CHAPTER I

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WOODROW WILSON AS I KNOW HIM

BY

JOSEPH P. TUMULTY

To the memory of my dear mother Alicia Tumulty whose spirit of generosity,

loyalty, and tolerance I trust will be found in the lines of this book

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In preparing this volume I have made use of portions of the following

books: "The War The World and Wilson" by George Creel; "What Wilson Did at

Paris," by Ray Stannard Baker; "Woodrow Wilson and His Work" by William E.

Dodd; "The Panama Canal Tolls Controversy" by Hugh Gordon Miller and

Joseph C. Freehoff; "Woodrow Wilson the Man and His Work" by Henry Jones

Ford; "The Real Colonel House" by Arthur D. Howden Smith; "The Foreign

Policy of Woodrow Wilson" by Edgar E. Robinson and Victor J. West. In

addition, I wish to make acknowledgment to the following books for

incidental assistance: "My Four Years in Germany" by James W. Gerard;

"Woodrow Wilson, An Interpretation" by A. Maurice Low; "A People Awakened"

by Charles Reade Bacon; "Woodrow Wilson" by Hester E. Hosford; "What

Really Happened at Paris," edited by Edward Mandell House and Charles

Seymour, and above all, to the public addresses of Woodrow Wilson. I

myself had furnished considerable data for various books on Woodrow Wilson

and have felt at liberty to make liberal use of some portions of these

sources as guide posts for my own narrative.

PREFACE

Woodrow Wilson prefers not to be written about. His enemies may, and of

course will, say what they please, but he would like to have his friends

hold their peace. He seems to think and feel that if he himself can keep

silent while his foes are talking, his friends should be equally stoical.

He made this plain in October, 1920, when he learned that I had slipped

away from my office at the White House one night shortly before the

election and made a speech about him in a little Maryland town, Bethesda.

He did not read the speech, I am sure he has never read it, but the fact

that I had made any sort of speech about him, displeased him. That was one

of the few times in my long association with him that I found him

distinctly cold. He said nothing, but his silence was vocal.

I suspect this book will share the fate of the Bethesda speech, will not

be read by Mr. Wilson. If this seems strange to those who do not know him

personally, I can only say that "Woodrow Wilson is made that way." He

cannot dramatize himself and shrinks from attempts of others to dramatize

him. "I will not write about myself," is his invariable retort to friends

who urge him to publish his own story of the Paris Peace Conference. He

craves the silence from others which he imposes upon himself. He is quite

willing to leave the assessment and interpretation of himself to time and

posterity. Knowing all this I have not consulted him about this book. Yet

I have felt that the book should be written, because I am anxious that his

contemporaries should know him as I have known him, not only as an

individual but also as the advocate of a set of great ideas and as the

leader of great movements. If I can picture him, even imperfectly, as I

have found him to be, both in himself and in his relationship to important

events, I must believe that the portrait will correct some curious

misapprehensions about him.

For instance, there is a prevalent idea, an innocently ignorant opinion in

some quarters, an all too sedulously cultivated report in other quarters,

that he has been uniformly headstrong, impatient of advice, his mind

hermetically closed to counsel from others. This book will expose the

error of that opinion; will show how, in his own words, his mind was "open

and to let," how he welcomed suggestions and criticism. Indeed I fear that

unless the reader ponders carefully what I have written he may glean the

opposite idea, that sometimes the President had to be prodded to action,

and that I represent myself as the chief prodder.

The superficial reader may find countenance lent to this latter view in

the many notes of information and advice which I addressed to the

President and in the record of his subsequent actions which were more or

less in accord with the counsel contained in some of these notes. If the

reader deduces from this the conclusion that I was the instigator of some

of the President's important policies, he will misinterpret the facts and

the President's character and mental processes; if he concludes that I am

trying to represent myself as the instigator he will misunderstand my

motives in publishing these notes.

These motives are: first, to tell the story of my association with Mr.

Wilson, and part of the record is contained in these notes; secondly, to

show what liberty he allowed me to suggest and criticize; how, so far from

being offended, he welcomed counsel. Having this privilege I exercised it.

I conceived it as part of my duty as his secretary and friend to report to

him my own interpretations of facts and public opinion as I gathered these

from newspapers and conversations, and sometimes to suggest modes of

action. These notes were memoranda for my chief's consideration.

The reader will see how frankly critical some of these notes are. The mere

fact that the President permitted me to continue to write to him in a vein

of candour that was frequently brusque and blunt, is the conclusive answer

to the charge that he resented criticism.

Contrary to the misrepresentations, he had from time to time many

advisers. In most instances, I do not possess written reports of what

others said orally and in writing, and therefore in this record, which is

essentially concerned with my own official and personal relations with

him, I may seem to represent myself as a preponderating influence. This is

neither the fact nor my intention. The public acts of Mr. Wilson were

frequently mosaics, made up of his own ideas and those of others. My

written notes were merely stones offered for the mosaic. Sometimes the

stones were rejected, sometimes accepted and shaped by the master builder

into the pattern.

It was a habit of Mr. Wilson's to meditate before taking action, to listen

to advice without comment, frequently without indicating whether or not

the idea broached by others had already occurred to him. We who knew him

best knew that often the idea had occurred to him and had been thought out

more lucidly than any adviser could state it. But he would test his own

views by the touchstone of other minds' reactions to the situations and

problems which he was facing and would get the "slant" of other minds.

He was always ahead of us all in his thinking. An admirer once said: "You

could shut him up in an hermetically sealed room and trust him to reach

the right decision," but as a matter of fact he did not work that way. He

sought counsel and considered it and acted on it or dismissed it according

to his best judgment, for the responsibility for the final action was his,

and he was boldly prepared to accept that responsibility and

conscientiously careful not to abuse it by acting rashly. While he would

on occasion make momentous decisions quickly and decisively, the habitual

character of his mind was deliberative. He wanted all the facts and so far

as possible the contingencies. Younger men like myself could counsel

immediate and drastic action, but even while we were advising we knew that

he would, without haste and without waste, calmly calculate his course.

What, coming from us, were merely words, would, coming from him,

constitute acts and a nation's destiny. He regarded himself as the

"trustee of the people," who should not act until he was sure he was right

and should then act with the decision and finality of fate itself.

Of another misapprehension, namely, that Mr. Wilson lacks human warmth, I

shall let the book speak without much prefatory comment. I have done my

work ill indeed if there does not emerge from the pages a human-hearted

man, a man whose passion it was to serve mankind. In his daily intercourse

with individuals he showed uniform consideration, at times deep

tenderness, though he did not have in his possession the little bag of

tricks which some politicians use so effectively: he did not clap men on

their backs, call them by their first names, and profess to each

individual he met that of all the men in the world this was the man whom

he most yearned to see. Perhaps he was too sincere for that; perhaps by

nature too reserved; but I am convinced that he who reads this book will

feel that he has met a man whose public career was governed not merely by

a great brain, but also by a great heart. I did not invent this character.

I observed him for eleven years.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER

I. THE POLITICAL LABORATORY

II. DOING THE POLITICAL CHORES

III. MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE POLITICAL BOSS

IV. COLONEL HARVEY ON THE SCENE

V. THE NEW JERSEY SALIENT

VI. SOMETHING NEW IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

VII. THE CRISIS OP THE CAMPAIGN

VIII. THE END OP THE CAMPAIGN

IX. A PARTY SPLIT

X. EXIT THE OLD GUARD

XI. EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

XII. COLONEL HARVEY

XIII. THE "COCKED HAT" INCIDENT

XIV. WILSON AND THE OLD GUARD

XV. MR. BRYAN ISSUES A CHALLENGE

XVI. THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION

XVII. FACING A SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITY

XVIII. WILLIAM F. McCOMBS

XIX. THE INAUGURATION OF 1913

XX. MEXICO

XXI. PANAMA TOLLS

XXII. REFORMING THE CURRENCY

XXIII. RENOMINATED

XXIV. THE ADAMSON LAW

XXV. GERMAN PROPAGANDA

XXVI. WILSON AND HUGHES

XXVII. NEUTRALITY

XXVIII. PREPAREDNESS

XXIX. THE GREAT DECLARATION

XXX. CARRYING ON

XXXI. THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

XXXII. COLONEL ROOSEVELT AND GENERAL WOOD

XXXIII. WILSON THE WARRIOR

XXXIV. GERMANY CAPITULATES

XXXV. APPEAL FOR A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

XXXVI. THE GREAT ADVENTURE

XXXVII. WILSON--THE LONE HAND

XXXVIII. JAPAN--SHANTUNG

XXXIX. IRELAND

XL. PROHIBITION

XLI. THE TREATY FIGHT

XLII. THE WESTERN TRIP

XLIII. RESERVATIONS

XLIV. WILSON--THE HUMAN BEING

XLV. THE SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION

XLVI. THE LAST DAY

APPENDIX

INDEX

WOODROW WILSON AS I KNOW HIM

CHAPTER I

THE POLITICAL LABORATORY

My introduction to politics was in the Fifth Ward of Jersey City, New

Jersey, which for many years was the "Bloody Angle" of politics of the

city in which I lived. Always Democratic, it had been for many years the

heart and centre of what New Jersey Democrats were pleased to call the

great Gibraltar of Democracy. The ward in which I lived was made up of the

plainest sort of people, a veritable melting pot of all races, but with a

predominance of Irish, Germans, and Italians, between whom it was, like

ancient Gaul, divided into three parts.

My dear father, Philip Tumulty, a wounded soldier of the Civil War, after

serving an apprenticeship as an iron moulder under a delightful, whole-

souled Englishman, opened a little grocery store on Wayne Street, Jersey

City, where were laid the foundation stones of his modest fortune and

where, by his fine common sense, poise, and judgment, he soon established

himself as the leader of a Democratic faction in that neighbourhood. This

modest little place soon became a political laboratory for me. In the

evening, around the plain, old-fashioned counters, seated upon barrels and

boxes, the interesting characters of the neighbourhood gathered,

representing as they did the leading active political forces in that

quaint cosmopolitan community.

No matter how far back my memory turns, I cannot recall when I did not

hear politics discussed--not ward politics only, but frequently the

politics of the nation and the world. In that grocery store, from the lips

of the plainest folk who came there, were carried on serious discussions

of the tariff, the money question, our foreign relations, and all phases

of the then famous Venezuelan question, which in those days threatened to

set two continents on fire.

The make-up of the little "cabinet" or group which surrounded my father

was most interesting. There was Mr. Alexander Hamill, the father of

Congressman Hamill of Jersey City, a student of Queen's College in Ireland

and who afterward taught in the National Schools of Ireland, a well-read,

highly cultured, broad-minded man of affairs; and dear Uncle Jimmie

Kelter, almost a centenarian, whose fine old gray hair gave him the

appearance of a patriarch. Uncle Jimmie nightly revelled in the recital to

those who were present as ready listeners, his experience when he was

present at a session of the House of Parliament in London and heard the

famous Irish statesman, Daniel O'Connell, denounce England's attitude of

injustice toward Catholic emancipation. He loved to regale the little

group that encircled him by reciting from memory the great speech of

Robert Emmett from the dock, and excerpts from the classic speeches of the

leading Irish orators like Curran, Sheridan, and Fox.

While these discussions in the little store wended their uneasy way along,

a spark of humour was often injected into them by the delightful banter of

a rollicking, good-natured Irishman, a big two-fisted fellow, generous-

hearted and lovable, whom we affectionately called "Big Phil." I can see

him now, standing like a great pyramid in the midst of the little group,

every now and then throwing his head back in good-natured abandon,

recounting wild and fantastic tales about the fairies and banshees of the

Old Land from whence he had come. When his listeners would turn away, with

skepticism written all over their countenances, he would turn to me, whose

youthful enthusiasm made me an easy victim upon which to work his magic

spell in the stories which he told of the wonders of the Old Land across

the sea.

I loved these delightful little gatherings in whose deliberations my dear

father played so notable a part. Those kind folk, now off the stage, never

allowed the spirit of provincialism to guide their judgment or their

attitude toward great public affairs. I recall with pleasure their

tolerance, their largeness of view, and fine magnanimity which raised

every question they discussed to a high level. They were a very simple

folk, but independent in their political actions and views. Into that

little group of free, independent political thinkers would often come a

warning from the Democratic boss of the city that they must follow with

undivided allegiance the organization's dictum in political matters and

not seek to lead opinion in the community in which they lived. Supremely

indifferent were these fine old chaps to those warnings, and unmindful of

political consequences. They felt that they had left behind them a land of

oppression and they would not submit to tyrannous dictation in this free

land of ours, no matter who sought to exert it.

In this political laboratory I came in contact with the raw materials of

political life that, as an older man, I was soon to see moulded into

political action in a larger way in the years to come. I found in politics

that the great policies of a nation are simply the policies and passions

of the ward extended. In the little discussions that took place in that

store, I was, even as a youth, looking on from the side-lines, struck by

the fine, wholesome, generous spirit of my own father. Never would he

permit, for instance, in the matter of the discussion of Ireland--so dear

to his heart--a shade of resentment or bitterness toward England to

influence his judgment in the least, for he believed that no man could be

a just judge in any matter where his mind was filled with passion; and so

in this matter, the subject of such fierce controversy, as in every other,

he held a judgment free and far away from his passionate antagonisms. I

found in the simple life of the community where I was brought up the same

human things, in a small way, that I was subsequently to come in contact

with in a larger way in the whirligig of political life in the Capitol of

the Nation. I found the same relative bigness and the same relative

smallness, the same petty jealousies and rivalries which manifest

themselves in the larger fields of a great nation's life; the same good

nature, and the same deep humanity expressing itself in the same way, only

differently apparelled.

One of the most interesting places in the world for the study of human

character is the country store or the city grocery. I was able as a boy

standing behind the counter of the little grocery store to study people;

and intimately to become acquainted with them and their daily lives and

the lives of their women and children. I never came in contact with their

daily routine, their joys and sorrows, their bitter actualities and deep

tragedies, without feeling rise in me a desire to be of service. I

remember many years ago, seated behind the counter of my father's grocery

store, with what passionate resentment I read the vivid headlines of the

metropolitan newspapers and the ghastly accounts of the now famous

Homestead Strike of 1892. Of course, I came to realize in after years that

the headlines of a newspaper are not always in agreement with the actual

facts; but I do recall how intently I pored over every detail of this

tragic story of industrial war and how, deep in my heart, I resented the

efforts of a capitalistic system that would use its power in this unjust,

inhuman way. Little did I realize as I pored over the story of this

tragedy in that far-off day that some time, seated at my desk at the White

House in the office of the secretary to the President of the United

States, I would have the pleasure of meeting face to face the leading

actor in this lurid drama, Mr. Andrew Carnegie himself, and of hearing

from his own lips a human and intelligent recital of the events which

formed the interesting background of the Homestead Strike.