Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos
When the President and Mrs. Wilson decoded House’s cable in the privacy of the inner study they were not at all pleased. “It upset every plan we had made,” Wilson cabled back waspishly. “I infer that the French and British leaders desire to exclude me from the conference for fear I might lead the weaker nations against them … I play the same part in my government that the prime ministers play in theirs. The fact that I am head of the state is of no practical consequence. No point of dignity must prevent our obtaining the results we have set our hearts upon and must have … I am thrown into complete confusion by the change of programme.”
House’s reply was soothing. “My judgment is that you should … determine upon your arrival what share it is wise for you to take in the proceedings.”
Wilson had already intimated he was willing to yield the chairmanship to Clemenceau.
November 19, the morning after the President broke in on Lansing’s dinner party to announce his final decision, he issued a formal announcement along the lines of House’s suggestion: “The President will sail for France immediately after the opening of the regular session of Congress … It is not likely that it will be possible for him to remain throughout the sessions of the formal Peace Conference, but his presence at the outset is necessary … He will of course be accompanied by delegates who will sit as representatives of the United States throughout the Conference.”
The announcement was sullenly received in Washington. In his recollections of those days Tumulty wrote that the President was profoundly distressed by the criticism “heaped upon him by his enemies on the Hill.” Tumulty had never seen him look more weary or careworn: “Well Tumulty,” he remembered Wilson’s saying, “this trip will either be the greatest success or the supremest tragedy in all history; but I believe in a Divine Providence … it is my faith that no body of men, however they concert their power or their influence, can defeat this great world enterprise.”
The choice of the commissioners was the subject of much correspondence. Lansing and Tumulty both backed up House in urging the President to appoint some leading Republicans such as Taft or Root or Senator Knox.
Wilson was very definite about not wanting Taft. Possibly he feared Taft might have his own ideas about how a League of Nations should be constituted. Root he wrote off as impossibly reactionary. For a while he toyed with the idea of taking Samuel W. McCall, the very Wilsonian Democratic governor of Massachusetts, or Justice Day of the Supreme Court. He was so firm in turning down Knox that none of his advisers dared suggest any other member of the Senate Committee for Foreign Affairs. Throughout the discussion Tumulty and the State Department were bombarded with names; everybody and his brother wanted to go to Paris. At last to quiet the rumormongering Tumulty gave out five names to the press.
Colonel House’s choice was expected. He was already in Paris. Nobody objected to Mr. Lansing. After all he was Secretary of State. The idea of picking Henry White to represent the Republicans was received with scornful laughter. During that estimable gentleman’s long diplomatic career, though nominally a Republican, he had hardly ever voted in an election. Nobody had anything against selfeffacing old General Bliss, but nobody had much to say in his favor either. The fifth name was Wilson’s own.
Congress was still somewhat stunned by the fact that the list included neither a Republican nor a Democratic senator, when the President appeared before the two houses to wish them farewell. Secretary Houston sorrowfully noted the lack of enthusiasm among the legislators. The President’s speech was received with unusual silence. He tried to explain that, although he was departing from precedent by sailing overseas, under modern conditions, through the use of the cables, he would be as near as if he had remained in Washington. “I shall be in close touch with you and you will know all that I do … I shall not be inaccessible.” It was his duty to attend the Peace Conference in person to complete the good work so many brave boys had given their lives for, and to redeem America’s pledge to mankind.
It was not one of Woodrow Wilson’s most successful addresses. Houston described the scene: “Many Republicans and some Democrats looked as sullen and stolid as wooden men.”
Aboard the George Washington
President and Mrs. Wilson sailed from New York on the old Hamburg-Amerika liner George Washington, long since converted into a troopship and operated by the navy. As the steamer warped out from the Hoboken dock into the turgid Hudson, full of tugs and launches packed to the gunwales with people come to see the President’s departure, the presidential pennant was broken out from the mainmast. Five destroyers churning in midstream, fired a twentyone gun salute. Every steamship in the harbor let loose with its siren. The din was terrific.
Two army airplanes and a dirigible circled overhead. From every dock and from the glittering windows of Manhattan skyscrapers flags rippled under the wintry sky. When the guns ceased booming, the President and Mrs. Wilson, who were enjoying the scene from the captain’s bridge, could hear faintly, fading into distance as the ship eased down the river, the cheers of an immense crowd, waving flags and handkerchiefs, that packed the Battery.
In the Narrows a gun on the old Monitor, of Civil War fame, anchored for her last sea duty at the opening of the submarine net, boomed a salute. A faint trilling could be heard, above the hiss of the wind through the rigging, of the voices of hundreds of schoolchildren singing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” on the grassy slopes of Staten Island. The George Washington was joined by an escorting battleship in the Lower Bay and nosed out past Ambrose lightship into the heavy Atlantic swells in the center of a formation of destroyers.
Long before that the President and Edith Wilson had gone below to their quarters, where, amid what she described as “a wilderness of flowers,” they were served, in their private diningroom, in the company only of Cary Grayson and of Edith Wilson’s secretary, Miss Benham, a most delicious lunch. Edith noted that the luncheon was so surprisingly good because one of the best chefs from the Hotel Biltmore had been sent along to cater to the presidential party. When the President learned of it, detesting special privileges of this sort, he insisted that on his next trip he’d eat the same meals as the rest of the ship’s company. Immediately after lunch the President, worn out by long days at his desk in Washington preparing for the trip, and by a bad night on the train down, went to his stateroom and slept for three hours.
Later in the afternoon, refreshed by his nap, and marshalling the air of crisp smiling charm he could assume when he felt like it, the President accompanied by Mrs. Wilson walked about the promenade deck greeting the members of their party.
There was the Secretary of State and Mrs. Lansing. Mrs. Lansing was already feeling the first qualms of seasickness, and the Secretary was hiding a torment of doubt under his huffy but deferential air. At this point he was conscientiously keeping his doubts to himself or entering them bit by bit in his private diary. He had misgivings about the entire enterprise. He was not reconciled to the President’s attending the Peace Conference. His secret opinion of the Fourteen Points coincided with Theodore Roosevelt’s. Particularly he could see misery and bloodshed arising out of clashing interpretations of “self-determination of nations.”
There was the French Ambassador and Madame Jusserand. Monsieur Jusserand had just delivered to the President the Quai d’Orsay’s proposals for the organization of a preliminary interallied conference. Any expectations Jusserand may have had that the President would confer with him on the subject during the Atlantic crossing were destined to be disappointed.
If the President gave this document any attention at all he thrust it aside without comment as another evidence of the reactionary tendencies he was going to have to combat. Neither Wilson nor his advisers seem to have given the French plan enough study to discover that it contained valuable suggestions as to procedure. Preliminary terms, including the federalization of the German empire, were to be imposed immediately. A general congress, modelled on the Congress of Vienna, where neutrals and enemy
Possibly it was some inkling of this memorandum, which threatened the Treaty of London so dear to the aspirations of Italia irredenta, that made the Italian ambassador decide all of a sudden that if Jusserand sailed on the George Washington, he had to go too. He threw a diplomatic tantrum in Frank Polk’s office at the State Department and suitable accommodations were found at the last moment for him and for his countess and their four children and attendant servants.
Another passenger was the affable Henry White, who carried in his briefcase suggestions by Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge, which were to get no more attention than the French proposals. There was the irrepressible George Creel, who still hoped, in spite of almost hysterical opposition against him building up in Congress and on newspaper row, to go on transmitting to the world the Wilsonian slogans as they fell from his master’s lips. There was George W. Davis and his wife. The eminent New York lawyer was on his way to London to replace Walter Hines Page, who had come home to die in a New York hospital, as Ambassador to the Court of St. James.
Ray Stannard Baker was aboard, Wilson’s fervent acolyte who was to handle the press bureau for the American commissioners, and a few other newspapermen picked as rightthinking. (The great mass of the working press had to follow on the less comfortable Orizaba.) Then there were the members of Colonel House’s Inquiry, history professors, geographers, sociologists and experts in political economy, who were to furnish the President with the facts and figures he needed to back up his remaking of the map in accordance with principles of right and democratic justice. Along with three truckloads of printed matter the experts had been installed on the ship the night before she sailed.
In addition there was a group of highranking naval officers, two orchestras and a military band and operators and equipment for two motion picture theatres, and, below decks, a detachment of troops going as replacements to the A.E.F.
Although some of the secretservice men suffered from seasickness, the President and Edith Wilson found the trip delightful. Lifeboat drills and the threat of floating mines added a certain spice. The weather was mild. Sunny afternoons they played shuffleboard. The President took daily naps. Sunday he attended divine service with the troops and in the evening, after another service of hymnsinging and choruses of “Over There,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” in which the President joined with his fine tenor voice, the doughboys were allowed to file by and to shake the President’s hand.
One day, when the George Washington was steaming past the green slopes and the misty violet cliffs of the Azores, the President called a meeting in his large parlor of the members of the Inquiry. They reported finding him relaxed, smiling, witty, and full of charm. According to Dr. Isaiah Bowman, who took notes, the President began by declaring that the Americans would be the only disinterested people at the Peace Conference.
“The men whom we were about to deal with did not represent their own people,” noted Dr. Bowman. This was the first conference, the President emphasized, “that depended on the opinion of mankind.” Unless the conference expressed the will of the people rather than of their leaders we would soon be involved in another breakup of the world … A League of Nations implied political independence and territorial integrity plus later alteration of terms and boundaries, if it could be shown that injustice had been done, or that conditions had changed. Matters could better be viewed in the light of justice when wartime passions had subsided … He didn’t see how elasticity and security could be obtained except under a League of Nations. He envisioned a governing council selected from “the best men who could be found” and sitting in some neutral city such as The Hague or Berne. Whenever trouble occurred it could be called to the attention of the council. Boycott of trade, postal and cable facilities would be an alternative to war against offending nations.
The people of the world wanted a new world order. If it didn’t work it must be made to work. The world readily accepted the poison of bolshevism because it was a protest against the way in which the world had worked. It was the business of the American delegation at the Peace Conference to fight for a new world order, “agreeably if we can, but disagreeably if necessary.”
A friendly personal note entered his voice. He hoped to see his experts frequently. His smile sought out every face. They would work through the commissioners to be sure, but in case of emergency he wanted them not to fail to bring any critical matter to his personal attention. He wound up with a phrase that went straight to the hearts of the members of the Inquiry: “Tell me what’s right and I’ll fight for it.”
Chapter 23
THE PEACE TABLE
IT wasn’t till December 13, amid the salutes of the French fleet and of six American battleships and of whole schools of destroyers, that the slow old George Washington steamed into the harbor of Brest. The date delighted the President. Thirteen was his lucky number. The rain held off. As they approached the shore the sky cleared and the sun shone through the smoke of the twentyone gun salutes. Mrs. Wilson found the day “radiant, just cold enough to be exhilarating.”
While the Wilsons were snatching an early luncheon the ship dropped anchor. Immediately their staterooms swarmed with officials. There was Monsieur Pichon and the Minister of Marine and a flock of French generals and General Pershing and General Bliss and Admiral Sims and Admiral Benson. “After much kissing of my hand by the foreigners and clicking of heels and presenting of bouquets and general good humor,” remembered Edith Wilson, “we left our good ship to go ashore in a tender called The Gun.”
They admired the gray stone harbor and the fishing boats with blue and tan sails hauled up on the rocks in the basin and the slatecolored town rising in terraces to the old castle of the dukes of Brittany. At the dock they found more officials, more gold braid, crack squads of French troops drawn up at attention, and the President’s daughter Margaret, who had been dutifully singing for the doughboys in Y.M.C.A. huts. “Poor child,” noted Edith Wilson, “the food or the climate had not agreed with her and she was really quite ill. We were glad to take her under our care.”
After a round of speechmaking the presidential party climbed into open touring cars and was driven through narrow dank streets lined with men and women in their best Breton costumes. The khaki of crowds of American soldiers stood out against the dark clothing of the French. They passed through triumphal arches. The walls were placarded with signs in red: LE PRESIDENT WILSON A BIEN MERITE DE L’HUMANITE.
This was no programmed demonstration. Women in black had tears in their eyes. Wounded war veterans applauded with their stumps if they had no hands. The throngs were shouting themselves hoarse: Vive Veelson.
At the railroad station a crimson carpet led them to a train de luxe with the monogram RF painted on every dark blue coach. The President and Mrs. Wilson were ensconced in President Poincaré’s own sleeping-car. Edith remarked that it was far from being modern or luxurious. The bunks were hard. “No part of the train was clean and the sheets felt damp as if just washed.”
There was a long wait and a number of mixups about baggage. It was dusk before the train pulled out. At dinner in the state diningcar, where Edith Wilson noted privately that the service was terrible, she amused herself during the wait between courses, collecting on her menu card the autographs of all the important personages assembled.
Again the sun was shining when they reached Paris in midmorning on December 14. The train drew up at a rural looking station. As the President and Mrs. Wilson stepped down from their sleeper they were greeted by the President of the Republic, the entire Cabinet and the staff of t
The brass of their helmets glinting under the horsetails in the wintry sun, the Garde Republicain, on their fine clanking horses, led the parade to the Champs Elysées. The great chains under the Arc de Triomphe were pulled away for the first time, it was whispered to Mrs. Wilson, since 1871, and the two Presidents passed under the arch.
Along the curbs of the great avenue were ranks of captured German cannon. Over them fluttered the tricolor and Old Glory endlessly alternated. Facing the narrow strip of pavement they kept open for the carriages stood files of poilus in horizon blue. Everything: guns, roofs, balconies, was crowded with cheering shouting people. “Even the stately horsechestnut trees,” noticed Edith, “were peopled with men and boys perched like sparrows in their very tops … One grew giddy trying to greet the bursts of welcome that came like the surging of untamed waters. Flowers rained upon us until we were nearly buried.”
Occasionally above the packed heads they could read on a kiosk or on a piece of bare wall the placarded words: WILSON LE JUSTE.
They were driven through the Place de la Concorde, more crowded, they were told, than even on the day of the armistice; and past the Vendôme column and the templeform church of the Madeleine; then out another boulevard where all they could see was swarming faces and cheering mouths, to a street blocked off by soldiers, where stood the mansion assigned them for a domicile. Great wroughtiron gates set in a high stucco wall opened between blue and red sentryboxes for the carriages to enter and closed behind.