Bus. Coming up next, on the presidency, author William Hazelgrove talks about his book madam president , the secret presidency of edith wilson. She married Woodrow Wilson after his first wife died in the white house and when he suffered a massive stroke in 1919, it was edith who guarded access to the recovering president. The president Woodrow Wilson house in washington, d. C. Hosted this hour long event. Okay. Well, welcome, everyone, to the Woodrow Wilson house. Im thrilled to see you all here tonight. Im carrie villar, the interim director at the wilson house. And just before we get started, point out the portrait on the wall. I think it is thats the lady were going to be talking about tonight. And it is fitting that were here. Her birthday was a couple of days ago, so to be here celebrating her birthday. Were indebted to edith wilson for her forethought and commitment to preserving her husbands legacy. Without her generosity, the wilson house wouldnt exist. Shes the woman who saved everything, collected it and then donated it to the National Trust in the 1960s. Ais with much of womens history, though, ediths story is generally relegated to second tier when talking about her husband. So it is a real pleasure tonight to have William Hazelgrove here to share his perspective and thoughts on edith wilson and her contributions to American History. His new book madam president is a look at ediths role after wilson suffered his debilitating stroke. This latest book is just one of 13 of his books. And after his talk, books will be available for purchase and hell be happy to sign them. If youre not already, please be sure to connect with us on through our website and social media, so we can keep you up to date on our Upcoming Events and exhibitions. Well be opening our latest exhibition on october 2th, it is called evolving election and looks at the 1916 versus the 2016 election. Which we will be all glad is history soon. And our next vintage game night, one of our most popular events is on november 2nd. So please ask any of the staff who is here if you have any questions about how to get involved or other events here at the wilson house. So without further ado, William Hazelgrove. [ applause ] thank you for coming. Thank you for the National Trust for Historic Preservation for letting me speak here. I thought i would start with an overview and go through the story. Ill probably talk a lot the way i write, everything gets thrown in a blender and i spin it up. Lets start there. I was reading scott bergs biography of wilson, big thick book. And he had an interesting quote in there that really threw me. And it is basically he said that edith wilson was almost the president. Scott berg is a fairly conservative historian, i thought that was a very strange thing for him to say. And actually he went on and ill just ill read a little bit from his book. Insisting that she never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs, miss wilson failed to acknowledge that commanding nature of her role. That in determining the daily agenda and formulating arguments thereon, she executed the physical and most of the mental duties of the office. Then went on to say that edith wilson did not become as some have asserted the first female president of the United States. But she came close. She considered herself more a lady in waiting to her husband than an executive. But, and this is it tal sized, she was in a position to act, which she could only react. So i thought this was a very strange thing for him to go off and say. That sent me off to the papers of Woodrow Wilson, the library outside of chicago. And first thing i started to notice, i thought i would approach it like this, how ill was wilson . You have to have a vacuum of power if you start with someone who took over the presidency. I read lots of secondary i Read Everything i could find on it. And the range went from one end to the other, some people said he was very sick, but a lot of people said they thought he recovered after six weeks, which wasnt true. And dr. Weinstein basically talked about him, last time ill go back to this book. Woodrow wilson, medical and biographical history, weinstein writes the symptoms indicate wilson suffered an inclusion of the right middle cerebral artery which resulted in cleat paralysis of the left side of his body, a loss of sensation on that side and a left anonymous hematoma i botched that, loss of vision in left fields of both eyes, he had clear vision only in the temporal half field of his right eye, weakness of the muscles on his left side of the face, tongue and jaw and larynxinged for his difficulty in swallowing and impairment of speech. He was severely, severely set back by this stroke. So we had the situation, where the sitting president in 1919 has a severe stroke. Edith wilson, only married to him at this point for five year, has two years of schooling, a d dissenter. The doctor says you can step in. He was a leading neurologist at the time. They only had really one answer for somebody who had a stroke or somebody who had a heart condition. That was the rest care. Rest care basically told people, go into your house, live the life of an invalid and hopefully nature will heal you. He turned to edith and said, listen, hes only going to heal if you take over and no stress reaches him. If he gets stressed at all, hell die. So edith wilson is confronted right then with a choice. Take over the presidency, and, you know, again, he knew she worked with wilson. Well get into that more. But take over the presidency or your husband will probably die. Also, adding to this, Vice President marshall, edith said at this point too, what about Vice President marshall . Vice president marshall was brought on for regional reasons. He was from indiana. The wilsons saw him as a low brow, his famous quote was what we really need is a good five cent cigar, which we still do. And they actually moved him out of the white house. They did not tell him about his stroke. That was first thing. Edith said, nobody is going to mention this again. Dr. Grayson, who is also at the center of this. Dr. Grayson put out the press releases on his health. We had a lot of things about the health of president s recently. And the thrombosis that wilson suffered from actually Hillary Clinton has from her fall. But the difference is, of course, we have beta blocker and blood thinners and Everything Else thated wilson to live or hillary to live, sorry. Wilson has dr. Grayson who said it is nervous exhaustion. This coverup starts right there. They decided were going to keep him in power, and, remember, we have a spoil system in the United States where everybodys job depends on who is going to remain in power. And so the men around her said to edith, youre the person to do this. So they began after that. So the question comes to us, well, who is edith wilson . And, you know what was was she a singular person . This remarkable person, could rise to the occasion or a person caught in a very extraordinary situation. Edith is southern girl, came from the south, who, after going to school for two years, basically her schooling stopped. She had a grandmother who fill in the blanks, very literate father who helped her out, but her brothers went to school. She was stuck in witveil, i was at a few days ago and wanted to get out. So she married a guy named norman galt. Norman he was older, i dont think there was a very intimate relationship. They think, you know, edith saw this is a way to go out. He had a Jewelry Store in baltimore. Norman then died at a point, and edith stepped in. This is very interesting because early in her life, she was confronted with death, very large scale, and in one year her son died, their baby, her husband died, and her fatherinlaw died. And so edith had a choice at this point, most people told her, you know, take the Jewelry Company and let it go. She decided to keep it. She hired two people to run it and took no salary. And it was failing. It was severely in debt. And then she brought it back. So at this point edith is becoming a woman of means. Shes in her 40s. She buys an electric car. She is the first woman to get a drivers license, district of columbia. So we would call her a progressive woman of her time. She starts traveling. One day shes out and going to cut over to Woodrow Wilson here at this point, Woodrow Wilsons first wife ellen had died. And dr. Grayson here motoring along, they go by edith and Woodrow Wilson says who is that woman . And grayson tells him. And they arrange a meeting. At this point, edith, last thing she wants to do is become involved with a president. They go to the white house. They have a dinner. Woodrow wilson we have an image of him as a very austere man, he was a president of princeton, seemed sort of cold, aloof, but he was more like a sort of a victorian lover, the best way i can put it. So almost like a poet. F. Scott fitzgerald has a great quote, it says, a sentimentalist is someone who hopes that things will never end, romantic has a desperate conviction they will. And wilson had that tragic nature about him. After his first wife died, he considered quitting the presidency. He was severe depression. So he meets his very young vivacious woman. His first wife ellen was very cultured. In her own right, but she didnt she didnt have a lot of wit. And wilson was a guy who loved women with great wit, very perky women. This was edith. Edith was very fast on the draw, wilson, while more highly educated, they were sort of intellectual equals in their bantering and actually ellen would have women over to the house, young women, to talk with woodrow and banter, which sounds a little strange. But well go on to that too. So he meets this woman, asks her immediately to marry him within the first year. She says, your wife just died. No. Absolutely not. He continues. Just buries her in love letters. This was the texting if you will of the time. And so would send very salacious love letters. Keeps having her picked up, goes for drives, he stays on her. He literally at one point goes to bed because she says no to him. Wilson, in a story different on this, he had an affair of sorts. Her name was mary peck. Wilson was married to his first wife, went to bermuda, three times. Curious thing is he never took his wife. I was reading about him, i thought, why didnt he ever take his wife . First time he did have kids. This was wilson suffered from hypertension, hardening of the arteries, his wife said youre stressed, you need to go to bermuda and relax. Bermuda was the left bank of the age. Mark twain was there. Bohemian types. And mary peck was there. Mary peck was a woman who married well, didnt care about her husband, smoked, early flapper, and was very witty and wilson took was smitten with her. This happened three times, three times he went to bermuda and he actually sounded had her out about running for president first. She said you should do this. Historians are divided what actually happened. But ellen wilson said mary peck was the only unhappy that it did cause them. Im circling around because when wilson was entertaining marrying edith, colonel house, he was an adviser who was so wilsons righthand man. Unofficial adviser. He had no real title. Wilson liked that. He loved to have people who werent official people and sound things off of. House didnt want him to marry either. He let it be known these letters were out there and they might get sold to the press. Wilson freaks out, sends fwra n grayson to tell edith. Edith is taken aback, wow. And wilson goes to bed. The president of the United States in bed because he thinks his girlfriend is done with him. Edith writes him a letter, says, you know what, ill stay with you, were good, dont worry about it. Wilson is so i guess uptight about the situation that he actually doesnt open the letter. And she has to go to the white house, into his bedroom and get him out of bed and tell him that, yes, she will marry him. So, again, we see this sort of victorian lover who goes up and down and wild mood swings. Wilson said three months later he never opened the letter, he couldnt bear to open it. This is a guy had who didnt want to hear bad news among other things. So they get married. And i say this very lightly. Theyre the clintons of their time. What i mean by that, wilson did a very strange thing with edith. Right from the beginning. He included her in everything. He would send her state papers, top secret papers he would send to her as they were dating. She would write them back and say, you know what, i appreciate the love letters. Can you send me more state papers, those are interesting. She started deciphering code from him. World war i. So she is deciphering top see credit code for him, it takes a long time and he has her doing this. Fact of the matter is, edith wilson was the first person to know that world war i had ended. The armistice had been signed because she deciphered the code. What does this do . This sets up what i would call the edith wilson presidency. In a very remarkable way. Up to then, no first lady had ever had this sort of role. It just didnt exist. But wilson was a guy who saw his wife as not only his lover, but also his confidant, his adviser, he took all these role and put them in one. And edith wilson was a person who had a very natural curiosity, she was a quick learner, she learned by doing, and so she really took all this information and she was very opinionated. Gh wh when wilson fired Williams Jennings bryant, she was, like, yeah, hes a traitor, get rid of him. Wilson was taken aback and says, boy, you can hate better than anybody i know. So she had this ability to hate and also to hold a grudge. She was very strong willed woman. They would go golfing. They loved to take drives in the big and i said theyre doing all this code decipher iing. Lets go to the league of nations. War ends. And they have the treaty of versailles. They have to wilson decides im going over there to negotiate the end of the war. Colonel house says dont do that. He says, no, im coming, im bringing my wife. And, you know, again, edith had already butted heads with house and several other advisers, she was slowly putting herself in as the main person. If you read other histories, people ascribe all sorts of nefarious motives to edith, people say she grabbed power and all this and i dont think thats true at all. I dont buy any of that. But she was a person who was very strong willed. And she was she had the president s ear. She was the first goto person. His other unofficial advisers took a back seat and knew it and didnt like it. They go over there, they negotiate the peace, wilson has a series of mini strokes while theyre over there. This is kept very quiet. Stress is incredible. Remember, hes a man who has been dealing with hypertension by literally just laying down in darkened bedrooms with wash rags on his face, pushing his head against the back of a chair because it would throb so much here. Remember, they had absolutely no beta blockers or anything like that. If you had hypertension, you were expected to not do anything. You were expected to lay around. So he comes back with the league of nations as his reason for the war. This is the way to look at americas mothers and say this is why your son died, because i have the war to end all wars. It said basically if one country attacks another country, all the other countries will go against that country. By the way, the United Nations does not have article x in it. Henry cabot lodge was heading up the republicans, he hated wilson, couldnt stand him. He had beaten Teddy Roosevelt in the last election, who was his best friend. But he just he thought wilson was arrogant. The lodge was arrogant. So there are two arrogant lodge who hate each other for being arrogant. And but he was determined the league would be a failure. So starts to water it down immediately. And wilsons basic premise was, look, i negotiated this, i cant go back on what i did. And so he realizes that lodge is not going to budge, that the league is in danger of dying and makes a decision to convince the American People that this is where the United States should go. We should make this war mean something, all these hundreds of thousands of men who died. So he does. Now this is not air force one. It is 1919. Hes on a train without air conditioning. And he has hypertension, he has hardening of the arteries, hes stressed, hes exhausted, but yet hes going on this grueling tour throughout pueblo, colorado, it is hot. Wilson has a the preamble to his major stroke out there. Edith sees him with his head against the chair, he cant feel anything in his left arm, he cant hold his razor, his hand trembles so much. Dr. Grayson says it is over, you have to go back. They turn the train around and go back to washington. When they get back, wilson seems to improve a little bit. But then the next night edith hears a sound upstairs, she goes up and the president of the United States is laying on the tile floor, blood coming out of his head and hes out. This is the massive stroke that he had that, you know, the doctors had been warning him about. This is where edith begins. I want to go off to ediths governing style at this point. Now, were back to where dirkum says to her, you can do this thing. Ediths governing style was one of access. If president ial power is a river, it went up to the door of the president s bedroom where he was, and edith diverted it. So nothing got to him that was deemed stressful. First of all, according to ike hoover, his valet, this is where you have multiple people giving different views of what really happened to the president , hoover was very blunt, he said he looked dead. He thought he would go in there many times and thought he was dead. He was essentially out. Edith began to meet people from the cabinet outside the door. If it was a problem she couldnt solve readily she would write a note to him and say i will the president will deal with this when the president is better. Her handwriting was a very sort of childlike scrawl, she was very sensitive about it. The wilson relatives two days ago one thing they didnt like in the book is i said her handwriting was a little childish. But, you know, when you look at the signature of Woodrow Wilson, suddenly it did change. And it was this sort of loopy thing and, you know, from people that are in the room said she would take his hand or not and sign things. Now, if a bill came to the president , and it wasnt signed, and he didnt deal with it for ten days it became a bill anyway. Edith, i like to draw the analogy of a family overwhelmed. You have a lot of kids, house is a mess, the dog is barking, you start to do the best you can. The white house is closed down. The gates are locked. The curtain is pulled. Traffic was diverted away. Wilson is upstairs. Nobody has really seen him. And edith is taking correspondence. Remember this, we are in the age where there was no internet, no fach fax. People wrote letters back and forth. All the correspondence comes in with nobody to deal with it. Edith would just look and go, essential, not essential, essential, not essential. What started to happen was the pile of not essential grew until in the 50s, it was discovered in the national archives, tons and tons of letters never opened. Shes saying, okay, ill deal with this, i wont deal with this. Ill deal with this, i wont deal with this. It was really access. She would go on to the president and ask him and say, what do you think of this . If he could respond, he would, and give her an opinion. And she would take it back. But she did start to she had a table set up outside his bedroom where she would meet with cabinet members and conduct business there, appointments had to be made, bills had to be acted on or not. And in the book, you know, it is sort of a hodgepodge of things that she was trying to do as best she could. During all this, a strange thing was happening as well. The suffragettes. People made a big case that edith was not for the suffragettes and not for the vote. But the suffragettes, every day they would drive out, edith and wilson before he had the stroke, and they were there at the gates. Chained to the gates. They were flash them with big signs under their skirts and lay down in front of the car and do all sorts of things, suffragettes were jailed. Wilson didnt want that to happen, but they were jailed. Some went on hunger strikes, terrible press. Alice paul was a woman who was very radical in her approach, she was the National Organization of women and would do just about anything, she drove wilson crazy. So while edith is up late, decoding secret codes, she said she would stay up very late every night to try to get the business of the white house done, suffragettes were out by the gate, trying to get the vote. It is very interesting that africanamericans had the vote 50 years before, and in 1919 women still didnt have the vote. Yet there is a woman in the white house at the top of the power. The irony of history sort of screams out at you. So what is going on at the senate that the point . Senator fall, who a lot of people suspected edith was running the white house, but senator fall particularly did. And he stood up one day in the senate and said, Woodrow Wilson is not running the white house, edith wilson is the president and basically there was an incident, he demanded to see the president. They knew the jig was up a little bit. People were talking about impeachment. What happened, they said, okay, you can see him. They dimmed the lights, covered him up. Left side is paralyzed, so they put his covers over his left side, his right arm was out. They put a Senate Report on the situation in mexico by his bed, so he could access it. Edith was in the room to take notes, and fall came in. Had all the reporters out there because the press too was speculating what is really going on at this point. And this was sort of the moment of truth. Falls goes in. They talk. Ask questions. Wilson sort of pulls it together, makes the right answers, and, you know, follows at the end, goes, well, mr. President , im praying for you and wilson quips back, which way, senator. But it worked. So falls goes out. It sort of calms people down in the congress. And there is people who knew what was going on but couldnt do anything at this point. But this point wilson has improved some. And they get a coney island chair because the wheelchair he cannot sit up in. He has no strength in his left side. He sort of falls over. They get a coney island chair, they modify it, they buy it from atlantic city, and they wheel him out to the south portico to sit. And put blankets around him. When the Cabinet Meeting cabinet members would meet, you see the president on the south portico sitting there. Then they started to a very strange thing with the president. Wilson liked to watch movies. So they would they had a guy come in from the theater, he brought his projector, he did not like any sounds, so no piano accompaniment and wilson would sit in the red room of the they would take off the rugs, and roll the projector and put the i think a big sheet from the lincoln bet d on the wall a show him movies. He liked westerns. Sometimes he got very upset there was too much action, they would stop the movie. Sometimes wilson would pass out during the movie and one time the guy showing the movie thought swore he was dead and went and said, look, i dont know how to say this, but i think the president expired. Edith went over and nudged him and he sort of came back to life. He would do this it became part of his routine. There is a Norman Desmond quality to it. He then started to show movies from his own administration. When he went over to paris, and to negotiate the peace, they took movies of them from the newsreels. And so he would have those put on. So you have to imagine here is this broken man, watching him at the pinnacle of his power, with all the world cheering, and, you know, the Clickity Clack as he sits there by himself. Think of this, the white house is essentially empty now. Nobody really comes into it. The press theyre pretty much kept away. Traffic has been diverted away. The white house resembles more of a house in victorian gloom, almost a hospice feel to it. And edith is a prisoner too. She is devoted to him, but she cant leave either. So then they start as wilson proves a little bit, they start to take writes. They have a limousine wilson loved, weighed four tons and they would prop him up, made a special ramp in the back of the white house, four secret servicemen would go down there, prop him up in the car with his right side out, that was not paralyzed, put his hat on, and drive him around washington. So people could see him. People arent sure what stthey saw. This car going around with this white face looking out at them and they would start doing this every day. Wilson, a little bit of dementia is starting to creep in, also the fact that the world was sort of moving on, about 1920, and wilson would get very upset if people passed him in his car. People did. Moateri motoring by. He would demand the secret Service Chase them down and try them on the side of the road. They would say, we couldnt get them, mr. President , they got away again. At this point, the presidency is winding down. And edith is start ing ing to l at the world has changed. The 20s brought in flappers, jazz age is coming, harding is a new president who is going to have a very different presidency than wilson. F. Scott fitzgerald is writing this side of paradise, where he famously says, woke up it find all gods dead, all wars fought, lets drink. He was emblematic of a very modern age and wilson still liked to be pulled around by horses. There is this sort of gap, they come here, they live their life here, they go to the theater. Wilson is calls himself a broken machine as the years go by. And broken machine that can no longer function. In 1924, he does die. And very famously the people on the street outside here, and there is a very touching photograph of that when that occurs. Edith goes on, shes a real she sort of went to seclusion for a few years, went to the kennedy inauguration, Jackie Kennedy came here, and so sort of lined up at the end where she sort of outlives everybody. With that, id like to go in a mode of talking about what really encompasses the first woman president and what is the definition of that. There is actually a definition. There is five parts to it. A military leader, passing bills, appointments, state of the Union Address and pardons. When you read through the papers of Woodrow Wilson and the secondary sources, you do start to get a sense of what she accomplished. Remember, world war i is has to be wrapped up. Since the United States did not approve the league of nations, the treaty of versailles was never approved, never ratified. The war for the United States had not ended. They had to pass a special resolution in the war. So edith was on the front line of the league of nations. The league of nations was a very contentious battle. Tried twice to get it ratified. Wilson would not compromise at all. He just would not. Now, some interesting studies that have come out since on victims of stroke and one of the things they say is they become very one dimensional. They lose the ability to compromise. I think we can relate to our government now. But wilson would literally send out letters saying absolutely not, if article x is not in there, were not in the league of nations. He didnt believe the United States would not be in the league of nations. And edith at one time actually went in and said, look, cant you just compromise . Cant you just approve this thing . He said, not you too, little girl. Not you. You are my one person who stands by me. She totally backed off on that. Point is, she was the point person who all the information was flowing through to him on probably one of the most pivotal pieces of legislation or that was not passed. You can make a case that the league of nations is not going through, putting the United States into this isolationist mode. When edith wilson wrote her memoir in 1939 it was basically to say, listen, i just took over stewardship. I just sort of took over the presidency for a little while and gave it back to him. She was not going to say she ran the government. Just wasnt going to happen. What she did say, and this is you have to get the historical context, war is broken out in europe, two years away from pearl harbor being bombed and edith wilson is writing at her desk and says senator lodge set us back 100 years because he wouldnt let that league of nations go through. She pinned it squarely on him. Shes making a case if the league of nations had been there, hitler would not have rearmed, we would have intervened, we would have known, he couldnt have gotten to where he did. Is that a fair charge . I think it was a lot of people involved, but i think she was very pressing in saying that this led to where we are now. And it destroyed wilson when the United States finally said they would not join it. Passing bills, edith was very instrumental in the legislation coming in and going out. Again, some things just were not acted upon and it became law. Other things had that strange signature on there. And you could write a whole book on this signature issue. What i came down to it was there was actually people who said, oh, yeah, she signed things and other people who said, oh, he would she would hold his hand and move it and, you know there is just many, many times people in the senate would see a proclamation and say what is this on who signed this . My own estimation is that, yes, at times when she had to, she did. I think she was sort of a lets just solve the problem and move on. Appointments, yes, she had to make appointments. People literally did not have anybody to resign to. All these appointments during the war. They came back, people as simple as somebody heading up u. S. Department of agriculture couldnt resign because the president wasnt there for him to resign to. So all these things piled up. There is letters, it is in my book, of going to edith. Now, lets talk about letters. When you look at the papers of woodrow willisen to 1919, everything goes to woodrow. Dear mr. President , dear mr. President. In 1919, all of a sudden, dear miss wilson starts coming in and increases. And as you know, for those of you who have read my book, i put those letters actually in the back of my book. Because to me that was more smoking gun than anything. If she wasnt the president , why were people running all these letters to her, why was secretary tumulte and chief of staff asking her to do all these things. It is a myriad of issues. Please, mrs. Wilson, do this, do that. And sometimes there was just lists and lists of things they wanted her to do. There was a clear vacuum where nothing was getting accomplished and she was the only person they could go to. So thats another condition the other one would be the state of the Union Address, believe it or not, this is a function of the president. They let people know and they say, you know, lets do the state of the union. What happened with the state of the union was other people wrote it, they gave it to edimth went through it, she made critiques, anybodys guess if she read it to the president , even after he was ill. Most people think not. Because a lot of times the state of the union made no sense. And the senators pointed this out. Not a lot to do with reality. They would piece together old speeches and put it together as the state of the union. Again, a funky signature would appear. Pardon, she did not participate in pardons, one thing that, you know, she didnt there was a guy eugene debs who should have been pardoned but he couldnt act on that. As the presidency wound down, few were pardoned. So in conclusion, you look at this, ill give you a little bit of my philosophy of writing history. Thats this, i believe when you present it to people, they should be able to experience history. So i write in a way that allows people to get into the scenes and actually go through it and feel what it was like. It is the journey and not the destination. I can sit up here and say i think she was the first woman president , but only going to work if you read it and reach the end of it on this sort of journey. The totality of it, theyre meeting, it is her governing, it is after the presidency, that when you reach the end, you come up with sort of your own thesis and go, oerh, yeah, or i dont know. To me, when i went through all the sources and at the end, very clear to me that edith wilson had stepped in and did run the government for two years. My question is why has this nibbled at the pages of history. When i give a talk, people say, i heard about that or, yeah, i saw it, something about that in school. It never quite well, with historians, theyre all men. Historians dont like things that go across and thats what im cutting across an saying, he didnt finish out his term, edith wilson finished it out. After that, im not sure. To me it was very obvious after reading scott bergs book this woman had stepped in, also i dont think it is that atypical of americans. Through time in memoriam, people had family farms, the husband would get hurt, become ill, the wife would step in and run the farm or run the business. We do this now with our own spouses, somebody steps up and helps out. It is a very american thing to do. It happened to be that ediths farm was the United States of america, she stepped in to run. But i dont think it is that different. I think clearly they were this couple, he got sick, he got ill. I think she believed he would recover and she could sort of hand it back to him. The problem was that he would never recover. And they didnt understand enough about neurological science, the stroke, and there was some delusion there that, you know, and she believed it would probably kill him if he lost the presidency. So again, i go back to the great term my professor always threw it at me, the approximation of what is most true. I think it is the best you can do. After you take all the sources, you can look at sources and say, well, no, no, he did this, this and this and this. He clearly was in control. But thats not really the story. The story is the whole picture. Again, the journey, not the destination that allows us to see what happened. I think in the year 2016, as we approach this unique election, you know, very relevant as to why is there another woman in the white house who ran it, not elected, but never the less held the rin reins of power and i wi say there was. With that, well open it to questions. You talk about the primary sources that you used where you got them from, and how they were useful to you. I did look at your bibliography and a lot of them are secondary sources. You talk about the primary sources, i would like to know what they are, where you got them and how they helped you. Very good question. Youre right. I went through all the secondary sources first. First of all, these guys have done all this work for you and you can go and see where they went. What is interesting is you start to see where each person got their information. They borrowed from each other. Again, the canon of history on Woodrow Wilson didnt deviate a lot. There was a book that came out in the early 2000s, woodrow and edith, very critical. This is one that veered off. And incredibly critical of edith, said she was a power grabber, that she lied, that she was this sort of person who had been plotting to take over wilsons presidency and put herself between all the advisers. I saw none of that. It shows you how, you know thats why primary sources are so incredibly exactly, exactly. Important because the secondary sources, they very often reflect the biases of the time, the biases of the author, or whatever. But if you yourself go to the primary sources, i mean, im wondering, you know what is there in the national archives, where are the sources, and what did you have access to. I went to the papers of Woodrow Wilson which are in elmhurst library. There is gosh, i dont know how many there are. 50, 60, 70, and just monster books upon monster books. I brought home 10 or 20 of them. Remember, im zeroing in i had the advantage of im going to dedicate myself to this period. The first thing i noticed when i started going through, these are letters, documents, memorabilia, things that edith wrote, jotted down, but first thing i started to notice was that in 1919, there was absolutely up to that time no mention of edith in these papers. Nothing. Then suddenly there is all these documents, these letters, going to her. Dear mrs. Wilson, dear mrs. Wilson, could you act on this, dear mrs. Wilson, could you act on that. I have some here in the book here. And that to me was very telling. And then, of course, just the letters back and forth between she and the president , the people around him at this time who were trying to deal with all the problems. What was interesting is dear mrs. Wilson, if you get time, could you show the president this. Dear mrs. Wilson very a lost tho lot of those were timid. I think she was fierce, protective and it was hard to get anything to the president. Some of the letters start asking his daughters to help because they felt like no information was getting through edith. So, you know, there was definitely a power vacuum. And there was a lack of information flowing off. But in her defense, she had a dual role. And she famously said, a bunch of people came and said, i must see the president and she said, really, i dont care about the president of the United States, i care about my husband, which a lot of historians pointed to and said, she threw the country under the bus, she did this power grab. But, you know, edith was trying to keep her husband alive at the same time she was trying to step in and run the government. Talk about stress. She had a lot going on. But answer your question about primary sources, my main source was the papers of Woodrow Wilson. That, to me, gave me what i needed to say, okay, here is my thesis, here are my sources, and in my book there is 600 footnotes. One reason i wanted to have the footnotes is because i knew a lot of people would come back and say, you know what he doesnt know what hes talking about. Woodrow wilson was there. Thats simply not true. Yes. Talk to one another, were they colleagues . Yes, absolutely. In fact, you know, when his prostate became blocked they came to edith, three physicians and said, look, he needs to be operated on or hes going to die. And edith stared at him and grayson was, like, im not sure he can survive the surgery. But these other doctors, absolutely not, we have to operate on him now or hes going to die. Uremic poisoning. They didnt leave it there. They chased her into the next room and drew pictures. Figure out what the pictures looked like, of what was going on and said, you must let us operate or hes going to be dead in two hours. She said, no, were going let nature take its course and nature did. It shows you what a unique person she was, she would go her own way. I think this comes from the fact that she was a person who was selftaught most of her life, sort of learned on the job, and i think she was a rare individual who was very strong. Grit is the word that came to mind when i read about edith. She had a ton of grit, very tough woman. One possible precedent would be the assassination of president garfield. In and out of a coma for two or three months. Thats a fantastic thing you brought up. Garfield was shot in the back. Laid there for three months. Dr. Bliss came in, and basically said, im in charge. Bliss did not believe in a guy named listers new theory on germs. He was, like, thats a bunch of bunk. I know when im doing. So they couldnt find the bullet. So bliss took a dirty porcelain probe and went after it. Right away. If bliss had not touched the president , he would have lived. But bliss continued to go through his body with his dirty probe and put infection weight on his body. The president was a strong man, lingered for three months, this brings up that famous phrase, ignorance is libliss. But a guy, secretary brown stepped in, while garfield, bliss was even worse in terms of isolati isolation. He put screens around him garfield, put him upstairs, would be the let the family see him. And essentially said, im in charge, you have to go through me. And so this guy, secretary brown who is probably in his 20s, started running the government, started, you know, fumbling paper through and the United States, again, sort of went and suspended animation for three months. Nothing happened. The difference is that his garfield did die eventually. And his Vice President did take over. But youre right. That was the president , because there is this amorphous quality to this that says if you cant fulfill the president unable to fulfill the duties of the presidency, the Vice President should take over. But it was very vague. They did pass the 25th amendment after wilson which spells it out much clearer. I think it is very telling that part of our dialogue in this election has been all about health and who is really healthy. And is somebody hiding something . The question i get is could this happen today . Well, you know, i would say nancy reagan, im not sure everything is known there. How far she took over things when Ronald Reagan started to fail. Could the president disappear for five months the way Woodrow Wilson did . No. But, you know, power is a very secret thing. And how do who is running the government is a very interesting thing. So somebody becomes ill, you have to sort of prove that theyre ill. And then somebody has to be willing to step aside. And somebody has to be willing to take over. Vice president marshall did not want the power of the presidency. When he came to the white house, finally to see wilson, he was met at the door by edith who said, well let you know if we need you. That was it. That was it. That was right there power stayed with her. If marshall had been a guy who said, no, i want i want it see the president and i demand to see him, probably the jig would have been up. It would have been a different thing. But it was a perfect storm of there was a president isolated from the white house anyway, they did not care for him, did not include him on anything, and you had a woman who was a strong individual who had taken over, and so i think garfield was the president. By the time mrs. Wilson published her memoir, dr. Dirken was conveniently dead. Do you have any sense of how reliable her account of that conversation is . It is funny you bring that up. That is the one thing that the book that came out in 2000 really attacked. And said, dirken didnt say this, why would dirken say this . This is ridiculous. Edith just wanted the power. You know, she was this woman who craved power. She pushed the president aside and took over. My rebut to that would be, why in the world would she put all this in her memoir if it wasnt true. She wasnt that type of person. She edith wasnt a dishonest person. She wasnt. If you go through her life, she acted, you know, sort of moral certainty most of her life. Now, could she hold a grudge . Absolutely. Was when somebody was her enemy, were they an enemy for life, yes, absolutely. If you were on the wrong side of edith wilson, youre pretty much done, that includes not seeing the president. There were people kept from the funeral because she didnt want to see them. There was a story when they got married, the bishop who was going to preside wrote to edith and said, listen, i want to bring my wife. I know it is an oversight that you didnt invite her, but it would be very embarrassing to her friends if she didnt come. And edith wrote him back and said, no, your wife is not coming, and by the way, neither are you. And she went to the she was infuriated this guy said this. And she went to the president and said, im going to get rid of the bishop. He said, well, maybe you should think about that. No, im getting rid of him. And wilson shook his head. She was a fierce person who once she decided you were not loyal, which was her hoile litmus test, you were effectively done for her. I did read that book where essentially the woman says she made it all up, which is simply not true. Yes. So the press of the time is so so years later the press would famously protect Franklin Roosevelts disability from the public. The press of this time, which is years before that, how far along did they become did they start to become sort of suspicious and start pressing the issue . You know, there was a lot of articles in the New York Times as time passed where doctors would come out and say, you know, there was several theories, one was that wilson was totally insane. And that they put bars on the white House Windows to keep him from jumping out to his death. This was one of the articles that was in the paper. Well, the white house debunked that and said, no Teddy Roosevelt put them in to keep his kids from falling out the windows. That didnt make it go away. People thought he was this crazy man who was dribbling in his wheelchair, and so there was that. Then there is people who actually people would get a medical expert, for want of another word, come in and say what do you think is going on . Someone hit it right on the head saying they thought it was a massive stroke and cerebrally he was gone. They had no proof. The papers would run these but they never seemed to get any traction. Because you can see these in the papers, theyre there. But also grayson would always counter one with another statement. The president is improving. The president coming back. The president did this. The president had a christmas. The president did that. So theyre very cognizant of keeping the information flow also going out. But there were people who suspected and occasionally it seemed like every three months some doctor would come up with the prognosis and say the president should resign, he obviously cant govern, but it would just sort of fade away, you know. So, yeah, it was amazing. And whats more amazing today is that when you talk to a lot of americans about this part of history, most people dont know wilson had a stroke, that he was ever incapacitated and certainly dont know his wife took over, you know, unless they read eric larsons book dead wake when he went into it and then he found out. Yes. How supportive was mrs. Wilson in regards womens right to vote . Thats a great question because she sort of walked both sides of the aisle on that. She never voted. She couldnt, and she thought the suffrage, those insufferable women, she found them very offensive. This is her southern virginia roots. They werent acting like ladies by flashing the president and doing all these things, yet when the soninlaw, the president macka do came to the white house and asked wilson to speak to the senate on behalf of the vote and wilson said, you know, its on sabbath, i dont do that and also it goes against protocol. Im not going to the senate and speak on a piece of legislation. Well, three, four hours later, edith wilson, yeah, hes going to do it. Hes going to go speak to the senate. So what happened . Its my opinion they were very much joined at the hip in terms of policy. I think edith wilson saw the vote coming. I think she said to the president , i think god will understand if you want to do this. I think you should be part of this and i dont think you should stand in protocol and he did. And actually Woodrow Wilson received essentially a medal for doing that. It was actually voted down in the senate but it was soon passed afterward. So i think she had a sort of dual relationship with him. I would say, and im not the first person to say this, actually when wilson died, many newspapers came out and proclaimed edith the president. Its almost like they were waiting, but a lot of them also came out and said she was a great proponent for the vote because she led by example, by running the white house and showing a woman could do that. So its complicated, you know. It would be great to say she was this progressive woman pushing for the vote, but thats simply not true. Yes. Somebody else . Yes. I cant remember where i read the article that was about that was about the courtship president to edith, and it was quite a long time from the first time that he met her and she refused him many, many times. In fact, they met and then they agreed to separate. I think there was like two years or something. Well, yeah. It wasnt i could have got it wrong. Yeah, it wasnt that long, but youre right. They met and then they agreed to have sort of cooling off period, but actually she couldnt sustain that very long because the president s cousin helen boens was very upset with edith for spurning the president because she felt like he was edith was the only light in his life and that he was coming out of this depression. The president fought depression his whole life. Woodrow wilson was a man who, you know, had a very and a tenial, beta blockers, both of those. Yes, he definitely had when the lusitania was sunk he was in the throes of his letter writing. And, you know funk and that whole lusitania thing was happening and he was not capable of getting himself together to deal with that and as a result the ship sunk. Thats in the book larsons book, dead wake. I heard it once, i heard it a ton times. No, seriously. In his defense, they didnt know initially when it was sunk what the loss of life was. Larson talked about how he went for a drive right after he heard, he went for a drive and went to go see edith. There was a lot of stuff that happened beforehand. Agreed. But when you think about her, she really was someone she married him because she felt he needed her and she had a duty to buoy him through, and a lot of that relationship, you know, she was joyful and happy right. Because that helped him along. Right. She was a helpme. She did this to him because it allowed him to retain his title and because yes. Because it would keep him alive. You know, its a lot of this was her doing it because she needed or she believed that he needed it. Theres no criticism intended. Right. But as far as her motives, i think thats where they were. I think people go off the rails, but youre absolutely right. Also theres a theory that Woodrow Wilson needed women to sort of blow him up because otherwise he was sort of shrinking academic who didnt wli like to speak in public and these women would get behind him and go, you can do this. She was trying to encourage him many days when you speak, do this. Exactly. And you know, even at the end when he was very ill, you know, he would say, i should just die. I wish i would die and she would write these letters, oh, little boy, you can do it. Keep going. Were almost to the end. Were almost there. Call him little boy. And so very much today we would say maybe she was an enabler, throw all these cheap psychological terms at her, but in fact, youre absolutely right. She gave him a lot of energy. There was a precedent, ellen did the same thing. She also sort of took this guy who had potential and sort of blew him up full of air so he could do his thing. Scholars believe that, you know, he was as strong as his women were. So its holds a lot of water when you see what happened to him. Yes. You mentioned his daughters. And ive never heard them discussed in this context. Kind of what did you find out about them . What role did they have . Well, you know, its interesting, too, because theyre glossed over quite a bit. One daughter sort of became very mystical after, you know, he died. You know, they didnt seem you know, as far as their relationship with edith, i think they liked her. I think remember this, too, edith was 15 years younger than the president. She was the young woman. And a lot of press in washington made a lot of that. Some said that she was a climber, that she wasnt really of the ilk that should be marrying the president. Henry cataloge was devastating to the time. Her fingernails we are dirty and things like that when he ate dinner next to her. Yes, very true. But, you know, so i think that the relationship with his daughters i think he was a good father, but i think, too, he was a guy who was off on his own thing a lot. You know, and i think that when he met edith, i think their relationship and their love affair and again, i really in writing the book i really enjoyed writing about that a lot because it was so intense there was no room for everybody else as well. They would build a fire and read poetry back and forth all night long and go on these long vacations. When you read about it, its very modern. They went on they would take the president ial yacht out. They took it out once and went to this little island. This is right before war broke out, you know, when the United States went to war with germany. And they go on to this island and they see all these houses but all the doors are closed and nobody is outside. So they walk back toward the president ial yacht. Lets go take another look. They go on an adventure. Theres one guy outside and he looks at them and he says, are you the president . Wilson says, i have that pleasure. We thought you were the germans come to invade us. This is what people before radio and you know were thinking. Theres a lot of these anecdotal little adventures they would go on. So i think once that relationship started, i think theres only room for two. Anybody else . Thank you. [ applause ]. If youre interested in the book and getting one signed, please come to the front and well be able to take care of you. Thank you, again, for coming. Youre watching American History tv on cspan 3 every weekend during congressional breaks and on holidays too. Follow us on twitter, like us on facebook and find our programs and schedule on our website. Cspan. Org history. 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