When the Cheering Stopped (28 page)

Now came S Street. In S Street's dining room his servant Isaac Scott held him up on his feet, and his lips moved and almost soundlessly he said grace. In S Street's bedroom he lay upon a duplicate of the Lincoln bed of the White House. Above him hung a large picture of the American flag. An old mahogany desk from Princeton days was in the corner with a secret drawer made to look like a book,
The Life of Washington.
On the mantel above the fireplace was a tarnished brass shell casing that once held the first shell fired by the American artillery against the enemy in 1917. There was a Hobart Nichols painting of a wood cutter working by a snow-covered road in the forest, a thermometer, pictures of the girls and the grandchildren, a vase of coconut trimmed with silver. He did not like the dark and so he rarely spent the night without having at least one light turned on, and on a little stand by his bed was an electric spotlight. He could play it on the mantel's clock; with it he could hold off the dark. His old worn Bible was with him and each day he read from it—the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Book of Job.

In S Street's library was a giant old oak table brought down from Princeton; in S Street's library were pictures: the President of the United States and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson standing with the King and Queen of England. In the drawing room there hung upon one wall the Gobelin tapestry that had been the gift of the French people in 1918 to the First Lady of America. It was so large that its bottom half was rolled up and lying on the floor. In the garage was a Pierce-Arrow berline, once the favorite car of the President of the United States, which now, purchased from the government and with the President's Seal painted over, served every afternoon to take S Street's owner for a drive. A tiny Princeton tiger sat on the car's radiator.

His routine was this: He ate breakfast in his bedroom with his wife, or in the second-floor solarium between
the library and dining room. Both bedroom and solarium faced south and on sunny days were lighted and alive with the sounds of the garden birds. Over the trees could be seen the tip of the Washington Monument. When breakfast was over he went in robe and slippers to the Otis electric push-button elevator and down to the first floor, where in one of the rooms facing the street John Randolph Bolling, his brother-in-law and his secretary, told him of the day's mail and received instructions on how the letters were to be answered. He took a walk back and forth across the hall and went upstairs and slowly shaved himself with his good hand. Lunch was usually taken in his room and sometimes there would be a guest to sit with him while he ate. But often he was alone with Edith, she literally feeding him although she could have just as well left that work to Scott. After he ate she went below to the dining room and took her own lunch while he slept. In the afternoon there might be a guest if there had not been one for lunch—Grayson said there must be only one guest a day, and the visit must not exceed half an hour—and then he went for the ride. Dinner was generally off a tray by the library fire, he again in gown and slippers with his wife reading to him. Sometimes after he finished they would have a film, using a windowshade-like roller for the screen. By nine it was time for his male nurse to give him a massage and then he got into bed. She sat with him, the two of them playing Canfield, or she reading aloud, until he slept.

She was with him, in fact, at all times, her few social engagements or errands rigorously limited to the hour or so he spent with John Randolph Bolling and the mail. When she had guests in for dinner it was understood that she must leave as soon as she finished in order to go upstairs and read to him or simply be with him until he felt ready to sleep. Then she would rejoin the guests for cards or billiards. There was no housekeeper. She ran the house herself. She seemed to those who saw her to be happy and younger-looking than she had been in the White House. Never had she seemed so beautiful, and often as she walked around the house she whistled like a boy. Ray Stannard Baker came for lunch one day
and the invalid looked up at his wife and then at Baker and said, “You see how well I am cared for!” She smiled and patted her husband on the head.

They had not been in S Street one day when a flood of mail began. Some of the letters were from friends such as Cleveland Dodge, a classmate of the Class of '79, who wrote that now for the first time in eight years he would not begin with “My dear Mr. President” but would go back to “My dear Woodrow”—and it felt “rather funny.” Others were in the uncertain writing of very old persons and the salutation would be “My dear Tommy.” (But there were not many left who called him that.) There were also, of course, the hate letters: “Hello, you syphilitic old son of a bitch … To the Valet of His Britannic Majesty, Dear Judas: The Lord has stricken you for your wickedness.…” But mostly the letters were from people who wanted something. A man wrote saying his father had disappeared when he was a boy. Could Mr. Wilson help him find his father? Bolling, new then to his job, wrote back saying Mr. Wilson knew of no way to aid the man's search. (Later such letters would be faithfully filed away but not answered.) Old students of decades in the past would want job references. (They would not get them.) People offered country homes for sale. (There was not to be any purchase.) A man wanted an introduction to the President of Czechoslovakia. (He must go elsewhere for it.) A home economics expert compiling a list of favorite recipes of great men asked about Mr. Wilson's favorite food. (“Mr. Wilson directs me to say that as he doesn't know of any recipe which he regards as his favorite, he is unable to comply with the suggestion contained in your letter of yesterday. Yours very truly, John Randolph Bolling, Secretary.”) Would Mr. Wilson receive this high school civics class, Boy Scout troop, women's group, visiting South American delegation, these friends of that Senator? (“Mr. Wilson regrets that the state of his health and the circumstances surrounding his convalescence at present make it unwise for him to see large groups of people.”) Then the business suggestions—requests that he write book reviews, prefaces, forewords, a history of the peace negotiations in Paris (for a fee of $150,000), a newspaper column, a
series of monthly articles for the
Ladies' Home Journal
($5,000 per article), a life of Jesus Christ. Would he be interested in a series of speaking engagements? Always the answer was that Mr. Wilson was not engaging in any such work at the present time.
*

Requests for expressions of opinion constantly came in. Would he please make known his views on whether the United States should join the World Court? Does Mr. Wilson think there has been a growth of sentiment in favor of American entry into the League? What does Mr. Wilson think of the use of the pictorial chart as a teaching aid? How can the world best work to keep the peace? What can be done to aid the American Indians? What are the responsibilities of the country to Armenia? “Dear Mr. Wilson, If you were Santa Claus and could put into the world's stocking what it most needs this Christmas, what would you give it?” Will Mr. Wilson express a view on the necessity for better railroad safety measures to be made use of by the Association for Grade Crossings? Will he offer a statement upon the anniversary of the birth of Patrick Henry that can be used by the Richmond Historical Pageant? What does Mr. Wilson think of the government bond purchase campaign as it applies to the salaried man? How can crime be prevented? Prohibition enforced? What is the best method of educating the orphaned boy? Should there be motion picture censorship? What is the Secret of Success? Is Mr. Wilson in favor of a Federal anti-lynching law? A bonus for the ex-soldiers? To all these requests, all without exception, the answer was that Mr. Wilson had nothing to say. “… He does not think it opportune nor proper that he should express his views on your question … does not care to contribute an opinion on this matter … Mr. Wilson prefers to reserve anything he may have to say on this subject until a later time … does not feel he is sufficiently well acquainted with the subject to which you refer to warrant him in expressing an opinion
concerning it … prefers not to enter into a discussion of the matter to which you refer … the program of complete rest which he is now taking will not permit him to prepare a statement such as you request.… Mr. Wilson asks me to reply to your letter and say that he is not making any statements for publication on any subject at this time.”

To private requests from old acquaintances for his evaluation of political figures, however, he had answers in plenty: Senator Reed was “thoroughly false, entirely impossible, one of the most despicable men in public life, a blackguard”; Lord Birkenhead was an “egregious ass” characterized by “quite absurd vanity and empty-headedness”; President Poincaré of France was a “tricky skunk.” But such remarks were never for publication. For the public at large there was to be nothing of him; he would give not a bit of himself. His withdrawal extended also to those, or most of those, who asked for his autograph. Bolling had a printed form: “During Mr. Wilson's illness he was excused by thousands from sending them his autograph and from autographing books, photographs, etc. In view of this he does not feel he can in conscience begin the practice again, and therefore hopes that you will excuse him from complying with your request.” America had turned him out—he was the living embodiment of Finley Peter Dunne's remark that the Americans should build their triumphal arches of bricks that could easily be pulled loose and flung at the hero—and it was not for him to court the favor of any American.

But sometimes something in a letter would reach through the aloofness. Ex-soldiers who wrote of wounds or disabilities often got answers from him signed “Very truly yours, Your War Comrade.” (Had he not sent them overseas and brought them pain and blood on the misty April evening he went down Pennsylvania Avenue and asked America to save democracy?) People who sent him gifts for no reason but that they wanted to also got answers. The gifts, of negligible financial value, usually took the form of something the donor had grown or made by his own efforts. A Virginia farmer sent eggs produced by his prize hen; a Chesapeake Bay barber sent a dozen clams plucked from the mud during an afternoon's
outing; a turkey farmer sent a giant specimen of his flock. Tomatoes came, and figs and pecans, some flowers grown by a suburban woman who wanted him to have them, a brace of ducks shot out of season by a man who wrote he would not mind having to pay the game warden's fine if Mr. Wilson enjoyed the results. A Potomac River trawler regularly sent over part of the day's catch. And all these people touched him very deeply and he wrote and told them so: “Please accept for yourself and your sisters assurances of sincere gratitude not only for the apples but for the generous words which accompany them. It is just such words that keep a man in good heart.” It was not easy for him to frame such letters, for he had not been in the past a man who wanted or accepted the gifts of others. Now the newspapers called him the Lame Lion of S Street and it was not in his power to get the things he wanted and do the things he wanted to do, and he must find it in him to be crippled and old and beaten and to thank those few who cared that he had lived and lived still.

Children also got answers to their letters. For they were the innocent ones. “Dear Mr. Wilson: No doubt you will be surprised to receive a letter from a small girl whom you don't even know, but I feel as though I know you. I am the girl who you saw on Wednesday last, a little before you reached Union Station, Alexandria, who was all dolled up in kaki riding breeches, white sweater and a bright red scarf and tam, and pulling a sled. Last summer do you remember seeing a little girl playing tennis on a court in Rosemond who everytime you went past would throw her racquet in the air and wave at you? I am the girl. I am a great admirer of you and your lovely wife and take the opportunity to write to you. I appreciate so much your waving at me. Yours Very Truly, Virginia Dare, 14 years.” She was no relation “to the original Virginia Dare,” but was a sophomore at Alexandria High School and had a brother at the University of Virginia. He was a member of the Ravens there. The ex-President wrote back, “My dear Little Friend, It was a pleasure to receive your letter and to know more about the little girl whose greetings have given us pleasure as we passed along the road in our afternoon drives. I am
interested in all you tell me about yourself and hope that every happy fortune will be yours as you grow older. Mrs. Wilson joins me in cordial good wishes. With warmest greetings, Faithfully yours.”

He refused to join hundreds of organizations that wanted to make use of his name, but to the Washington Order of the Merry Men he wrote that he would accept membership. The letter asking him to join explained that the Merry Men stood for “the protection of public property, particularly the woods around Mount Pleasant, and roam the woods collecting plants and rocks and taking notes of animals, insects and birds.” The dues consisted of five cents a month from regular members. The Honorary Member—Woodrow Wilson—would not be required to pay the dues. The constitution of the Merry Men explained that if any member misbehaved at an Official Meeting he was given a demerit. “Upon receiving five demerits he will be put through the paddle.” A picture of the Order's flag was sent him and his attention was drawn to the Chinese letters on it: “A Chinaman offered to interpret our name into his language, and on the spur of the moment we accepted,” explained the Merry Men's constitution, “and it was embroidered on our flag by my mother, so now we cannot change.” He wrote the boys he was proud to be their Honorary Member. “I wish that I could wander about the woods with you.”

The summer of 1921 passed. In the White House open liquor bottles stood on upstairs tables; the President explained to callers that he considered the lower rooms the property of the people of the United States and perhaps Prohibition should not be violated there, but upstairs was his home, where his personal preferences could be followed. Spittoons were under the poker table used three times a week, and men with cigars in their mouths called the First Lady “Ma,” “Boss” or, imitating the President, “Duchess.” The President played golf several times each week. He made love to his mistress in a White House closet. The people had elected him President, but, said Charles Willis Thompson, “they did not vote for anybody; they voted against somebody; and the somebody they voted against was not a candidate; it was
Woodrow Wilson.” That Woodrow Wilson, said Mark Sullivan, was to a nation tired of heroics the “symbol of the exaltation that had turned sour, personification of the rapture that had now become gall.” And in fact it was with a certain justification, a certain very considerable justification, that America in 1921 could ask what in hell the war had been all about, anyway. But now it was over and Warren Harding was President and he believed in live and let live and keeping everybody happy and giving your pals a job. The pals looted every department of the government he let them into—and he let them in everywhere. Sometimes they went too far, and then a visitor coming into the Red Room might see, as one man did, the President of the United States standing with his hands around the throat of the Director of the Veterans Bureau, choking him while he shouted, “You yellow rat! You double-crossing bastard!” But not too many people saw such things. Those who did usually had their fingers in the pie anyhow. The rest of America saw and appreciated the informality of a President who called everybody by his first name and a First Lady who came running downstairs to shake hands with the tourists being shown through. “Aren't things different now?” delightedly asked the wife of Senator Pomerene when she came to a lavish White House garden party and saw the red uniforms of the bandsmen and the bright-colored hats and parasols of the women. Now when Woodrow Wilson and his wife drove on West Executive Avenue in the afternoon they could see, as they did just one week after leaving office, photographers dispersing after taking pictures of Henry Cabot Lodge when the Senator paid a call on the President.