CSPAN/FIRST LADIES ELLEN WILSON AND EDITH WILSON
JUNE 16, 2014
10:00 a.m. ET
SUSAN SWAIN, HOST: This is the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington D.C., the home of our
28th President and former First lady Edith Wilson after they left the White House in 1921. You'll be
seeing more of it over the next two hours as we tell the story of the two Wilson administration First
Ladies, Ellen and Edith.
Ellen and Woodrow met in their 20s and their love for each other was reflected in passionate letters.
An accomplished artist as well as his intellectual companion, she helped guide his career from
academia to politics. In adopting causes, she set an example for future first ladies. Ellen Wilson died
in the White House just a year and a half into the President's term.
The grieving President soon met Washington businesswoman Edith Galt through a mutual friend.
They married after a secret courtship and Edith Wilson served as First Lady for more than five years.
Her unprecedented role in managing the President's affairs after he suffered a stroke remains one of
the most controversial efforts of any First Lady.
Good evening and welcome to C-SPAN's continuing series, First Ladies Influence and Image.
Tonight the story of the Wilson administration's two First Ladies Ellen and Edith and we have two
terrific guests here to tell you about this two interesting women and the times in which they lived.
Kristie Miller is a biographer of the two First Ladies. Her book is Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilson's
First Ladies. John Milton Cooper is Woodrow Wilson's biographer.
Mr. Cooper, thanks for being with us.
JOHN MILTON COOPER, AUTHOR, “WOODROW WILSON: A BIOGRAPHY”: Glad to (ph).
SWAIN: Well, we're going to break precedent a little bit. We've been telling these stories
chronologically but everybody knows about Edith Wilson managing the White House as it's described
after her husband suffers a stroke. And we thought we would tell that story first because so many
people really want to know what happened.
So, John Cooper, let me start with you, when in the President's administration did he suffer the
stroke?
COOPER: More than halfway through the second term. It was in October 1919. He had just returned
from a whirlwind speaking tour. He was trying to sell the country on ratifying the peace treaty and
going into the League of Nations and he'd really worn himself out on that. And his doctors had
actually aborted the tour and got him back to the White House and he -- after about five days back in
the White House he suffered this massive stroke.
SWAIN: The story of the stroke night itself is really very dramatic. Could you tell us briefly about
what happened in the White House that night?
KRISTIE MILLER, AUTHOR, “ELLEN & EDITH: WOODROW WILSON’S FIRST LADIES”:
There are some conflicting reports about what happened but I think that the most accurate portrayal is
that he got up in the morning, Edith had been going in to check on him during the night and she found
him slumped to the floor and he couldn't move his left side . She went out into the corridor to use a
telephone that did not go through the switchboard. She did not want to have this universally known.
And she asked the chief usher to call the doctor from this other phone. And the doctor came in they
helped him into bed but he was paralyzed on his left side.
SWAIN: Well, a character that's going to be a big part of this story is Cary Grayson. Who was he?
COOPER: Cary Grayson was a Navy doctor. He had made that his career after he finished med
school and he'd been assigned to the White House first under the Taft Administration. And then
shortly, well, Taft introduced him -- introduced him to his successor Wilson and then pretty soon after
the inauguration was and it was Wilson's…
MILLER: That was during the inauguration.
COOPER: OK. It was Wilson's sister fell down…
SWAIN: Right.
COOPER: … and Grayson treated her and did a good job and also he was a very charming man and a
Virginian, too, which helped, you know, with the Wilsons. Yes.
SWAIN: And his role with the President's medical condition after the stroke was what?
COOPER: He was the White House physician. I mean, he is the one who treats him. That was his -I'd say that was just everything he did was that. They called in various consultant specialists but
Grayson is the one that's really treating Wilson.
SWAIN: Now, you told us that the President was paralyzed but what was the extent of the -- of his
condition? How badly had the stroke affected him?
MILLER: He had a blockage in an artery leading to his brain. And this is usually not a fatal stroke
but it did immobilize him for a while. He probably would have recovered fairly rapidly had he not
about 10 days later suffered a second medical condition.
He had prostate trouble and he had a urinary tract infection with a very high fever. Of course, they
didn't have antibiotics at that time. They debated whether to operate but the specialist felt that to
operate on a 62-year-old man with high blood pressure and a stroke would have been very unwise.
So, they just tried to let nature take its course and eventually he recovered but it really sapped his
vitality. And this kind of one-two punch really did him in for about a month.
COOPER: It was I think -- Kristie is free to agree or disagree -- but I think the worst effect of the
stroke on Wilson was really on his emotional balance and his judgment. His intellect wasn't impaired.
His speech wasn't impaired so that yes, he could function that way but, you know, so much more goes
into being a leader, being a President than just being smart and just being able to do these things.
And another thing is partly because of that other illness that you just talked about, Kristie, they
isolated him and that was what -- when you're supposed to keep them away from any stress or
whatever and now the neurologists say that is exactly the wrong thing to do. What you want to do
with a person who's had a stroke is get them back into social interaction and everything as soon as
you can. So, they would – with the best of intentions they were doing exactly the wrong thing.
SWAIN: Dr. Cary Grayson's letters are part of the collections at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential
Library which is in Staunton, Virginia about two hours away from Washington. And we visited there.
In the course of putting this program together we're going to learn a little bit more about some of the
history Grayson captures in his letters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEGGY DILLARD, DIRECTOR OF LIBRARY & ARCHIVES - WOODROW WILSON
PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY: We have a letter in this box from Henry Morgenthau who was later
writing his -- wanting to write a book about his experiences. And so he's asking Grayson if he can use
certain information. He wants to use in the book the information you gave me about President Wilson
and your having come to the conclusion that he should resign and how he was influenced by Mrs.
Wilson to give up this plan.
So, Mrs. Wilson was very concerned that her husband would not get better if he did not have
something to engage his mind, that he would just deteriorate if he was forced out of the presidency.
While President Wilson was ill it has been speculated widely among historians that Mrs. Wilson
essentially became the president.
We have one document here that sheds a little bit of light on that. It is a telegram from Henry
Morgenthau who is the Ambassador to Turkey and he's writing to Dr. Cary Grayson asking if the
president has any objections to a citizens' meeting to protest against Turks being left in control of
Constantinople.
And Morgenthau has been asked to speak at this meeting and so he's asking basically permission. He
doesn't want to embarrass the president so he's asking for advice. And on the --at the bottom of this
telegram, there is a handwriting that is Edith's handwriting. We're familiar enough with Edith's
handwriting to recognize it as such. And at the bottom she writes -- thinks it well to postpone
speaking on such subjects.
What we don’t know is did Edith take this telegram into Wilson, ask his opinion and then write that
or did she just come to that conclusion herself. The public was very interested and curious to know
the condition of Wilson's health.
And so, you know, rumors were rampant in the papers even congressmen didn't know what was going
on. They only knew what they read in the papers. After it was all over, Cary Grayson later wrote up a
summary of what happened from the time of the stroke until Wilson left the White House.
And on the last page the decision was made to announce that Wilson was suffering from nervous
exhaustion. There were no other details given as to what was wrong with him, really nobody knew the
extent of his illness, that he really was not capable of doing anything.
Dr. Grayson, thought it wise to issue general statements only. Further, Mrs. Wilson, the president's
wife was absolutely opposed to any other course. She did not want it to be known that he was really
suffering. Again, she was protecting her husband. She wanted him to be able to fulfill his duties as
president. She was worried about his legacy. She -- ultimately, she was concerned about his health.
And she felt that if he left the presidency, left the White House, he would just waste away and die.
So, John Cooper, the Constitution we should say made no provisions for what would happen with an
incapacitated president. So, what did Washington do? How did they react?
COOPER: Well, a couple of different ways. Robert Lansing who was the Secretary of State and
would have been fired if Wilson hadn't had the stroke because there had been a bad break -- and that's
another story -- but Lansing tried to get the cabinet in on it. And I think he even made some
communications with the vice president who stayed out of it completely. He just simply said no. I
mean, the Constitution this is before the 25th amendment which actually is not as much of a
protection as we think in the cases of inabilities, they don't talk about disability but inability of the
president to perform his duties and what does that mean. Well, usually that means the president is
dead so the vice president succeeds.
But if you have a disabled president and this is the one time that we really have had a disabled
president and how do you deal with it. And, Edith, I have a lot of sympathy for her. You know, she
was scared. You know, this is a very scary thing she was in and make it up as you go along.
SWAIN: On the Facebook Kristie Miller, David Welch says what part of personality or intellect thus
prepared Mrs. Edith Wilson in a sense to take over for the president during his recovery. What skills
did she bring to this responsibility she was taking on?
MILLER: That's a very good question because she'd had exactly two years of formal schooling in her
whole entire life. But she comes from a numerous family and she had been chosen by her
grandmother to take care of her, to be her caregiver.
The grandmother was a very opinionated woman and taught Edith basically that it was good to have
opinions and t make decisions. Edith had been widowed relatively young and had inherited Galt
Jewelers which was like the Tiffany's of Washington.
And so, she kept the jewelry store. She had a manager who made a lot of the decisions but she was
used to having everything her way. And so, she brought this very decided personality. In addition,
Woodrow had courted her by showing her a lot of secret papers. Henry Kissinger used to say that
power was the ultimate aphrodisiac and I think Woodrow Wilson would have agreed.
COOPER: Oh, yeah.
MILLER: And so, he was using this entrée to these secret papers as part of his courting, courtship
and she was susceptible to that. And so, he shared a great deal of what he was doing, really a great
deal of what he was doing with her.
So that, I think John said that she probably knew as well as anyone what he was doing and what he
was thinking because he was a -- he was a real lone wolf when it came to being a president. He didn't
have a lot of close advisers wouldn’t you say.
COOPER: That's true. Yes, that's true.
SWAIN: I have a quote to show you both. It's from Edith Wilson herself. She published her
memoirs. And in this big controversy about how much power she took upon herself. Here's what she
said, "I myself never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only
decision that was mine was what was important and what was not and the very important decision of
when to present matters to my husband.”
OK. So, today, we know the gatekeeper to the president is really the most important job.
COOPER: He or she who controls access to the president to some extent is president. And as she said
it's not just who got to see him he was pretty well embargoed for well over a month. Nobody from the
outside got to see him but also what the president gets to see. And, you know, she would decide what
was -- what was best for him to see and what not.
One of the -- to me, one of the raps on Edith in this was that she was putting her husband's health
ahead of the good of the country and that somehow that her priorities were wrong there. Well, I don't
think that was entirely why she did what she did. She knew what he wanted. And that if he couldn't
express himself she knew he would not want to resign, that he would want to hang on to this.
And she -- as Kristie said, she knew his mind better than anybody else. So, if anybody is going to
have to act as a substitute in this situation she was, I think, the best person to do it.
SWAIN: Tiffany Fannin on Facebook, it says did anyone try to prevent the First Lady from acting on
behalf of the president -- you mentioned the Secretary of State -- if so, what happened to them
politically?
COOPER: Well, the Secretary of State got blocked by other cabinet members very quickly. They -Grayson and Tumulty, Wilson's secretary plus the loyalists like Baker and Daniels and the cabinet put
a kibosh on that -- on that very quickly. And nobody knew how much he was doing.
MILLER: Well, there was the smelling committee so-called. There were two senators who were
detailed to come in and assess the condition of Wilson because it came out when Lansing went up to
Capitol Hill that he hadn't spoken to the president about a very volatile situation in Mexico.
So, they deputized one Democrat and one Republican and Edith and Dr. Grayson really stage
managed that very, very well. Again, the accounts differs exactly what they did but whatever it was, it
was enormously successful including Senator Fall (ph), the Republican who would have been most
anxious to show that there was something wrong with Wilson said to the press afterwards that the
president grasped his hand with both of his.
Well, that was manifestly impossible because Woodrow couldn't move his left hand. But he was so
taken with Wilson's apparent animation, he made a lot of jokes because that part of his thinking came
back very quickly. He loved to make puns and he loved to tell jokes and stories and that came back
relatively quickly.
COOPER: Yeah.
MILLER: But as John said the judgment was really what took a hit.
SWAIN: And we have a bit of a timeline of the President's incapacitation as to the stroke as John
Cooper us was in September of 1919. It was not until December that the President took his first steps
after the stroke. It was in March of 1920 when he left the house for the first time.
And by the way, we have to talk about all of the political intrigue and important decisions going on in
the aftermath World War I. His beloved League of Nations was rejected by the senate in that time for
the first time. In April of 1920, the President had his first cabinet meeting -- eight months not meeting
with the cabinet. It’s almost unthinkable. How did the government continue?
COOPER: By routine and also Wilson was a great delegator except in foreign affairs. Other than
that, he gave his cabinet secretaries lots of leeway so they were used to running things on their own.
Or I think it's just very lucky and they -- something of a tribute to that that government functioned as
well as it did, not all that well but it kept going.
SWAIN: And since this is a story about Edith, all during that time what really was her role?
MILLER: Well, I think one aspect to her role that's been overlooked is the extent to which she tried
to make Woodrow give way on some of this intransigence about the League of Nations. Now, in her
memoir which is fanciful in places she says that she asked him please to compromise with the
Republicans in Congress to try to get the treaty passed with the League of Nations.
And he -- she said that he turned to her and said, little girl, don't you desert me to -- I loved it said he
always called her little girl, she was about five foot nine -- and she says in her book that she never
tried to change his mind again. But we found evidence that there were at least two other occasions on
which she did try to change his mind.
She and his what would now be called chief of staff, Joe Tumulty had discussed some of the places
where they hoped Woodrow could give a little ground and then where the Republicans could give a
little ground. They hoped to find some compromise.
And she took some notes very hurried almost shorthand notes of what's obviously a speech that she
was going to give to Wilson that wound up saying, and for the sake of the country and the peace of
the world please consider this. And it didn't work apparently because he didn't change.
But she was not a woman to take notes on something and not do something about it. And then a little
bit later she had some conversations with Ray Stannard Baker who was very close to Wilson later
became his official biographer and he gave Edith some suggestions again some talking points to try to
get Wilson to change his mind. But he didn’t and by the time he refused by that time the Republicans
were also hardening their line. Some of the hardliners were reeling in the Republican leadership.
SWAIN: So, Donald Blaze (ph) on Facebook asked specifically I'd like to ask if Edith spoke out
publicly on the League of Nations and if she did, did she support it.
MILLER: She didn't speak out on anything. This is again to correct the big misperception of Edith. I
do not think she was at all power -hungry for herself. She wanted what her husband wanted. His
agenda was her agenda. She used to say to people, "I never make speeches.”
I think she made a few years after Woodrow died but during the time he was in the White House she
was asked to present, I don't know, something innocuous like a bouquet of flowers to the Girl Scouts
and she just said I'd like to make a speech but I never have and I won't. She didn't even approve of
voting for women, of women suffrage.
SWAIN: So we need to continue with our story and go back in time. But before we close up this
section, the interviews will come back to this later on. But we thought you'd all want to get this out
because it's such an interesting aspect and historically important. What's the bottom of this period in
American history? How did it affect in how we view the role of the president, the role of the First
Lady and the constitutional issues behind it?
COOPER: The role of the president. I mean, Woodrow Wilson follows Theodore Roosevelt. And
these two together acting one after the other made the president the center -- the center of the
government, the active part.
And even, you know, even presidents later such as Calvin Coolidge especially who wanted to retreat
to the sidelines couldn't do it. I mean, now that's what -- that's what really changed there.
The First Lady role, I think probably, probably in terms of trying to continue that. I think Ellen
probably had more impact than Edith did.
MILLER: Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more.
SWAIN: Well, that's a great segue because we now have to move in Ellen's Wilson's story.
And before we do that I want to tell you that how you can involved. The beauty of the series, and by
the way tonight is a special two-hour program since we have two First Ladies to talk about. But our
phone lines will be open and you can reach us, 202-585-3880, if you live in the Eastern or Central
time zones. Mountain and Pacific, 202-585-3881, you can be part of a Facebook conversation, go C-
SPAN on Facebook. And finally you can Tweet us using at First Ladies or the hash tag First Ladies
and be part of the conversation that way.
So we welcome your involvement as our program progresses. But we're going to roll back the clock
and talk about the long marriage of Woodrow Wilson to his first wife Ellen. And to set the stage the
stage for that we're going to visit the Wilson house. You saw it on the open, on S Street in
Washington D.C. It is available for you to visit if you come to the nation's capital. And inside right
now in the drawing room is my colleague Peter Slen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER SLEN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: That's right, Susan.
We are in the President Woodrow Wilson house with Bob Enholm, who is the executive director of
this house. This is the house where President and Edith Wilson lived post presidency.
How did they acquire this house?
ROBERT ENHOLM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON HOUSE:
Well, it's interesting. They moved here literally the day they left the White House in 1921. This home
cost $150,000 and they managed to scrape together the money by -- assembling both President
Wilson's winnings as the Nobel Peace Prize winner and also donations from 10 of his wealthy friends
and political supporters.
SLEN: Edith Wilson lived here until her death in 1961?
ENHOLM: In 1961, it's 40 years to the day (ph).
SLEN: She died right upstairs.
ENHOLM: Both of them expired in this home.
SLEN: And 1924 for President Wilson.
ENHOLM: That's right.
SLEN: Now even though it was Edith Wilson's house, there is the presence of Ellen Wilson here,
isn't there?
ENHOLM: That's right. We try, at the Woodrow Wilson House to remember President Wilson's
years which include both First Ladies, Ellen Wilson and Edith Wilson, and of course President
Wilson's history.
And I think it's important when considering figures in history to remember that they had childhoods
and experiences that led them to the places that they were.
SLEN: So what are we looking at here, Bob?
ENHOLM: This portrait here is a painting painted by Ellen Wilson who was a painter of
considerable talent. And even as a young girl she knew that she was a good painter and enjoyed it.
I think it's interesting that when President Wilson proposed marriage to her, she said but I'd like to go
to the Arts Students League in New York, which is where she went to school for a year before they
were wed. I think it's interesting that President Wilson at that point in his life accepted that and
married this woman who was independent and really laid the ground work for his understanding of
the growing role of women in society.
SLEN: Bob Enholm, the story behind this painting, at President Wilson's funeral?
ENHOLM: His last wishes included the wish that this painting, painted by Ellen hang over his casket
before he laid to rest at the National Cathedral.
SLEN: We are at the Wilson House here in Washington D.C. about a mile from the White House.
We'll show some more a little bit later.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Well, thanks so much. Edith -- Ellen, excuse me, Axson, was born in Georgia in 1860. Tell
me about her early life.
MILLER: Her early life was very difficult. Her father was a Presbyterian minister he had served in
the Civil War, but he had to leave because of some stress-related conditions. He later developed a
mental illness and died in a mental institution, possibly a suicide.
And Ellen was very close to her mother but her mother died in childbirth with her fourth child when
she was 43. So Ellen really had to take over the family. First, after her mother's death, she had to take
care of her father, and then after her father's death she had to take care of her brothers and sister. And
so, she became a very competent manager.
She was very well educated for a woman of her time and place. She would have gone to college if
she'd had the money. When her father died, as they mentioned, she had the money to go to the Arts
Students League in New York for a year. And she was very unsure that she would ever meet a man
who could be her intellectual equal which she felt was necessary for her marriage.
In fact she had plans to open up a boarding house for women and support it with her art work. And
people around town started calling her Ellie, the man hater because she was so clearly not going to be
satisfied with anyone in the town. But then Woodrow Wilson came to town. He was a lawyer at that
time. He had a case. He went to church where her father was preaching and he met her there.
SWAIN: How important was it that both Ellen Axson and Thomas Woodrow Wilson, people may
not know that he was Thomas Woodrow Wilson, were the children of ministers?
COOPER: Well, in some ways that's the world they grew up in, not so much the U.S. or the South
but the Presbyterian Church. That in many ways is a world unto itself. What it didn't make them
know, either of them. And I think this is true of Wilson as much as it is of Ellen. It didn't make them
religious zealots though. It didn't make them obsessed with religion. In some ways religion was so
central to them that I think in many ways they could take it for granted.
You know, it's in the background. It's always there. It's very important. Of the two of them, he
actually was more the good, strong believer. She's the one who the religious doubts, especially
because with the various family troubles, depression ran, really ran in the Axson family. And I think
probably one brother Eddie, who died in a tragic accident as a young man was about the only one
who wasn't touched with depression.
And she -- Ellen was, in some ways, she -- metaphysically and philosophy she was more curious than
Wilson was. Wilson was much more, in some ways, he's more interested in the affairs of the world.
But religion was a background to them.
SWAIN: He is interested in the affairs of the world, but he is so easily smitten with women. He fell -and this is an important characteristic of this personality that you write about.
COOPER: Well, yes, yes, he was.
SWAIN: So he knew instantly that he loved his woman.
COOPER: Yes.
SWAIN: And women played an important part throughout his biography.
COOPER: Oh, yes.
SWAIN: What do understand about women and his psychology and the role that they play with him?
COOPER: Well, I wish I could say that he was a man who -- of great enlightenment and forward
looking views -- he wasn't -- he wasn't bad, though. I mean, by the standards of that time he really
comes off pretty well as having, you know, believing strongly that women are very bright and very
capable. Generally, though, I think he still likes the subordinate role. Basically he just liked women.
And more so, than I think men of that time. You know, he enjoyed the company of men very much,
but he just generally enjoyed the company of women and he enjoyed their intellectual companionship.
SWAIN: But he's so passionate.
MILLER: He is very passionate and very eloquent. And so, when you marry those traits and the
letters that he wrote to Ellen after they were engaged are just the most astonishing love letters you
will ever see. And she was quite eloquent too.
SWAIN: Some of the love letters of Woodrow Wilson to Ellen are preserved at Princeton
University's manuscript library. We're going to learn about them next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARKSDALE MAYNARD, AUTHOR, “WOODROW WILSON: PRINCETON TO THE
PRESIDENCY”: Here on these shelves are the correspondence between Woodrow and Ellen, their
love letters, really. And it's got to be the largest collection of love letters exchanged between any
future president and future First Lady.
In fact these letters and sealed in a trunk when the Wilsons moved to Prospect House in 1902 and the
trunk wasn't opened until the 1960s. So it's a time capsule shedding extraordinary light on the
Wilsons’ life together.
Woodrow is living in Baltimore going to Johns Hopkins and he writes to Ellen, January, 1894, "My
own darling, when you come into my study and kiss me as I sit at my desk, it is odd how this
attachment of yours to me seems part of the force of my mind. Oh, darling, I trust it is not wrong to
worship you as I do. You are the presiding genius of both my mind and heart. And in that fact
consists the happiness and the strength of your own Woodrow."
I think in this letter we see the extent to which Woodrow Wilson not only loved Ellen but
acknowledged in this very, very clear way his intellectual debt to her. Now in how many cases can
you say that, that the First Lady and husband, that he is stepping forward and saying, I acknowledge
that you are the source of so much, not only of my happiness but of my intellectual development, that
you introduced me to literature, to Wordsworth, to Browning.
They would sit together on the campus, on Cannon Green, in front of Nassau Hall and they would
read Wordsworth together, sitting in the grass. He acknowledges this profoundly important role that
Ellen plays in his life.
She writes back to Woodrow and she says to him, "How can I thank you, Dearest, for the sweet things
you say in today's letter. How happy it makes me that you think such things of me even when I feel
with a heartache how sadly unworthy I am of it all. I too trust it is not wrong to worship you as I do. I
had as well question if it would be wrong to breathe. Both are inevitable if I had to live at all for I am,
in every breath, altogether your own Ellen."
Often she doesn't respond to him quite as passionately as he writes to her because she does tend to be
a bit melancholy. But in this, there is an exuberance that is really delightful. Ellen was so devoted to
him, you sense in that letter how she puts herself second to his needs again and again, throughout
their life together, she is serving him and helping him. That was her conception of what her role was
as Woodrow Wilson's wife.
And as she is dying in the White House, that tragic summer, August, 1914 with the world about to
enter into a great international convulsion with World War I about to break out, she's dying in the
White House and she grabbed the hand of Dr. Grayson and she whispers to him, "Doctor, if I go
away, promise me that you will take good care of my husband."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Kristie, it might be hard to answer this question for Regina Schrumky (ph) on Twitter, but
she asked, "Where would we rank the love between these two amongst all presidential couples?"
MILLER: I have not made a thorough study of the love of all presidential couples but it seems to me
it would be -- it would be hard to come up to their level. And John Cooper pointed out to me this very
nice line in Arthur Link's collection of Woodrow Wilson's letters.
John?
COOPER: Arthur Link was the greatest Wilson scholar there was ever was or I think ever will be.
And he edited the papers of Woodrow Wilson, the 69 volume edition.
And in the volume that -- the cover is August, 1914 and Ellen's death, the editors and here it is, this is
in the introduction of this very stately monumental, scholarly thing, "We, the editors, bid a fond
farewell to Ellen Wilson, whom we have all come to love," you know, and that's -- over the years,
that it could affect them that much.
SWAIN: "Woodrow Wilson", presidential (inaudible) says on Twitter, "Asked Ellen to marry him
just five months after meeting her. She must have quickly captured his heart."
So they got married when?
MILLER: Well, they got married two years later. Woodrow had a great strategy. He had had a
girlfriend before and she had refused his offer of marriage. And so, I think he was, you know, once
burned twice shy.
So he had decided that he was going to propose to Ellen just before getting on the train to go to
Baltimore and attend Johns Hopkins in Political Science, so that if she refused him there would be no
awkward lingering he later said. So they had met each other by chance in this town where neither of
them lived. They were just passing through and he persuaded her to stay for a couple of extra days
and to meet his family.
But when he proposed to -- when he proposed to her, she was so startled that she blurted out, yes. She
hadn't meant to but she blurted this out and they had hardly known each other, but he was going off to
study for two years. So they had a two-year engagement since they didn't know each other very well.
It was these marvelous letters through which they became intimate.
SWAIN: Mary Kay (ph) is watching us in San Roselle (ph), California. First question on the phone,
you're on the air.
KAY (ph): Yes, good evening. Thank you so much for this series. I'm loving every minute. I was
wondering what the First Lady and the president thought of the pickets in front of the White House
for suffrage in 1917.
MILLER: Well, this would be back to Edith. And they were very indignant, especially Edith was
very indignant. She felt they were rude. At one point Woodrow offered to send -- to have them come
in to the White House and get warm and have hot coffee and they indignantly refused.
As I said earlier, Edith did not believe in suffrage for women, and so, she thought that all of this was
quite foolish. There were two separate organizations and one of them was trying to go about
amending the Constitution in a state by state way, in other words have suffrage passed in the various
states and then get more people in Congress who supported it.
And so, Woodrow received the members of the National Association and also the Women's Suffrage
Association, National American Women Suffrage Association. And some people believed that it was
the extremism of the National Women's Party with Alice Paul that kind of allowed the more
conservative groups to make progress because they were seeing it's a lot less threatening.
SWAIN: We're going to come back to his early years with Ellen and his life before politics. He's the
only president to move from the presidency of a university to politics and into the White House.
Princeton, of course, a central role in his life, how does he get to Princeton and how does he get to the
presidency of Princeton?
COOPER: Well, first of all he was a Presbyterian minister's son and Princeton had sort of severed its
ties, its official ties with the church. But it still is a very Presbyterian school, and if you were a bright,
young man of that -- and that Princeton was a place to go.
And it was kind of a step-out from the South too, you know. He did -- up into the world, so he went
there as an under-grad and he studied law briefly, practiced law briefly and went to Hopkins. And as
Kristie was saying taught -- his first teaching job was at Bryn Mawr, you know, a brand new college
for women.
He actually liked teaching there. He liked the women at Bryn Mawr better than Ellen did. Ellen
objected more to this sort of modern woman than he did. He got back to Princeton in 1890. He
became the most popular professor there. Basically he was one of two really, real stars of the faculty.
And there was some intrigue among the Trustees and everything to get into the presidency but he got
chosen president in 1902. And then he tried to reform Princeton and succeeded a bit and failed quite a
bit, and really got stymied when the New Jersey bosses came along and offered him the nomination
and the governorship.
He took from them and then he turned on -- and immediately became a reformer. That kind of -- a lot
of things maybe in the frontrunner, quite early, so he made a remarkable transition in two years. He
went from being a university president…
SWAIN: And the governor of New Jersey.
COOPER: In two years, to being president. I mean -- and the governorship is just a little -- an
interlude there, although he's a very effective governor.
I mean, Wilson is one of these people, with the exception of the law, which his heart was never in, he
succeeded in everything he did. He is one of the great political science -- he was a great scholar. He
was a great university president. I mean, he was the best known and the most effective university
president of his time. He's ranked among the best governors and then he's one heck of an effective
president too.
SWAIN: And one -- we love the interconnections here. Grover Cleveland, after he left the White
House went to Princeton to practice law because it was difficult for a former president to do much
else when you were -- and is it true that the families knew each other and the children even played
together?
MILLER: I don't know about the children playing together but I do know that they knew each other.
SWAIN: Well, we're going to show you Prospect House which is the house that the Wilsons lived in
the Princeton campus. It was at that time the president's house. Today it's used for social functions.
But as we look at it we're going to learn about Ellen and Woodrow Wilson's political partnership and
how that developed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYNARD: This is the study at Prospect House and it looks very much as it did when Woodrow
and Ellen Wilson lived here. So this would have been Woodrow Wilson's office.
His desk would have been right here. And here he would have met with students, faculty, university
presidents, visiting people from across the world. And it's here that he and Ellen might have met to
confer, frankly, about university business because Ellen Wilson was highly involved with Woodrow
Wilson's career.
She gave him advice on what jobs he should take, what jobs he shouldn't take when he was up for a
post at Arkansas Industrial University, she suggested perhaps that was a bad career move. She was
very, very involved and a tremendous help to him, behind the scenes, throughout his academic career.
I find this room -- this study at Prospect House so evocative because it's right here that we can see
Woodrow Wilson making that transition from academic figure to political figure.
Ellen Wilson helped with all of this. Constantly advising Woodrow, helping him out and then he
decides to run for governor and the reporters descend on Prospect. The reporters descend on his
study. They interview him right here in this room.
They photograph him in the garden and Ellen Wilson is quite alarmed. She begins to sense that she's
going to lose any privacy she might have had. She's going to lose that carefully constructed, very
close knit home life that she had valued so much with Woodrow and with her three daughters, that's
going to slip away when they plunge into politics.
So they moved into Prospect House as a young academic couple, full of dreams, full of ambitions that
when she leaves Prospect House -- and frankly, they're almost driven out by the trustees in 1910,
when she leaves -- she's bitter, she's exhausted and what awaits her is this political life that's going to
take a tremendous toll on her, personally, in terms of her exhaustion, in terms of her energy and
psychologically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: And as his supportive spouse, how did her responsibilities change as you move from a
university president's wife, she's the first lady of New Jersey and then ultimately, into the White
House.
MILLER: Well, she was building on each of the things that she'd done before. She had been involved
in a small way with some social outreach during the time that she was a private person and then when
she became first lady of New Jersey, she became very interested in social welfare. She actually took
Woodrow on a tour to New Jersey to look at state welfare institutions like the home for the insane or
the prisons. So she had an early record of activism among social welfare groups.
She also, of course, had to do a great deal of entertaining, during the dinner that was given after
Woodrow Wilson's Inauguration in 1902, she invited Booker T. Washington to the horror of her
southern aunt, this great African-American educator.
So she had a great deal of entertaining to do as the president's wife, more, of course, when she moves
into the governor's mansion and at one point, they were down in the -- in the summer home. They
didn't have a governor's mansion, but the State of New Jersey supplied a summer home down in Sea
Girt, New Jersey. And a little boy got lost and wandered into Sea Girt and came out afterwards and he
was asked, "Did you meet the governor?” And he said, "Yes. And she gave me a piece of cake.”
SWAIN: What was her role in the campaign in 1912?
COOPER: I don't think she did an awful lot in the campaign.
MILLER: What was interesting about the campaign was that she was, I believe, the first future first
lady to go on a campaign before the convention. She and Wilson went down through the South,
especially in Georgia where she was hailed as much as he was, unfortunately, they lost Georgia.
They didn't get the delegates from Georgia. And she had a hand in trying to get Woodrow to patch up
relations with William Jennings Bryan, who had three times been the Democratic nominee was kind
of the leader of the Democratic Party.
And John -- I think he was very key in helping Woodrow get the nomination.
COOPER: Well, well -- yes, it was …
SWAIN: Bryan, you mean?
MILLER: Yes.
COOPER: She saw -- she saw an opportunity. Wilson had come from a different wing of the party.
He’d said some things about Bryan that some of his enemies had publicized to try to make trouble.
And she saw a chance. Ellen saw a chance to mend the fences there. And she brought them together
and they hit it off very well. Bryan and Wilson had a good relationship, right down to some of the
unfortunate stuff in World War I.
So she's playing the same kind of role that she played in his academic career. Very -- a very shrewd
tactician, a very good facilitator. Not out in front. Not out in public. She didn't particularly like that
role either, but that she was awfully shrewd, awfully shrewd person.
SWAIN: And it was Theodore Roosevelt's challenge to his own party by forming a Bull Moose Party
in his independent bid that split the Republicans and help bring Woodrow Wilson into the White
House.
If you had to capsulize his political philosophy, what was it?
COOPER: Woodrow Wilson's?
SWAIN: Yes, (ph).
COOPER: He called himself a progressive democrat. And he really believed -- he believed in a
strong government, but it was a government to make it possible for people to do things for
themselves.
He once said that I don't want a big brother government. I don't want a government that will take care
of me. I want a government that will make sure that other people take their hands off me, so that I can
take care of myself.
You know, it's very much -- it -- I think it is -- I think it is updated liberalist. It's the individual's
happiness, the individual's self-realization, that's the great contrast of Theodore Roosevelt. That
campaign in 1912, I think it is the best we've ever had by far, because what you get is really a debate
of political philosophies between these two men.
SWAIN: Lee (ph) is watching us from Durango, Colorado.
Hi, Lee (ph), thanks for waiting. You're on.
LEE (ph): Thank you for taking my call. I have a question about the Alley Bill that was so important
to Ellen Wilson and that did such a wonderful thing for the City of Washington D.C. And also I'd like
to comment on Edith Wilson, she was more of a hindrance than a help. Joseph Tumulty, a major
adviser to the president wrote in numerous letters during his illness and they weren't discovered -unopened until after his -- after her death.
SWAIN: Thank you so much for your call. We're going to just let her comment about Edith's stand
(ph), but she asked about Ellen's Alley Bill. What was that?
MILLER: Yes. When they came to the White House, Ellen felt that as long as she was in the White
House, not a place where she particularly wanted to be, she would use her position to do as much
good as she could.
And she connected with a group called the National Civic Federation that had been around for 10
years or so. And they were very interested in trying to clean up these little alleyways in between the
bigger streets of Washington where there was tumble down shacks, great squalor.
They wanted to tear down these buildings and do what we would now call urban renewal. Ellen was
so interested in this project that she actually took some of the congressmen in the White House car
through the alleyways to show them this -- the conditions of these houses that were right behind the
Capitol.
And she lobbied them to pass a bill that would enable this because at that time Washington -Washington's government was run by Congress, they didn't have their own government. So she was -I think the first first lady who lobbied for a cause that wasn't her husband outside of the White House
and she was very, very effective at doing this. And I don't know if you want to talk about all of what
happened here.
SWAIN: And we'll come back to that story because it's connected with her passing.
MILLER: Right.
SWAIN: She (inaudible) the Wilsons decided not to have an inaugural ball, why is that?
MILLER: Well, it's partly because it's Ellen. Ellen felt that it would really be a commercialization,
something frivolous at what should be a solemn occasion. She was a very thrifty woman. Woodrow
did not make a lot of money in his early days and she had a habit of frugality.
Somebody once said, "Mrs. Wilson looks sweeter every year and that brown dress she wears -- looks
sweeter every year," because she never got new clothes. She prided herself on being thrifty. And she
just thought the inauguration -- the inaugural balls were frivolous.
SWAIN: William is watching us in New York City.
Hi, William, you're on.
WILLIAM (ph): Yes. Thank you very much. In New York, there's often mention of the Wilson girls
in society, can you tell us a bit about their growing up and entering adulthood?
SWAIN: Thank you so much, about three daughters to White House.
MILLER: Yes. And they were all, sort of, roughly marriageable age when they get into the White
House, so they go to balls and parties. Ellen is on record as saying that she doesn't approve of modern
dances like the turkey trot.
But somebody else writes and says that the -- I think it's Ellen -- Morey Slayton (ph), who was a very
wonderful gossipy wife of a Congressman and she kept a diary. And she said that they had been seen
down at the military barracks, turkey trotting with the rest -- with the best of them, so she tried to
keep a rein on her daughters and two of them, in fact, did get married in the White House and
considering that she was only in the White House for 17 months before she died, that's quite an
accomplishment.
She had a very big wedding for her first daughter who was married in November. She had a very
small quiet wedding for this -- for her third daughter who got married in May very shortly before
Ellen was bedridden.
SWAIN: Chad (ph) is in Baltimore. You're up next. Hi, Chad (ph).
CHAD (ph): Hello. I wanted to know after Ellen Wilson passed away and before Woodrow Wilson
married Edith Galt, is it true that his daughter Margaret became de facto first lady during the time
between the death of her mother and her father's marriage?
MILLER: Well, I think she was the hostess. She was the official hostess. There has to be an official
hostess. One of Woodrow's cousins Helen Bones also helped her -- helped her out in this. Margaret
didn't much want to be in the official hostess. She wanted to be a singer. And she preferred to go to
New York, which is where she felt there were more opportunities to be a singer, so I think that the
two of them tried to cope with the -- with the social duties and the social season was curtailed.
And I think on the advice of Ellen's social secretary Belle Hagner, she felt that there had been a
precedence during the Harrison administration when his wife had died, they've curtailed the social
season, so there wasn't too much entertaining that Margaret had to do.
SWAIN: That's why her short tenure in the White House, Ellen Wilson also brought us the -- as a
nation the famous Rose Garden in the White House. We’ll learn more about that in our next video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYNARD: We're in Prospect Garden here in Princeton, New Jersey. This is a garden that Ellen
Wilson originally designed when she was resident of Prospect House from 1902 to 1910. And I think
that here we see the full expression of Ellen's esthetic vision. She is an oil painter, very competent.
She knows a lot of the American impressionist painters of the day. She loves to paint landscapes and
as a corollary to that, she lays out this extraordinarily beautiful garden here at Prospect House.
She plants the cedar trees. She plants roses and all kinds of flowers. And in fact, she loves this garden
so much that she hates to leave it when the Wilsons enter politics and they leave Princeton.
When Ellen Wilson is in the White House, she brings the White House gardener back here to this
garden at Prospect House. And she says to the White House gardener, "Let's recreate the rose section
of this garden at the White House.”
Because Ellen Wilson could look out of her bedroom window in the Prospect Mansion, she could
look right down and see the flowers all day and similarly, she wanted the President of the United
States to be able to see roses when he looked out at his window in the White House.
And, of course, this becomes the famous Rose Garden at the White House. Ellen tragically doesn't
live to see the rose garden completed, however. She's dying in the summer of 1914. She's wheeled out
into the space outside in a wheel chair and she watches as the gardener works, but she doesn't live to
see the completion of this vision she had for roses blooming at the White House. And that's the vision
that really begins here at Prospect Garden in Princeton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: So Ellen Wilson who didn't live to see it brought us the Rose Garden, which has really
become part of our national lexicon, so often presidential events are held in the rose garden. Here
again is the photograph of what it look like during the Wilson administration and here's what the rose
garden looks like today.
And we have -- her short tenure in the White House. We have just a list of things that she did during
the 17 months. We talked about the Alley Clearance Bill. We talked about the Rose Garden. And the
fact that she was a professional artist, one of the first ladies who brought her own profession to the
White House. How significant was that in setting a standard for future first ladies?
MILLER: I don't think it really set a standard for future first ladies. Ellen did earn money from
selling her paintings that she donated to a charity that she had set up for her brother in her -- in the
memory of her brother who had died.
I think the only other first lady who earned money while she was in the White House was Eleanor
Roosevelt. That did not become a first lady tradition and just as well, I think.
SWAIN: Next is Harran (ph) in Greenfield, California. You are on the air. Welcome to our
conversation.
HARRAN (ph): Hello?
SWAIN: Hello?
HARRAN (ph): Yes. Yes. Thank you for taking my call. I've enjoyed your show very much. This is
my second time calling. The last time I called, it was during your first season when you were talking
about the two wives of John Tyler. So I very much enjoyed your show, so far.
So my question is about Woodrow Wilson's first wife, Ellen, when she passed away, where was she
buried? And when her husband passed away, he was interred in the Washington Cathedral in
Washington D.C. and was his first wife's body re-interred and be buried next to him and also where
was his second wife buried when she passed away.
SWAIN: Thank you.
COOPER: Well, the answer to that -- to the question about is Ellen re-interred with Woodrow? The
answer is no. She was -- she was buried in the family plot -- the Axson family plot in Rome, Georgia.
When Woodrow died, Edith was pretty determined that he was not going to be buried with Ellen. You
know that -- you know, and so then the choice was, he’d been the president of Princeton and the
presidents at Princeton are buried in a very nice cemetery down Witherspoon street there, but there
have been some ill feeling and still was, so that was out.
In the meantime a very ambitious bishop of Washington, Mr. Freeman (ph) wanted to get famous
people buried in the cathedral. And so, he'd gotten Admiral Dewey. And he -- this is when
Washington Cathedral was still a very new building and so he approached Edith about this and she
liked the idea.
Freeman (ph) wanted to make the cathedral -- Washington's Westminster Abbey and Kristie our
friend Lou Gould told me that William Howard Taft's granddaughter told him that when Taft heard
about this, he said -- he said that don't let those body snatchers at the cathedral get me.
But, yes, I -- to me I think this is wonderful. This Presbyterian president -- this most Presbyterian of
presidents is buried in an Episcopal cathedral and Edith is buried with him.
SWAIN: How -- was she sick the entire time that she was in the White House for 17 months?
MILLER: Yes, she was. And you saw some of the pictures of her leaving Princeton and even being
in Princeton, she first developed kidney trouble in 1889 when her third child was born. And the
Wilsons decided at that time to have no more children. They used birth control. But she probably had
been suffering from kidney disease for some time before she got to the White House would be my
guess.
SWAIN: It's diagnosed -- it's something called Bright's Disease.
MILLER: Right, that's an archaic term that means kidney disease, so I don't think they had,
obviously, as sophisticated tests as we do now, although I was impressed that they were able to
diagnose it as early as 1889.
SWAIN: (inaudible) …
COOPER: Theodore Roosevelt's first wife also died of Bright's Disease -- of kidney disease as well.
MILLER: Right. Right.
COOPER: Although she died quite early in their marriage and Woodrow and Ellen had been married
for quite a while.
SWAIN: Denise McCarthy (ph) wants to know in Twitter, did Woodrow Wilson become consumed
with Ellen's illness and did it affect his performance as president?
COOPER: Not to the very end consumed, not until the very end. By and large it was kept a secret
from him. And -- yes -- and so -- and that was Ellen's wish too. She didn't want to burden him.
MILLER: Well, I think everybody was just in denial. I don't think Ellen knew how sick she was. I
think she was hoping she would get better.
COOPER: Yes.
MILLER: The doctors kept telling her she would get better.
COOPER: Yes.
MILLER: I think the doctors were in denial.
COOPER: Yes.
MILLER: So I don't think Woodrow really knew she was dying until like the day she died.
COOPER: But I mean that those -- that those last days of hers, when he is literally at her -- at her
sick bed every possible minute, you know, the other hand, the world is literally falling apart, with
World War I and he's having to deal with that. I mean it's a terrible thing. It's just -- it's terribly
affecting.
SWAIN: Holly Hahn (ph) wanted to know was there a public funeral for Ellen Wilson. She asked
that on Facebook.
MILLER: She -- they had the funeral in Rome, Georgia. And out of the church where Woodrow had
met her. And I -- the townspeople were there but there wasn't a state funeral here in Washington.
SWAIN: As we close (ph) …
MILLER: Well, there was a -- there was a little ceremony in the White House I believe.
COOPER: Yes, there was. Yes. There was a ceremony and viewing at the White House.
MILLER: Right.
SWAIN: And we are -- already finished our first hour. I told you this would go by so quickly. There
are big stories to tell, but here is our guest John Cooper's biography of Woodrow Wilson, if we can
show it on screen here.
And what I wanted to do as we close out here, actually, Mr. Cooper is open it up inside and read this
paragraph, just a bit of it where you talk about her contributions to him.
COOPER: Sure.
SWAIN: Ellen's death dealt him a cruel blow. For more than 30 years, Ellen had been his closest,
wisest adviser. She had exercised a stronger, more salutary influence over him than anyone else.
She rarely let her family inherited disposition towards severe depression affect him or their daughters.
She'd seen Wilson through and forgiven -- for him for his infatuation with Mrs. Peck, a story we
didn't tell. Ellen had given him so much and he was a far better man for her gifts. He had gone further
and accomplished more in the worlds of scholarship, education, politics, and government. And he
couldn’t have done without here and he knew it.
So it is fair to say that without Ellen's Wilson, there might not have been a President Woodrow
Wilson?
COOPER: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, she -- this man blossoms. He met her just as he was
about to depart for Johns Hopkins. He'd been playing around with the law, trying to write, trying to
find himself. And love concentrated his mind wonderfully. I mean, it's extraordinary. His two years at
Hopkins, he's either writing these letters to her, long, involved, wonderful letters, and writing his first
book and best book, "Congressional Government.” It's amazing.
And then, all along, as Kristie said, the different bits of advice to him on how to handle it, I mean,
listen, any academic would love to have Ellen. A male academic would love to have Ellen as a wife.
And I think, conversely, a male -- a husband of a female because she was such -- such a help, such a
support and such a terribly shrewd advisor, and, again, such an emotional support to him. It really is
extraordinary.
SWAIN: Well -- and we have quite a debate raging about Woodrow Wilson's legacy among
detractors and supporters on our Facebook page. So, whether you loved him or hated him, Ellen
Wilson's basic contribution was getting that man to the White House.
COOPER: Absolutely.
SWAIN: Well, it's time to move on to chapter two of our story. What happened after her death?
MILLER: Are we going to talk a little bit more about the Alley Bill??
SWAIN: Sure, because that's part of the closing days of her life.
MILLER: Right. So, as she's dying, the day that she's dying, she tells the chief of staff, Joe Tumulty,
to go up to Congress and say she will die more easily if they will just pass an Alley Bill. And the
Senate takes action in time for her to learn about it before she loses consciousness for the last time.
The House passes it later, but it is never implemented because of World War I breaking out. They
don't have the money and they need all the houses they can get.
This whole issue is dropped until 1933. There was a young woman whose husband was in the Wilson
administration, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt
went to the White House many times and met Ellen Wilson. It was said that nobody could move in
polite society unless they could talk Alley. She made this whole issue fashionable.
The first week that Eleanor Roosevelt was in the White House, she went back to the National Civic
Federation women, the same women that had worked with Ellen Wilson, and she began to lobby for
an Alley Bill. As we know, she lobbied for a great many different causes, but I firmly believe that
Ellen set an example to Eleanor and that Eleanor, of course, set an example to many first ladies who
came after her.
SWAIN: I keep wanting to move on, but there's so many questions to ask. One of the interesting
debates about it is really apparent on our Facebook page is Woodrow Wilson's attitude toward
African-Americans. And here was Ellen Wilson reaching out to the place of poverty-stricken African-
Americans in Washington, D.C. Did she influence Woodrow Wilson? And what were his views
about on the race issue?
COOPER: Well, first of all, much as you could tell, I love Ellen just as much as those editors did.
That being said, she was a southern woman. And I don't think we could honestly say that she believed
in the equality of African-Americans. I mean, that's just -- she was a wonderful, warm, loving person,
but I think the African-Americans occupied their place. And this is -- this is in a maternalistic way
that she does want to there and it's also to beautify Washington, too, you know. That's -- that's not just
to be -- not just to be helpful.
His own views, I think, his having grown up in the south really has less to do with his views there.
His – the Wilson administration’s record on race is bad, simply bad. He allowed his southern cabinet
secretaries to attempt to introduce segregation into the federal workplace. They made stabs at it. The
newly-formed NAACP protested it. They backed off. They did it informally. That's bad.
There also that very unfortunately incident of showing the Birth of a Nation movie in the White
House, which grew way out of proportion as to what actually happened there.
SWAIN: And that was during the time of Edith as first lady? That was during -COOPER: No. No. That's in this interregnum. That's actually shortly before he met Edith. And that's
the time, by the way, that's worst time in Wilson's life, except for the stroke, because he was
absolutely devastated by Ellen's death. He was just -- I mean, the man was in a bad, bad shape
emotionally. And -SWAIN: So, one Gary Robinson (ph) asked on Twitter, "Did Woodrow give any political bump or
political passes on bills or issues because of Edith's death?"
COOPER: No.
SWAIN: Was he even thinking about the affairs of state in the months after?
MILLER: He -- well, he had to. He had to. Yes, he was. And, in fact, that was -- I think he said that's
what held him together. You know, he said it was what -- he had to do this. He had to be president.
He had to pay attention to these things. Otherwise, I think the man really could have deteriorated
badly there if he had been on his own. So, that, the presidency was his crutch at this point. His
attitude to me, I think, he is very much like a white northerner in this period, not a white southerner.
A white northerner.
The white northerners at this time kind of wanted race to go away, or, you know, it's kind of, "That's
just... oh, yes, that's right. The problems with the blacks down in the south and Booker T.
Washington. You know, we'll make progress," a bit of a benign neglect. Wilson is much more like
that. The southerners were absolutely obsessed with it. I mean, they're the ones who want to make
sure that blacks are in their place, who feel menaced by this, who want to push things like
segregation.
Wilson's sins here I think are more sins of omission.
SWAIN: Before we leave Ellen Wilson's life, I've been telling you each week we have -- we have
this well-populated website, c-span.org/firstlady, and it's filled with all the video and all the programs
we've done so far in this series. Each week, we also have a special features of -- attached to the first
lady we're looking at. And, this week, it is on Ellen's artwork.
So, if you go to the website, you want to learn more about her work, her easel, look at one of her
paintings that was on display at the White House while she was first lady. Oh, there is our featured
item this week on First Ladies at the c-span.org website.
While I'm talking about (inaudible), I want to tell you about one other, which is our partners for this
entire series is the White House Historical Association. They have for many years published this
biography series (inaudible) of first ladies. It is a special version of it. We worked with them to
publish it and make it available to you. That same website has the link we're selling this hardcover
book at $12.95, at (ph) cost, just so you can learn more about these women.
There's a short biography of each of them inside. And we'll get it to you just as quickly as you can so
you can learn a little bit more about these women before we do the programs and the rest of the series.
So this is what it looks like on the screen here.
And, as we look at it, we're going to listen to Latan (ph) in Rome, Georgia. Rome, Georgia has a
special connection with Ellen. Is that her birthplace?
MILLER: Yes, and her burial place.
SWAIN: Latan (ph), you're on air.
LATAN (ph): Hello, John and Kristie. How are you?
MILLER: Hi.
COOPER: Fine.
LATAN (ph): I would like to say that Rome, Georgia is watching tonight. And, of course, we are the
hometown of Ellen Wilson. And we are very excited that you're doing a program tonight especially
on Ellen.
Kristie Miller has graciously accepted our invitation to come to Rome as we celebrate not only the
life, but also the art of Ellen Wilson beginning in August of 2014. And, you know, it's kind of
interesting that in 1914 Rome, Georgia raised $10,000 for Ellen's homecoming back to Rome, but,
unfortunately, Ellen's untimely death prevented Rome from having this homecoming. So, in 2014,
we'll be marking the 100th anniversary of the homecoming that never occurred.
SWAIN: Thank you very much for your call and for your town's special connection. We're glad to
have folks in Rome, Georgia watching us tonight.
Any final comments on Ellen before we move on to Edith?
MILLER: No.
SWAIN: OK, let's do that. So he was devastated. But we've talked about his connection with women
and his love of having women in his life. So he was a widowed president, so lots of women were
probably interested in him. And how did -- how did he approach this period of his life when he was a
widower?
MILLER: I don't think that there was a great rush of women to meet him. But his doctor was very
concerned about it and he thought that -- a friend of his, Edith Galt, might be somebody that would
cheer him up and so he arranged for Helen Bones, the woman who was serving as his official hostess
after Ellen's death, to go walking with Edith. Because Helen herself was having some health
problems, he thought it would benefit her to go walking with this nice, hearty, vigorous woman.
And they took a number of walks together. And that led to a meeting in the White House between
Edith and Woodrow. And they were immediately drawn to each other. Just like with Ellen, he very
quickly fell in love and very quickly proposed to her.
SWAIN: Edith Bolling Galt was from Wytheville, Virginia. And if you have a map of Virginia, you
can see where it is in the south-most part of the states. It's about 300 miles away from Washington,
D.C. We visited there in preparation for this series. You'll see that next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
This is the birthplace and childhood home of Edith Bolling Wilson. And, today, it looks very much
like it is when the Bollings lived here from 1866 to 1899. Originally, in the 1840s, this was two
houses. They were joined together, which connected the upstairs' Bolling home. The downstairs was
used as retail space. The upstairs was the home of the Bollings.
This is the original front door to the Bolling home. This is where the Bolling family would have
entered. Let me take you inside. This is the birth room of Edith Bolling Wilson. This was the
bedroom of her parents. She was the seventh of 11 children born to the Bollings. She was one of over
20 family members that lived upstairs in the Bolling home.
Two of the most interesting pieces that we have are the Bollling cradle, the cradle that belongs to the
Bolling family, the cradle that their children would have slept in. The other piece is a child's chair that
we know was actually up here in the Bolling home. We can just imagine all the Bolling children
sitting in the chair. The cover is original. And we're so pleased that it hasn't been recovered over the
years.
This is the bedroom of grandmother Bolling. And we know that Edith Bolling as a little girl slept in
the room with her grandmother. Her grandmother was an invalid and had back problems, and she was
quite spoiled by her grandmother. She was her grandmother's favorite, but along with that came the
responsibility of being her caregiver.
This is the back sleeping porch. This is where Edith would gather with her family where they would
enjoy the evenings together. I think one of my favorite pictures is the picture of the young Edith at
age 13. She's actually sitting on a stool in this corner. She has her books in her lap. And we're very
fortunate to have this picture of her. We see what she's dressed like. We see her books. We see how
her hair is fixed. We see her in a place where she was very comfortable and spent a lot of time as a
young girl.
This is the library of her father, Judge Bolling. Edith parents sent her to Washington, D.C., to keep
her away from this older gentleman who was wishing to court her. They sent her to her sister in
Washington, D.C. There, she met and married her first husband, Norman Galt, and it really changed
her life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And, there, we learned more about the early life of Edith Bolling Galt Wilson.
On Facebook, Janie Weber (ph) wants to know what did his daughter who served as hostess before
his marriage think of his new wife and what did his other daughters think?
MILLER: I think the daughters were very happy to see their father married again because, as John
said, he was in deep despair. They were very worried about him. And so they were -- they were
happy. I think they were among the happiest people in Washington about the marriage.
SWAIN: What about the press and what about his cabinet?
COOPER: They tried to keep out of the press as long as they could. The reactions in cabinet were
mixed. I mean, mainly, they're worried about the political fallout. We're getting beyond the old
Victorian convention that widowed people of either gender shouldn't remarry. OK, we got a bit
beyond that, but they shouldn't remarry soon. You know, there's the old phrase "a decent interval of
time.” Well, how do you define that? That's the longer, the better, perhaps.
And, clearly, for the president to be courting and to want to marry again so quickly. A lot of them
worried about it, and several of them tried to hatch something, you know, to warn him off there. And
that backfired very badly.
By the way, Edith took an instant dislike to Colonel House, this advisor of Wilson's. And Wilson sort
of patched it up or had them get together. But I don't think House ever realized what an enemy he'd
made in Edith Wilson at that -- and he had something to do with this, too.
SWAIN: Let's take a call from Carl (ph) in Carrollton, Georgia.
Hi, Carl (ph).
CARL (ph). Hi. Good evening and thanks for taking my call. OK. I just heard the gentleman say that
there was a bit of dissention between Colonel House and Edith. Now, was this personal differences?
Colonel House apparently had living quarters in the White House. Was he commanding too much of
the president's time as far as Edith was concerned or were there -- were there political differences?
COOPER: Well, actually, House -- House did not have living quarters in the White House. He spent
a lot of time there, but, no, but he -- he didn't have living quarters there.
There's a bit of both. Edith, as Kristie pointed out very well, Wilson courted the widow Galt with the
presidency and the secrets of the state, and she ate it up. I mean, there's no question about it. And she
admits, frankly admits in her memoir later that this was a good bit of her attraction to Wilson. She
was attracted to him, too, personally. But, definitely, you know, this -- this made him just a much
more glamorous figure to her.
So she's -- okay, she is going to be the advisor. And I think a lot of -- from the very beginning to her
is that House, you know, that House as just, you know, and -- and to get him out of the way. House -House was concerned. House saw Wilson as his very valuable property to manage and to keep -- you
know, to keep healthy and to keep in power. And I think he was worried about the effect on this.
Now, he very quickly backed off when he saw how determined Wilson was to -- was to marry Edith.
He turned tail very quickly and then he tried to make up to her a lot. But she never -- she never -- she
masked her dislike of House up until the time of the Peace Conference.
SWAIN: So -- and he proposes very soon after. She says, "No. I think you hardly know me.” There's
this wonderful quote that most biographers refer to him talking about how time is compressed in the
White House. What did he say?
MILLER: I don't remember the exact words, but he said, "Time is much quicker here than it is on the
outside.” And one -- I hate to call it a ploy, but one fact that he pointed out to all three of the women
that he was involved with was that he needed them so much. And it was a real, genuine need, as John
has pointed out, that he often said that he couldn't do his work unless he was assured of their love.
So that was definitely one of the things that he said to Edith. And she responded. She said, "To know
that you have needed me is very sweet.” And that was another very successful courtship tactic. And
although she refused him the first time, two months later, he proposed again and she accepted.
COOPER: Kristie, as I recall, the refusal, that was what women were supposed to do anyway,
weren't they, you know, the first time they're proposed to?
MILLER: Well, Ellen didn't refuse.
COOPER: But you say she got taken unaware, really, but, you know, that was the convention
though...
MILLER: I think perhaps it was.
COOPER: ... that she was supposed to turn it down and -- and then, you know, of course, the guy
comes back and then -MILLER: But she had every right to turn him down, convention or no convention. They'd known
each other about six weeks when he proposed the first time.
COOPER: I must say, you know, we both read all that -- that correspondence there. I'm impressed
that Edith's refusal looked to me pretty pro forma, but, you know, you just knew that she was going to
accept this guy.
MILLER: And one of my favorite quotes is from the Secret Service man, Colonel Sterling, who said,
"The lady was retreating, but how fast and with what intention? We don't know.”
COOPER: Well, he used to -- he would go over to her house, you know.
MILLER: Oh, yes.
COOPER: He would spend the evening there and then he would -- sometimes, he would break into a
dance walking back to the White House.
SWAIN: I'm trying to take the president in their isolation today and project a president going to a
date at this woman's house in Washington.
COOPER: It was a different era. It was a different era.
SWAIN: Clearly a different era. Clearly, a different era. And because there's such a fanaticism about
baseball in this town, their first public date was for a baseball game.
COOPER: Oh, yes. Yes. Wilson, first of all, was a great baseball fan. And he played. He played. He
never played on the college. Well, he played on the college team at Davidson. It's the first college he
went to, but that's -- that's something. And he certainly was great fan of Princeton. And at both
Wesleyan and Princeton, as a faculty member, he helped coached the baseball teams, so he's a
tremendous baseball fan. And, of course, he'd go to that. And, yes, and that -- that is -- that's their first
public appearance together, that photo of her just beaming there.
And I think that's when she turned into a political asset for him.
SWAIN: Yes. We have -- we have to -- we're going to have to move on because our time is going to
evaporate. But, very quickly, from Katelyn (ph) on -- with Reuter (ph), "What did the general
population think of Wilson remarrying so quickly?”
MILLER: Fortunately, it was not as his advisors feared. The public loved it. They went on a tour
about six weeks after they were married to drum up interest in preparedness in case America got into
the war. And she was seen as a great asset. The press really loved her. The crowds really loved her.
They loved the idea of the two of them still essentially being on their honeymoon. And it was a great
public relations asset.
SWAIN: Throughout this program, we have been taking you to the Wilson House, the place where
the first couple lived after they left the White House. And we're going to return there right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SLEN: And we are currently in the dining room of the President Woodrow Wilson house in
Northwest D.C., about a mile from the White House. And standing guard over the dining room is an
official White House portrait of Edith Wilson painted, finished in October of 1920, so nearly 93 years
old. Bob Enholm is the executive director here at the house.
Bob, what can you tell us about dress that she is wearing in this portrait?
ENHOLM: Well, you know, President Wilson in his second term president a vision of the world at
peace and a plan for achieving that vision. And he couldn't have found a better helpmate than an
energetic and dynamic and strong Edith Wilson. I think, in this portrait -- and you see this is not a
19th Century portrait -- she is wearing a dress that, to say the least, is fashion forward for the 1920s.
And at her waist is a brooch executed by Lalique in France. That was a gift to her from France when
she was the first Peace Conference in 1919.
SLEN: Some of the other artifacts from their White House years is set here at the table. You have the
place setting.
ENHOLM: This is the place setting of the Wilson china. Edith had a hand in designing this. While
some of the 19th Century china relied on botanical designs, you'll see here patriotic symbols
consistent with the nation at war. Edith -- there's a funny story, and I'm sure the historians can tell
about this, that when Edith was learning how to ride a bicycle in the basement of the White House,
the china was stacked there. And one of the reasons they created the China Room, which she created,
was so that she would have a room to ride the bicycle without crashing into the China.
SLEN: And this is Lenox. And then you've also got an outfit that she wore as first lady.
ENHOLM: That's right. We remember that President Wilson was the first president to go Europe as
president. But we need to remember as well that Edith Wilson was the first first lady to go to Europe
as first lady and it was important to her to figure out exactly how she should comport herself in
meeting kings and queens of Europe and also heads of state.
She bought this suit at the House of Worth in Paris. Let me just fold this back and show some of the
detail. The lining is really spectacular and gives you some sense of the level of detail and attention of
the clothing that she purchased there.
SLEN: Bob Enholm, President Wilson lived here for about three years after he left the White House.
Did -- was there was a purposeful effort to make this house like the White House because of his
stroke (inaudible).
ENHOLM: Very much so and that was part of Edith's doing as well. She realized that the president
would be more comfortable in a setting in which he understood, you know, where things were. And
so, when they put together his bedroom here it really emulated the White House bedroom he'd been in
down to the detail of getting the Lincoln bed that he had enjoyed and building a replica of it for the
room here.
SLEN: Well, the next time you come back to us, Susan it will be in the library.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Thank you very much and a reminder the Wilson House is available for public tour. Make it
as part of your stop when you do a history tour of Washington D.C. Well, the Wilson presidency, the
two terms were very momentous years for this country and really for the world.
We have -- it's hard to boil down important things that went on in just a couple of pages but we're
going to try to do it. During the Wilson presidency, the 17th amendment to the Constitution which
called for direct election of the senators was passed, major tariff bill that was so much an important
debate in is country, the Federal Reserve Act, -- I could tell you our Facebook community is talking a
lot about the Federal Reserve -- the role of the Federal Trade Commission, its function was also
created.
Then, of course, there was the war, the U.S. declaring war on Germany after the sinking of the
Lusitania, after the war Woodrow Wilson winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Also during his presidency
the 18th amendment bringing prohibition and he 19th amendment we talked about that calling finally
for women's suffrage in this country.
What was Edith's role in this important period of time legislatively, public affairs-wise, how involved
was she in the substance of what he was doing?
MILLER: I would say very little. She really did not have Ellen's acumen, I think, for understanding
these things. He liked to show her the papers but mostly what she would do is kind of get all fired and
say well, I think you should put this note to Germany more strongly or you should put this note to the
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan more strongly.
And he liked her to be fiery like that. He encouraged that but she didn't really have any
understanding. It was funny because a lot of people thought that she had influenced him to lobby as
he finally did for women's suffrage but that was not the case at all. She really didn't approve of
women's suffrage. So, I wouldn't say she had any effect on his legislative…
COOPER: By, the way, he did not support the 18th amendment. He did not like prohibition and he
vetoed the implementation legislation of the Volstead Act which was then passed over his veto.
SWAIN: How difficult was it for him to make the decision to bring the U.S. into World War I?
COOPER: Very, Very -- you said we went to war after the sinking of Lusitania, almost two years
afterward. I mean, the sinking of the Lusitania is the great wakeup call as to how we might be
involved in the war. It really is that, comparable to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. I mean, it's that kind of
shocking event.
But then it's almost two years in which it’s this struggle, you know, to try to get the Germans not to
sink ships and kill people in the seas and yet not to get involved in the war. He actually got the
Germans to back down for a while. So that the election of 1916 was during this lull in foreign affairs
this notion that kept us out of war was his great cry.
Well, yes, but it was -- he kept us out of war with Mexico because the threat of war in Europe had
receded at that point. And then the Germans reopened submarine warfare and he -- that was a very,
very difficult struggle.
He actually unburdened himself confidentially to a newspaper editor, Frank Cobb of the New York
World. And he predicted all the terrible consequences that would happen in this country if we went
into the war. It's the most eloquent case against going into the war which comes from the man who
actually decided to take us in.
SWAIN: So, how would you answer Sheldon Cooper on Twitter who asked which wife provided
more political clout for Woodrow.
MILLER: Well, I think that it was Ellen. Ellen really was involved. She lobbied -- you spoke of the
tariff bill, she read it. She lobbied for having reduced duty on books and art supplies. And when it
was actually passed, she celebrated. It meant a lot to her.
And I don't -- I don't really think either of them had a great deal to do with it but I think Ellen had
more than Edith.
SWAIN: David is in her hometown Wytheville, Virginia, nice to have you on the line. Go ahead.
DAVID (ph): Thank you. I'm just calling to thank you especially for this segment on Edith Bolling
Wilson Birthplace Museum in Wytheville and invite your viewers to visit and join us in our efforts to
restore her birthplace and childhood home. But my question is when Mrs. Wilson visited Europe how
she was received by royalty of Europe and also can you tell us a little bit about her relationship to
Pocahontas and other notable Virginia families.
MILLER: She is a direct descendant of Pocahontas and it was something that was played a great deal
in the newspapers and even by the newspapers in Europe when she went over there. And I forgot
what was the other part of the question?
SWAIN: How she was received in Europe?
MILLER: Oh, they were received -- they both were received just joyously when they went over
there. They looked to Wilson to be a savior. There was -- and Edith wrote home and said she felt like
Cinderella. They stayed at Buckingham Palace. They were received by the King of Italy. There were
thousands and thousands of people greeting them in Paris. It was -- it was a magical time for her.
SWAIN: Oh, here's a question of a similar ilk from Nivik Johnson (ph) between Edith and Ellen
which had the greater influence on America today.
COOPER: Oh, I'd say Ellen. Although Edith had to handle the country in this crisis of presidential
disability and I think she has set a pattern of how not do it…
MILLER: Yeah.
COOPER: … because it was a cover-up. It was a cover-up and as I think it was one of the segments
that said that Grayson really acted on Edith’s orders, said we're not going to admit he had a stroke.
They never -- the White House never admitted that. One of his consulting physicians let it slip out of
the bag later but they never admitted that.
And in some ways this uncertainty about what the president's condition was I think really contributed
to the kind of the political downfall that comes.
SWAIN: Justin (ph), Plainfield, Indiana, you're on. Go ahead.
JUSTIN (ph): Hi. Thank you for taking my call and thank you for doing this series. My question is
how was Edith received in the time leading up to her marriage to President Wilson by the media? Did
she kind of get the Princess Diana reception or more of the Rachel Jackson (ph) reception.
SWAIN: Thanks so much.
MILLER: They really as John said tried to keep it very quiet and the announcement was made at the
beginning of October. They got married in the middle of December. So, they really only had to
endure the attention of the press for about two months.
And, again, it was a very, very different time. And nobody was expected to get out there Diana style
and be fodder for the press.
COOPER: Kristie, wouldn't you say though – I was interested that the caller talked about the Rachel
Jackson. There was an undercurrent though of a little bit of scandal or whatever that he was involved
with this woman.
MILLER: Well, there were several scandals, one of which and we haven't really addressed it but
Woodrow Wilson was involved with another woman during the time he was married to Ellen. He met
Mary Allen Hulbert Peck in 1907. By 1908 he had scribbled on a little note somewhere, my precious
one, my beloved Mary. I don't think he sent it to her but he was just venting his feelings.
Ellen was very upset. She accused him of emotional love for this woman but she tolerated Mary and
tried to protect Woodrow from the scandal. There still was some scandal and Theodore Roosevelt was
invited during the 1912 election to make use of it.
Somebody said that they had letters between Woodrow and Mary an although they were never as
ardent as his letters to Ellen had been they were -- they were certainly compromising and Roosevelt
said no that would be wrong and also that nobody would believe him.
COOPER: Yes, because that was, you know, people said that was very noble of Theodore Roosevelt.
MILLER: Oh, right.
COOPER: But frankly, he said, I can't believe that somebody who looks like the apothecary’s clerk
could be Romeo.
MILLER: That's right.
COOPER: Nobody will believe that, you know. So, he said no, it's not going to work. I think that
was…
MILLER: John Cooper doing his best TR imitation.
COOPER: That's right.
SWAIN: Now, this was a momentous time, of course, as the United States enters World War I. What
happens in the White House in terms of their social, their entertaining, what did she do to support the
war effort. That's an important part of her story. Would you talk a little bit about that.
MILLER: Well, poor Edith gets pitched into the White House in the middle of the war, in the middle
of his term without any preparation whatsoever. And she was -- she really rose to the occasion. And
she was as I said very popular with the press because of Ellen's ill health, the press had not been very
taken with her.
And Edith had the doubly trying situation of having to have two receptions because she couldn't have
all the warring ambassadors with each other so she had to have a party for the allies and a party for
the central powers. But she really was terrific and everybody was impressed with her good, firm
handshake and very impressed with her sense of style, no poor little brown dress for Edith. So…
SWAIN: She was a wealthy Washington socialite and she was a business executive.
MILLER: I wouldn't say she was a socialite because her husband in trade meaning he was a
businessman and that was not the crème de la crème of Washington society, so there was a certain
amount of dubiousness about that.
But as John said there were -- there were scandals also about the extent to which she and Woodrow
had been intimate and later on she makes a big protest, a big international scandal really out of -- out
of refusing to accept the designated British Ambassador because his assistant was telling naughty
stories about them.
SWAIN: Back to the Wilson House on S Street in Washington D.C.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SLEN: And we are in the library in the Wilson House with Bob Enholm who is the executive
director. You can see some of the artifacts in this room from the Wilsons. And Bob Enholm, there's a
couple of things in here that are very related to Edith and Woodrow Wilson. Why don't you tell us
what this is on the desk?
ENHOLM: Well, here we've displayed the pen that was used to sign the declaration of war in 1917.
And what I think is interesting is that it was Edith Wilson's pen. And we've been discussing on the
program that Edith was very much with the president participated in his deliberations on a variety of
issues.
When the declaration of war was passed by congress and actually brought to the president at the
White House residence, the president was with Edith and not near a pen of his own and she offered
one of hers to sign that historic document. So we have that here.
It's also known that Edith was part of the president's regular routine in dealing with policy issues and
the business of government and every day after dinner they would retire to the office that was in the
White House, the president's office, and go through what he called his drawer which we might think
of as an inbox and actually we have either that box or a box like it here.
You can see this is a box that has a lock and key where the president's important papers to be
delivered to him and then he would be able to go through them. The president and Mrs. Wilson would
go through these papers together.
It was her habit to, you know, put them in order while he was reviewing one, she would be reviewing
the others. And they would actually decipher together coded messages. So, I think it's interesting that
this lays the groundwork for her role later as steward of the presidency when the president was
disabled.
SLEN: Bob Enholm, our guests back on the set have been talking about Edith and Ellen Wilson,
what do you think of the legacy of Edith Wilson? What is the legacy of Edith Wilson?
ENHOLM: Well, I think the most important thing that Edith Wilson did was to bring the role of the
first lady into the modern era in the sense that she supported the president and was aware of some of
the issues that he was involved with. And, you know, I might take on her role in the stewardship.
It's a little different from some because I think that her authority within the government relied almost
entirely on the president's for her, trust for her, respect for her. I think it's -- you wouldn't expect that
she would betray that trust in order to go to the cabinet or go to the vice president or someone else.
So, I think she had that important role of being the helpmate to the president in a very modern way.
SLEN: And we are at the Wilson House in Northwest D.C. This is where Edith Wilson lived post
presidency until 1961 when she died in this house. We've got one more visit here and it's kind of a
special guest that we're going to introduce you to in a little while.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Thanks, Bob Enholm, for bringing us into the Wilson House tonight and showing some it to
our viewing public.
Well, we should say that when Woodrow Wilson makes a decision to go into the war he goes all in.
And you're right about the fact that what America really could contribute was manpower to this war.
COOPER: Well, yes. I mean, it was a stalemate although Russia collapsed and the Bolsheviks when
they came in--Lenin's policy was peace at any price. And that's pretty—well, it’s what he did, he paid
a terrible price but it's not that the Germans could finally fight the battle they wanted to fight, the war
they wanted to fight. In other words, try to do the Franco-Prussian War over again so they could
throw everything at France.
And that's just what they had the chance to do in the spring of 1918 and it's a race against time for us
to get the Doughboys there. Now, the British and the French -- bless their hearts -- held on that one
last time and blocked that German offensive.
But they were able to do it because they know the Yanks are coming. That material money we really
bailed them out. The allies were, you know, they were bankrupt. They were bankrupt by that time.
And we were able to bail them out.
SWAIN: So, we provided the Doughboys, the foot soldiers and…
COOPER: And the dough.
SWAIN: … the dough.
COOPER: The dough, yes.
SWAIN: And how many casualties -- American casualties -- in the war?
COOPER: About one hundred and forty thousand.
SWAIN: And when was Armistice Day?
COOPER: November 11, 1918.
SWAIN: And then Wilson moves from war president to peacemaker.
COOPER: Peacemaker-in- chief, that's right. Now, he decided very early that he was going to go to
Paris and was going to be our chief negotiator because he wanted to shape the peace as best he could
there. And he knew we had come into the war later than the others and for different reasons and he
knew that there were real differences.
SWAIN: Edith travels with him on that trip. I want to call and then have you come back and talk to
us about how that was staged, what her role was and how important that was ultimately to the peace
that was shaped.
Louis, Los Angeles, you're on the air, welcome.
LOUIS (ph): Yes. My question is what was or how was the League of Nations a -- what did they -whether the triumph for the president or failure to President Wilson and how did Mrs. Wilson take it
because she lasted a little bit longer. She lived a little bit longer than President Wilson, how was it on
their legacy this League of Nations fail? Thank you.
COOPER: Well, it's both, it's a triumph and a failure. I mean, the fact that there was a League of
Nations at all was because of Wilson. He was able to take the situation in Paris. He was able to whip
it together, get this league covenant put together in an astonishingly short period of time and it was
terrific.
But then his failure, of course, was to be able to get the senate to consent to it and it's -- this terrible
stalemate and eventually we never joined the League of Nations. That's what happens--in World War
II there is a posthumous apotheosis of Woodrow Wilson. Here's the profit that we did not honor.
Here's the profit whom we did not heed.
Here was the man who predicted this. If we had listened to him we wouldn’t have had this terrible
second war. I think that's quite overdrawn but still there's a kernel of truth to that. I mean, it's hard to
imagine that we wouldn’t have played at least some kind of more constructive role in world affairs if
we had gone into the League of Nations.
MILLER: And Edith was after Woodrow's death very active with the League of Nations herself and
not in a leadership way but she used to go to Geneva every year for their meetings and she would go
to any country in the League that wanted to honor Woodrow for his work in bringing it together.
SWAIN: I should note that it's United Nations week even as we do this and all the world leaders will
be gathering in New York City, they (inaudible).
MILLER: But, John, wouldn't you say that if it had not been for Edith and if Woodrow had resigned
that we might have joined the League.
COOPER: Yes-- he should have left. I mean, he should not have continued as president because his - it wasn't functioning and again, this warped judgment of his that would not compromise. If he had
resigned some kind of -- some kind of something to get him out of the way we would have joined the
League.
Now, we would have joined it on a very conditional basis with lots of hedging around it but frankly
that would have simply been a more openly stating what all the other nations were doing anyway. But
it would have gotten us into a leadership role in world affairs a generation before we did. And I think
-- I think that was what was lost. I think what was lost was a generation of experience of leadership.
SWAIN: We hope you saw the beginning of our program because it was Edith Wilson who made
that critical decision with the advice of his doctors to keep him in the White House and to serve as the
gatekeeper to him and keep the affairs of state going during those years when he was really that was
when he was very, very critically ill.
MILLER: And I don't think it was with the doctor's consent.
SWAIN: Cary Grayson you don't think…
MILLER: Oh, not a bit. In October he wrote a memo that should he be subpoenaed to congress he
wanted to have something on paper early on saying that he did not, you know, saying exactly what
was wrong with the president.
SWAIN: But in her memoirs I've read several citations where she said doctors advised her…
MILLER: Of course, she did. And I said to you that those memoirs are quite fanciful.
COOPER: (inaudible).
MILLER: She was her own public relations expert.
COOPER: Edward Weinstein (ph) who was a very distinguished neurologist wrote a medical
biography of Wilson. And he said in here he just takes it straight on what Edith said that doctors said,
oh no, keep him in office that's -- he said no responsible physician would have said that, that she's
making that up.
SWAIN: How about that? So, I asked about her -- if their trip Europe as the great peace maker they
travelled by ocean liner to get there on a very specific day in December. What was the Wilsons as the
presidential couple arriving there, how were they received by the other heads of state? How
important was that to what went on here?
MILLER: Well, they were received, I think, especially in England on terms of that would have been
accorded to royalty. And everywhere they went they were cheered by the populace. So, in the
beginning it was wonderful but once the negotiations got underway Edith suddenly went from this
fairytale existence to being extremely concerned for Wilson's high blood pressure.
He had had some kind of episode when he was only 39 years old where he had a lot of numbness in
his hand. He had very high blood pressure all of his adult life or at least from the age of 39 onwards.
And Cary Grayson had been very insistent during the time he was president that he got a lot of
exercise and that he got a lot of rest.
But during those negotiations he couldn't either rest or exercise and Edith was trying her best. She
would try to get him to go for a walk and the woman who was with her, her secretary said that she
herself would never go out if there was a possibility that she might be able to take Woodrow for a
walk. But it was -- it was not enough.
SWAIN: When he came back, he embarked on a multi-city tour of the United States to try to sell the
concept to the League of Nations to the United -- to the people of the United States ultimately leading
to his exhaustion and ultimate stroke that we spoke about earlier.
And we have only 15 minutes left in our program so we're going to have to compress a lot of history
in that time. We'll return to the Wilson House and introduce you to a member of the family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SLEN: Susan, this is Cary Fuller from Westchester New York.
Mr. Fuller, what's your relationship to Edith Wilson?
CARY FULLER: Edith was my great aunt.
SLEN: And how much time did you spend here in the Wilson House growing up?
FULLER: A lot of time really coming over to visit not only my great aunt but my grandfather and
my great aunt and great uncle all of whom Edith took care of here.
SLEN: And so, there's only about three relatives of Edith Wilson still alive, correct?
FULLER: (inaudible) yes.
SLEN: What would you do -- we're in the library here, what was it like to visit with Aunt Edith?
FULLER: It was called playing cards. We came over. We had a good meal, we played cards,
prompted by my mother to let her win every once in a while. She was a fierce person in terms of
winning.
SLEN: Canasta?
FULLER: Canasta was the game. And that was easy to let her win if I just held cards and let her go
out.
SLEN: Now, there's a deck of cards here. Are these cards, this is the card box that you would use?
FULLER: The cards were always on the table. The table was over here.
SLEN: It was over here in the library. Cary Fuller, did she ever talk about being first lady what it was
like?
FULLER: No. It was very interesting. She very rarely referred to the past and if she did she would
refer to Woodrow Wilson as the president. But there were no past memories really. It was -- it was
interesting.
SLEN: Were there any special visitors while you were here that would drop in?
FULLER: No. No, not while I was here. It was really family. I mean, she loved her family so much
and she spent a lot of time with them.
SLEN: And here in the house the post presidency house she would also take in family, correct to live
with her?
FULLER: Yes, my grandfather, her brother and her sister all died here in the house.
SLEN: Cary Fuller, did she ever talk about Ellen?
FULLER: Never. But, I mean, that wouldn't have come up. You know, seeing Ellen Wilson's picture
in the house is sort of funny. It's just, you know -- it was just not a part of what we would have
discussed.
SLEN: What about Jackie Kennedy?
FULLER: I was close to Jackie Kennedy (inaudible) sitting in the car and letting my mother and my
aunt into the house. I was not here. I was waiting to pick them up afterwards.
SLEN: And that's when she was First Lady, right (ph)?
FULLER: When she was First Lady. And Edith (ph) was so -- Edith (ph) is what she wanted us to
call her. She was so excited about John Kennedy and that presidency. And that she got to live to see
was, you know, wonderful.
SLEN: Cary Fuller, we're here on the main level of the house, up one stair case from the entrance.
Where would you sleep when you're visiting here?
FULLER: Upstairs, only twice, and (ph) I stayed here for the night. There's a little room in between
her room and the President's and that was -- just as I say -- two occasions.
SLEN: So, there's three of you left. Is there any -- are you active in an Edith Wilson family at all?
FULLER: No.
SLEN: I mean, is there any like (ph) (inaudible)?
FULLER: Not so much as a family, but certainly, with Wilson house and also with the birthplace in
(inaudible). So, I'm involved with both of those which is wonderful.
SLEN: Cary Fuller of Westchester, New York is here with us at the Woodrow Wilson house, upper
northwest D.C. and we want to thank Bob Enholm and his staff for allowing us to come in with the
cameras and show you a few of the artifacts here at the house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Thanks so much, Peter. And she made it to John Kennedy's inauguration.
MILLER: Yes. And she made it through 1961. She was supposed to dedicate the Woodrow Wilson
Bridge that all of us who live in Washington know well.
(LAUGHTER)
And she was going to dedicate it on his 105th birthday, December 28th, 1961. But she was 89 and she
contracted pneumonia and she couldn't make it -- and she died on his birthday.
SWAIN: And the Woodrow Wilson Center which is so active in this town, as a policy (ph)
(inaudible), when did that get started?
COOPER: That get started -- excuse me -- I got started in the 19 -- actually, I think it was authorized
under Kennedy. It's…
SWAIN: He authorized the commission, but then...
COOPER: Right. And then, it gets started -- the first director, it's the late 1960s. It was originally in
the old Smithsonian Building. It's now in its -- its own part of, oddly enough, the Reagan Building.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, (it’s) -- and I think that's a very fitting memorial to Wilson because it really does bring
together scholars and policymakers. And Wilson was no ivory tower intellectual. I mean, he really
believed that scholarship, that learning should be brought to bear in public affairs.
I mean, that was himself. I mean, this man took the lessons that he had learned, the insights he'd
gotten from the study of politics and put them into practice. I mean, this is a man who really got a
chance to practice what he'd been preaching all along.
And I've said this a number of times and people think it's hyperbole, but it isn’t -- I don't know if any
other career in American history or in any other history I can think of that better justifies the study of
politics as a preparation for the practice of politics than Woodrow Wilson's.
SWAIN: John (ph), in Childress, Virginia, you're in the air.
JOHN (ph): Yes. I'd like to make a comment. This woman, Edith Bolling Wilson is Appalachian
woman, the first and only Appalachian woman to become First Lady.
And I wonder if the experts would be interested in commenting on her Appalachian role as caregiver
and the fact that she was a caregiver for the President and on into his legacy and really might be
responsible for a lot of the emulation and legacy that President Wilson has in our national history.
MILLER: I don't know that being an Appalachian woman made her stand out at that time in
America. I think women then, and to a certain degree still today, are the principal caregivers of family
members.
And Edith -- I mean, Ellen also, came from Rome, Georgia which I think might technically be called
Appalachia also. She was very interested in the Appalachian mountain crafts. She remodels part of
the White House, the President's room with quilt and hangings and fabrics.
She had set up a scholarship fund there in memory of her brother with her -- the earnings that she got
from her paintings. So, I kind of feel that she was the one who focused more on the Appalachian
nature or character more than Edith did.
SWAIN: So, as we finish up here, I just want to really frame her life, she met Woodrow Wilson just
shortly after Ellen (ph) died. He proposed very soon. She became First Lady very quickly without
much preparation for the role.
How soon after that, he become ill and then, how long she take care of him?
MILLER: Well, she was president -- she was First Lady to a functioning president in about four and
a half years and she was nurse-maid to a president another four and a half years.
SWAIN: And then, he lived for how long also incapacitated after he left the White House?
MILLER: Well, that would include the time that he was incapacitated...
COOPER: Just under three years.
SWAIN: Three years, all together.
COOPER: Yeah.
SWAIN: Yeah. And so, he dies when?
MILLER: February 4th, 1924.
SWAIN: And then, how is he memorialized at his death in this city? Was there a big public funeral?
COOPER: Oh, yeah. It was -- it's really quite lovely. They had -- Edith, President Coolidge offered
the Capitol to have a state funeral. She declined. They had a service at the House, presided over by
both a Presbyterian clergyman and the bishop -- Washington bishop.
Edith, by the way, was Episcopalian and she did not change to be a Presbyterian when she married
him and he made no push for her to do that. And then, there's a procession up Massachusetts
happening to the cathedral. There is the interment.
In those days, there wasn't too much to the cathedral that's down in that crypt. His tomb has been --was moved up in interestingly enough, in the centennial year of his birth, 1956 up to – the then
finished the principal part of the cathedral. So, that -- it's a -- it's charming. It's a lovely ceremony.
And to me, one of the nicest touches was that -- when the funeral was -- at the end of the service, a
bugler played taps and they had a hookup and -- via a telephone. And they had a hookup to Arlington.
So, they knew the exact moment, so the bugler in Arlington also played taps.
SWAIN: And she lived how long after he died?
MILLER: I think something like 37 years, it was an extraordinarily long time. I mean, he died in
1924 and she died at the end of 1961.
SWAIN: And what was her life like?
MILLER: She spent all the rest of her life being Woodrow Wilson's widow. And she tried to ensure
his legacy. She chose his first biographer. She controlled access to his papers very, very closely. She
controlled how his image was portrayed. She wrote her own memoir, as I said, with her own spin on
it. She collaborated with Darryl Zanuck who made a movie about Wilson.
She really had a tight rein on what he was allowed to do. But, to me, the most important thing that she
did when she supported something that he had supported during his lifetime, the Woodrow Wilson
Commission, is it called?
COOPER: Foundation.
MILLER: Foundation. And they helped create the United Nations and they also collect these papers
that Arthur Link and his team edited so that there are 69 volumes of Woodrow Wilson's letters and
other significant papers, many of the letters from the First Ladies, even letters from Mary Peck ().
And I think that's her biggest legacy.
SWAIN: We have some videos -- actually it was a film of Frances Cleveland in Edith out of
Princeton University, (inaudible) story (ph).
MILLER: I don't know a story about them.
COOPER: It's at the bicentennial at Princeton, 200 years. And they gathered all the living first ladies
together. And this is Mrs. Cleveland who was much younger than Grover Cleveland and lived in
Princeton.
And so, she was there and there was Edith. And Bess Truman, I don't know that Eleanor Roosevelt
was there. They tried to have them all. But -- and there's a picture of President Truman, actually, with
these three First Ladies.
Yeah.
MILLER: I know that Ellen Wilson had to entertain Theodore Roosevelt at an Army Navy game
when Woodrow was President of Princeton. And she did contact, Frances Cleveland for advice on
how to entertain ex-presidents.
SWAIN: Did she come back (ph) to the White House?
MILLER: Who?
SWAIN: Edith. Did she ever go back to the White House again?
MILLER: I don't know.
COOPER: With the Kennedy's. Yeah.
MILLER: I assume. Yeah.
COOPER: And I think...
MILLER: And probably with the Roosevelt.
COOPER: ...probably the Roosevelts and the Trumans. Yeah.
MILLER: One thing that I thought was very interesting is that when FDR went to Congress on
December 8th, the day after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, he invited Edith Wilson to come and sit in
the gallery and she had sat in the gallery when Woodrow Wilson called for war in the First World
War.
SWAIN: Dan (ph), Omaha, Nebraska, your question.
DAN (ph): Yeah. I have a question here about the President's illness, when Edith was carrying out or
not letting the nation know about his illness. Did she get investigated for that or did she commit a
crime by doing this?
COOPER: I don't know there was a crime. I think it was a big mistake.
No. There was no Congressional investigation. I mean, Kristie had mentioned the smelling committee
sending the senators up to check on him. That's about as far as they got with it.
SWAIN: As we close out here, first of all James M. wants to know about Edith Wilson's funeral in
1961, when she died, what was that like?
MILLER: I have no idea.
SWAIN: Was there anything special about it?
COOPER: It was a quiet funeral.
SWAIN: Quiet.
COOPER: But she was buried with him in the cathedral.
SWAIN: And we also talked about first -- they were the first and only presidential couple to be
buried in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Those of you who have had (inaudible) to go to
Europe and see many of famous figures buried in the cathedrals here, they're trying to emulate that in
Washington and they got to one President and the First Lady and that's it.
MILLER: That's right. Yeah.
SWAIN: So, in the close of your book, and I want to show Kristie Miller () on screen, so people can
see your biography of the two wives, Edith and -- Ellen and Edith, Woodrow Wilson First Ladies.
And if we could put that on screen, so people can see the cover. I'm also going to open it as I did the
last time. You have conclusions and I want to close with you talking a little bit about this.
“Edith Wilson undeniably had an impact on history. She took over after Woodrow Wilson's stroke,
enabling him to remain in office. Had he resigned, the U.S. probably would have joined the League of
Nations, subject to certain conditions”
You also write, "Regardless of whether Edith Wilson had an effect on international relations, her
actions almost certainly changed American constitutional law. Her assumption of power during
Woodrow Wilson's illness was well-known to the drafter of the 25th amendments on presidential
succession.”
This is a part I wanted to go to. Edith Wilson did not use the power of Presidential spouse, you're
referring to, as constructively as she might have. Most notably, she made no effort to model better
relations between the races and indeed, might have encouraged her husband's racism (ph).
Her personal style however did warm up Woodrow's stern image in the public eye and her leadership
during World War I, knitting selling bonds, working in a canteen, provided a good a role model for
American women in wartime.
So, wrap a bow around all of this. What we shouldn't think about, Edith Wilson's tenure in the White
House and her contributions to the role of First Lady and to the country.
MILLER: I think, as John suggested, unfortunately, her biggest contribution is what not to do. Even
as late as 1987, William Safire was writing to Nancy Reagan -- writing a column that said to Nancy
Reagan, "Don't you be an Edith Wilson. Don't you meddle in presidential politics.” And I'm afraid
that that, in some ways, is her greatest legacy as First Lady.
SWAIN: What an interesting story tonight.
Thanks to both of you for being here and telling us about the two First Ladies in Woodrow Wilson's
life and in this county's history.
Thanks.
MILLER: Thank you.
END