American Experience (1988–…): Season 14, Episode 4 - Woodrow Wilson: Episode One - A Passionate Man - full transcript

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On an afternoon
in the spring of 1920,

Woodrow Wilson, the president
of the United States,

was led through the White House.

Wilson had suffered
a devastating stroke.

Unable to perform his duties,



the president instead spent
his time watching old newsreels

that the Secret Service screened

for him and friends
like journalist Ray Baker.

The moving picture machine
behind us

began to click and sputter.

With the first
brilliantly lighted episode,

we were in another world.

There we were, sailing grandly
into the harbor at Brest.

There was the president himself,
smiling upon the bridge.

By magic,
we were transported to Paris.

There he was again,

driving down the most famous
avenue in the world.

And there was the president
at Buckingham Palace

with the king of England.

The newsreels were testimony
to the man Wilson had once been.

Well, I think there's
no question that he was

one of the five greatest
presidents in American history.

He has that rare combination,
which he shares with...

certainly with Jefferson
and with Lincoln.

That is, he was a tremendously
effective, practical politician

and a very deep thinker.

Woodrow Wilson defined
the basic contours

of American foreign policy,
for better or worse, ever since.

Virtually every American
president since Wilson's time

has, in one degree or another,
been a Wilsonian.

Wilson seemed cold
and aloof in public,

but in private,
he was deeply emotional.

Wilson really needed
a companion and a lover.

The relationship between Ellen
and Woodrow is probably

among the most romantic
in presidential history.

He was very academic,
those steel-rimmed glasses,

he always seemed very serious,

but he was an extremely
passionate person.

He cultivated a reputation

as an intellectual
who relied on hard facts,

but Wilson's greatest source
of guidance was his faith.

He believed
that he was directed by God

and he frequently said so.

He thought that God had made him

president of the United States.

And yet the most important
mission of Wilson's life...

Creating a League of Nations
to spread democracy...

Ended in failure.

He was a man who believed

in this extraordinarily
difficult goal,

and when he knew
that he wouldn't get there,

the moment must have been
devastating for him.

It was during his fight
for the league

that Wilson suffered
the debilitating stroke.

From that moment on,
it was Wilson's wife

who secretly performed many
of the duties of the president.

No one really knew
what was going on.

The word "stroke"
was never mentioned;

certainly the word "paralyzed"
was never mentioned,

and the American public

was kept, effectively,
in the dark.

On the banks of the Savannah
river lies Augusta, Georgia.

The night of May 14, 1865,

the president of the
Confederacy, Jefferson Davis,

was brought through the town
in chains,

on his way to a Union prison.

Many townspeople turned out
to witness the somber spectacle.

One was an eight-year-old boy
named Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

No event dominated Wilson's
childhood like the Civil War.

Nearly every family he knew had
a relative killed or wounded.

Now, as the president
of the Confederacy rolled past,

crushed and defeated,

young Tommy
and everyone else who watched

knew that life in the South
could never be the same.

The South,
when Wilson was a boy,

was the only part
of the United States

which has ever had a modern war,
a modern total war.

It had been ruined.

The social structure had been
just totally overturned.

It's a completely
overturned world.

And especially for white folks

and for better-off white people
like the Wilsons,

they've got to find a new way.

In a land in ruins,

the one institution left
to pick up the pieces

was the church.

Tommy's father, Joseph Wilson,
was a preacher

at one of the most prominent
congregations in the South.

Come now with me, to lift up,
after my manner, the fallen.

Joseph Wilson was
a Presbyterian,

who taught his son that God had
put Christians into the world

not to withdraw from it,
but to make it a better place.

Let us reinstate

the righteous rule of the Father

throughout the broken
and disordered family

to which you and I both belong.

He told Tommy that God wanted
him to work tirelessly

to help rebuild a country
devastated by war.

Growing up
with a Presbyterian father

would give a boy a sense

that goodness isn't something
that you measure

in terms of your own personal
behavior alone.

Wilson's father would give
him an idea that the true test

was making the world a place
where justice, where goodness

had a better and bigger place
than it had

before he came on the scene.

It's a difficult matter
to live with, but it's one

that once you get the stamp
in your childhood,

you never lose it
for the rest of your life.

For all of his father's
expectations,

Tommy Wilson was not
a promising student.

At the age of ten,
he still could not read.

Some put it down to laziness,

others to a lack
of intelligence.

But the real reason
was far more complicated.

As near as we can tell,
young Tommy Wilson suffered

from a form of dyslexia.

And this is something
that nobody knew existed

in those days.

The term wouldn't even be coined

until the middle
of the 20th century.

A lot of people in the family
thought he was kind of slow,

that this was not
a very bright boy.

"He was not like other boys,"
one neighbor said.

"He had a queer way
of going off alone."

With few friends,
Tommy was deeply dependent

on his relationship
with his parents.

His father never lost
faith in him.

It's very interesting.

His father stuck with him.

I think that may have had
a lot to do

with his being able
to overcome dyslexia.

Joseph Wilson was determined

to compensate
for his son's inability to read.

He spent hour after hour
with Tommy,

drilling him
in the art of debate

and teaching him to perform
the speeches of great orators

like Daniel Webster.

His father was very important
in directing Wilson

toward serious use of English...

Picking the precise word,
speaking with eloquence,

turning his attention

to persuading people
of his own ideas.

And it was that kind of thing
that captured the boy's fancy.

His mother, Jessie, came
from the Woodrows of Ohio,

a well-educated,
socially prominent family.

Jessie did everything in her
power to convince her son

that he was capable of living up
to the Woodrow family name.

Tommy was Jessie
Woodrow Wilson's favorite

among all her children

and she gave him a kind
of supportive, uncritical love

that I think made him strong
and self-confident.

For some reason or other,
from a very, very early age,

this is a person
of tremendous self-confidence.

When he was 16, Tommy heard
about a new invention

called "shorthand."

It was a way to bypass reading

by using a "code"
to record ideas on paper.

Wilson practiced day after day
until he had mastered it.

With the boost
shorthand gave his grades,

he managed to gain admission
to Princeton,

one of the top schools
in the country.

Tommy remained a slow reader,

but he excelled in the areas
where his real skills lay.

He joined the debate team,
and after one victory

wrote to his father,
"I have made a discovery.

I have found
that I have a mind."

Yet anyone observing
Tommy Wilson

would have thought
he was majoring in baseball.

As a boy, he had written a
detailed rule book for the game.

Now, he organized a pickup team
called "The Bowery Boys."

The boys played baseball
every, single day of the week

and sometimes twice.

Wilson's other passion
was politics.

He often got into arguments
with his classmates

over the legacy
of the Civil War.

He believed it was time
to withdraw Northern troops

and give control of the region
back to white Southerners.

"One night, we sat up 'til dawn
talking about it,"

a Northern classmate said,

"he taking the Southern side
and getting quite bitter."

Wilson wrote his parents
that the taunts from Northerners

made him so angry he wanted
to physically attack them.

The intense debates
stoked Tommy's interest

in a career in politics.

He drilled himself daily
in the art of oratory

so that, as he put it,

"I would be able to lead others
into my way of thinking."

Why did Wilson pick
politics and government?

Well, it was because he wanted,
he dreamed of becoming

a major statesman,
using politics to gain office

and using office, uh,
to persuade men

about how to live and con...
and order their lives.

To appear more distinguished,

he began using his middle name,
Woodrow, instead of Tommy.

He even began handing out
calling cards

that said
"Woodrow Wilson, Senator."

The first time I saw your face
was in church one morning...

In April, wasn't it?

I remember thinking,
"What a bright, pretty face.

"What splendid, laughing eyes.

"I'll lay a wager that
this demure little lady

has lots
of life and fun in her."

At 26, while attending church
in Rome, Georgia,

Wilson's eyes alighted on Ellen
Axson, a minister's daughter.

Ellen was highly intelligent
and a talented artist,

whose work had won a medal
at an exhibition in Paris.

Painting was a refuge from
the harsh realities of her life.

When Ellen was 21,
her mother died,

leaving her to care
for three younger siblings.

Then her father, who suffered
from manic depression,

was confined
to a mental hospital,

where he committed suicide.

All the while,
Ellen clung to her dream

of establishing
an art school for women,

which would enable her

both to earn a living
and pursue her art.

It is possible that
my talent for art,

combined with
my talent for work,

might, after many years,
win me a place

among the first rank
of American artists.

Well, one of the things

that amazes me most
about Ellen Wilson

was not just that she seems to
have been an outstanding artist,

even as a young woman,

but she had the independence
to follow up on it.

She, uh, entered juried shows.

She was represented by one
of the outstanding agents

in New York City.

Her work was acquired

by some of the outstanding
museums in the country.

Her oils of landscapes
are outstanding, I think.

"Autumn" is the one
that most people talk about,

really beautiful colors.

Even at the time
that Woodrow met her,

she certainly understood that
she had artistic potential.

A cousin said that
if Ellen ever married,

the man would probably be
of no consequence,

since smart men were rarely
interested in women

who were
their intellectual equals.

But Woodrow Wilson was eager

for the love and support
of a strong woman like Ellen,

and he began revealing
a side of himself to her

that few people ever saw.

He gave the impression
to the people he met

very definitely
of being a cold fish,

but he was
a deeply passionate man.

He was passionate in
his relationship with women.

He was passionate in his
relationship with his God.

All that came from a kind
of a much repressed

but inward highly burning fire.

Far from being a cold fish,

far from being
a "thinking machine,"

as he once joked
that people thought he was,

this was a very warm,
uh, passionate,

in some ways hot man.

I mean, he liked women
very, very much, indeed.

Wilson launched an all-out
campaign to win Ellen's love.

When she went to New York
to paint,

he wrote her letters
nearly every day.

Soon, I will come myself
to claim you,

to take possession of you,

of all the time and love
you can give me;

to take you in my arms
and hold you.

I tremble with a deep excitement
while I think of it.

The letters
he was writing to her

were just filled with
his love, you know, with poetry,

with, uh, expressions
of how much she meant to him.

It must have been... it must
have swept her off her feet.

In Woodrow, Ellen saw not only
passion but ambition.

Here was a young man who
was determined to go places

and she wanted to go with him.

Suppose it were as great
a sacrifice to give up my art

as you imagine;

my darling must know that it
would be a pitiable price to pay

for such a love as his.

In the time that Ellen Wilson
married Woodrow,

that's what a woman did.

A woman who married, uh,
put all of her energy

to making a home for him,
to making him happy,

and Woodrow took a lot of...
a lot of work.

He was a very demanding husband.

Ten months
after they were married,

Ellen gave birth
to a daughter, Margaret.

Jessie and Nellie soon followed.

Besides caring
for her daughters,

Ellen focused
on Woodrow's career.

From the start
of their courtship,

she had known of his dream
of winning political office.

But she also knew
that it would be hard

for a would-be politician
to support a family.

The couple agreed

that Woodrow should become
a professor instead.

Wilson enrolled
in graduate school

at Johns Hopkins University.

When his doctoral thesis
was published,

it received glowing reviews in
newspapers across the country.

America's federal government was
dangerously weak, Wilson argued,

and needed to be strengthened.

He'd got fascinated with,
"How do politics really work?"

That was his one subject
entirely, throughout his life

was, "How does power
really work?"

And, in turn,
"How can I wield it?"

Wilson wanted to wield power.

When he was just 33,

Wilson was offered
a full professorship

at his alma mater, Princeton.

He became
an enormously popular teacher.

In seven out of eight years,
he was voted favorite professor.

"We came into contact with
a mind rich with knowledge,"

one student said.

"No one could touch him
as a lecturer."

At the end of his classes,

Wilson was often given
a standing ovation.

Professor Wilson's lectures
addressed the growing gap

between the haves
and the have-nots in America

in the early 1890s.

Captains of industry

like the Rockefellers,
Carnegies and Morgans

had become fabulously wealthy,

while the majority of American
workers lived in poverty.

Wilson was deeply influenced

by a book of photographs
by Jacob Riis,

titled How the Other Half Lives.

Riis's photographs had created
a national sensation

by exposing the squalor
in which many Americans lived.

There had been economic and
social and political inequity

in this country,
certainly since the Civil War.

The depression of 1894, however,

brought to the fore
in glaring terms

the level of inequity
that existed.

When you have a depression

in which 20% of the American
people are unemployed,

thousands of businesses
are going under,

thousands of banks
are going under,

you have to begin to question
whether this corporate elite

is really running the show

in the most equitable
and wise fashion.

Across the nation,

rapidly growing populist
and socialist movements

were demanding real change.

But the corporate elite
refused to budge.

Open warfare between strikers
and union busters

threatened to shut down
factories and coal mines.

Many feared that the nation
was about to descend into chaos.

Professor Wilson
was one of the few

who had a practical solution:

Give America's government new
power to rein in big business.

He came to the conclusion

that the government
of the United States

really did have to respond
to these problems...

That there was
a kind of social compact

between the people
and the government,

and working people
were "the people."

He was a bit fearful, also,

that if neither
of the major parties

responded more forthrightly,

then we were asking for bigger
trouble down the road.

If you didn't let some steam out
of the pot

it was going to blow up
in your face.

Wilson's articles in magazines
like Harper's

attracted nationwide attention,

and offers to speak to political
clubs and civic organizations

began to pour in.

Modern industry
has so distorted competition

as to put it into the power
of some to tyrannize over many

and enable the rich and strong
to combine

against the poor and weak.

He apparently had

an extraordinary effect
on audiences.

And his voice was powerful
and very moving.

And I think when he spoke

he put his whole heart and soul
into it

and enjoyed it very much.

I think he was probably
at his best when he spoke.

Soon, a buzz began to spread
about the eloquent Mr. Wilson.

Before long, he was the most
famous man at Princeton.

Few were surprised when, at 46,

he was named president
of the college.

But Joseph Wilson believed

that God had even greater plans
for his son.

"This is only the beginning
of a very great career,"

he told all who would listen.

The family settled into the
president's house at Princeton.

Soon after,
Joseph Wilson moved in, too.

Each evening,
Woodrow regaled his father

with stories from his day
and sought his advice.

♪ A mighty fortress
is our God... ♪

Then, suddenly,
Joseph became seriously ill.

Woodrow spent every moment
he could with him

and sang him to sleep
each night.

♪ ...His kingdom is forever. ♪

On January 21, 1903,
Joseph Wilson died.

It has quite taken
the heart out of me

to lose my lifelong friend
and companion.

He is gone, and a great
loneliness is in my heart.

No generation ahead of me now;
I am in the firing line.

The family would soon suffer
another loss.

When Ellen's youngest brother,
Eddie, was ten,

he had come to live
with Woodrow and Ellen,

and they came to think of him
as the son they never had.

In the spring of 1905, Eddie,
his wife and young son drowned.

Woodrow turned to his faith
to see him through the loss.

But Ellen was by nature
more introspective,

and she could not
make sense out of a god

who would allow
such horrible things to happen.

Eddie's death sent Ellen
into a long and deep depression.

Woodrow found Ellen's dark mood
disconcerting

and urged her
to begin painting again.

But even her art could not
brighten Ellen's disposition.

I cannot somehow
shake off for a moment

the weight
it has laid upon my spirits.

All the more so, perhaps,
because for Woodrow's sake,

I must not show it.

He is almost terribly dependent
on me to keep up his spirits

and to "rest" him, as he says.

If I become
just for a moment blue,

then he becomes blue-black.

As a girl,
Ellen had been devastated

by her father's depression.

For the sake
of her own daughters,

she began making every effort
to resume a normal life.

During his early years
as president of Princeton,

Wilson continued
to receive invitations

from around the nation
to speak about political reform.

"He was time and again
overwhelmed with applause,"

the Baltimore Sun wrote,

"and had to wait

until the clapping ceased
to be heard again."

Harper's declared that Wilson

was a man the nation would
do well to pay attention to.

By any measure,

the Princeton president's
star was on the rise.

Then, on the morning
of May 28, 1906,

the Wilson household
was thrown into panic.

Woodrow awoke to discover

that he had lost sight
in one eye.

Ellen rushed him
to the hospital,

where doctors discovered
that the blood vessels

behind Wilson's left eye
had hemorrhaged.

Back home, Nellie
and her sisters waited anxiously

for news
of their father's condition.

We were at the door waiting
when they returned.

Father was calm, but after
one look at Mother's face,

we knew that something
dreadful had happened.

Not until he had gone upstairs
did she tell us

that the doctor's verdict was

that he must give up all his
work and live a retired life.

Worst of all,
there was no assurance

that he would ever again
regain his health completely.

It is impossible to describe

the panic and despair
that engulfed us.

The hemorrhage had been caused
by a severe case of hypertension

or high blood pressure.

Here is a man
who's 49 years old...

Relatively young...

Who already has a...
an advanced disease.

By the time we reach 1906,
this disease process

has already been ongoing
for at least a decade,

simply because you don't
get this type of finding

unless the disease has been
hanging around for a long time.

The problem is it then begins
to affect other organ systems

if it's left untreated.

You're talking about the heart,
the kidneys

and, most significantly,
the brain.

And the potential for that
is catastrophic, ultimately.

In 1906,

the only known treatment
for hypertension was rest.

His doctor recommended
that Wilson retire

if he wished to live.

Wilson decided
to take a leave from Princeton

and go to Britain to recuperate.

He began a strict regime
of exercise,

walking farther and farther
each day,

until he was hiking
up to 14 miles

across the English countryside.

With his sight returned
and his health improved,

he began to ponder his faith
and his future.

The Presbyterian faith
meant a great deal to Wilson

from the time that he
was first conscious of an idea

through the rest of his life.

He was a Calvinist in fact,
and always a Calvinist,

secure in the knowledge
that he was one of the elect...

One of God's agents,
he thought, on this earth.

By the end of his stay
in Britain,

Wilson had become convinced

that he had not yet fulfilled
God's plan for him.

He decided
that he would devote himself

to transforming Princeton,

even if it meant
risking his health.

College should not
be as many think it is,

a playground
for the sons of very rich men,

for they are not as apt to form
definite and serious purposes

as are those who know
they must whet their wits

for the struggle of life.

With the rise of a new class
of fabulously wealthy Americans,

Princeton had become a place

where the sons of the rich
could gain a bit of culture

without having to expend
too much effort...

A kind of country club.

Now Wilson wanted
to change all that.

He proposed building

a world-class graduate school
in the center of campus

to train the next generation
of American leaders.

To help attract serious
scholars, he planned to abolish

Princeton's fraternity-like
eating clubs,

filled with the school's
richest and laziest students.

But Princeton's wealthy alumni
were outraged

by Wilson's attacks
on their sons' beloved clubs

and threatened
to withhold their donations.

Rather than try to work out a
compromise, Wilson declared war.

Wilson had never found
opposition easy to handle.

He had this
extraordinary confidence

that his was the right,

that he was the special vehicle
of the Lord,

that he spoke the truth,

so that opposition
became almost in...

in that definition,
sacrilegious.

After all, Calvinism was
based upon a hatred

of the gaudy riches and laziness
of the Catholic Church.

None of that for Woodrow Wilson
at Princeton.

Wilson's education was moral
as much as it was intellectual.

Over the next four years,

Wilson spent a great deal
of time fighting the alumni,

but little time
building the support he needed.

Eventually,
his graduate school was built,

but far from the main campus.

The "upper-crust" eating clubs

remained at the center
of university social life.

Gradually, Wilson
came to bitterly resent

those who had opposed him.

Certainly this is
the same place to a stick

that I knew four years ago,

but I have changed
much more than it has.

I am constantly confronted

by specimens of the sort
I like least...

restless, rich,
empty-headed people.

I am glad to see them disappear
into the distance,

but very resentful that I must
have their dust in my nostrils.

They and their kind
are my worst enemies.

Wilson became so frustrated

that he began to think the time
had come to leave Princeton

and the job
that had suited him so well.

Ellen Wilson was responsible for
a household of ten at Princeton,

including her own daughters,
a niece of Woodrow's

and her own adult sister
and brother.

Her brother, Stockton,
was the most demanding,

for he suffered from the family
curse of manic depression.

During one of Stockton's
breakdowns,

Ellen revealed her burdens
to a friend.

I used to think it didn't matter
if you gave way, if no one knew.

But now, I do not dare
to give way a minute.

Both Stockton and Woodrow need
me to be strong all the time.

But the wear and tear of always
needing to be strong for others

made it difficult for Ellen

to be the lively companion
that Woodrow craved.

To keep her husband happy,

she began staging parties
where Woodrow could banter

with her more spirited
female friends.

But for Woodrow,
Ellen's parties were not enough.

He decided to take a break
from his battles at Princeton

and go to Bermuda.

Ellen stayed home

to look after Stockton
and her daughters.

In Bermuda, Wilson met
a witty, outgoing socialite

named Mary Peck.

Woodrow Wilson
was an academic with a Ph.D.

who was used to being around
academics and politicians.

And in walks Mary Peck,

who's vivacious, beautiful,
and... flirtatious.

I think she says something like,

"Because he did not smoke
or skate or swim,

he was drawn to women
like me, who did."

Peck introduced Wilson
to her friend Mark Twain

and invited Woodrow
to play golf with them.

Afterward,
Peck invited Wilson to her home,

though she, too, was married.

As they enjoyed the pleasures
of Bermuda together,

Wilson felt himself
drawn more and more to her.

There were hours

when I lost all of the
abominable self-consciousness

that has been my bane
all my life

and felt perfectly at ease...

happily myself.

God was very good
to send me such a friend,

so perfectly satisfying
and delightful.

So delectable.

She was a lovely, sympathetic,

interesting, interesting person,
interesting woman.

Something happened there.

Some kind of love affair
began between the two of them.

We don't know how far it went.

Probably rather far,

just given Wilson's own
rather passionate nature.

When Wilson returned home,

he and Mary continued
to write to each other.

Eventually, Ellen learned
about their correspondence.

She... confronted Wilson,
but not in a fighting way.

And what she was able to do was
to get him to back off.

Well, Ellen
must have been very upset

about the relationship
that Woodrow had with Mary Peck.

But to maintain his path
to his career,

she put a good face on it...

Made out that Mary
was a friend of the family

and she had no objection
to their friendship.

However, we do know
that it caused pain

for all people concerned,
especially Ellen.

She was grief-stricken by this

and Wilson was guilt-stricken

and ultimately decided to taper
off the relationship with Mary.

And Ellen
eventually forgave him,

and they went on from there.

One morning in April of 1910,

a well-known journalist
arrived at Princeton.

Ray Baker had taken on
the role of scout

for the progressive movement,
and was traveling the country

in search of a new leader
to fight for its agenda.

Progressives were concerned
that the focus on wealth

and the focus on a top elite
garnering all of the wealth

had taken attention away

from the purpose
of the United States,

which was supposed to be
a democratic society

in which the maximum
number of people joined

in making decisions.

Baker had heard about
Wilson's battles at Princeton.

He wondered
if the outspoken professor

might be a potential progressive
candidate for president in 1912.

Baker spent two hours
with Wilson,

assessing his potential
as a politician.

I left Princeton convinced
that I had met

the finest mind to be found
in American public life.

And yet, I concluded that he
was politically impossible.

Was he not wholly without
practical experience?

He did not know the leaders
of his own party in New Jersey

or even in his own town.

I did not believe in miracles.

Baker may have been unwilling
to bet on Wilson,

but not the New Jersey
Democratic boss,

"Sugar" Jim Smith.

Smith was a charming Irishman,

who was rumored to have taken
more than his share of bribes.

He was desperate to find someone

who could win
the New Jersey governorship

by appealing
to progressive voters,

but who was politically naive
enough to be easily manipulated.

Boss Smith
offered Professor Wilson

the Democratic nomination
for governor.

Wilson immediately accepted.

But Ellen was less enthusiastic.

After seeing a New York
production of Macbeth,

she worried about
the physical cost to her husband

of unrestrained ambition.

Maybe these husbands
ought not to be encouraged

to get the things to which
their ambitions lead them.

I don't mean when the object
of their ambition is wrong

as in Macbeth's case.

But even when it is right,

it may wear out their strength
and spirit and health.

And yet they will never be happy
unless they get it.

In September of 1910,

Woodrow Wilson began
his campaign for governor.

I endorse the splendid program
of the progressives,

to put things forward
by fairness, by justice,

by a concern for all interests.

The election went just as
Sugar Jim Smith had planned.

Wilson led the Democrats
to a statewide sweep.

Immediately after
the new governor was sworn in,

Sugar Jim came calling
at the capitol

to give Wilson
his marching orders.

There is a great irony in
Wilson's entrance into politics,

which is that he comes in
as the tool of the bosses.

And they... they want Wilson
as a Trojan horse, really.

Well, turns out their
Trojan horse was a real horse.

In defiance of Smith,

Wilson introduced
four major reform bills:

an anticorruption law,
election reform,

new laws to regulate
corporations,

and workman's compensation.

"The whole country is watching

"the first session
of the New Jersey legislature

under Wilson with interest,"
the New York Times wrote.

"It is the beginning
of the combat

between him and the old system."

Sugar Jim still controlled many
of the votes in the legislature,

and he was confident

he would be able to teach
the professor a lesson.

But when Sugar Jim's supporters

gathered at a legislative caucus
to plan Wilson's defeat,

they were stunned when
the governor arrived in person

to confront them.

The legislators angrily told him

that his presence
was unconstitutional.

In response, Wilson whipped a
copy of the state constitution

out of his pocket
and cited the passage

that gave him
the right to be present.

Then he made an appeal

to what he called "their better,
unselfish natures."

Every one of the new governor's
reform bills passed.

Wilson was a great surprise
as a politician.

He had had no elected public
life before this moment.

He was the darkest
of dark horses.

But he was
a refreshing presence.

He was someone who spoke clearly
and emphatically,

and spoke truth to power
and denounced the bosses

and denounced the bankers and
the corporate titans and so on

in language
that was precise and eloquent

to a degree
that few others could do.

Wilson had served in elected
office for just two years,

but newspapers
across the country

were suddenly calling him
a contender for the White House.

"Why is Governor Woodrow Wilson
now frequently mentioned

as a Democratic candidate
for the presidency?"

the Rocky Mountain News asked.

"We think the answer
is to be found in two words:

progressiveness and courage."

The Democratic Convention
of 1912 took place in Baltimore.

The excited delegates
were convinced

that the White House
was within their grasp,

if only they could agree
on a candidate.

In three previous elections,
the Democrats had backed

Nebraska populist
William Jennings Bryan.

The Democratic Progressives

had run hard behind Bryan
three different times.

He'd lost all three times
by increasing margins,

and so they needed to find
someone who could win.

They needed somebody

who would not scare the richest,
most powerful people in society

who ran most of the newspapers
in America,

which was the mass media
at the time.

And they also wanted someone,
of course,

who was a true progressive.

Nine candidates had tossed
their hats in the ring.

The favorites were Wilson,

backed by reformers
in the North,

and Champ Clark,

darling of conservatives
and big city bosses.

Though William Jennings Bryan
was not running,

everyone knew that it would be
impossible to win the nomination

without his support.

For years, Bryan and Wilson

had held each other
in mutual contempt.

But then Ellen Wilson
stepped in.

Though she was ambivalent about
Woodrow's political ambitions,

Ellen was also fiercely loyal.

Without consulting her husband,
Ellen invited Bryan to dinner.

That evening, Wilson,
the Princeton intellectual,

and Bryan,
the Nebraska populist,

found out they had
a surprising amount in common.

I think any wife
who... who feels

that she understands so well
her husband's career

that she can arrange dinner
guests that fit those plans,

I think that shows an enormous
strength and independence.

And arranging a dinner
with anybody

as important as
a former candidate for president

and then telling your husband
to get home

because you had arranged it,
it shows a lot of guts.

Ellen made it possible
for Wilson to be Wilson.

She was very shrewd about how
to exploit opportunities.

Whenever he had
a great career change,

whenever he had
a great turning point,

Ellen's advice
was absolutely critical.

On June 27,
the delegates began voting

in the sweltering heat of
Baltimore's convention hall.

Round after round of balloting

produced deadlock
after deadlock.

The convention of 1912
in Baltimore

was one of the more exciting
political conventions

in American history...

Probably in world history,
for that matter.

It was very hot, of course,
it was July, it was Baltimore

before the days
of air conditioning,

so this didn't help matters.

You were involved in a circus

which at any moment could
break out into a fist fight.

With no end to the deadlock
in sight,

Woodrow Wilson headed
for the place he loved best.

While he was on the 18th tee
he got word

that the logjam at the
convention had started to break.

William Jennings Bryan

was throwing his support
behind Governor Wilson.

On the 46th ballot,

Wilson became the Democratic
nominee for president.

For all its drama,

the convention
was only the opening act

for one of the most exciting
presidential elections

America had ever seen.

To use a phrase
of Theodore Roosevelt,

the American voters,
especially middle-class voters,

were, in 1912,
in an heroic mood.

They were in heroic mood
demanding change.

It's one of the most significant
elections

in all of American history
because it's... it involves

a philosophical debate
about the nature of government

of a depth and a sophistication

that we've rarely seen
in American politics.

On the right
was the Republican candidate,

President William Howard Taft,
running for a second term

with strong support
from big business.

On the left
was socialist Eugene Debs,

who told his
millions of supporters

that it was time for the
working class to run America.

Two candidates were trying
to win the voters in the middle.

One was Wilson.

The other was former president
Theodore Roosevelt,

running as leader
of his new Bull Moose Party.

Both Roosevelt and Wilson
were reformers.

It was the only thing
they had in common.

Where Roosevelt was blustering
and charismatic,

Wilson often seemed cold
and distant.

Where Roosevelt was
a baby kisser and back slapper,

a reporter had once said

that shaking Wilson's hand
was like shaking a dead fish.

Wilson was painfully aware
of their differences.

He appeals to their imagination.

I do not.

He is a real, vivid person
who they have seen

and shouted themselves
hoarse for

and voted for, millions strong.

I am a vague,
conjectural personality,

more made up of opinions
and academic prepossessions

than of human traits
and red corpuscles.

I think they were two
very different personalities.

Roosevelt had a reputation of
being one of the most kinetic,

if not frantic political
personalities of his era.

Wilson was much more cerebral,
much more careful and precise.

But beneath
that scholarly demeanor of his

there was quite a passionate
individual,

passionate about politics,

often passionate
about his own personal life.

As Election Day neared,

the Roosevelt camp
came into possession

of one of Mary Peck's
steamy love letters to Wilson,

which was apparently stolen
from Wilson's luggage.

Roosevelt's advisers urged him

to release the letter
to the press.

But Roosevelt refused.

It was hopeless, he said,
to convince the public

that a man who looked
like a drugstore clerk

was, in reality, a Romeo.

They didn't release the letters,

and I think that's why
most people have trouble

seeing Woodrow Wilson
as this passionate man,

because he did look

like the druggist
on the corner, you know.

He was very academic,
those steel-rimmed glasses,

he always seemed very serious,

but he was an extremely
passionate person.

Wilson's best hope
against Roosevelt

was to speak to Americans
in person.

He crisscrossed the nation,

warning his audiences
that big business

was cutting average Americans
out of their fair share

of the nation's wealth.

We must choose
whether we shall continue

to have our affairs
dominated and determined

by small groups of men,

or whether we shall again assert

the individual independence
of the American people

in the conduct of their business
and their politics.

Wilson promised Americans

a "New Freedom,"
a new opportunity

for the average person
to get ahead in the world.

The difference between

Theodore Roosevelt
and Woodrow Wilson at that time

was that Woodrow Wilson

wanted to enact
a very tough antitrust law

to break up the big corporations
into smaller units.

Then the government
could sit back

and have a kind of
self-regulating economy,

so that smaller
business people...

"the man on the make,"
he used that phrase a lot...

Could have an opportunity to
realize their full potential.

This would be... is part of what
he meant by "the New Freedom."

Wilson spent Election Day at the
governor's home in New Jersey.

After dinner,
he read Ellen and his daughters

a poem by Browning

about the importance
of accepting God's will.

"Indeed, the especial marking
of the man

"Is prone submission
to the heavenly will...

Seeing it, what it is,
and why it is."

Nellie was the first
to hear the sound

that signaled
the outcome of the election.

I heard the first muffled tone

of the bell of old Nassau Hall.

Another moment, it was ringing
like a thing possessed.

I ran to one
of the front windows.

In all directions,
there were people coming.

Swarms had already
invaded the little garden

and were crowding
around the porch.

Swaying torches made
grotesque circles of light.

And there, a red glare shining
full on his face, was Father,

utterly, utterly unfamiliar.

He was no longer my father.

These people,

strangers, who had chosen him
to be their leader,

now claimed him.

He belonged to them.

On March 3, 1913,

the Wilsons arrived
in Washington

to celebrate Woodrow's
inauguration as president.

But the family had as much
to worry about as celebrate.

Wilson had won just 43%
of the vote, hardly a mandate.

Before the election,
he had forecast

that the life of the next
president would be hell

and said that the stress
of the job might well kill him.

Ellen was also worried

about what the strain
of the presidency

would do to Woodrow's
blood pressure.

But as Nellie helped
her mother prepare

for an inaugural tea
at the White House,

the first sign came that it was
Ellen who was in trouble.

I arranged her hair

and adjusted her prettiest hat
at just the right angle.

She hardly said a word.

Then, suddenly, putting
both hands over her face,

she burst into tears.

There was almost despair
in her sudden break,

something I had never
seen before.

I was afraid
that Mother was ill.

As she left with Father,
I cried with black despair.

"It will kill them.

It will kill them both."

On March 4, 1913,

Wilson was inaugurated the 28th
president of the United States.

Soon after he took office,
Wilson announced

that he would do something

no president in 113 years
had done:

address the Congress in person.

Then he sat down
at his typewriter,

a machine which he had been

one of the first Americans
to embrace,

and began tapping out
his speech.

"I am very glad indeed

"to have this opportunity to
address the two Houses directly

"and to verify for myself
the impression

"that the President of the
United States is a person,

"not a mere department
of the Government

"hailing Congress
from some isolated island

"of jealous power,

"sending messages,

"not speaking naturally
and with his own voice...

"that he is a human being

"trying to cooperate
with other human beings

in a common service."

As he settled into his new job,

Wilson established
a strict schedule.

He arrived at 8:00 each day

for a breakfast
of coffee, oatmeal,

and two raw eggs in fruit juice.

"Like swallowing
a newborn baby," he said.

He then dictated
from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

and saw visitors until 1:00.

After lunch with his family,
he returned to his office.

Nearly all who came
to see him there

were struck by the president's
deep sense of mission.

When the chairman
of the Democratic Party came

to demand a job

in return for helping
Wilson win the presidency,

Wilson told him that
it was not the Democratic Party

but God who had
made him president.

Character in any president
is an important part

of the way
he handles his office.

Now, in Wilson's case,
let's just take

one aspect of his character,
his certitude...

His certitude that he was right.

Now, certitude is a great asset

when you have to fight
for what you believe in

and when you convince other
people that you're correct.

But certitude
is a serious obstacle

when you're trying
to achieve something

to which there's a good deal
of opposition

and where it's necessary
to compromise

in order to have your way.

Wilson was fortunate that
in his early days in office,

there was little
organized opposition

to his plans for change.

In a rapid-fire series of bills,

he was able to toughen
antitrust laws,

win new protections
for labor unions,

create
the Federal Reserve system

to make loans more easily
available to average Americans,

and give government
the resources it needed

to rein in big business

by creating the first lasting
income tax.

The first two years
of Wilson's first term

are one of the most
remarkable moments

in modern American politics.

There's more reform agenda

accomplished
in that brief moment

than in virtually any other two-
year period in the 20th century.

He lays down
the rhetorical markers

about how the state must step
forward to insulate citizens

against the volatilities
of the free market,

and this has defined the
character of American politics

ever since.

In a second round of reforms,

Wilson pushed through
the first law

mandating an eight-hour work day

and the first law banning
child labor.

There's a very nice coincidence
for Wilson.

In many ways, the kind of ideas
that the progressives

and programs that they had begun
to agitate for

are exactly the kind of things

that he had been studying
for over 20 years.

Now, how do you make government
more accountable?

How do you make it more open?

How do you exercise power

both more efficiently
and more openly

and more answerably, there?

The man and the moment found
each other beautifully in that.

It was an impressive record,
but not an unblemished one.

Many prominent African Americans
had supported Wilson in 1912

because of his promise
that his "New Freedoms"

would apply
to all Americans equally.

But once he was in office,

Wilson sided
with the many Southern Democrats

in Congress and in his cabinet

who favored segregation.

During his first term,
the House passed a law

making racial intermarriage
a felony

in the District of Columbia.

Then, Wilson's
new postmaster general

overturned 50 years
of integration

by ordering that his Washington
offices be segregated.

Soon, plans were made
to segregate

many other federal departments.

To understand
Woodrow Wilson's racial views,

it is important to remember
that he was a Southerner.

He had been raised in a climate
in which it was presumed

that African-American people
were less evolved

than Anglo-Saxon people.

This was not a casual assumption
on his part.

It was one that was ingrained
in his whole being.

In 1914, newspaper publisher
William Monroe Trotter

led a delegation
of African Americans

who had endorsed Wilson

to the White House.

Trotter angrily asked
the president,

"Have you a new freedom
for white Americans

and a new slavery for your Afro-
American fellow citizens?"

They demand an accounting
from Woodrow Wilson.

They supported the man
and these are the consequences,

and Wilson pleads
misunderstanding

and suggests
that what is being done

is really a boon and a benefit
to the African Americans.

It's taking away the tension
in the workplace, as it were.

Well, Trotter will have
none of this,

and voices rise and tempers rise

until Wilson excuses Trotter
from his presence.

As Trotter leaves, he does
something quite extraordinary.

He convenes
his own press conference

on the grounds
of the White House

and reenacts the exchange
just transpired

between him and the president.

Wilson was furious
that a black man would dare

to publicly question him.

For the rest of his presidency,
he would make no effort

to improve race relations
in America.

In every man's life,
there's the possibility

of making
a considerable difference

by attitude, by a word spoken,
by something done or not done.

You'd have to say that
in the area of race relations,

Woodrow Wilson was deficient
on all those points.

He neither said
what should have been said,

he neither did
what should have been done,

nor did he understand
what needed doing.

It would be an irony of fate

if my administration had to deal
chiefly with foreign affairs.

All of my preparation has been
in domestic affairs.

In Wilson's first month
in office,

Mexico erupted in revolution

when its democratically
elected president

was murdered
by the Mexican military.

Wilson was convinced

that the right thing
for the United States to do

was send in troops
to restore democracy to Mexico.

Always the idealist,
always the moralist,

Wilson did have some general
ideas about foreign relations,

to which he repaired
when the crises in Mexico arose.

As always,
he saw the United States

as a special vehicle of the Lord

to provide an example
to the world

of the blessings of democracy
and constitutionalism.

Wilson hadn't thought
that much about foreign policy.

Like nearly all Americans
of his time,

even the best-educated ones,

he thought
about domestic affairs.

It just, it just wasn't...

This was not something
that was on his mind that much.

And he had to learn it.

We have a president
of the United States

who has to learn foreign policy
by the seat of his pants.

When the American navy sailed
into Vera Cruz,

Mexicans saw it
as Yankee imperialism

and united
to fight the invaders.

The resulting battle left
more than a hundred dead.

Despite the fierce
Mexican opposition,

Wilson remained certain
that his was the right course.

When rebels attacked
a border town,

Wilson sent more troops
into Mexico,

once again embroiling
the United States

in the chaotic revolution.

Wilson's actions sparked
intense criticism.

"What legal or moral right

"has a president
of the United States to say

who should be president
of Mexico?"

Harper's Monthly asked.

"Wilson is a ridiculous creature
in international matters,"

Theodore Roosevelt declared.

"He is the very worst man

we have ever had
in his position."

Wilson's intervention in Mexico,
in a sense,

reveals his amateurism
in this area.

It's a marker, I think,
of just how indifferent he was

to the rest of the world

that he... he had a reflex,
an impulse

to introduce military forces.

That was
a pretty ham-handed device

for trying to deal
with the complicated politics

of the Mexican revolution.

Mexico was just the beginning

of Wilson's entanglement
in foreign affairs.

On June 28, 1914,

Archduke Franz Ferdinand
of Austria

was assassinated
by a Serbian nationalist.

Austria and Germany
mobilized their armies

to punish the Serbs.

To defend them, Russia and
France called up their armies.

It was clear to all that
the great powers of Europe

were on the verge
of a catastrophic war.

Deeply influenced by his boyhood
experience of the Civil War,

Wilson believed
that such a conflict

offered nothing but heartache
for all caught up in it.

And yet, there were
powerful forces

pushing him to get involved.

Woodrow Wilson has
a problem on his hands.

He's committed,
as an American president,

to defend the national interest
of the United States,

which interest is to stay out
of that European war.

At the same time, he has
a multiethnic population

in which there are
millions of people

whose families are fighting
on both sides of a conflict.

He therefore has
an impossible political task,

which is to keep the country
out of war

and, at the same time, respond
to major pulls of public opinion

to get involved
on one side or another.

For a president who knew
little about foreign affairs,

it was the greatest
challenge imaginable.

And yet, in July of 1914,
the impending disaster in Europe

was by no means the first thing
on Woodrow Wilson's mind.

As First Lady, Ellen Wilson
refused to be confined

to the traditional role
of White House hostess.

With her daughters grown

and her siblings
finally living on their own,

she was determined to do
something meaningful.

After she took a tour
of the area

where Washington, D.C.'s,
poorest residents lived,

Ellen resolved to help clean up
the city's slums.

Ellen took the job of First Lady
to a whole new level.

She tied her name
to housing legislation,

worked very hard to get alleys...
Backhouses, they were called...

Improved so that slums
would be torn down.

She's the first First Lady
to do that.

After less than a year
as First Lady,

Ellen had to abandon
her efforts.

The occasional bouts
of exhaustion

which she had experienced
since the inauguration

were becoming much worse.

Her doctor discovered

that Ellen was suffering
from a kidney ailment

called Bright's disease.

In the summer of 1914,

just as Europe was spiraling
towards war,

Woodrow Wilson
watched helplessly

as his wife's health
deteriorated.

Then, on August 1, as Ellen's
condition dramatically worsened,

a telegram arrived

informing the president that
all hope for peace was gone.

Germany had declared war
on Russia.

Nellie and her father stood
vigil at Ellen's bedside.

Every time Dr. Grayson
came from mother's room,

we searched his face for
some sign of encouragement...

but we never found it.

It was like
a terrible nightmare:

Europe in flames, and all hope
fading from our own hearts.

Throughout their 30 years
of marriage,

Woodrow and Ellen
had never stopped

writing each other love letters.

"My life has been the most
remarkable life history

that I have ever
even read about."

"And to think I have lived it
with you."

"I love you, my dear, in every
way you could wish to be loved:

deeply, tenderly, passionately."

"It is very wonderful
how you have loved me."

"I have gone my way,
after a fashion,

that made me the center
of the plan."

"And you, who are so independent
in spirit and in judgment,

"whose soul is also a kingdom,

"have been so loyal,
so forgiving.

"Nothing but love

could have accomplished
so wonderful a thing."

On August 6,
with her husband at her side,

Ellen Axson Wilson died.

Wilson was absolutely devastated
by Ellen's death.

They had been married
for almost 30 years.

They had seldom been apart.

She had been
his closest companion,

she had been his greatest
emotional support.

And now suddenly
she was taken away.

And she was taken away

at... at, in some ways,
the worst possible moment.

He's got to deal both
with the breakdown of the world

on the one hand,

and he's got to deal with this
breakdown in his personal life.

In the days
after his wife's death,

the president began to exhibit

the symptoms of
severe depression,

including confused thinking
and memory loss.

To an aide, Wilson said

that he was no longer fit
to be president

because he could no longer
think straight.

And yet clear thinking had
never been more important.

Germany had just
shocked the world

by invading neutral Belgium,

drawing Britain into the war,
and making it far more likely

that America, too,
would be sucked in.

As he wandered alone
through the White House,

the president was heard by
his staff to mutter one phrase

again and again:

My God, what am I to do?