Compromise With Colonel House To Wilson example essay topic

"THE PRESIDENT SAYS:"And THEN, the loneliness! The loneliness of the responsibility because of the loneliness of the power, which no one CAN share. But in the midst of it I knew there was one who DID share-EVERYTHING-a lovely lady who has given herself to me, who is my own, who is part of me, who makes anxieties light and responsibilities stimulating, not daunting, by her love and comprehension and ex- qui site sympathy... the whole divine partnership trans- forming everything, the Constitution of the United States itself included... " Pres.

Wilson to Edith Galt Wilson, 8/14/15 Because he was in ill health at the end of his Presidency and life, Woodrow Wilson never wrote a history of his presidency. He did, however, leave behind personal letters to the three women in his life, his first wife Ellen, a friend named Mary Peck, and his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt. Woodrow Wilson has been idealized in many of the histories about him, but his letters to these three women show a lot of his frailties; he was emotionally vulnerable, dependant and often suffered ill-health. Just before Ellen, his first wife, died, she told him he was too great a man to remain lonely, and Wilson was married to his second wife, Edith, in little over a year. According to the diaries of White House Head Usher, Ike Hoover, Edith Galt came into the White House "with intentions that might lead to anywhere". President Wilson's instant infatuation with Mrs. Galt, according to Hoover, struck like lightning.

The period of their courtship and marriage occurred as the President tried to remain neutral in the face of The Great War, led the US's entrance into the war, oversaw the war's end and his espousal of the League of Nations (especially Article X of its Covenant) and the signing of the Versailles Treaty. The author of the book I read, "Edith and Wilson" pretty much paints Edith as domineering and forceful, who wanted to be sole possessor of her husband's time and loyalty and thus, over time, drove wedges between Wilson and his friends and advisors, particularly his close friend Colonel House and his Secretary of State Robert Lansing, ostensibly, according to Colonel House, because she was jealous of her husband's best friends and wanted Wilson to receive all credit for his policies. Cary Grayson, Wilson's doctor, replaced them not only as Wilson's doctor, but as confidant and advisor and aided and abetted Edith in souring Wilson's relationship with House and Lansing. Edith also took on her husband's antipathy toward Henry Cabot Lodge, leading Senator of the Republicans in the Senate, whom she called "that stinking Lodge" and a "snake in the grass". Phyllis Levin, author of "Edith and Wilson" states that Congress, in dealing with the passing of the League Covenant, did not understand the huge stakes in providing a body to prevent future wars because of their insistence in humiliating Wilson. Wilson, who had recently returned from Europe and the signing of the armistice, had proved himself unable to work with other leaders as an equal, unable and unwilling to compromise.

Conjecture, speculation and downright mystery have, until recently, been posited by historians about Edith Wilson's actual role in the government of the United Sates during her husband's illness. But, on Memorial Day weekend of 1990 that speculation was laid to rest when James Grayson and Cary Grayson, Jr. released the original diagnoses made by their father and his colleague Dr. F. Dercum. The papers made it clear that on October 2, 1919, Wilson had a stroke so severe he was unable to do anything. Head White House Usher Ike Hoover tells how for the first months, the President was unable to do anything mentally or physically, that if he was not tied to the seat of his car, he slumped over, he could not speak an entire sentence through, that his hand had to be held when he signed anything; indeed, Wilson, for his remaining tenure, could not go anywhere without being braced and supported in a rolling chair. As the vote for the League of Nations Covenant came up, it appeared the President could not take a leadership role.

Wilson and Lodge differed on how Article X of the Covenant should be worded, with Lodge insisting that Congress, only, in the U.S., could declare war. The Republicans and Lodge wanted their way regarding Article X, and no one except Wilson's doctor, his wife, and a few royalty visitors from Europe, were allowed to see the President. His Secretary of State and his advisor Colonel House were not allowed. To Edith Wilson, things had reached the impasse of a personal vendetta between Lodge and her husband.

The White House was flooded with pleas for the President to compromise. Edith refused to acknowledge that Lodge might have valid arguments. Lodge insisted that Congress, not the League Council, could make war or peace decisions for America. Lodge and the Senate also insisted the League, as a political body, assured no peace and was downright dangerous to America's safety. Lodge's reputation has come down through history as a spoiler of the idealistic Wilson. Actually, though, Lodge did attempt to compromise and he sent the compromise with Colonel House to Wilson, but Wilson apparently never received this "olive branch".

A historian named Thomas Bailey wrote that Wilson's "vice-regents (Grayson and Edith) apparently made the decision to keep Lodge's attempt at compromise from the President because of the gravity of his illness. It's Bailey's conclusion that if this is indeed true, and we now know because of the release of Dr. Grayson's medical papers in 1990 that Wilson was totally incapacitated at this time, Wilson should have resigned in favor of his vice-president. Of course, after receiving no answer, Lodge probably thought the President, already known for being unable or unwilling to compromise, had ignored him. However, Colonel House kept trying to reach the President by sending letter after letter.

House's letters were delivered, UNOPENED, to the Library of Congress in 1952. Edith Wilson wrote in her MEMOIR the President told her it was "better a thousand times to go down fighting than to dip your colours to dishonourable compromise", and Edith agreed. The head democratic Senator of the Foreign Relations Committee, Gilbert Hitchcock carried a letter from Wilson to Congress that was also given to the newspapers, telling the Democrats not to compromise. Congress defeated the Treaty on November 19, 1919, as Wilson lay incapacitated at the White House.