The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made

It is the last Sunday of the month, meaning it’s time for the next president, and I have finally gotten around to reading this week’s book, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made, by Patricia O’Toole.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia to Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Woodrow Wilson. Joseph Wilson was a Presbyterian minister and Jessie Wilson was the daughter of a Presbyterian divine, which I have no idea what that means but I feel like it has to do with church hierarchy.

Wilson was homeschooled until his youngest sibling was born, with specific emphasis on moral education; however, while his parents were both well educated, book learning did not come easy to Wilson, and there is some speculation that he may have struggled with dyslexia. He did overcome it, quite obviously, as he would eventually earn a PhD, but his childhood was not easy, as his father accused him of intellectual laziness, making him rewrite essay after essay and verbally defend his points, which skill would work in his favor decades later when he joined the political class.

In 1875 Wilson, who was called Tommy growing up, headed for Princeton, where he spent literally decades, with brief intermissions outside of this academic world. By June 1879, Wilson was in love, with the object of his affection being his cousin, Hattie Woodrow. Accordingly, he began calling himself Woodrow, although he said it was in honor of his mother’s family, not to try and woo the young lady. And when she rejected his suit based on them being first cousins, he could not very well go back to Thomas or Tommy without giving away his motivations, so he kept the name Woodrow for the rest of his life.

And maybe it was to honor his mother’s family, and it’s only the timing that’s suspicious.

At 25, he moved out and became a lawyer; but he found lawyering to be deathly dull and soon bored of this profession. The problem was, he also saw the law as a good jumping off point to politics, which he was endlessly fascinated by. But he was so bored by the law that he gave up his political ambitions and instead went to a newly formed PhD program at Johns Hopkins University. This wasn’t entirely a shot in the dark, his uncle James Woodrow recommended he might want to seek an academic career, which thought entirely appealed to Wilson.

By the end of 1883, life was looking up for Wilson: He was accepted to John’s Hopkins, and he was in love again, this time with a charming young lady named Ellen Louise Axson. Axson was not at first sure that Wilson was the love of her life, and she was in a sort of rough spot when he came into her life, as her mother and died and her father was not handling it well; but Wilson convinced her he would not be happy in his studies unless she agreed to marry him and that he would help her with her father. Ellen agreed and the couple were engaged before Wilson left for his studies in Baltimore.

Now, he spent his time in Baltimore at first pining away for Ellen and writing her long letters. But he also found his footing for the first time in his adult life, using his oratorical skills which had been honed with his father all those years ago, to become a lecturer at John Hopkins. However, he genuinely hated studying and cramming for tests, which he complained about to Ellen in letters home. But his oratory again became useful as he was able to trade writing a book for school credit and published Congressional Government in 1885. He was then able to use that as his thesis paper, although Johns Hopkins refused to let him off the hook when it came to required testing in order to obtain his PhD. So, with some grumbling, Wilson buckled down, crammed for his tests, and earned his PhD in June 1886.

The year before, Ellen and he had married on June 24, 1885, and the couple ultimately had three daughters, Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor, aka Nell.

As soon as he received his PhD, Wilson accepted a position teaching at Bryn Mawr, and he taught there for two years. However, he did not, at heart, approve of the higher education of women, despite having three daughters of his own, and heartily disliked having a woman as a supervisor. So, when a position at Wesleyan University was offered to him in 1888, with a significant pay raise of $1,000, he leapt at the chance and the family moved to Connecticut. His stint at Wesleyan was as brief as his time at Bryn Mawr, and 1890 had the family moving again, this time to New Jersey, where Wilson was hired to teach history and politics at Princeton, his alma mater. Wilson would stay at Princeton until he finally made the leap to politics, he’d always desired.

Now, in the 1890’s, Wilson experienced basically the beginning of arterial disease, including what is likely a couple of small strokes, which left him temporarily paralyzed and partially blind. None of this impacted Wilson’s ego, and even though he was the highest paid staff member at Princeton, he could not get them to match the higher offers he was receiving from other universities. This was an interesting ploy from Wilson, because he truly did not want to leave Princeton, and I don’t think he had any intention of leaving Princeton.

Lucky for him, on June 9, 1902, Princeton offered him a new position, that of president of the University. At first, changes he wanted to make were praised by the alumni and board of trustees. However, some of the biggest changes he wanted to make, namely doing away with eating clubs and forcing the students into a more egalitarian mindset by way of having them move into quads housing wherein they would all eat in their residence halls, were wildly unpopular. These motions of his were roundly defeated, and he found himself less enchanted with Princeton.

This left him open to accepting a nomination for Governor of New Jersey in 1910, which position he handily won, and was sworn in on January 17, 1911. And once he’d made that leap to politics, Wilson began immediately looking for national recognition, going on a national speaking tour. He was gone for so long that one month, the state of New Jersey gave his salary to the lieutenant governor of the state, because that is who was actually doing the job.

One of Wilson’s most interesting character traits was his ability to talk people into giving him money. Or rather, people seemed to just give him money. Not sure if he talked them into it, or if they just…. felt it was the right thing to do. The Lt Governor gave him the salary anyways. The salary was like $800…or about $24,871 in today’s currency. I don’t know too many people who would just give me $24k. But a recurring theme in Wilson’s life is people just giving him money. This was just one instance. There are many repetitions of this theme in the book. Like when he retired, despite having enough money for his own retirement and upkeep of Edith, people donated several thousand dollars to buy him a house.

One other repeating theme throughout the book is Wilson’s belief that he was always right, and anyone who disagreed with him was wrong. And there was no discussion or debate allowed. Another repeating theme is that Wilson disliked push back. In any form. This becomes horrifying when he is elected president and sworn in on March 4, 1913, and surrounded himself personally with sycophants, and the members of his cabinet were not allowed to disagree with him on anything. The one member of his cabinet who did disagree, Secretary of State William Bryan Jennings, eventually resigned over the war in Europe. He was succeeded by Robert Lansing, who found the job profoundly frustrating, as Wilson would not let him do any work. Wilson’s preferred pick for the position was Colonel Edward Mandell House. However, House preferred to work off book, if you will. Not quite behind the scenes, but he did not want the restrictions that would come with being an official envoy of the White House.

Wilson, when in the White House, had three close confidants. Colonel House was one of them, and they remained close until the completion of the Treaty of Versailles. Next was his Chief of Staff, Joseph Patrick Tumulty. They remained close until the end of Wilson’s life, when Edith Wilson, the second wife, determined not to have him around, and basically banned him from the residence. The third was Admiral Cary T. Grayson, who was Wilson’s personal physician, as well as being a commissioned officer in the US Navy.

Now, Wilson often gets the credit/blame for the passage of the 16th amendment; however, as we learned in July, Taft is the one who actually signed the 16th amendment into law. But Wilson made the most of this law by creating the Federal Reserve Act and pushing congress to make use of their newfound power to tax income of the average working American.

Wilson also disliked that Senators were appointed by the states, rather than elected by the people, so was fine with signing the 17th amendment into law, which allowed for the direct election of Senators by the people. This, incidentally, was a colossal mistake.

Now, a significant chunk of the book was, obviously, dedicated to World War I, which I don’t want to rehash because that was covered quite thoroughly in Wilson’s War back in August, but some points that stuck out in this book are that Wilson was quite unlikeable.

Ok, that’s my take on it. In fact, this book was quite difficult to read, not because it wasn’t well written, but because to me, the subject of the book is so thoroughly unlikeable. He didn’t like to push back on any of his grand ideas. He surrounded himself with sycophants and women. Now, there’s nothing wrong with surrounding yourself with women, except that he didn’t seem to do so because he necessarily liked their company. He did so because he seemed to think they were intellectually inferior and would look up to him as the smartest man in the room. This, incidentally, is not necessarily JUST my opinion, although I could be misreading between the lines.

Wilson’s first wife, Ellen Wilson, died on August 6, 1914, possibly of Bright’s disease, a kidney disease which also claimed President Chester Arthur. Wilson was completely heartbroken; however, he was not a man who did well without a spouse and married his second wife Edith on December 18, 1915.

One of his long-term friends was a lady named Mary Allen Hulbert, later Peck. They were just friends and maintained a long-term correspondence. There were rumors of an affair, but it does appear they were only rumors, as Wilson was, as near as can be established historically, a devoted husband to each of his wives in turn. But, after Ellen’s death, Hulbert was asked one time why she and Wilson never married. And this is a telling comment, “After his death she (meaning Peck) offered a strikingly different explanation for the marriage that did not materialize: he and she were fundamentally incompatible, she wrote in Liberty magazine. He was the sort of man who needed a “doormat wife,” and his habit of correcting grammatical lapses and other small faults “was warranted to drive certain temperaments to the verge of consideration of brutal murder.””

So, it seems even in his day, Wilson was known to surround himself with the weak willed and sycophantic. These tendencies did NOT endear him to the other world leaders during the peace talks in Europe. One rather gets the sense that his moralizing and proselytizing annoyed David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Vittorio Orlando, during their back rooms talks that cut out Wilson’s point of open and frank discussion, became repeatedly irritated with Wilson. Clemenceau most assuredly believed that Wilson had a messiah complex, at one point made the statement “Talk with Wilson! How can I talk to a fellow who thinks himself the first man in two thousand years to know anything about peace on earth?”

Wilson was so tied to his own belief that he was right in everything, that when Colonel House made friends of his own with the delegates in France, putting forth some of his own ideas on what peace in Europe might look like, Wilson became incensed, and after Wilson left Versailles, he never spoke to House again.

After arriving back in the United States on July 8, 1919, Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate to ratify on July 10, 1919. Wilson then set himself on a speaking tour of the United States, trying to drum up popular support among the people for the treaty. This was, politically, exactly the wrong thing to do. The people didn’t approve treaties. The Senate did. Wilson should have been in Washington, making himself available to the senators to answer questions and forming his own political coalitions to see the treaty was accepted. Instead, Wilson spent the rest of his good health, what little he had of it, on a gargantuan speaking tour which resulted in a near fatal stroke that completely paralyzed his left leg and left him virtually blind, and completely unable to do his job for the remainder of his time in the White House. Not that THAT stopped him.

His stroke occurred on October 2, 1919. Edith immediately called the White House usher, Ike Hoover, and Dr. Grayson. And the most infamous political cover up of the 20th century began. Between Grayson and Edith, Wilson was kept as the president until Harding was sworn in on March 4, 1921. So, they kept the fiction of Wilson’s ability going for 1 year, 5 months, and 2 days. What SHOULD have happened, is that Grayson should have informed the cabinet of the President’s ill health and inability to perform. The Cabinet should have informed the vice-president and Congress, who then should have sworn in Vice President Thomas R. Marshall to be President under Article 2 Section 1 “In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.”

But Grayson and Edith, deciding that the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles was more important than anything to Wilson, propped him up in a sham of health, hoping that the Senate would pass the treaty. They did not. Wilson DID slowly improve, not enough to carry out the functions of the office of the president, but enough to be outraged that the senate declined to pass the Treaty. This, incidentally, meant the United States was still legally at war with Germany. At least we were until the Senate unilaterally said nope, we’re done. War’s over. This outraged Wilson even more. He only wanted Peace that HE approved of. Hence this week’s cocktail: Moral Turpitude. Turpitude means “depravity and wickedness.” Wanting the war to continue because only HIS peace was ok, is depraved. I don’t care how sure he was of his moral correctness. Insisting that the Treaty be passed ONLY on his terms is a revolting act of ego and moral depravity.

Wilson was not impressed with the 1920 presidential offerings, and disliked that Warren G Harding won in 1920, versus a solid democrat or, to his mind the best choice, himself. And once out, even though he was unable to stand on his own owing to the paralysis of his left leg, Wilson intended to run again in 1924. Except that he died at home on February 3, 1924.

The author covered several points about Wilson, and I can’t tell if she was trying to buy good will for him based on his high ideals, or if she actually believed this, but she tried to argue that he was not racist. Based on his parents Presbyterianism and their own belief that slavery was wrong. Acknowledging slavery is wrong, is not the same as not being a racist. Wilson delegated out chunks of the patronage question, to solid southern democrats. Who segregated the formally unsegregated postal service and civil service. When confronted about this by black leaders, Wilson shrugged it off and tried to argue it was for the best. The people he surrounded himself were unquestionably racist. So, it’s disingenuous to say he was not.

Additionally, during the Paris Peace Talks, he turned his back on China, flat out, in favor of Japan. China, which was on its way towards the democracy Wilson touted as so important for the world, in favor of the clear imperialism of Japan. My heart actually hurt for the Chinese ambassador, V. K. Wellington Koo, who called Wilson on his bullshit, and refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles or the league of nations bullshit promised therein.

Wilson did not like educated women…remember his time at Bryn Mawr? And his tolerance for women’s suffrage was entirely politically motivated. He didn’t voice any opinion on it until after the states had ratified the 19th amendment granting women the vote. Then he signed it because it had passed nationwide. He was getting over the stroke when he signed it on August 26, 1920.

He was NOT a civil libertarian by any metric, and the measures he authorized during World War I were draconian, with his measures cracking down on war protesters launching the career of one J. Edgar Hoover. Other WWI measures saw the political rise of Herbert Hoover, who over saw agriculture during the war, convincing the American people to give up food stuffs so that they could be sent overseas to the allies. Note: Hoover was NOT the Secretary of Agriculture. That would have been Edwin T. Meredith. He nationalized railroads during the war. His Secretary of Treasury and son-in-law, William McAdoo, oversaw a massive sale of war bonds, which was entirely designed to fund the war in Europe. The propaganda machine convinced people to turn on their neighbors and report them for not supporting the war. His Espionage Act saw him rightly decried a century later as someone who was not a fan of the Constitution and Free Speech. But the author tries to spin it as the work of Wilson’s flunkies, not the man himself. He was the president. He could and should have stopped such overreach done in his name. But he did not.

One of his other charming traits, was repeated denunciations of anyone who didn’t support the war…and hence him because HE supported the war….as un-American. The author tries to sell that he was a peaceful man and only wanted peace. Except as soon as he had won his second term, he started angling to explain why we should go to war after all.

And at the end, in the epilogue, she talks about how presidents in the last half of the 20th century embraced Wilsonian ideals and beliefs, with the only break being President Bush in the post 9/11 world and his belief that if you’re not with us you’re against us policies as being non-Wilsonian. Except…Wilson pioneered that turn of phrase with his denunciations of those who pushed to stay out of the war. So, with that point, which was stressed several times, President Bush was entirely Wilsonian.

All of the high ideals Wilson put forth in his 14 points speech were rapidly abandoned by him once he was at the big boys table in Europe. The author claims that the Europeans did not much like Americans. I think they liked American’s just fine. I think they disliked Wilson, who was so thoroughly unlikeable that I am placing him at the bottom of my personal presidential rankings.

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on October 30, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.