided quickly to make the tour, but he was not acting impulsively. Twice before, he had postponed such a trip in order to deal with senators, and Tumulty evidently had arrangements more or less in place against the day when the president gave him the green light.

The decision to make the tour did not rule out continuing to deal with senators. On August 25, Wilson spent forty-five minutes in the office of one of the Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, Claude Swanson of Virginia, while Edith waited outside in the limousine. Swanson urged the president to accept reservations in the instrument of ratification. At that meeting and another one a week later, Wilson reiterated his opposition to amendments or anything that might require renegotiation of the treaty, but he authorized Swanson to tell reporters, "If interpretative reservations were deemed imperative, the President said he would not oppose them." He also met at the White House with one of the mild reservationists, Irvine Lenroot of Wisconsin, who later recalled that he spent an hour trying to persuade the president to accept a reservation relieving the United States of obligations under Article X, but Wilson refused, declaring that Article X was the heart of the treaty.30 Wilson also drafted four reservations of his own. Just before he boarded the train for the speaking tour, he summoned Hitchc.o.c.k to the White House and gave him a paper t.i.tled "Suggestion," which he had typed himself and revised in his own hand. In a preamble, he a.s.serted that the Senate should consent "with the following understanding" of certain articles. What followed were one-sentence reservations covering withdrawal, domestic questions such as "immigration, naturalization or tariffs," and the Monroe Doctrine. Those reservations were like the ones that had been proposed by Taft and Hughes and others and were being circulated by the mild reservationists. The fourth reservation, on Article X, a.s.serted that action by the League Council was "to be regarded only as advice and leaves each Member State free to exercise its own judgment as to whether it is wise or practicable to act upon that advice or not." This was a significant concession, but it differed from other reservations in making no mention of Congress. Wilson was trying to retain presidential flexibility and his notion of "a moral obligation." It is doubtful that those reservations would have satisfied the mild reservationists or other Republicans, and it is not clear what Wilson hoped to accomplish with them. He forbade Hitchc.o.c.k to tell anyone he had written them, again fearing that his opponents would demand further concessions; in any case, no one but the president could bargain with the senators, and he was going away for a month.31 Wilson"s health seemed to take a turn for the better in the last part of August, but he was having trouble coordinating his political moves. Before he left on the tour, he had to turn his attention to the threatened railroad strike. On August 25, he met with union leaders and told them, "Our common enemy is the profiteer." By appealing for cooperation and agreeing to a modest wage hike, he was able to head off a strike. That same day, he and Edith gave their only party of the summer, a reception on the White House lawn for wounded soldiers. When one of the soldiers took a photograph of the president carrying a cake and some ice cream, as Edith recalled, the doughboy remarked "that he guessed that was the first time a President had ever been caught doing K. P."-slang for "kitchen police" duty.32 It was the last party the Wilsons would give at the White House. It was the last party the Wilsons would give at the White House.

On the night of September 3, the presidential train left Washington. At the rear, Wilson"s private car, also called the Mayflower, contained a sitting room, where the president and Edith ate at a folding table; a bedroom for each of them plus one for Edith"s maid and another for Dr. Grayson; and a kitchen staffed by White House cooks. The rest of the train consisted of a dining car, a club car, and sleeping cars for Tumulty, stenographers, Secret Service agents, and twenty-one members of the press, as well as the servants and train crew. Tumulty would regularly spend time with the reporters in the club car, and Wilson would also sometimes go back to talk to them. The train functioned as a miniature mobile White House, and for the Wilsons, except for three nights when they slept in a hotel, it would be their rolling, jostling home for three and a half weeks.33 The arrangements made the tour look like one of Wilson"s presidential campaigns. As usual, he spoke without notes, although now he resorted to outlines. At some time, probably shortly before he left Washington, he had typed an eight-page outline on particular subjects, such as the nature and scope of the treaty and the League Covenant. Sometime on the trip, probably while he was in California or just afterward, he would type another outline, including extracts from the treaty and Covenant to use as quotations. Wilson had never done anything like that before, and it may have betrayed waning confidence in his once-formidable memory and gifts as an extemporaneous speaker. As in the presidential campaigns, stenographers took down his speeches, which they promptly typed, copied, and distributed, not just to the traveling press but also to local reporters who covered the event at each stop. Nor did the distribution end there. a.s.sisted by the LEP, Tumulty sent out texts of the president"s speeches to 1,400 smaller newspapers throughout the country-at a cost of $1,000 a day, financed mostly by the automobile tyc.o.o.n Henry Ford. Tumulty kept the train"s telegraph lines humming with requests for information to use in the speeches, reports on opinion in Washington and around the country, and "personal" messages supposedly from the president to individual senators.34 The first stop on the tour came when the train pulled into Columbus, Ohio, at eleven in the morning on September 4. Dignitaries greeted the presidential party, and a motorcade took them to a munic.i.p.al auditorium. Crowds along the streets were friendly but, because of a streetcar strike, not large. Still, at the auditorium, 4,000 people packed the seats and aisles, and another 2,000 reportedly tried to get in. Wilson launched into a defense of the treaty and an attack on his opponents. In an implicit reply to Knox"s recent speech, he declared, "The terms of the treaty are severe, but they are not unjust." After touching on various aspects of the settlement, he spent most of the hour-long speech talking about the League. He professed astonishment at the ignorance and "radical misunderstanding" of the League, which was intended not "merely to end this war. It was intended to prevent any similar war. ... [T]he League of Nations is the only thing that can prevent the recurrence of this dreadful catastrophe and redeem our promises." He closed by saluting "our boys in khaki ... because I have done the job the way I promised I would do it. And when this treaty is accepted, men in khaki will not have to cross the seas again. That is the reason I believe in it." The crowd loved the speech.35 The train then made its way to Indianapolis, with whistle-stop appearances along the way. Again, dignitaries were on hand to greet the president and First Lady, and a motorcade took them to the state fairgrounds, where between 16,000 and 20,000 people swelled the auditorium. The size of the crowd and poor acoustics made it hard for the audience to hear Wilson, who spoke in a husky voice. As he had done earlier in the day, he jumped around in discussing different parts of the treaty, but he devoted much of the speech to Article X, and he eschewed partisanship in his advocacy of the peace settlement. This speech also made a big hit, with frequent applause and people shouting, in reference to Indiana"s two Republican senators, "Better tell that to Harry New and Jim Watson."36 That first day revealed the pattern and problems that would shape and plague the tour. Unlike the presidential campaigns, this swing around the circle was not well paced. Wilson would give forty speeches in twenty-one days, and the original plan called for even more. Never before had he spoken so often and made so many public appearances in so short a time-not in his gubernatorial or presidential campaigns, not on the New Jersey and 1916 preparedness speaking tours, which were his models for what he intended to do now. Wilson was trying to do too much too fast to educate the public about his ideas and his program in a belated attempt to make up for time lost. Moreover, the extent and complexity of the subjects he needed to cover strained his explanatory powers-small wonder, then, that he jumped around in these speeches.

Overshadowing those problems was Wilson"s health. The wonder of this speaking tour was that he did as well, and lasted as long, as he did. Some of his initial fumbling stemmed from a slowness in hitting his stride on the trail, a trait he had first shown when he ran for governor. The first week of the tour took him through Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota as he made two speeches a day, except for a break on Sunday. State and local officials greeted the party at each stop, and a motorcade or bigger parade took them to the site of the speech. Grayson clashed with Tumulty about Wilson"s speaking at whistle-stops. The doctor vetoed such talks, but even shaking hands with people who crowded the rear platform tired Wilson, as did the late-summer heat in the nation"s heartland. "I believe I lost at least two pounds," the president joked to reporters on the third day of the tour.37 As in his earlier campaigns, once Wilson hit his stride, his speaking improved during most of the rest of the tour. Beginning in St. Louis on the second day, he emphasized a few basic points in each speech, usually explanations of how the League and Article X were going to work. He also made greater use of his outline, and his performance varied with his level of fatigue. In his best speeches, he blended his well-worn talent for appealing to people"s minds through clear explanations with his more recent penchant for appealing to their hearts. To businessmen in St. Louis, he extolled the benefits they would reap from the restoration of international trade, while to his audience in Omaha, which presumably included farmers, he compared the international system without Article X to a community where everyone had to defend his own land. He conceded that the League would bring "no absolute guarantee" against another world war, but "I can predict with absolute certainty that, within another generation, there will be another world war if the nations of the world-if the League of Nations-does not prevent it by concerted action."38 Wilson also made pointed emotional appeals. In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he singled out mothers who had lost their sons in the war, and in St. Louis he warned that without the League and Article X, America would have to stay on a permanent war footing and be ruled by "Prussian" military despotism. In Kansas City, he avowed that he was fighting for something "as great as the cause of mankind" and added that he was descended from "troublesome Scotchmen" known as Covenanters: "Very well here is the Covenant of the League of Nations. I am a Covenanter!"39 It was no accident that he made that declaration of defiance in the adopted hometown of Senator Reed, his persistent antagonist in the Democratic Party and now one of his fiercest foes on the League. It was no accident that he made that declaration of defiance in the adopted hometown of Senator Reed, his persistent antagonist in the Democratic Party and now one of his fiercest foes on the League.

In the supercharged political and social atmosphere of the summer of 1919, emotional appeals carried the danger of demagoguery. Wilson leaned in that direction just a few times on this speaking tour. Anti-German sentiment offered the greatest temptation, and some League advocates, most notably Taft, touted the organization as a way to keep Germany downtrodden. Wilson used that argument only sparingly in his speeches. An almost equally great temptation lay in the rising tide of anti-Bolshevik and anti-radical sentiment that would soon erupt into Attorney General Palmer"s Red scare. At Kansas City, Wilson scorned the Bolsheviks and slyly linked their destructive spirit to some anti-League spokesmen. Later on the tour, he would take a few more pa.s.sing swipes at the Bolsheviks, but that was the single time he tried to tar his opponents with the anti-Bolshevik brush. Again, it was noteworthy that Wilson stooped toward demagoguery in the hometown of Reed, who had recently hurled blatantly racist denunciations at the League.

Most of the president"s sins and errors on the tour fell under the heading of omission. He showed his two most glaring kinds of omission in his speeches during the first week. In his explanations of the treaty, he continued to shy away from responding to criticism. He also failed to suggest possible compromises and reach out to senators. Only once on the tour did he mention any senators by name: in Omaha, he thanked Hitchc.o.c.k for his support and expressed the hope-in vain-that Norris would join him. Otherwise, in a senator"s state, friend, foe, and fence-sitter alike went unmentioned by name and, with a few exceptions, by implication. Tumulty"s "personal" telegrams from the presidential train were efforts to repair such omissions.

Wilson was aiming his oratory at an audience beyond the people who came to hear him. The press coverage, which included the texts of the speeches, enabled him to try to influence opinion throughout the country, which, in turn, he hoped would sway senators. This was not a vain hope. Despite Brandegee"s sneer that people could not vote on the treaty, his colleagues paid attention to public opinion and made their own efforts to influence it. Borah, Johnson, and Reed set out on speaking tours of their own, arranged and financed by the Independence League, to trail the president. In Washington, on the first day of Wilson"s tour, Lodge marshaled the Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee, except Mcc.u.mber, to pa.s.s four reservations. Three of them a.s.serted the absolute right to withdraw from the League and exempt domestic questions and the Monroe Doctrine from its jurisdiction. The fourth declined "any obligation to preserve territorial integrity or political independence of any other country," join in economic boycotts, employ American armed forces, or accept a mandate except by act of Congress. The public impact of the committee"s action delighted Lodge, who told a friend, "Our reservations made a hit and shared the front page with Wilson."40 The senator soon savored a much bigger publicity coup. On September 12, his committee heard testimony from William Bullitt, the young diplomat who had resigned publicly in protest from the peace conference delegation. After two hours of leisurely questioning, Bullitt produced a memorandum of a conversation in which Secretary of State Lansing had condemned much of the treaty, especially the parts dealing with Shantung and the League. Bullitt quoted Lansing as stating, "I consider that the league of nations at present is entirely useless," and if the Senate and the people really understood the treaty, "it would unquestionably be defeated." This bombsh.e.l.l made headlines in every major newspaper. Lansing refused to comment and left for a fishing trip on Lake Ontario. After he returned, he stonewalled reporters with the feeble excuse that he could not say anything until he had read the full, official transcript of Bullitt"s testimony. His real reason for not speaking, he privately explained, was that Bullitt"s "garbled" account contained "enough truth so that I would have to explain my statements as quoted by the little traitor. I could not flatly deny the testimony."41 Wilson was furious. For five days after Bullitt"s testimony, Lansing did not contact him, and then he telegraphed a brief account of the conversation in Paris, calling Bullitt"s conduct "most despicable and outrageous." Tumulty later recalled that Wilson summoned him to the private car and showed him Lansing"s telegram: "Read this and tell me what you think of a man who was my a.s.sociate on the other side and who expressed himself to an outsider in such a fashion: Were I in Washington I would at once demand his resignation. Think of it! This from a man whom I raised from the level of a subordinate to the great office of Secretary of State of the United States. My G.o.d! I did not think it was possible for Lansing to act in this way."42 Given his own att.i.tude and their past relations, Lansing"s behavior should not have surprised Wilson. On his return to Washington, Lansing circulated to cabinet colleagues a letter of resignation in which he expressed bitter disappointment at the president"s failure to fulfill the Fourteen Points and live up to the idealism of the war. Only the president"s stroke would prevent Lansing from staging a dramatic, damaging exit. Given his own att.i.tude and their past relations, Lansing"s behavior should not have surprised Wilson. On his return to Washington, Lansing circulated to cabinet colleagues a letter of resignation in which he expressed bitter disappointment at the president"s failure to fulfill the Fourteen Points and live up to the idealism of the war. Only the president"s stroke would prevent Lansing from staging a dramatic, damaging exit.

As the presidential train made its way across the Great Plains, the spa.r.s.e, scattered population meant fewer stops and speeches during the second week of the tour and more time for Wilson to rest. Grayson continued to worry about the acc.u.mulating effects of heat, fatigue, and the noise and motion of the train, and he commented in his diary that his patient was having headaches that lasted several days and kept coming back. Wilson was also having trouble breathing, which may have been because of the thinner air and dry heat of the Plains and Rockies. Whether or not these ailments were warning signs of an impending stroke, they showed that the rigors of the tour were harming Wilson"s health.43 With his usual mix of determination and denial, he soldiered on, but his speeches seemed to suffer from his deteriorating health. In North Dakota and Montana, he delivered disjointed, rambling remarks, and once he abruptly switched to domestic affairs, expressing "my shame as an American citizen at the race riots that have occurred in some places." This was Wilson"s only public statement on the racial violence of the summer of 1919. He made no separate, extended statement condemning the violence, as he had done against lynching a year before. His absorption in the League fight probably explained this silence and neglect, but it was a lamentable failure of presidential leadership, especially for someone as eloquent as Wilson. He added insult to injury by linking this brief, pa.s.sing mention of the race riots with the strike by the police force in Boston, which he called "a crime against civilization."44 When the train reached the Pacific Northwest, with its lower alt.i.tude and higher humidity, Wilson"s health seemed to improve, and his speeches grew more hard-hitting. He called Article X "the heart of the pledge we have made to other nations in the world" and said he could accept interpretative reservations but not ones "which give the United States a position of special privilege or special exemption." He began to make his most poignant emotional appeal when he noted that at every station there were "little children-bright-eyed little boys, excited little girls"-who might have to fight another world war. He began to praise the LEP and Taft, and he quoted Lodge"s 1915 espousal of the league idea. In doing that, he was following advice from Tumulty to reach out to the other party. He also asked his audience to give no thought to the 1920 election and asked them to "forget, if you please, that I had anything to do with ... [the League]."45 Was Wilson suggesting that he would not run again and hinting at what might happen if he disavowed a third term? Most political wisdom counseled against disavowing a third term-at least then. The threat of running in 1920 was the biggest stick he could wield. With Roosevelt gone, no one commanded anything like Wilson"s stature, and he was making this tour to remind friend and foe of his public appeal. Reports were reaching him that Democrats in the Senate might defect to support reservations, and taking himself out of the presidential race would rob him of the b

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