by Robert G. Wick - Garden State...

On a rainy spring day in 1922,“muckraker” Ida M. Tarbell visitedthe home of former-New JerseyGovernor and ex-President of theUnited States Woodrow Wilson.Though debilitated by a stroke,Tarbell saw in Wilson parallels withAbraham Lincoln. Whatever historywould make of Wilson’s legacy, shecould not forget him.

The Man She Could Not Forget Robert G. Wick | www.GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 27 March 2015

Ida M. Tarbell & Woodrow Wilson

by Robert G. Wick

On May 5, 1922, torrential rains saturatedWashington, D.C. A taxi carried Ida M. Tarbell twomiles from the Powhatan Hotel to the majestic

home of former President Woodrow Wilson. Amidst thesounds of the ensuing storm alongside the oncomingtraffic, Tarbell had time to reflect. Although we will neverknow her exact inner thoughts as the car wended its waythrough the city, she likely rehearsed a proposal sheplanned to make to Wilson. Tarbell, and her former editorJohn S. Phillips, hoped to convince Wilson to take part ina series of conversations, which Tarbell would oversee, onAmerican democracy.

Wilson had invited Tarbell for late-afternoon tea. Asshe traveled to Wilson’s home in the district’s tonynorthwestern section, dubbed “Embassy Row,” Tarbellhoped Wilson would eagerly accept. Soon, Tarbell caughtsight of Wilson’s massive red-brick residence. Threesymmetrical Palladian windows, flanked on either side bylong narrow sidelights, dominated the spare, flat façade ofWilson’s Georgian Revival townhouse. The taxi stopped atthe front door; above it, a Doric-columned limestoneportico shielded the arched-front entrance. Wilson’swheelchair occasionally was pushed on to the porticowhenever the former president desired to make a rarepublic appearance.

Wilson welcomed only one guest per day into hishome. Entering the elegant foyer, Tarbell was immediatelywhisked to the second floor drawing room from which shecould see S Street through two of the three massivewindows (the third window illuminated a serving kitchen).Soon, Edith Wilson entered the room. Tarbell later wrotethat the former first lady appeared with “a fine impressionof sweetness, self-control and elegance.” She gave Tarbella brief tour of the second floor, stopping at a large windowat the rear of the home that overlooked the formalgarden—a pleasant prelude to what Tarbell would find adisturbing sight.


...a large windowat the rear of the

home thatoverlooked the

formal garden—apleasant prelude

to what Tarbellwould find a

disturbing sight.

By 1922, Wilson’s friends should have realized that heno longer was the man they had once known.Nevertheless, Tarbell was unprepared for the damageWilson’s 1919 stroke had wrought. Entering the library,Tarbell caught her first glimpse of Wilson, who sat to theright of a massive fireplace; in shock, she silently recoiled.Tarbell later wrote she was “[s]tartled by a sense that hewas a very sick man.” She immediately dismissed thenotion of asking Wilson about the conversations, notinglater that she felt ashamed by the thought. “Theimpropriety, if not the cruelty of it, came on me at the firstglimpse of him.”

In spite of his fragility, Wilson offered Tarbell a firm,warm hand. His voice, however, carried traces of fatigue.Tarbell caught “an almost pathetic look on his face” whenWilson said matter-of-factly “You will forgive my notgetting up. I cannot rise.” Tarbell quickly recovered hercomposure, but found it difficult to speak to Wilson,whose voice was tinged with a weakness that unnervedTarbell to the point where she began their conversationwith the most banal of topics—the weather. Noting thetorrential rains, she assumed the couple had forgone theirdaily drive. She was shocked to discover they had not; theWilsons would let nothing stand in the way of somethingthat had such a positive effect on the former president.

As Tarbell grew more comfortable in Wilson’spresence, the conversation turned to politics. Neithercould resist a jab at the current president. Tarbell said ofWarren G. Harding, “Of course he doesn’t know anythingand did not know how to think.” Wilson replied, “No, he hasnothing to think with” adding that when Wilson wentbefore the Senate committee to discuss the League ofNations, no one asked more unintelligent questions thanHarding “which I can quite believe,” Tarbell later noted.

An anonymous editorial written by Tarbell for thepopular national magazine Collier’s Weekly had brought her


Neither Tarbell or Wilsonthought very highly ofWilson’s successor asPresident, Warren G.

Harding. He “did not knowhow to think,” quipped

Tarbell and Wilson added “hehas nothing to think with.”

Wilson’s invitation for tea. However, it was Tarbell’s openadmiration for Wilson, which started long before thatstormy afternoon, which prompted her to write theeditorial. While often associated with Abraham Lincoln,Tarbell reported on and knew every president from GroverCleveland to F.D.R. However, her most intimate friendshipwith the men who held the office was with Wilson. It haddeep roots, including mutual expressions of admirationand previous interviews and conversations.

They shared several commonalities. Tarbell was bornon November 5, 1857 in western Pennsylvania. Wilsonentered the world nearly a year earlier on December 28,1856 in Staunton, Virginia. Both claimed Scots-Irishancestry. Both held distinct memories of life during andafter the Civil War. For Tarbell, it was Lincoln’sassassination. She remembered the shock that sweptthrough her home on news of Lincoln’s murder. Wilsonvividly recalled as a young boy looking briefly into the faceof Robert E. Lee. He also watched deposed ConfederatePresident Jefferson Davis travel through Staunton underheavy guard and with wrists bound.

Their shared Progressive idealism and faith inAmerican democracy are what drew Wilson and Tarbelltogether. However, Tarbell was not always so sure of theman. In an unpublished note Tarbell wrote to herself whilewriting her 1939 autobiography All in the Day’s Work, sherecalled being “lukewarm” to Wilson’s 1912 presidentialbid, believing him too much of an academic. Travellingfrom her Manhattan home to Jersey City in 1911 withUniversity of Virginia President Edwin A. Alderman to hearWilson speak, Tarbell saw “nothing academic or high-hatabout him,” adding that he “put no distance betweenhimself and his humblest auditor.” Tarbell left that speecha strong Wilson supporter.

As Wilson’s first presidential term ended, Tarbellsought a role in his campaign for re-election. Wilson’s


While oftenassociated with

AbrahamLincoln, Tarbellreported on and

knew everypresident from

Grover Clevelandto F.D.R.

However, hermost intimate

friendship...waswith Wilson.

“Americanism” and Progressive ideals made him her clearchoice over the Republican alternative Charles EvansHughes. Tarbell’s view of Wilson through the lens of herdemocratic faith and her Progressive loyalties was a keynot just to her political activism but also to her approachin writing biography and history. These subjects engagedher emotions as much as her politics did. Throughout herlife, for example, Tarbell lived with the criticism, especiallyfrom academic historians, that in her work sheworshipped Lincoln. What her critics failed to grasp wasthat her admiration (whether of Lincoln or of Wilson) wasan outgrowth of her worship of American democracy.Whoever moved it forward had her approval. By contrast,those who inhibited its growth, who sought to block itsdevelopment, or who took undue advantage of it forpersonal gain, such as John D. Rockefeller, earned herscorn.

Tarbell made public her support of Wilson inSeptember 1916 in a conversation with Dr. George Dorsey,a Chicago scientist who in 1912 published editorials onbehalf of Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose insurgency. In1916, Dorsey switched to Wilson. Tarbell told Dorsey thatWilson was “the first real Progressive leader that thisdecade has produced.” Almost ignoring Hughes, Tarbellinstead attacked Roosevelt. While T.R. brashly brought thepeople forward by the force of his personality, Wilson wasthe true leader by discovering “just how long an upwardstep they are ready for and then to fire them with courageto take that step.”

Given her connection to Lincoln, comparison betweenthe presidents was inevitable both for her and for thosewho interviewed her. In several conversations, Tarbellnoted numerous connections between Wilson and Lincoln.As with Wilson, Tarbell admired Lincoln’s “Americanism,”which she defined as “his entire devotion to the well-beingof the average man of our country and not to any


Theodore Roosevelt may havegone down in history as a

champion of the ProgressiveMovement, but Tarbell was

put off by his brashpersonality, preferring

instead Wilson’s gentlerapproach, calling him “the

first real Progressive leader.”

particular favored class.” Both men had political issuesthat they kept at the forefront. For Lincoln, it was thepreservation of the Union; Wilson battled to keep Americafrom entering the war in Europe.

Both knew strong enmity from political enemies.Tarbell noted, “There was always in the North a greatvariety of opinion against Lincoln during the War. Therewere radically opposed interests united in only one thing—bitter hostility to Lincoln.” Tarbell added concerningWilson, “At present, too, there are radically opposedinterests united in only one thing—bitter hostility toWilson.”

A number of people who thought they knew Tarbellbristled at her support of Wilson. “I am greatly surprised,by an indication in the daily press, that a full-growndaughter of Frank Tarbell declares for Woodrow Wilson forreelection to the presidency,” wrote Pittsburg residentE.W. Hukill. A St. Louis resident, identified only as “An OldAdmirer” expressed his dismay in verse (apparentlychanneling Robert Burns):

Weel, Ida, lass, didst coin they pass?Didst worra na’ a bit?

Didst coont th’ cost o’ honour lost?Ah me, the shame o’ it!

Na thinkin’ lass o’ thy high classCould stand for one who smote

A nation’s pride, an’ weal beside,Ta catch the labour vote!

Thou, we’ve admired. Thou hast inspiredIn us respect for ain

Thy keen research. Nay lass, besmirchNot they fair name for gain!

Wilson ecstatically accepted Tarbell’s endorsement.He called it “a matter of peculiar gratification to me that


Given herconnection to

Lincoln,comparisonsbetween the

presidents wasinevitable...

you have come out so generously in my support.” Wilsonadded, with evident hyperbole, that her one voice meantmore to him than the collective voices of anotherthousand endorsements.

Wilson’s campaign advisors knew they had an uphillfight ahead. In a dark portent of the upcoming generalelection, Maine voters spurned the Democrats inSeptember, turning out incumbent Senator CharlesFletcher Johnson and filling several offices with GOPstalwarts. John R. Dunlap, a friend to both Tarbell andWilson, urged the president to “make effective use of everyProgressive influence” which included allowing Tarbell aninterview in which she could quote Wilson directly,something the president had not been willing to do before.

Tarbell told Dunlap that although she would be willingto write an article on Wilson’s behalf, an article merelysumming up her impressions of him would be of little useeither journalistically or politically. She doubted GeorgeHorace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post whereTarbell hoped to place her article, would even considerpublishing the piece “because his readers are not speciallyinterested in her . . . personal views.” An interview in whichTarbell quoted Wilson would pique Lorimer’s interest andthat of the voters.

Wilson gave Tarbell permission to quote him in herarticle, but reserved for himself the right to edit her finalcopy. Evidence exists that he exercised that right. Amanuscript copy of the article in Tarbell’s papers bearsedits not in Tarbell’s handwriting. Indeed, the unknowneditor crossed out a whole paragraph about Wilson’sScottish heritage. We know also that Tarbell sent atelegram to Wilson’s private secretary Joseph P. Tumultyconfirming that she had omitted the paragraphcontrasting the Scotch and the Irish. “All other suggestedchanges were also made,” Tarbell noted. Instead of theSaturday Evening Post, Tarbell’s article on Wilson appeared


John R.Dunlap...urgedthe president to“make effective

use of everyProgressive

influence” whichincluded allowing

Tarbell aninterview in

which she couldquote Wilson

directly,something the

president had notbeen willing to do

before.

in the October 28, 1916 edition of Collier’s Weekly, whichtwo weeks before had published an article on Wilson byTarbell’s former colleague and lifelong friend (andWilson’s eventual biographer) Ray Stannard Baker. Theweek before Tarbell’s article appeared, Collier’s Weeklyprofiled Hughes.

After Wilson’s narrow re-election, Tarbell regretfullyturned down his offer of a seat on a commission thatWilson hoped would take the politics out of setting thetariff. Wilson wanted the commission to be independentand nonpartisan. Tarbell later explained that she believedthe various trusts were too powerful for that to happen.More important, however, was the financial cost Tarbellwould incur if she gave up writing and lecturing to serveon the commission. Tarbell’s biographer, Kathleen Brady,notes that in addition to maintaining her Connecticut farmand her New York City apartment, Tarbell was paying thedebts of her brother, William. Tarbell also was concernedfor her own health. After the United States entered WorldWar I, Tarbell accepted Wilson’s offer of a seat on theWomen’s Defense Committee, although the lack of realactivity on the Committee annoyed her.

After the Allied victory in 1918, Tarbell traveled to Parisostensibly to report on the peace conference. Wilsonconfidante Col. Edward M. House, however, hadsuggested to Wilson that he urge Tarbell to come. Househoped her appearance would inspire the French liberalelement to support Wilson’s goals given Tarbell’spopularity with the French people after Tarbell hadpublished works on Napoleon and Madam Roland early inher career.

Tarbell feared that people expected too much from theVersailles peace conference. She later wrote, “Whatscared me was that so many battered people acceptedthis notion of what the Conference could and would do.”She remained skeptical that any man, group or conference


Col. Edward M.House, however,had suggested to

Wilson that heurge Tarbell to

come. Househoped her

appearancewould inspire the

French liberalelement to

support Wilson’sgoals given

Tarbell’spopularity with

the French peopleafter Tarbell hadpublished works

on Napoleon andMadam Roland

early in hercareer.

could undo in a few short months problems that had takenyears to create. Tarbell admiringly referred to Wilson as

“the Messiah of theConference,” however sheknew his hope that the firesof war would be foreverextinguished depended onthe cooperation of men whohad rarely cooperated before.

In her memoirs,Tarbell’s disappointment inVersailles is palpable. Fromher perspective, the UnitedStates deserved some blamefor the peace talks’ failureowing to its refusal to join theLeague of Nations—“thelargest and soundest jointattempt the world had ever

seen, to put an end to war.” However, in her view,Europeans who refused to listen to the political objectionscoming from America were also at fault. Europeansignatories never took Wilson’s dreams of a lasting peaceseriously, she added.

Returning from Paris, Tarbell took to the lecture circuitpromoting ratification of the Treaty of Versailles andencouraging Americans to back Wilson’s bid to bring theUnited States into the League. She forgave Wilson his“Scotch stubbornness” and his refusal to waiver from hisbelief that the treaty must pass without RepublicanSenator Henry Cabot Lodge’s reservations, a set ofSenatorial doubts, and amendments to the treaty. Theratification battle “was a sickening thing to watch,” sherecalled.

Although Wilson’s enemies crowed at his defeat anddownfall (after his calamitous stroke that left him an


“The Big Four” made all themajor decisions at the ParisPeace Conference. From left

to right are David LloydGeorge of Britain, Vittorio

Emanuele Orlando of Italy,Georges Clemenceau of

France, and Woodrow Wilsonof the U.S. Tarbell expressed

disappointment in theconfrence.

invalid in the presidency), Tarbell doggedly insisted thatWilson could not be forgotten so easily. After leaving theWhite House in 1919, Wilson proved her point. His publicappearances as an ex-President were rare, but one somoved Tarbell that she felt compelled to take pen in hand.

On November 11, 1921, Americans laid to rest theremains of the Unknown Soldier from the Great War. All ofofficial Washington—including President Harding, themembers of the Supreme Court, and the leaders of theHouse and Senate—marched in the parade to ArlingtonNational Cemetery. Tarbell watched from the crowd. Atthe rear of the parade, uninvited by Harding, were Wilsonand his wife. “As the packed ranks between which theprocession had passed in silence saw its occupants,Woodrow Wilson and Mrs. Wilson, a muffled cry of loveand gratitude broke out, and that cry followed thatcarriage to the very doorway of their home. It was to be sountil he died. He was the man they could not forget.”

Tarbell’s article, “The Man They Cannot Forget,”appeared as an editorial in Collier’s Weekly on February 18,1922. Tarbell’s byline, however, did not appear in themagazine. The magazine’s longstanding tradition dictatedthat editorials were unsigned as they represented theopinion of the magazine and not one writer.

Human nature, Tarbell wrote in the editorial, is suchthat reflection crowds the memory of mankind whether foran event or individual. In that reflective time, one wonderswhat made an event or person special. Extra attentioncomes when failure has occurred. “Why did it fail?” Tarbellasked. “Not because it was not beautiful—right—desirable.Was it because you were not fit for beauty, righteousness,desirability?”

Even after leaving the White House, Tarbell argued,Wilson remained a presence in the public mind. “Let it beknown that he is in his seat in a theatre, and the wholehouse will rise in homage,” the unnamed Tarbell wrote.


“Why did it fail?”Tarbell asked.

“Not because itwas not

beautiful—right—desirable. Was it

because you werenot fit for beauty,

righteousness,desirability?”

“Let his face be thrown on the screen, and it will draw agreeting that the face of no other living Americanreceives.”

When Wilson appeared inthe parade for the UnknownSoldier in 1921, the crowdrecognized that he had bornethe heavy responsibility ofcalling the nation to war; itwas in his name that tens ofthousands of other soldiers,known and unknown,perished. The people knew,and Wilson agreed, that there

was no other place he should have been. Somethingdeeper, however, also was in play. The people recognized,much as the people of the 19th century recognized withLincoln, that their striving ensured that freedom anddemocracy endured. “He made them [the people] realities,personal, deep—showed them as the reason of all that isgood in our present, all that is hopeful in our future, theworking basis on which men may strive to liberty of souland peaceful achievement. He made them literally thingsto die for, lifting all of our plain, humble thousands whonever knew applause or wealth or the honor of office intothe ranks of those who are willing to die for an ideal—thehighest plane that humans reach.”

As Lincoln would have struggled and suffered inReconstruction had he lived, Wilson struggled andsuffered during the post-war period. Wilson believed thatthe mass of people had it in their power to end warfare.However, his enemies were strong. They were organizedand willing to join “in an attack such as few men have everfaced in the history of this earth. He fought to a finish, thathe might secure the pledge of the nations to the ideal ofworld cooperation.” Wilson won, Tarbell believed, with the


Woodrow Wilson’s publicappearance at the interment

ceremonies for the “UnknownSoldier” in 1921 reminded

many of his heavy burden insending American sons off to

war. It reminded Tarbell ofthe parallels she saw betweenWilson and Abraham Lincoln.

people of the world if not with their leaders.Those people whom Wilson won over were the same

people on whose behalf Tarbell took up her muckraker’spen. It was the “demos” in society in whom Tarbellbelieved. Nevertheless, she wrote sadly, Wilson’s enemiesmisled them. “They are simple people, remember, thosethousands whose hearts he had rekindled. They are thepeople who do the work of the world, and their minds areeasily bewildered.” Though Wilson’s enemies overcamehis efforts to permanently end war, the people neverforgot Wilson’s efforts. They sought confirmation thathis—and their—sacrifice had not been in vain.

“I wish to express to you my pride and deep pleasurethat you should entertain such thoughts of me,” Wilsonwrote Tarbell. “It is the favorable verdict of minds like yourown which everyone dealing with high and difficult affairsshould desire and strive for.” Wilson wanted once again tomeet with Tarbell, so he issued the invitation for afternoontea.

Tarbell never brought up the idea of a series ofconversations on democracy with Wilson. Indeed, afterthat visit, Tarbell never saw Wilson again. Two years later,Wilson was dead. Tarbell wrote from her sickbed to EdithWilson on February 18, 1924, expressing her sorrow atWilson’s passing. Two weeks later, she received a letterfrom Edith noting that Tarbell’s letter “brought me thesense of your love and admiration of my husband—thatwent right to my heart. And I want you to know of hisprofound friendship and admiration for you. He alwayscalled you among those who saw the light and whofearlessly followed it.”

Even before psycho-biography found a home inAmerican historiography, Tarbell found it necessary to putWilson on the couch. After her half hour with the Wilsonson that rainy May afternoon, Tarbell wrote a long memogiving her impressions of the former president. He was “a


“I wish to expressto you my pride

and deeppleasure that you

should entertainsuch thoughts of

me,” Wilsonwrote Tarbell.

“It is thefavorable verdict

of minds likeyour own which

everyone dealingwith high and

difficult affairsshould desire and

strive for.”

broken man but of a spirt as unyielding, as capable ofcontempt for those he regards as contemptible.” Notingthat Wilson’s mind remained sharp, she sensed abitterness of spirit in him that, in her view, made itimpossible for Wilson to approach the work Tarbellbelieved the country needed. Wilson could have an impacton the nation as the leader of democracy, but not as thepartisan leader of the Democratic Party. The former was arole, she sadly admitted to herself, that Wilson could nolonger shoulder.

Tarbell also saw in Wilson’s psyche reflexive self-protection. She told Ray Stannard Baker that she believedWilson quite capable of cruelty. Baker, who knew Wilsonas closely as anyone, agreed. He confided to his diary hisbelief that Tarbell was also correct in noting that, given hisability to sway the public, it was to mankind’s benefit thatWilson was not an evil man. Tarbell believed Wilson usedhis capability for cruelty as a defensive weapon toovercome the demands placed by the numerous requestsmade of him during his tenure in office. Lincoln, she noted,did the same thing.

For the remainder of her life, Tarbell believed Wilsonechoed Lincoln’s spirit. Responding to one correspondent’scharge that such a comparison was “blasphemous” Tarbellpatiently explained that while subtle differences existed inhow Lincoln and Wilson acted, the similarities were too realto ignore. Both were more interested in what a man couldaccomplish than how he accomplished it. Where Wilsonmaintained a coldness in order to get through the day(Kansas editor William Allen White once described Wilson’shandshake as feeling “very much like a five-centmackerel”), Lincoln angered many men around him by hisincessant story-telling. “He had to push people away, andhe often offended deeply by the habit” as did Wilson.Tarbell said she saw “no blasphemy in speaking of Lincolnand Wilson in the same breath.”


For theremainder of

her life, Tarbell believed

Wilson echoedLincoln’s spirit.

Although she realized that for many Wilson wouldnever attain Lincoln’s stature, their greatest similaritycame with their views on democracy. Tarbell argued thatWilson’s “interpretations had an integrity, a clarity, asoundness that sunk into minds that listened; and it waspart of his faith that the masses did listen,” just as they didto Lincoln. Despite the fact that the machinery Wilsonsought to put in place failed, his ideas thrived. “They are atwork today in a marvelous fashion. They cannot be killed,”she wrote. Wilson, Lincoln and Tarbell all shared a “faith inwhat we call democracy” and had a “willingness to trust itto the future” because all believed it “to be God’s way withmen.”


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