Transcripts For CSPAN Q A 20130909

When did you write this question mark this . I wrote that 13 years ago. When i started, i had this feeling about wilson that he is still with us and that is why i wanted to write the book. Ive always been fascinated with wilson. I thought that of all the president and unites get and century, he lingers. White question mark i think there are several reasons, one is some of the programs that wilson initiated that are with us to this day. I think the foundation to the economy and the Federal Reserve system goes back to wilson. Certainly, our Foreign Policy is rooted in a speech that woodrow 1917. Gave in he said that he wanted to wanted to make the world safe for democracy. All of our Foreign Policy decisions since then, for good or ill, are rooted in that. That is something. The other reasons i wanted to write about wilson were thats. Here were ideals and ideas he was so highminded and i do not think that we have had a president who is as highminded as wilson. I think that is a good thing to remind ourselves of. You say that he was a racist. He was a racist. Any definition of the word, he was a racist. Law, but his greatest it is the biggest strike against him personally. For someone who is at a progressive thinker as he was, he was regressive in his thinking in this. My job isense, and not to defend or excuse, merely explain. He was a 19th century figure. 1856 and hisn first memory is being told that lincoln was elected president and there would be a great war. He grew up, literally, remembering the war and the instruction. This was a man who was forged in in 19th and forged century southern thinking. Slavery was part of life. He grew up with a father was a preacher and preached that the bible supported slavery. An unchristian act. Wilson walked in with all the stuff. What i tried to get into in the political reason for wilsons racism. That is that he came into washington with a great Progressive Agenda and he knew that he could not get anything passed unless he had the southern senators behind him. There is no way he was going to get anything done unless he made some acts in their favor. Someone was watching this they have read four or five books, what will they see different in this book . What will they see different about Woodrow Wilson . What did you see is new russian mark you will see a new . Ing. You will see a human being will stop being. The books written about him have been academic and have missed the human side of this man. He was a deeply emotional and passionate figure. He had two wives. His first wife died and he courted and fell in love with a woman and married a second time. He had thousands of passionate love letters to each of these women. This is a living and breathing human being. I do not think we have seen that in Woodrow Wilson. I would say, even, this connects the racism, in a way. What i learned about wilson is that nothing is black and white and even his racism i do not think it is your lens vi he did not want to keep the black man down. He thought that the country was not ready for the races to mix. He always kept the door open at the white house. In and they were welcome in the white house. It concerns him but he did not know how to deal that. It was wrongheaded then and when you look at a century later, it was quite backward. Admiral grayson and his doctors. Enough,if you wait long these papers keep surfacing. We are a young country. Later, some fascinating papers have been discovered in a garage that grayson, who was l and his personal physician. He became a confidant. There are truckloads of dr. Graysons papers and he kept meticulous notes he literally had his hand on the pulse of the president. Yearsk notes in the last of the wilson presidency, when he collapsed and had a stroke that was kept secret from the country. Also, the years after that when he retired. You see all of this humanizing. Is most striking of which that this was a sick man, physically and mentally, as well. A lot of this comes out in this archive. You say that he had 13 breakdowns. There were 13 collapses of some sort. Usually physical. Varying degrees. Going back to when he was a young man, in fact. Enumerated actually, by sigmund freud. Take it with a grain of salt. Or, a whole sack of salt. Freud did a study of Woodrow Wilson that was based on oformation that an enemy wilson had given him and for was no friend of wilson. Sigmund freud was no friend of wilson. He saw these 13 episodes in which wilson shut down. They go up to his presidency. The least of which was when his truly beloved wife died. Where he meet her . He met her in a rome, georgia. Wilson was a diehard princetonian. He was at law school in virginia and practiced law for a short time in atlanta. The rust that he did not like it. He definitely did not like the law. He was packing up his bags to leave georgia and go on to grad school. He had one bit of Family Business to do. The family estate needed some settling in georgia. Cast eyes on the daughter of the presbyterian minister. And, the two fell madly in love with one another. More madly. They were deeply in love with each other. What is available, in terms of letters . Thousands. Where are they . Ofthey are in the Library Congress and there are facsimiles in the midst in library. A lot of these letters princ ton library. A lot of these letters are bound in a set. There is one after another and you cannot believe it. Ado not know if there is romantic correspondence in history that is as voluminous as Woodrow Wilsons was. These are endless and get sickening after a while. There are only some of the ways you can say i love you, dear. What was she like . She is buried in rome, georgia. Buried in history. Im sorry to say. I tried to exhume her. She was a fascinating woman and was written off as a dos file wife. Docile the truth is, she was extremely counted as a painter and could have had a career as an artist. She was a big reader. Wilson ran every speech and article by her. She was quick to make clever comments on things he did. He was always beholden to her and hers digestions and trusted her implicitly. When they got married, she gave up her art career and painted a little in the white house for one year. She was interesting. She was a genuinely interesting woman. She was the first socially active first lady that we have had. We think of alan roosevelt. Eleanor roosevelt. Wilson was the first to take on a social cause in washington, that was the slums and she thought the way the African Americans in the city lived was appalling and she would drag members of congress through the alleys of washington to see what is happening. On her deathbed, she called out to wilson to have legislation. , just momentsid before they died. I think their attitudes were similar. Put ourselves in the 19th century and not the 20th century. Again, did not want to keep blacks down. He believed in separate but equal. It had to work for a while. He did not think the country was ready to integrate. He thoughtthe case, that if everything was equal, that is fine. That being said, during the administration, things were not that equal. He segregated be Treasury Department and the post office. The conditions for black workers were different than those for the white workers. Here is what he is guilty of, he did nothing about it. He looks the other way and he let it be. That is a shame. Said, yout being know, he was aware of the problem. What did she die of . A kidney ailment. Dialysis, she would have lived a longer and happier life. She died a year after the wilsons arrived. How long was he president of princeton . He entered princeton as a professor in 1890 and in 1902, he became the president of the college. Wilson waso 1910, the president. How long was the governor of new jersey . What about two years. Less than two years. 17 or 18 months. In that case, Woodrow Wilson ic rise. Ad a meteor ri this is a man who is the president of a small mens college and was elected president of the United States. He never ran for office before. He ran for the governorship of new jersey and he had a remarkable two years. There are three things that you said about him. He could not see out of one eye. Golfayed 1200 rounds of when he was president , more than any in history. Do not forget eisenhower and, he was the last president to write his own speeches. How much evidence do you have question mark have . There is a lot of evidence. Shorthandger learned and typed. Law, hewas practicing had his own typewriter and they were wonderful contraptions that were simple and complicated at the same time. They are splendid little machines. Oft we have our documents wilsons shorthand notes from important speeches that he gave. The 1917 speech that asked for a declaration of war. The one with the phrase the world must be safe for democracy. Is in shorthand. That is in shorthand. And you canrections see the subsequent draft after that. There is plenty of evidence that he wrote all of his own speeches and, i should add, that a lot of the speeches were not written. His Campaign Speeches he was a brilliant order order in a r and a speaker orato natural speaker. He would go up with a card and talk extemporaneously for 1. 5 hours. Some people would transcribe the speeches, so we have copies of them. I almost never came across a grammatical error or a problem in syntax. That was not fully and naturally formed. Raph that was not fully and naturally formed. Ly. Just thought oratorical the white house was different in 1912 and then it is today. Grayson,dr. , dr. Recognized that this was a sick man. He did not realize the full extent. There was things developing. At what point . He was having small strokes at the turnofthe century when he was a College Professor at princeton and when he became president , he had was, nobreakdown that doubt, strokeintroduced. Needed toaid that he take a long vacation to calm down and he did. Anyone who dealt with him knew that this is a man who needed to relax and who needed fresh air and needed to walk. A doctor said, very cleverly am a unique do some regular you need cleverly, to do some regular exercise. They didnt know it. They really didnt. 1919, when wilson collapses and has a stroke in the white house, this was kept from the world for months and months. It dribbled out a bit. A doctor spoke to the press. When did he lose sight in one of his eyes . Princeton, ast well. That was a minor stroke. He did not lose it totally. Andost a lot of vision there was one day, i can, when he was a professor, where he woke up feeling fine and then realized that he had no vision in his eye. There was his history of medical , iff and, needless to say he was alive, it would have been vetted and he would not have gotten elected. Meeting withbout dr. Graysons son. With dean. T talk about those people. How important was it to your research . Most important was my mother. For all sorts of reasons. I grew up,les, where my mother was a great fan and a student of history. When i was 15, she handed me a wonderful book called when the cheering stopped. Role thatabout the mrs. Wilson played in the white house after her husband had a stroke. The first mrs. Wilson had been dead and her papers youre talking with the second mrs. Wilson. Edith. Related to the jewelers in washington. Upon reading this book, i became mesmerized and was entranced by again, the romance and the idealism. This was a real thinker in the white house. That really intrigued me. Was a big book . It was not. Journalistwas not a or a historian. That is what makes the book so great. It has a real drive to it and is an exciting read. At 15, i was falling in love with f scott fitzgerald. Don quixote. They were all idealists. My mother was reading fitzgerald and had a passion for him. Andrew scott. Ive never used andrew, i have always used scott. People i have lived here long enough to know who he was. What was his son like . Actually, dr. Graysons son, yeah. He was a lovely man. He was the most gentlemanly virginia gentleman i have ever met. Kerry t. Grayson jr. It was this humanizing element that they gave me. This was a caring man who was a and had a real tenderness towards the people in his life. He can be strict. Him, when he felt betrayed, he never spoke to them whenever saw them again. Or never saw them again. , wholosest friends succeeded him as president of princeton, was one of them. Wilson in arayed trustee meeting, wilson never spoke to him again. The colonel was not a kernel. How did he get the name . He was a tennessee colonel. Colonel. To call me you do not have to call me colonel. He was an honorary colonel in texas. He was a landowner. Politicsel house loved and became wilsons closest adviser in the white house. And in foreigny affairs. For years. Nseparable colonel house betrayed him in paris during the peace conference. When wilson left the peace , and colonel house was there for every minute, they said goodbye and that was the last time wilson saw him or spoke to him. You said that edith did not like colonel house. Edith wilson did not like colonel house. They colonel house like her . He had a wonderful relationship with the president. Time, the president loses his first wife and marries his second. Now, he sees that someone new has entered into the president s life and colonel house was resentful. It was starting to play a role in the president s life and they were inseparable. Mrs. Wilson attended meetings with the president. He briefed her on everything he was doing. Though that hes knew that something would happen to him and she would have to know all of these things. It is quite ironic. Time, mrs. Wilson always doubted colonel house and thought he was a sycophant. Anyone agree can with another man as much as colonel house agreed with my husband . You talk about the romance gault. Th go back to that. How long did it take . Is an amazing story. The world is blowing up as this is going on and the world has gone to war. The greatest conflagration that the world had yet seen. Here is the president of the who is so despond it over the loss of his first wife that he can only barely get out of bed. It is his sense of duty and responsibility on his shoulders. Grayson,r, dr. Arranged htx meeting with this meeting withhance liked dresses and mutually jewelry. Wilson wanted to be in love and married. He needed a woman by his side. When he was courting her in the white house, where did she live . She was in town, in , she still and showed up at the Jewelry Store that her late husband had started. Who went with them when they were dating . There will be a chaperone. Who, upon thesin, death of his first wife, the came the head mistress in the white house. Wilson had three daughters and one or the other would be in town and might chaperone. Accompany themht de. A car wide car ri he knew that he wanted to marry her. He forced himself upon her and she kept resisting. This was something that i try to do. I try to piece together her background. Her first marriage was loveless. Not unhappy, but, marriage without passion. She did not know or love herself. She was in her 40s and she had figured that she would have a happy and long widowhood. Love came knocking on the door in the form of the president of the United States and that had baggage. Suddenly, you are known to the entire world. They kept the courtship as secret and as private as they could. Mostly, that was wilson, to protect her, until she was ready to commit. Within a year, they were married. Think it was proper to do it in the white house and he did not want to make a state wedding out of it. They had a small family wedding. Such an honorable speech. , theres not a mention of war, there is an allusion to it. He stands up and says that he is going to war. He ran saying that he was not going to send people to a foreign war. How does he end up being so well respected . He kept us out of war. That was his slogan. Who is responsible for that . Nobody had ever uttered it. There was a speech at the Democratic Convention in which they were talking one of the speakers was talking about the howory of president s and you sometimes go to war and sometimes do not. It became one of those things that got forged in the Campaign Literature and Campaign Speeches. It became a motto that caught on. Did he know, when he ran for a second term, that he was going to have to go to war . Yes. He definitely knew. Beginning, he did everything he could to keep the United States out of the war. Almost everybody tried to keep the war from happening. This was an incident that should not have grown into a world war. T was about personalities over the next two years, wilson began to see the inevitability. F american entry into the war the germans were torpedoing ships and american lives are being lost. We had to respond somehow. Wilson try to do it diplomatically, three series of memoranda and notes. They were going back and forth all the time. At a certain point, it was a question of honor. The war, for us, started when . 1917. Begins in april of shortly after the speech to congress. Ends when . 1918. The tree discussions were during when . The president of the United States decide to leave the and,ry in december of 1918 ,xcept for a brief trip home between december of 1918 and june 1919, the president of the United States is not here. The strokes that incapacitated him happens when . Inthe following summer, september. The stroke is in october. Western civilization lay prostrate from the most convulsive four years it had ever known. Had longsties dominated much of the world and they had fallen. This was incredible. The world and never seen anything like this. What was the reason for . Why did we get in it . Because Woodrow Wilson felt that we had to get in. That was because Woodrow Wilson felt that this could be the war that ended all wars. Points we adopted his 14 , the 14th of which was the league of nations and an International Parliament with every country sitting at a problemse solving before they explode into wars. It was wilsons rhetoric that push us in. He wanted to add a moral component to u. S. Foreignpolicy and the world at large. We should be guided by a morale it. Morality. Said, Theodore Roosevelt was pushing us into the war from the beginning. He said that we need to get into this thing. Autocracies that we have to see the end of. Wilson avoided that. He did not want that and put it off as long as he could. 1915 and 1916, the lusitania begins toand wilson see that the germans will not let up and it is inevitable that we have to get into this war. You can see him starting to mobilize the country with materials and intellectually. Beyond ournk provinces. You have done several books. You have done several books. , maxfirst book was perkins, senator of genius editor of genius. This book was published in 1917 1978. A mentor of fs scott fitzgerald. He five of the most important writers in the United States and around the world between the two world wars. 25 of the most important writers in the United States around the world between the two world wars. He moved to a place called hardwood and manufactured the american dream. 1998 was the bloomberg book. Berg book. He fit into a pattern. I find it interesting to write biographies of 20th Century American cultural figures. I would like to write about people where each one is from a different part of the country in a different sliver of the apple pie. Samuel goldman was a polish illiterate. Charles lindbergh was a midwestern figure from the heartland. Theke to think about metaphors of 20 Century America and who is the most romantic embodiment of the airplane . Trolls Bloomberg Charles lindberg. Is theother thing i find erg. Rity about lindb there are people who worship this man or demonize him and think he is a horror of the 20th century. He was neither a god nor a devil. He was a flawed and moral human being. That was in 1998. Year . Ine hepburn, what 2003. She asked if i could write a book about her. Often. Met quite i would take notes and she would send me upstairs. I put together this book and after she died, the book was published. Talkingook that we are about, on Woodrow Wilson, 13 years. 13 years. 12 and change. Lindbergh, iarles might say the same things about Woodrow Wilson. A lot of people think he is a great core of the 20 century and illogical biggie is a great mind. Horror of the 20th century and a lot of people think he is a great mind. I had not written about a politician or a governmental figure. And, this is a big part of wilsons story, is his role in higher education. One could and some have, written about the influence that he had on higher education. Which of your books has sold the most . Remembered sold the most. The book as close to her death as i could. I was never sure why she said that. As soon as it came out, i realized that the reason she said that is that there will be a hunger among her fans to read about her. You talk about how religious Woodrow Wilson was. He was the son of a presbyterian minister. Ascension,dings, reformation,egon, deliverance, gethsemane, resurrection. What is that all about . Is there a through line . Is, woodrowbout wilson is not a savior, why, it occurred to me that, as i was researching this, that this was a man who got on his knees twice a day to pray and was the great grandson etc. , of presbyterian churchrs he went to every sunday ministers. He went to church every sunday of his life. I came up with one or two of these titles because they fit. The first one i came up with was on the war. I was going to call it armageddon. Another onehad about wilson where he had no knowledge of politics. Said, that was really a baptism by fire. That is why i began to piece them together. Most of what you will see all words that have meanings the on the bible. Such as, ascension. Is apter of my book snapshot of wilson going to see that thiscan was the greatest hero who ever walked the earth. The reception was a march of triumph. Here is a 30 seconds of his voice. We stand in the presence of an awakened nation. It is a new age. There are two great things. Justice andt up tariffs and the prevention of monopolies. The business of government is to separate special and particular interests from the general interests. No video of him speaking . There is no sound on film. That does not happen until 1926 or 1927. Wilson was dead in 1924. There are several speeches fronted of him sitting in of a microphone and you do not get the impact of what a great order that he was. Orator he was. You miss the magic. The most dynamic speaker of the day. You quoted the secretary of state yes. Lansing was the third secretary thetate, until the end of administration in 1919. Stroke, youad the quoted lansing as saying that Woodrow Wilson it was a tyrant. Woodrow wilson accepted his resignation. What was that about . About a couple of things. Wilson was his own secretary of state. Lansing was his second secretary of state. Williams Jennings Bryan was the first. Left because he did not let the way that wilson responded to the lusitania and was starting to get too bellicose and did not like that. In and realized she was a notetaker for wilson. Policy. Y forged the lansing went over to paris. Lansing thought he could have negotiated and he ended up doing almost nothing. Whenever he offered advice, wilson was not interested. Lansing could not wait to get out and it was his sense of duty they kept him in as long as he did. You talk about the stroke in public colorado. When was that . Lynn woolsey came back from paris, there is a peace treaty that they had spent six months negotiating and everything was talking and rage go. Ready to go. The one thing that wilson had not considered was the fact that peace treaties had to be ratified by the senate. He had not considered it to the extent where the politics would come into play. He knew all about it and he knew the senate had to ratify it. He did not realize that what that meant was that in the six months that he was gone, his republican enemies had a whole battle plan for when he returned that there was no way that anything you bought that would pass. The dislikeon is similar to the dislike of barack obama . I dont want to be glib and say it was worse. It might have been. It was real intense. Won this war and was the greatest here on earth. The democrats had won the war and the republicans became convinced that they could not let them win the peace. They said that they needed to negotiate the peace. You got political . Lyrical political . When he realized that the senate was not going to ratify the treaty, he went on a 29 city tour. He collapsed in pueblo, colorado. He had given a speech on his way to kansas. Dr. Grayson came into the train compartment in the dead of summer. It was deadly. Grayson said the tour is over and we needed to end it. Washingtonack to and, a few days after they returned in early october of 1919, wilson had his stroke. One of the issues has been wilsonson edith reaching for a power grab. She didnt reach for a power , she did not want anything to affect her husbands health. She did not want to be the president of the United States, she did not want anyone to disturb the suffering resident of the United States. The doctor suggested to her that the resident has been briefing her on everything and perhaps, you should be running the white house. Half,e last year and a nobody saw the president and no documents one before the president s eyes unless it first went through mrs. Wilson. How did the media cover the president s illness . Rather respectfully. Goodwillnked a lot of and the press loved wilson. He was the first president to have press conferences, for example. He was clever with them. They like that. He press was very sympathetic they saw that he had been on an exhausting tour. He was changing hearts and minds think, country and, i they were very tender in the beginning. Where isit was like, the president . No one has seen the president in some time. The senate began to wonder, especially the republicans. Hate to kick a man when hes down, where is the president . Causedmuch of that was by the fact that he would not see them . He could not see them. Months,eks turned into a said, we would like to see the president. Is she alive . They sent a Small Committee of two to see the president. His left side was paralyzed and he could not see out of one eye. He had 13 breakdowns. Why didnt somebody say that it is time to step down . That is the question of the hour. Is, while it was edith wilsonrab, did step forward and say, if you take the presidency away, that will kill the president. Grayson was going with that too. I suggest that they are conspiracy. D had a things were not spelled out and we did not have the 25th amendment about residential succession. It was all very vague in 1919. It was up to mrs. Wilson and the doctors to make that decision. Talk about the vice president. That was another reason why they did it. With all due respect to thomas dewey marshall, he was a fool. Washington. E in the rumor has it that he had , vicess cards that said president and toastmaster. He is a guy who loves being vice president. It required nothing. Did he have any relationship with Woodrow Wilson . He almost never saw him. He was invited to cabinet meetings. Hen marshall realized that was sitting in the background was not asked to speak and no one was listening when he did. Who was responsible for the false report that he had died . Stroke, while he was out to be speeches around the country, he was a charming speaker and before he was giving it was a i believe local story that said that the president had dies. Died. Marshall got in from the audience and said, let us all take a moment and think about the president and pray together. The legend in washington was heard that marshall the president had died, he fainted. Of how bad off Woodrow Wilson was, he thought he could run for a third term. I want to ask you about joseph ty. D the tumul he got excited when they found out that Woodrow Wilson had negro blood . That is a racist moment. Lets take that. It was a racist moment. It was a racist country. It is still a racist country, and large man by large measure. One only need to open the paper. Ama,ou look up barack ob you see the racist filth out there. And thea racist country notion, in 1920, that the president of the United States might have some black blood, well, this would have been the end of his career. Explain this. If you still religious and read the bible, how could you have that attitude towards a fellow human . Is it all rationalization . I think it is largely rationalization. This is Woodrow Wilson had a onher who quote of the bible the justification for slavery. Who had slaves . And ediths father wilsons family. If you go back enough ,enerations i take that back the wilsons were not true southerners. The reverend came from ohio. The south,ve down to he became more southern than these others. Think that he would be pleased to see that there is a united nations. I think youd be troubled i is. K how weak it he imagined it could be and he would be troubled because he wanted to work. Have you decided on your next person to write about . I have not decided. I will have to decide on whether or not i can say to my plan. Anave written about easterner, a westerner, a northerner, a southerner. Northwest and find a female mathematician . The subjects i pick tell a bigger story. Tose these lies as lenses get a panorama shot of 20th Century America. What are your brothers involved in . Show business . Three of my brothers are in show business. Wholder brother is an agent ran a Talent Agency and started his own smaller agency. I have another brother who is a musician and a record producer. I have a youngest brother who is a manager and a Film Producer in los angeles. My father is no longer with us. My mother is. She studied history. Do still have the book, when the cheering stopped. I do. It is a lovely book. What is your favorite thing about doing this book . That iavorite thing was had been familiar with wilson since i was 15 and have been reading and writing about him ever since. Getting it all out is a relief and a pleasure. The greatest thrill and pleasure was to bring some humanity to this man. The good and the bad about him. He is a fascinating human being. Our guest has been a. Scott wilson. Author of thank you. Thank you. For a dvd copy of this. Rogram, call our number for a free transcript, visit us nda. Org programs are also available as a podcast. Tonight, british Prime Minister David Cameron takes questions. Then immigration policy, then, another chance watch q a. Trying to maintain family time, Eva Roosevelt purchased land. Close enough to d. C. That he could get out here as often as needed, but far enough away for wilderness. It was unique to the roosevelt