#28. Wilson, Thomas Woodrow

Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas – Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28^th President of the United States, from 1913-1921. There are lots of “firsts” about Woodrow that fill the presidential resume; he was the first president (and so far only) with a PhD, an academician with little political and no military experience. He was the first southerner to head up the Executive branch of US government since before that Brother-V-Brother war. Born in Virginia, he grew up in Augusta, Georgia in a family that staunchly supported the Confederacy. One of his earliest memories was standing at the gate of the Augusta parsonage where the family lived, and hearing a passerby derisively announce Lincoln’s election, stating “War is coming!” Woodrow was the third of four children born to Joseph Ruggles and Jessie Woodrow Wilson. Joseph was a Presbyterian minister who served as a Chaplin to the Confederate Army for a time, as wounded soldiers were cared for at their church. In 1870, the same year Georgia was readmitted to the Union (the last state back in place), the family moved to Columbia, South Carolina (Woodrow was 12 by then) and four years later to Wilmington, North Carolina, with father Joseph each time taking more responsible (and loftier) positions. When Woodrow headed for Princeton in 1874, it was the first time he set foot in a “never-Confederate” state! How did that affect Woodrow’s perceptions about the functions and responsibilities of government?

The Serious Student and The Georgia Girl

It’s a fact that Houghton-Mifflin published his book “Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics” in 1885 (he was 29); and was called “the best critical writing on the American constitution since the Federalist Papers.” Nice, Woodrow! Woodrow had studied political philosophy and history at Princeton, active in the Whig literary and debating society, graduating in 1879. And then he headed for law school at the University of Virginia, but didn’t stay long; he studied law on his own and after being admitted to the Georgia bar opened his own law firm in Atlanta in 1882. Didn’t like that a bit! Too day-to-day. He much preferred study to practice. So off to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and doctoral studies in history, political science, German, and other things leading to a professorship, stating “(It’s)…the only feasible place for me, the only place that would afford leisure for reading and original work, the only strictly literary berth with an income attached.” Well then.

He wrote that well-received book while studying at Johns Hopkins (it was actually his doctoral thesis); after graduating he began teaching at Bryn Mawr College, a newly established women’s college in Pennsylvania, where he taught ancient Greek and Roman history, American history, and political science. He also got married. Ellen Louise Axson (1860-1914) was herself the child of a Presbyterian minister. Born in Savannah, Georgia, she grew up in Rome, Georgia and studied art at Rome Female College. She went on to study at the Art Students League in New York, winning recognition for her work. Woodrow had seen Ellen years earlier when she was very young; when a chance meeting brought them together again as adults, he very quickly proposed and she very slowly said yes. They were married June 24, 1885 in Savannah – his father and her grandfather performed the ceremony.

Seems to me the next years were more cerebral than sparkly. Ellen gave up her pursuit of the arts to be a faculty wife; in April 1886 she headed south to give birth to daughter Margaret in a southern state. “I don’t my child to be born a Yankee,” was her explanation. In August 1887 she did the same when daughter Jessie was born. Woodrow found the 42 students at Bryn Mawr “too passive for his taste,” clashed with the Dean, a staunch feminist, and left Bryn Mawr in 1888 with no fare-the-well.

On to Wesleyan University, an elite undergraduate college for men in Connecticut where he taught political economy and Western history. By October 1889, when daughter Eleanor was born, I’m guessing things were too hectic to get Ellen back down south for the birth. In 1890 Woodrow, Ellen, and their three little girls moved to Princeton and settled in New Jersey for the next 22 years. I guess those girls grew up Yankees, after all.

The New Jersey Years

As Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy at Princeton, over the next years Woodrow wrote nine books. Two textbooks he wrote, “The State,” and “Division and Reunion” were used in American college courses for many years. In 1902, at the age of 46, he was named President of Princeton, where he served until clashes with alumni over changes he proposed caused him to consider getting into a different kind of politics. In 1908, before the Democratic Convention, he dropped a few hints, stating “no vice-presidential nomination, please.”

The “hint hint” effort began to pay off, but not until January 1910, and not for a presidential nomination. New Jersey Democrats had lost the last five gubernatorial elections, so, what’s to lose, they said, and besides, Woodrow’s inexperience will make him easy to influence. “I’ll do it,” Woodrow innocently said, “if a nomination is without pledges to anybody about anything.” He wound up in the Governor’s Chair from 1911-1913 and guess what. He broke with the party bosses right away. Whoops! Easy peasy move next: President of the United States.

And maybe he had Theodore Roosevelt to thank for that. All that Republican squabbling, and Progressive Party pushing, and William Taft’s pleasant disposition. What a turkey shoot!

The First Ladies

“I am naturally the most unambitious of women and life in the White House has no attractions for me,” wrote incoming First Lady Ellen Wilson to outgoing President William Taft, who’d sent her some advice on the mansion as he was leaving. The Democrats overall may have been thrilled about getting into the White House, but Inauguration Day 1913 was pretty much a lot of circumstance with very little pomp. Alice Paul knocked the ball out of the park the day before with the Women’s Suffrage Procession – 18,000 women marched! When Woodrow got off the train in Washington that day, he was not greeted by – anyone. The actual Inaugural ceremony went okay – William Taft was definitely happy – but the Inaugural Ball had already been canceled as inappropriate due to “troubling issues.”

Woodrow somberly started to work. Ellen soon had an art studio installed in the White House (skylight included). She painted, organized the weddings of two daughters, and died of Bright’s disease August 6, 1914, 520 days in. Her last words to her physician were “please tell my husband I want him to marry again.”

Woodrow took Ellen’s body to Georgia for burial among her family members. Oldest daughter Margaret and Woodrow’s cousin Helen Woodrow Bones shared White House hostessing duties. It was Helen who invited her widowed friend Edith Galt into the White House for a spot of tea after a walk one day, just as Woodrow returned from a golf outing. Three months later Woodrow proposed to Edith. And after a bit of an uproar she said yes.

Of course there was talk. “Murder” was one word used. But Woodrow’s bigger problem was Mary Peck. Mary was from way back in 1907; Woodrow met her on a take-a-break trip to Bermuda (Ellen didn’t go.) Woodrow and Mary had been writing letters since. Warm letters. Ellen knew about that. Now, how to explain Mary to Edith? And vice versa? (The heck with war in Europe, two women require much more tact.) I’ll let you dig through all the stories on the net if you’re into that – but one fact is clear. Whatever Woodrow said to Edith, she married him December 18, 1915. New First Lady, in.

The Secret President

Edith Bolling Galt (1872-1961) was born in Wytheville, Virginia, the seventh of the eleven children of William and Sarah Bolling. She received little formal education, and married Norman Galt in 1896; he was a prominent jeweler in Washington and twelve years her senior. Norman died unexpectedly in 1908 and Edith inherited his business. The Galt name was famous in Washington, presidents and their wives had shopped there since 1802. Lincoln’s pocket watch came from Galts; it was close to the White House.

Edith’s six years as First Lady were not extravagant times. Women were fighting for the right to vote and Germany was fighting to take over Europe. Woodrow was re-elected in 1916 with 52% of the Electoral vote, nothing like the 1912 landslide; his promise was to keep America out of the war. Edith accompanied Woodrow both to and from the capitol in the parade, but again there was no inaugural ball. On April 2 Woodrow requested a declaration of war against Germany and by April 6 Congress had approved.

During the war years Edith’s White House observed gasless Sundays and meatless Mondays to set a good example for federal rationing (she even had sheep grazing the White House lawn to save manpower). At war’s end, she followed Woodrow to Europe as peace negotiations were hammered out. And she was with Woodrow on October 2, 1919, as he traveled the country to garner support for the League of Nations. That’s the day he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and half blind.

For the rest of Woodrow’s term, Edith manned the door. She became a “shadow steward” deciding which matters of state were important enough to bring to Woodrow’s attention. Claiming she “never made a decision regarding the disposition of public affairs,” she does acknowledge that she decided on what was important and what was not. All Cabinet members were required to send memos, correspondence, questions, and requests directly to her. She filled out paperwork for Woodrow, was made privy to classified information, and entrusted with encoding and decoding encrypted messages. Through those secretive times, Woodrow hankered for a third term. He didn’t get it; they wouldn’t even put him on the ticket. The Republicans won the 1920 presidential election in a landslide.

The End of Things

When Warren Harding was inaugurated in March 1921, Woodrow and Edith moved to a townhouse in the Kalorama section of Washington. Woodrow opened a law practice but only showed up for work one day. He tried writing and produced a few short essays, but refused to write his memoirs. He died February 3, 1924 at the age of 67.

Edith wrote her memoirs. And she continued advising presidents. Franklin Roosevelt asked her to sit in Congress the day he asked for a declaration of war in 1941; she rode in John Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural parade. She died in 1961 at the age of 89 and is buried alongside Woodrow in the Washington National Cathedral, the only president and “first lady-shadow president” so interred.

As to Margaret, Woodrow’s oldest daughter who served as temporary First Lady between Ellen and Edith, she became a member of the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, India in 1938 and was given the new name Nistha, meaning “dedication” in Sanskrit. She died in 1944 at the age of 57 and is buried in India.

Woodrow’s legacy is controversial; he was a fine scholar; he was a segregationist; he had expansive ideas about a better world; he believed he was the only one who did. And his sneaky-pete-closed-mouth-keeping-secrets habit? That covered a lot more than bad teeth.

Would I invite this man to my party? Not a chance.