When the Cheering Stopped (23 page)

Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist, was still in prison because of his seditious activities during the war, and a nation rushing pell-mell into the Jazz Age was inclined to let bygones be bygones and free him, but the President, still thinking of the dead boys back in France, would not have it so. “I will never consent to the pardon of this man,” he said to Tumulty, who thought Debs should be freed. “Were I to consent to it I should never be able to look into the faces of the mothers of this country who sent their boys to the other side. This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my Administration.” For this the liberals of the country rose against him, Norman Thomas saying that “his point blank refusal to pardon Gene Debs would, if Mr. Wilson were a well man, put the final seal of vindictive animosity upon the career of a man who at the last proved recreant
to every high principle of liberalism which he once professed.” Debs himself said the President was the “most pathetic figure in the world,” that no other public figure was ever “so scathingly rebuked, so overwhelmingly impeached and repudiated.”

In the bitterness which was his that spring he could even get angry at those who served him best; when Grayson said he wanted to take his wife and family to the seashore for a couple of weeks in the approaching summer, the President replied with an invalid's frustration and cruelty that it would be like Grayson to do that, to desert him. “I suppose Tumulty will be going next,” he said. “Everyone is leaving me.” The doctor stayed, and little Gordon Grayson stayed also, to sit with the President on the wheel chair when in May the first circus of the season came to Washington. The Secret Service men arranged for the circus parade to leave Pennsylvania Avenue at the south end of the Treasury and come north on East Executive Avenue so that the President might see the clowns perform a few tricks in the street. Gordon wanted a balloon and Edmund Starling went and got him one. The child popped it in a few minutes. Starling got him another and, holding it, he sat with the President, a little boy, an old man, and together they looked at the elephants and heard the circus music and received the waved salutes of the painted funnymen cavorting before them.

Almost from the beginning of his illness the President wanted to try to walk—“I want to try my legs”—and now Grayson allowed him to work at it. With two men holding him up, one at each side, he gripped a blackthorn stick in his one good hand and tottered along. The teeth were set and he tried to hold up his head, and he said he was going to walk, he was going to walk. With assistance he was able to go a few steps, the useless left leg being lifted up and put down by a servant bending at his side. One of the rugs in the living quarters was an old one from Princeton days with famous landmarks of the country woven into it, and he joked about going over Niagara Falls—“not a bad stunt for a lame fellow.”

There was nothing else for the reporters in the press room to write about but whether or not he could walk,
and they worked to find out the situation, but no news was given to them beyond the bare statement that he was well on his way to complete recovery. The First Lady continued with her long hours of work, but as time went on there was less for the White House to do; somehow the various departments ran by themselves.
*
Sometimes people—ill-advised people—tried to flatter her by saying she was doing a good job of governing the country, but the answer was a flaring “Do you call that a compliment?” For many months, ever since the tea for the reporters after the Western trip, there had been no White House entertaining, but on April 5 she had in the Cabinet wives for lunch along with some of her women relatives and Altrude Gordon Grayson. In the evenings the two of them sat in his room before an open fire—he was always cold—and he played Canfield while she kept the score of each game.

It seemed he was getting a little stronger, enough to be out of bed for several hours each day, but still the question of resignation was in his mind and he said to Grayson that if the time came when he felt he did not have the strength to fill the office he would summon Congress in special session and have Grayson arrange for him to be wheeled into the House of Representatives. “I shall have my address of resignation prepared and shall try to read it myself, but if my voice is not strong enough I shall ask the Speaker of the House to read it. At its conclusion I shall be wheeled out of the room.”

The day did not come, and by mid-May he felt strong enough to receive two of the many foreign diplomats waiting to present their credentials to him. Third Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long came with Secretary Colby to present the Belgian Ambassador and the Minister from Uruguay. Long wrote in his diary that night that he was shocked at the way the President looked, at the face that had lost “many of its heavy lines and all of its ruddy color,” at the flesh that was no longer of “firm appearance.” The men were received in the
President's study off his bedroom; he sat in an armchair by a table, his back to the window. He smiled, but it was not the smile Long had known before. His left arm hung listlessly at his side; his right hand held a document pertaining to the Uruguayan. It could not be said the paper was gripped in the hand, Long thought; it was rather only resting in the fingers. Normally the President would have stood to listen to the remarks of the Minister, receive from the Minister's hands his credentials, and then read a reply. All of this was dispensed with. His mouth had a strange tendency to remain open after he spoke. In a soft and husky voice he told of “smiling across the table” at a colleague of the Minister in Paris, not realizing that the Minister was in fact the man at whom he had smiled. The Minister did not call his attention to the mistake.

Before they went in, just prior to reaching the White House, Long had told the Uruguayan in strong terms that he expected, that the State Department expected, that the Minister would be “just as generous in talking of the President's condition as possible,” and that if the Minister was going to find this difficult to do it would perhaps be wise for him to refrain from all comment But when they came out and the reporters gathered around, the Minister followed Long's instructions and said he had “found the President doing well, bright of mind and very gracious.” Afterward the Belgian Ambassador went in. Long wrote in his diary, “Of course each of these men will report to their Government their real impressions but it will not be known for some years—too late to hurt.” Three days later Long brought in the Minister of Poland and thought to himself that now the President did not look so bad. Perhaps it was because the President was not as self-conscious as the first time, Long thought, or maybe it was that he himself “knew what to expect and the sight was no longer a shock.” The President was very gracious to the Polish diplomat, saying he had been happy to help bring about the re-establishment of Poland during the Paris Peace Conference.

The newspapers wrote of the receptions of the diplomats as best they could, treating warily the remarks of the foreigners about his health and mentioning that
Washington still teemed with rumors about the President's condition. “It has been difficult to make any clear statement concerning these rumors,” said the New York
Times,
“as those acquainted with his condition have shown an indisposition to go into details about his illness. They continue to assert that he is steadily improving.” The article went on to wonder if the President could walk.

The auto rides were begun again, and he started seeing more guests. Generally they were brought to him on the South Portico. The First Lady was always there, always quick to do what was necessary, to touch a napkin to his lips after he drank his milk, to put her hand on his when he grew too excited or emotional. On May 31 the important Democrat Homer Cummings came and found him too weary to talk much, with his right fingers picking at the motionless ones of his left hand. Cummings would be giving the keynote address at the forthcoming Democratic National Convention, and he talked to the President about it, saying he would refer to the President as one who had been at the point of death. The President interrupted to say that this was not true, he had never been that badly off. Behind him the First Lady shook her head at Cummings as if to say, “He doesn't know,” but Cummings agreed to tone down the remark in his speech.

Other Democrats came to see him and one by one, talking with him on the portico, each learned to his horror what Grayson and Tumulty were also coming to know: he wanted to be President again. Loyal to his chief and loyal to that chief's place in history, Tumulty fought against the idea with all the power of love he felt. He asked the President to say publicly that he would not run again; the President refused. Tumulty wrote the First Lady that the President should speak out and say he would not be eligible for a nomination; the First Lady ignored the note. Tumulty took into his confidence a trusted newspaper friend, Louis Seibold of the New York
World,
and they planned that Seibold should ask for an interview with the President. The request was granted and the date for the reporter's visit was set for mid-June. Together Tumulty and Seibold worked out questions which would draw the President into saying he
would not run again. But the First Lady circumvented their efforts and sent Tumulty a note saying there would be no comment during the interview about the forthcoming election. The subject of running again was not to be raised, she dictated. Tumulty took her note and put it in his private files, but before doing so he wrote across it that for what she was doing the First Lady could go straight to hell.

Seibold came and breezily joshed the President, saying that he, Seibold, would soon be running a foot race with him; how much money did the President want to bet on the outcome? The published interview was largely interpreted as meaning the President indeed sought renomination. The day after it appeared in print son-in-law William G. McAdoo, a leading potential candidate for the Presidency, announced he would not wish a nomination for himself. Wall Street sources let it be known the President was the betting favorite to secure the Democratic nomination.

Cabinet members and Democrats close to the Administration came one after the other to indicate tactfully to the President that he should step aside, but he would not respond to their hints. Postmaster General Burleson went very far and boldly said that the contest was between the President and his son-in-law; there were no other choices. The President was silent after Burleson finished speaking. Carter Glass, who had left the Secretaryship of the Treasury to take up the post of United States Senator from Virginia, came for tea on the South Portico and began talking candidates. He mentioned A. Mitchell Palmer as a possibility and the President said it would be “futile” to run Palmer. Glass spoke of Governor James Cox of Ohio and the President interrupted him: “Oh, you know Cox's nomination would be a joke.”

Grayson talked with Glass privately and said to him bluntly that the President was determined to run and win and then get the country into the League, but that the campaign would kill him. He ended by begging Glass, who would be going to the San Francisco convention as chairman of the platform committee, to fight against a renomination with all his strength.

Grayson also tried to talk with the President himself
about speaking out, but the President said it would be “presumptuous” and “in bad taste” for him to “decline something that had not been offered.” He added that in addition it was possible that the convention might get into a hopeless tie-up and that there might ensue a demand for someone to lead the delegates out of the wilderness and that that someone might be himself. “In such circumstances I would feel obliged to accept the nomination.” Grayson kept still, not offering an opinion for fear of the reaction if he freely said it would be utterly impossible for the President to conduct a campaign.

But the doctor went to see Robert W. Woolley, the Democratic publicist who had helped set the scene for the sickroom visit of Senator Fall, and said to him that he, Grayson, had been attached to the White House during the terms of three Presidents and had yet to see one who wanted to give up the job. “Get me?” he asked.

“I do,” Woolley said. “It is true that Mr. Wilson desires a third term?”

“Correct,” said Grayson. “He fervently believes it is still possible to have the United States join the League of Nations. But it is out of the question—he just must not be nominated. No matter what others may tell you, no matter what you may read about the President being on the road to recovery, I tell you that he is permanently ill physically, is gradually weakening mentally and can't recover. He couldn't possibly survive the campaign. Only the urgency of the situation justifies me in coming to you and making such a statement even in confidence. At times the President, whose grit and determination are marvelous, seems to show a slight improvement, is in good spirits for several days, even a week or ten days, transacts business with Tumulty—and then suffers a relapse, or I should say, becomes very morose. At such times it is distressing to be in the same room with him. I repeat, he is definitely becoming more feeble.”

Woolley said, “Cary, the name of the President will receive many an ovation, his desires as to the platform will prevail, in other ways will he be honored, but his ambition to succeed himself is definitely hopeless.” “We must not take any chances,” Grayson said.

As Washington grew warmer and June went into its last days the Democrats began leaving for San Francisco and the convention. Carter Glass called upon the President just before going to catch a train west and after the visit Grayson and Tumulty drove with Glass to Union Station, both urging Glass to fight a renomination. Grayson walked with Glass to his sleeper and remained with him until the train began to move. Glass went to the convention carrying the memory of Grayson's parting words: “If anything comes up, save the life and fame of this man from the juggling of false friends.”