Aspects enthusiastic role inn aspects of the promotion. Estivas planning and promotion. Im instructed to remind you this presentation is being taped and you should stay off of the risers located in the back of the pavilion. At the National Book festival in 2001, the final event of what was then a oneday festival was a presentation by scott curt in the Madison Building about his extraordinary biography of charles lindbergh. Scott is back with us today and it is both a pleasure and honor to introduce him for the second time at this festival. Ive known scott for 35 years. He came to miami where i was then living in 1978, promoting his wonderful biography of maxwell perkins. I adjust the year before published one of max perkins authors and so scott and i struck up a friendship that is persistent, although i must say a great physical distance ever since. You know scott is the author of maxwell perkins, is the author of lindbergh, as the author of a wonderful memoir of katharine hepburn. And now this fine biography of Woodrow Wilson of which are listed only scott almost alone among president ial biographers understand the president as a human being as well as a policymaker in this place great emphasis on the personal and private life with him in his personal private life is extremely interesting and important. Scott. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much for being at this afternoon. Thank you, jonathan. A wonderful introduction that means all the more to me coming from the man i consider the greatest literary critic in this country. So you are lucky People Living in this city i would say. [applause] so, enough about him. [laughter] lets talk about me and Woodrow Wilson. Im up to you this much on a personal level about me. I have been interested in Woodrow Wilson since i was 15 years old when i read a book about him and became so entranced by really have been reading ever sense and in fact went off to his alma mater, prince and university in large measure because Woodrow Wilson had gone there. For the last 13 years, i have been writing this biography of wilson and i thought before i talked a little about wilson i should tell you to mend principles that have guided me in the writing of the book, which jonathan has actually alluded to already. So that i give you two planks in my platform here. The first is that i know im in the most contentious city in the world, so hold your tomatoes until the end and well see if i prove that point. I believe Woodrow Wilson was the most influential president of the 20th century. Here we are more than 100 years later and they live in a world largely of Woodrow Wilsons creation. The second point i would like to make is i dont think there has been a more dramatic personal life that has unfolded in the white house that Woodrow Wilson. As jonathan suggested, what i have tried very much to do in this book is to integrate those two things because i think they belong to each other. I think Woodrow Wilsons personal life to some extent must, have to and it does perform his professional life. In the case for the president of the United States, his professional life profoundly affects the country and indeed the world. And i think Woodrow Wilson was the first president to affect the world so profoundly. So let me run by you a few superlatives since time is limited, since ive got a big because i was to be very big life. I give you some of Woodrow Wilsons greatest hits i think. I thought if i turned a couple of superlatives because i really like superlatives, it might give you some greater sense of Woodrow Wilson or at the very least it will give you some takeaways here this afternoon. The first thing that you must remember and again disintegrates personal life but what happens later professionally. Woodrow wilson was the first southerner elected president of the United States the civil war. Most people dont think of Woodrow Wilson as a southerner, but it was indeed born in 1856 in virginia. His very first memory his father was a presbyterian minister in virginia and then they moved into three more states of what became the Confederate States of america. But during that period when the wilsons was living in augusta, georgia, thomas Woodrow Wilson, young tommy is Woodrow Wilson was done as a boy, his first memory was when he was almost four years old and the election of 1860 had just taken place and the little boy remembered hearing, like you just got elected. Theres going to be a war. And wilson carried that with him all his life. He carried with it memories of the war as well. Growing up in augusta, he was spared seeing a lot of the day today horrors of the war, but anyone who grew up in the south briley experienced the devastation. Wilson grew up then after the civil war, they moved to south carolina. He saw the girlie charge cities. He really took this memory of devastation with him. This is going to have a deep effect later in wilsons wife because wilson is going to be called upon to decide whether this country would go into the great world war and wilson of course resisted that war for years and then finally jumped in. The reason for the great resistance was he remembered these boyhood images. He remembered the devastation of the word he used over and over again of what had happened to the south. As a result of just parenthetically is interesting to remember, Woodrow Wilson is the only american president who ever grew up in a country that had lost a war. And that was the confederate state. And so he carried all of that emotional baggage, too. A lot of that really changed with the southwest and two southerners were peered wilson said time and again during his life, there is one place in this country, in this world, that nobody needs to explain to me. And that is the south. It was another place. There was another country. And so wilsons election you see was a great reintegration if you will of the country, of the south. Woodrow wilson heres another one for you, another superlative. Woodrow wilson was the most educated president weve ever had. Hesitate to say the most intellectual. Im not going to forget Thomas Jefferson standing here in washington d. C. , but i will tell you, Woodrow Wilson attended what was then the college of new jersey and princeton. He graduated in 1879. He had Political Trends already. His great aspiration was to become as i discovered going through his papers because he had once made a little Business Card, homemade Business Card that said thomas Woodrow Wilson, senator from virginia. And that was the dream then. The way to achieve that was to become a lawyer because most president s began their professional lives as lawyers. Also as you notice, senator from virginia because virginia had that more men to the right has been anybody in history. So wilson went to the university of Virginia Law School and there he studied law, but really didnt like the study of it so much. After a year or two, he moved down to atlanta, opened a law office. He was really a terrible lawyer. In his year or two down there, he obtained no clients. Hes up spending the afternoons reading. He read a lot of history. He read a lot of what was actually becoming a new discipline in this country. And that was something called Political Science. So he read a lot about politics government, economic, history and how they were all melded into this new thing called Political Science. After wilson realized he was not making a living as an attorney in atlanta, he decided he was going to go to graduate school. One very good thing came out of his atlanta gears and that was he had one big piece of business as a lawyer. And that was something that his family had brought to him. There was some piece of property that needed some contracts, some legal work. So wilson went to rome, georgia, where he was tying up these loose ends and where he, a presbyterian ministers son that a woman named element Action Committee was a presbyterian ministers daughter and the two of them fell in love and had a real oldfashioned 19th century courtship. A little more extensive than most because wilson, although he was desperate to marry her and her realized he didnt have the resources to do it just yet. So they had an engagement that went on for several years, during which time they exchanged thousands of love letters. Now let me restate this. They exchanged thousands of love letters. I mean, this is one of the most romantic correspondences that has ever been put down on paper. I am not forgetting the items here. Im not forgetting the brownings. This is really very occasionally you sort of think many of you out here can at least picture Woodrow Wilson, the grand tour, presbyterian minister sought by the long faced woodrow. But the fact of the matter is he was this incredibly passionate, intensely emotional man and all of this comes out in these letters. And again, this becomes very interesting knowing that we are now in retrospect that we are going to get a president who was this emotional, who feels things this deeply, who was so unabashed that he can put any thought, any feeling down on paper. He knows how to articulate his inner self. This is quite rare among president s i think. So anyway, will send upon getting engaged is up to Johns Hopkins university where he becomes what will be the first president to have a phd. He said it would oppose science as i suggested. Before he had even received a degree, realized that in order to marry alan coming is going to have to make a living so he chose academia. He thought politics was an unfair Playing Field. He felt he had no chance not having any money, not having family background, that he could never get ahead. You could get a foothold in politics and so he began to support his family by becoming a College Professor first step remark college the very day they opened the school. He was in the first cohort of professors when Bryn Mawr College opened its doors to just women. He was not very happy they are teaching just women. Even unhappier with mrs. Wilson. They soon married, for the obvious reason i think. But also, she thought they were not quite worthy of her has been. He got another pair, this time teaching history and Political Science at Wesley College in middletown, connecticut. After another few years he got the call hed been secretly hoping for the wizard going to have a political career that was a job offer from princeton. Wilson returned to his alma mater where he took the school by storm, rather as he had as an undergraduate, but this time he became the most dynamic present, not obey on this campus, but in this small town and increasingly in the stated new jersey. As he increasingly becomes a public figure, an intellectual, someone who writes books and letters and he is traveling all the country. So he has becoming a rather famous thinker in the country and thats quite something because in 1902, he proved himself so indispensable after 12 years on the princeton campus that they made him president of the college. Now this was a real shock to this little campus, quite beautiful campus whose president before wilson described it as the greatest country club in all of america and wilson really wanted to change that and make and wilson almost overnight began to reform what was then called penn state university. Introducing numerous educational reforms, both then not only changed education at princeton. He affected Higher Education in this country and indeed as you attended a column or if you know somebody who went to college in which he majored in something of which there was a sequence of courses in which he possibly had two lectures on a class each week, may be an honor code thrown in there. That is the Woodrow Wilson model. Sunday created himself and basically that began to spread across the country. Now, here is a new one for you. Woodrow wilson became, or i should say, Woodrow Wilson have the most meteoric rise in American History. Its a big one. But i understand heres how. In 1910, Woodrow Wilson was the president of a small mens college in new jersey. And by that i mean it was a small mens college, not if mom ands college. [laughter] although James Madison did go to princeton. [laughter] 1771. So it cuts both ways for him. Here is the important thing. October 1810, Woodrow Wilson is still the president of the school the middle of new jersey. Okay, a small college. Now if you can believe this, new jersey was the most corrupt state in the union in 1910, which had the most corrupt political machine in the union, the democratic regime i should mention. They thought we need a puppet. But its a squeaky cleanest puppet in the state. Who can break at . Why dont we go to that squeaky clean professor, the president of princeton. Thats good Woodrow Wilson come to wilson come to see if he has political aspirations little did they know yes indeed he agreed to run on behalf of the machine. What they didnt realize is the first and Woodrow Wilson would do after getting elected in a landslide is kick out the machine. I mean, he literally physically shut the doors, banned the machines from showing up in the government building. And over the next 18 months, Woodrow Wilson introduced the most Progressive Agenda of any state in the union and got it passed. And this was quite stunning because my god, this College Professor has very sharp political elbows. And it was quite something. Im not everybody in the country is turning to new jersey and they are thinking, who is this guy . And indeed in 1912, William Jennings bryan having been littered with Democratic Party, having lost three national elections, the party was now in search of a new phase, a new image. Who better than this very progressive, very erudite, very proper squeaky clean governor of new jersey. And so, remember the most meteoric rise in American History . October of 1910, Woodrow Wilson gets president of a little college. November of 1912, Woodrow Wilson is elected president of the United States. The 28th president. Now this is where the roller coaster ride really begins. Woodrow wilson comes in within the first two years. And lets stretch it and lets call it his first term event. But within the first two years, Woodrow Wilson passed the most Progressive Agenda of the country had ever seen full text period that said. He immediately redid the economy of this country by lowering tariffs in a big way. This doesnt sound very every last today, but it was in favor of a graduated income tax, which he thought was a fair way to go, which he thought was a way that would again level the Playing Field for most americans. He then created, presenteda macabre pass something called the Federal Reserve system, which today remains of course the bedrock of our economy. The eight hour workday, workers compensation. But the first jewish on the supreme court. Every week, every month there were some new idea or wilson would say, some new ideal that was going to be passed, something that he was going to present. This is the almost magical thing that wilson did in the first few years in the first term of office. That is, he not only be defined the possibilities of a president , the executive powers that a president could have they could be the presidency of the least a fine office in the constitution and therefore you think it was the president can basically do anything he wants until someone tells him he cant. Thats the congress or the supreme court. Thats the first thing he did. He went and out though the sharp elbows, but im swinging. The second day and this may be the most important thing that has resonance to this week. And that is wilson redefined the president of the United States and iraq with the congress. Wilson had this crazy belief that the executive branch and the legislative branch should cooperate. And i mean that quite literally. He meant to branches should cooperate the government. And that he thought meant that the white house, the presidency must be personalized. It must be humanized. It meant that he should make appearances. Not just in public, but in the congress. And so, wilson did something extraordinary that even members of his own party resisted. And that was he just began shelling out. He realized that a president had basically not set foot in the Congress Since john adams left in early 1801. Nobody even now we have this Great Institution every year at the state of the Union Address where we have a big ceremony, all that. I did not exist for 112 years, until Woodrow Wilson decided, i will come forth and i will present the state of the union and what i foresee the state of the union is being. And he did that every year, such that it became a Washington Institution of course. More than that, wilson had this very Progressive Agenda. He thought in order to pass that, in order to emphasize its importance, i want to say to the congress homeport natives and i will do it by voting with my feet. Its a wilson, get this, wilson called 25 joint sessions of congress during his two terms. This is once every few months both in would show up, gave a speech, see this tariff address is extremely important. Weve got to get a tariff bill moved. This labor bill, whatever it was, wilson would show up and gave a talk and 90 with the period that would be fine. It was extraordinary. Then he did something even more extraordinary. Wilson would show up the next day and he would sit in a little room in the capitol, a road that has basically been nine years since Woodrow Wilson as it had been unused before Woodrow Wilson. The room has a very complicated game. It is called the president s room. And it is an idea George Washington had for the building of a capital and that there should be the small room and it is possibly the most beautiful room in the capitol. Small, high ceiling, has a desk and a couple of settees and a few comfortable chairs. The purpose of this room must have an auxiliary office in which the president of the United States could come whenever he wanted and just sit there to discuss the laws he wanted enacted. In wilson did. He would come back sometimes four or five times a day, said at the desk, grab senators when i walked up the senate floor, sit them down, have discussions. He would run a little classroom sometimes. The professor never leaving him use the this part of his personal life now influencing his professional life. And he got these things past. And so we now have you see, a new mode of governance. Now, he did keep a set of world war i for a couple of years. He famously banned the war broke out in the summer of 1914. He kept this up until 1917. He ran for reelection in 1916 on the slogan he kept us out of war, but rather famously on april 2nd, nate 17, wilson gave his speech to a joint session of congress. And heres what he said to them. There is one line in this one speech. It may be the most important foreignpolicy speech ever given. Our Foreign Policy to this day, to this week, to president obama talking a week ago about our role in syria are not powerful in syria, whether there should be a moral component to american Foreign Policy. All of this stuff, all of these questions. Is america the policeman of the world . That all goes back as indeed does every major policy decision come is certainly one involving an american incursion ill spare in the world all goes back to one line, the world must be made safe for democracy. Were going to war. Ly w we, a country with an army theek size of that of portugal, was now going to send two million men overseas. And im not talking aboutm n crossing the pond here, were talking about the atlantic ocean. W and, indeed, america went to war. And as a result of that war, america emerged as the first great modern superpower. Indeed, a genuine military Industrial Complex for the first time. The wilsons main reason there are all sorts of things, and a there are chapters in the book on this, but wilsons main reason i believe that he sent us into this war, was that he believed we could be part of the peace, that we could even dictate the peace. T w and he came up with 14 points that would describe that peace. T and the 14th of those points was the most crucial. It was the creation of somethinc he called a league of nations. Od this was an International Parliament in which countries could gather together, sit atin the same table. Its almost like an arthurianan dream. And there at that table they could diplomatically iron outdi differences before they exploded into wars. It was quixotic, it was idealistic, it was this veryas noble notion. Le but to wilson, it was rail politic. It was the real deal for him. There was no reason not to do this. There was no reason it couldntr happen. There was one reason, however, that it didnt, one primary r reason. Even though Woodrow Wilson went over to paris to negotiate the peace and was gone for six months and now let met rephrase that. Woodrow wilson was gone for six months. The president ofix the United States left there december in f 1918 until july of 1919. He came home for one quick trip in between, and thats it. But he came home with a treaty that wasnt perfect, he knew itn flaws, but he knew one thingws above all, it incorporated this league of nations. And he thought that would even t be able to iron out any of the flaws in the treaty. Now, heres the hitch, he being a constitutional scholar and as all of you know no matter what a president wants to put in a treaty, thats fine, but the senate has to ratify it. N e. Publican senate bill and they wanted no part of it. I found doing my research, the paper said suggested there were some scrips like republican governors meeting while wilson was a way. And they were determined not to accept anything of that will send him home with. Indeed, that proved to be the case. I dont want us to diminish a genuine believe that a lot had that this was not a good treaty, that it was not a good idea to have illegal nations because though the of nations also have attached to it this notion of collective security, that if there was a violation against one nation, all of us would chip in and fight. Well, that is something we still argue about to this day whenever we mobilized. And sibila who so wilson realize he was getting nowhere with the senate, i think, embarked on the greatest Political Mission that any president has ever undergone here was a president his attitude is going to take his cause, this idea of elite divinations and bring it to the people. You is going to jessica meant the product. He launched a 25 city tour. This was really did first time a president toured the country, sullivan self, but not for personal aggrandizement. This was somebody who sacrifices life literally was to set the people i an idea that ms. Will send this corrected me on an ideal. That is what he believed in. That is what you ought to the country of buy and to. As his rather famous now and something i really tracking great detail and a vote of was in collapsed in the middle of that tour. The rest embalm days they suffered a stroke in now begins with of what i call the greatest disparity see a conspiracy and white house history because the second mrs. Wilson the first one having died after one year in office and truly breaking the president s heart commis really suffered a major depression got out of bed to fight the war and win the piece and all that visit 1919, 1919, the second to mrs. Wilson had a handful of doctors that conspired to keep from the United States, to keep from the world the fact that the president of the estates has suffered a stroke. For the last yearandahalf of the second term ritually notice of the president of the estates. Indeed every document that enter the white house and the president ial approval, every decision, every person it might be granted an audience had to pass through mrs. Joseph who had been a young, attractive widow here in town his family rented to restore. No political experience, very low education. Arguably she began the first real president of the net is states. She was civilly acting at least as this chief of staff, but i would say as a very fortified chief of staff status. Wilson left the white house with the exception of those assess netted. He is suffering really the most just painfully tragic final three years is becoming the only president to remain in washington d. C. After his white house years. Areas of being an almost magical, its operational and it to Woodrow Wilsons life which is in its final years living up on as st. Each afternoon he would take a drive with his wife and a chauffeur, of course. There would be a handful of people out on the streets just to see him. More and more people would come to the house, a kind of pilgrimage to this shrine. Sometimes 100, sometimes 200. And veterans, 10,000 people. Next year there were 20,000 people. People would come from all over the world now just to see Woodrow Wilson. Ceviches since the were not pud to sit still and no. We are put it into act. And he gave every ounce of his being to make that come true. Thank you very much. [applause] [applause] thank you, thank you. You mentioned that wilson towards to circumvent congress to establish the league of nations. I want to ask you if his 14 points and away he went around the 14 points was equally knowing how they felt about it and theyre feeling and what they stated was give wilson his 14th point and we can get anything we want with the initial 13 points. Wilson basically sacrificed the 13. In order to gain his 14th. A very valid question. Tear he did not sacrifice. Suddenly the essence of the other 13 points are incorporated or was there in corporate and the treaty. There are a few that are not and there are a few botches, a few lastminute compromises that wilson made. There is no question about it. Was it quixotic . Yes, i think in retrospect, perhaps. The time everything seems quite believable. I think he thought of this to be manageable. It has been asserted in recent years that, perhaps, wilson was duped by lloyd george. He really did not know the extent of the lions den that he was walking into. They have really believe that. You will see in the book there are a lot of instances where he is perfectly aware of what theyre doing. Here was a big problem that he encountered. He went over there and theyre sitting at the table were 24 nations. Those two nations, each of them had a very specific agenda to gain more territory and more treasure. Wilson then arrived, did not have those things. He was not there to build an empire. He was there with one this super on national goal, and that was basically to get the league. And so as a result of that, that may have been the most quixotic think. Some may say in retrospect the dumbest thing. He really did not go in with the bag. Thought wilson just did not operate that way. But in the end, and i really parse the 14th point. The very least you will see the spirit of them. I would say nine out of the 14 points, the essence of them is really i will be real fascinated. It is a fair question. Certainly a fair question which will probably be debated forever. What do you think of the autobiography of Thomas Marshall who was wilsons Vice President . This is a fascinating question. Thomas r. Marshall who was from indiana, i great, great, favorite sun of indiana in fact, just before we get that, in answer the question about the autobiography. He read his autobiography Woodrow Wilsons name only heres a handful of times which is kind of interesting for the vicepresident. The same time he is seldom even in the white house during the wilson years. And the rumor is and now wellknown dine out on the and now im just bragging. I knew the last ten years of life, i used to go up to hurt and massachusetts avenue. Something more important. I loved Woodrow Wilson. She just blows them. And she ridiculed me for two hours. In early 80s at that point. And i was just kind of this mouse in the cats paws. But she claimed it so assertively. She claimed that when they finally did break it to the vicepresident weeks later that the president has suffered a stroke, Vice President marshall fainted. George nodded makes the point that he was probably illequipped. This goes back to why i call it a conspiracy because who is to say this man would not have become harry truman . Who is to say the Vice President might not have risen to something that no one knew he could rise to. This was a decision are rarely made by mrs. Wilson and the doctors. As a result in large measure of that we have a 25th amendment which details president ial disability. As you pointed out in the beginning, wilson was the first southerner to become president in the civil war. A product not only of the south, but the deep self during an era when the klan is in its ascendancy, redeemer politics is widespread across the south. Would you say a few words about how race and racism affected wilson . I will say a few words and i am glad the u. S. That because this is, you know, not all pretty. This is the and prettiest and the sedition act. Wilson, this great progressive was extremely regressive. It must not be forgotten. Woodrow wilson did introduce jim crow to this city. Says sam chang segregation, even the community. This goes back to the personal side, someone who grew up in a deep southern society, during the war, prewar. This is what he understood. All that being said, he was a racist, his writings, his thinking, no matter what time or context, it is racist plot. That being said, i dont think he was of virulent racist. I dont think that he hated africanamericans. He only had hatred for a few individuals. Israel hearing about regulation, and l. A. Enough for you to decide whether you agree not. All the evidence pro and con. But he really did believe the country simply was not ready. And he said more than once, it will take a generation to before this country can deal with that problem which would put use some more in the mid1950s which may be exactly on Woodrow Wilsons calendar. That being said, if you slow the process because he segregative the city, because desegregated government offices, probably a good bet, and i would say he simply did not want a revolution that did occur in the 50s and 60s to occur on his watch. I will throw in one more political point. That is and here we must ended, and it was at this point that wilson realized to a advances very progressive new freedom and agenda he needed the complete backing of the Democratic Party which included that a vast block of onethird of the senate and congress which were southern democrats, and he basically remained true to them, to the southern cause, and got his new freedom which ultimately was passed on the back of the africanamericans in this country. Thank you very much. [applause] booktv continues with nina munk. Ms. Munk talks about Jeffrey Sachs village product that had the end goal of eradicating poverty around the world. This is about an hour. Tanks. Ive been a fan of these events that julian has run. And i wrote him, asking him if he would allow me to present nina
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