John Passos - Mr. Wilson's War

So that nobody could say he was acting in a fit of pique, two days before the election he outlined his plan in a letter to Secretary of State Lansing.

“Again and again the question has arisen in my mind, What would it be my duty to do were Mr. Hughes to be elected? Four months would elapse before he could take charge of the affairs of the government, and during these four months I would be without such moral backing from the nation as would be necessary to steady and control our relations with other governments … Such a situation would be fraught with the gravest dangers … The course I have in mind is dependent upon the consent and cooperation of the Vice President; but if I could gain his consent to the plan I would ask your permission to invite Mr. Hughes to become Secretary of State and would then join the Vice President in resigning.”

As the law then ran, the Secretary of State would be next in succession to the presidency.

It was a gesture planned in the grand style. “It seems,” House wrote in his diary, “that during the uncertain hours of Tuesday night … both the President and Mrs. Wilson were cheered, as I was, by the thought of the dramatic dénouement we had in mind in the event of defeat.”

The letter, sealed with sealingwax and addressed in Woodrow Wilson’s own hand, with “most confidential” underlined on the envelope, was entrusted to Frank Polk, a crony of House’s who was counsellor at the State Department. He handed it to Secretary Lansing when they met at Democratic headquarters, where Lansing arrived on his way from voting at his home in Watertown, to the Balthasar’s feast, as Henry Morgenthau was calling it, at the Biltmore.

Wilson supporters went disconsolately to bed. SWEEPING VICTORY FOR HUGHES, read the headlines in their own New York World. Conservatives who distrusted theorists and innovators and pro-Ally fanatics in the eastern cities, turned in contentedly: the country was in good hands.

Colonel House was between the sheets by eleven. “I believe I can truthfully say I have not worried a moment,” he confided in his diary. “If I had I could not have stood the strain. It was not that I was altogether certain of the result, but I never permit myself to worry over matters about which I have no control.”

The colonel admitted that he woke at five. By daybreak he was hanging onto his bedside phone. The far west was going Democratic. He immediately called the despairing watchers at party headquarters and urged that they telephone the county chairmen of every doubtful state telling them to pay no attention to press reports that Hughes was elected. As soon as he decently could he had Attorney General Gregory up and worrying about federal measures to protect the ballotboxes wherever the vote was in doubt.

California was the crucial state; in southern California the vote was expected to be particularly close.

“I did not close my eyes all night,” Meredith Snyder, the reform Democrat who was mayor of Los Angeles told Josephus Daniels in reminiscent vein some years later, “until the result of the election was declared. Shortly after the polls closed I ordered that every ballotbox be sealed and stationed policemen in every booth with orders to shoot any man who should lay the weight of his hands on the ballotbox. With associates I went from booth to booth all night. We kept vigilant watch and a staunch Democrat was assigned as watcher in every booth. Nothing was left undone to see that there was no tampering. I knew that the fate of the Presidency in the next four years would be settled in those boxes, and I staked my life that the votes should be counted as cast.”

All over the country Democratic watchers and wardheelers were frightening each other out of a year’s growth with the tale of a mammoth Wall Street plot, financed by millionaires, to steal the election for the Republicans.

“We lost no State I had placed in the certainties,” Colonel House boasted to his diary. “I regard this with some degree of pride. The President was skeptical regarding the value of organization. I wonder whether he is now …”

On the morning of November 8, while Woodrow Wilson was shaving, his daughter Margaret knocked on the bathroom door with the news that the New York Times was about to run off an extra announcing that the election was in doubt. Wilson thought she was pulling his leg. “You tell that to the marines,” he called back through the door.

At Asbury Park, Tumulty had been comforted in his unhappy vigil by telephone calls from an unknown supporter who claimed to be calling from Republican headquarters. The Republicans were worried, the strange voice kept saying. “Don’t concede.”

To get some fresh air the President went out with Grayson for a few holes of golf. “How is your game today, Mr. President?” asked an acquaintance on the links. Wilson is quoted as having answered, with a wave of the hand, that Grayson had him three down, but he didn’t care, he was four states up over yesterday’s returns.

The Democratic column kept building on the tallysheets. Everything depended on the outcome of the close race in California. It wasn’t until November 10 that Vance McCormick dared wire his county chairmen to buy red fire and celebrate.

A telegram came into Shadow Lawn from Wilson’s runningmate. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall was a professional Hoosier, fond of classical quotations and pokerfaced statements in the crackerbarrel style: “T’is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door,” he wired, “but t’is enough. T’will serve.”

A story went through the corridors of the Pulitzer Building that a reporter who tried to get into the Hughes suite early that morning for a statement was told, “The President can’t be disturbed.”

“Well when he wakes up tell him he’s no longer President,” replied the reporter. “Wilson’s re-elected.”

As the immediate consequence of Villa’s raid Congress ordered an increase in the regular army to some five thousand officers and a hundred and twentythree thousand enlisted men. The states were instructed to raise their militia units to full strength and the President was authorized to take them into the federal service at his discretion as the need arose. The entire National Guard was estimated at sixtyseven thousand men in March 1916 but many regiments mustered barely half their theoretical numbers. Although the navy was fast catching up with Germany’s, the American military establishment on land was proportionately smaller than Holland’s. Recruits were needed and fast.

Little Newton D. Baker, just beginning his David and Goliath contest with the gigantic lethargy of the War Department, hired a publicityman to produce leaflets and posters extolling the military life. One of those groups of enthusiasts for improving the behavior of their fellow citizens which abounded on the American scene was sponsoring the national tour of a trainful of exhibits to warn people against the reckless driving of automobiles and industrial accidents generally. A recruiting sergeant was placed on the Safety First Train.

Enlistments in the regular army lagged. Seven years looked like a long time in the land of opportunity. Munitions plants were offering good wages. Farmers were looking forward to high prices. American young men showed every sign of preferring safety to soldiering.