Woodrow Wilson, the man and his work

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Preface

In this work I have tried to give a systematic account of what Woodrow Wilson has done, and of the principles on which he acts. The latter is really the more important, for information without insight is .of little value and indeed may be a disadvantage. Besides recounting events I have therefore endeavored to exhibit them in their bearing upon the public welfare, apart from considerations of party advantage; and also to point out their constitutional significance. These are the things that count in the reckonings of history ; these are the things that ought to determine present judgment ; these are the things I have had in mind in writing this biography.

H. J. F.

Princeton, March, 1916,

Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. Birth and Education 1

II. His Career as an Educator .... 22

Chapter I

IN his family descent Woodrow Wilson belongs to the Scotch-Irish stock whose arrival in the American colonies, at the time when the settlements were only a narrow coastwise strip, gave the first start to effective occupation of the interior. His ancestors were not, however, among these pioneers, but came from Ulster early in the nineteenth century. The War of Independence and the rise of American nationality had not severed the ties between Ulster and America, and emigration still flowed briskly along familiar channels.

Among the emigrants in 1807 was a County Down youth, James Wilson, who was bound for Philadelphia, always a favorite port with the Ulster people. He obtained employment at the printing trade, in the office of William Duane's newspaper, the Aurora^ with such good prospects that he felt able to wed Anne Adams, an Ulster girl who had come over in the same ship with him. They were married November 1, 1808, by the Rev. Dr. George C. Potts, pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, of w^hich denomination they were both staunch adherents.

With the restoration of peace after the War of 1812, the movement of population to the West was renewed with great vigor, and James Wilson was caught by it. He went to Pittsburg, cast about for an opening, and finally found one to his mind at Steubenville, a river town in the then new state of Ohio. Here he founded the Western Herald^ and in its office every one of his seven sons was taught the printing trade. In 1832, he founded a paper in Pittsburg, the Pennsylvania Advocate^ which was under the iinmediate charge of his eldest son. James Wilson maintained editorial supervision over both papers until his death in 1857. He was a justice of the peace and hence was commonly known as Judge Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson's father was the youngest son of Judge Wilson, Joseph Ruggles, born at Steubenville, February iio, 1822. In addition to absorbing the printing craft Hke all his brothers, he applied himself to scholarship, and after a good preparatory training at an academy in Steubenville, went to Jefferson College at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, where he was graduated in 1844 as valedictorian. After a year's experience in teaching at Mercer, Pennsylvania, he turned toward the Presbyterian ministry. He attended the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, for a year, and then went for a year to Princeton Seminary. Although now licensed to preach, he continued for years thereafter to labor chiefly as an educator. After receiving a B.D. degree from Princeton Seminaiy in 1846, he taught for two years in the Steubenville Male Academy. While there he became acquainted with Miss Janet Woodrow, of Chillicothe, Ohio, a pupil of the Steubenville academy for girls. They were married on June 7, 1849. Her father was the Rev. Dr. Thomas Woodrow, originally a Scotch Presbyterian minister, who had settled at Carhsle, England, for sixteen years, and Janet was one of eight children born to him there. Thence he removed to Canada and was engaged in missionary work there when, in 1837, he was invited to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church of Chillicothe. Two weeks after Joseph Wilson's marriage to Doctor Woodrow's daughter, he was ordained by the Presbytery of Ohio, but his occupation still continued to be chiefly educational. For a year he served in Jefferson College as "professor extraordinary" of rhetoric. From 1851 to 1855 he was professor of chemistry and natural science in Hampden Sydney College, Virginia. In 1855 he took pastoral charge of a church at Staunton, and here, on December 28, 1856, there was born to him a son who received the family names, Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow was the third of the Wilson children, the two preceding being girls. His only brother was born ten years later.

The Wilson family did not remain long in Staunton but removed thence to Augusta, Georgia, while Woodrow was in his second year. The Rev. Mr. Wilson had a distinguished career in the Presbyterian Church, South. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Oglethorpe University in 1857. He was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Augusta 1858-1870; professor of pastoral and evangelistic theology in Columbia (S. C.) Theological Seminary, 1870- 74; pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, N. C, 1874-85, and professor of theology in the Southwestern Presbyterian University, Clarksville, Tennessee, 1885-93. He served as permanent clerk of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, South, 1861-5; as stated clerk, 1865-1899; and as moderator, 1879. His wife died April 15, 1888. He retained his professor's chair at Clarksville until he was seventy-one, when he retired from active labor and went back to Columbia to reside. The last years of his life were spent with his eldest son at Princeton, where he died, January 21, 1903, in his 81st year. He was well known and liked by Princeton people, who noted in him the source of his son's personal characteristics, particularly a turn for anecdote, a flow of animal spirits, and sociability of disposition. His pictures also indicate that

Woodrow Wilson took after his father in physique as well as in temperament.

Although Woodrow Wilson's childhood was spent in the South during the Civil War, he escaped its severities. Augusta, then a city of about fifteen thousand population, was never in the actual track of the war and was never occupied by the Federal troops until the Reconstruction Period. There were times when the food supply became confined to a few staples, and there were periods v/hen war's alarms disquieted the elders, but there was nothing so eventful as to impress the mind of a child with memories of the struggle. He was not quite nine years old when the war ended, and if its incidents had any special bearing on his childhood it was in postponing the beginning of his school days.

His first acquaintance with literature was obtained in the home circle. The family had the habit, quite common among educated people in the old South, of having someone read aloud when the home circle gathered about their evening employments. Not only the father and the mother, but also the boy's two sisters, often read aloud, and in this way the boy heard and relished passages from Scott, Dickens, and other authors, before he knew his letters. The father was a sociable, instructive, and communicative companion, and he laid well and durably the foundations of the boy's education before a school book was taken in hand.

Woodrow began his schooling at an academy opened by a Confederate veteran who had returned to civil pursuits after four years of soldiering. Notwithstanding its casual inception it was a good school, numbering distinguished men among its graduates. One of them was the late Justice Lamar of the United States Supreme Court.

The Wilsons moved from Augusta to Columbia, South Carolina, in 1870, where Woodrow went to school at a local academy. In spite of liis late start he advanced so well in his studies that by the time he was seventeen he was ready to go to college. In 1873 he entered Davidson (N. C.) College. His career there was brief. He joined the Eumenean literary society, and he played baseball on the college team, but he did not finish out the year, as he fell ill and went home to his family, now settled in Wilmington, North Carolina. There Woodrow remained for a year, building up his constitution, which had been affected by an over-rapid physical development, and meanwhile pursuing studies to meet the entrance qualifications at Princeton, whither it had been decided that he should go. He matriculated there in September, 1875.

Although, since he has become famous, interesting anecdotal details have been collected about his school days, there is really little that is significant. At one time he had had a passionate fondness for sea stories, and had familiarized himself with the rigging and navigation of vessels before he had ever seen the ocean, but such enthusiasms are characteristics of childhood. What really counted was that he acquired a taste for general reading, which is an appetite that once developed tends to become insatiable. Indulgence of this taste seems to have been the significant feature of his Princeton career. He does not appear to have been prominent in student activities, and was connected with comparatively few organizations. In his freshman year he joined "The Tarheels," which had been established to commemorate the Mecklenburg* Declaration of Independence. His eating club was "The Alligators," which he joined in his sophomore year. In his senior year he was one of the five directors of the football association and acted as secretary of the board, but he did not play on the team. In those days football did not have its present prominence among college sports and but ^ve games were played during the season, only three of which were with other college teams. At that time he stood five feet eleven and weighed one hundred and fifty-six pounds. His figure has not varied much since.

His record for scholarship was sound without being brilliant. His general average for the four years was 90.3 and he stood thirty-eighth in a graduating class of one hundred and six. His highest standing in scholarship was attained during his sophomore year and his poorest was during his senior year. In philosophy, ethics, history, political science, and English literature he always received a high rating, but in scientific branches he received lower ratings and these brought down his average. The poorest showing he made was in astronomy, in which his senior rating was 73 — more than passable but not distinguished.

In view of the faculty for public speaking which he subsequently developed, it is rather remarkable that he did not figure more prominently as an orator. He joined Whig Hall and received its training in public speaking, but did not obtain a place upon the college debating team; and his only distinction in this field is the minor one of winning a second prize in a Hall debate during his sophomore year. His activities at Princeton were chiefly literary, and it was only in this field that he gained marked distinction. He was elected a member of the editorial board of the Princetonian for the term of April, 1877, to April, 1878, was one of two managing editors from November 15, 1877, to January 10, 1878, and w^as the sole managing editor from May, 1878, to May, 1879. In addition to his work on the Princetonian, he was a contributor to the Nassau Literary Magazine and won a prize by an essay on William, Earl Chatham, published in the number for October, 1878.

The most remarkable and significant performance of his undergraduate period was an article on "Cabinet Government in the United States," contributed to the International Review and published in the issue for August, 1879. That a youth of twenty-three should have been able to get into a high-grade review with an elaborate article on public policy was certainly a notable literaiy exploit. It occupies nearly eighteen solid pages and was evidently regarded by the editor as an important article — as indeed it was. It is marked by a breadth of knowledge, range of vision, and independence of thought that is rarely found in youth, however brilliant and gifted. Such an article could never have been created merely upon the basis of a college curriculum. It was the outcome of personal observation and experience, and these are not the qualifications that one is apt to acquire during the undergraduate period. The matter becomes intelligible when it is considered what pungent occasion for interest in public affairs was supplied by the impressions of his childliood during the Reconstruction Period in the South, and how that interest presided over his thought and reading. The reading of anyone who reads to much purpose is apt to seem desultor}% but that is because it seeks understanding rather than information and in turning to every quarter for light is led on into many fields. A determination to figure in public affairs is not a novel undergraduate ambition, but in this particular case it was allied with pertinacious industry. T^otions of politics derived from family tradition, from the newspapers, and from college manuals were corrected and improved by assiduous reading of histories, memoirs, biographies, and periodical literature — not by set rule but in pursuit of ideas and for the satisfaction of intellectual interests. In form and style the International Review article is plainly modeled upon the pattern supplied by the English quarterlies upon which the youthful author was in the habit of browsing. Then, too, there are passages that seem to have been originally prepared for forensic use, and that may have been utilized in debate before incorporation in the essay. But what distinguishes this essay from the clever imitative work not infrequently done by young authors is the independent quality of the thought.

At that period politics and ethics were confused in the accepted manuals, as indeed they still are in schoolbooks on civics. The regular way of treating constitutional arrangements was to impute to them the merit of their intentions and to account for their failure in practice by the machinations of politicians or by the ignorance and perversity of the electorate. Hence the people are always to blame when things go wrong, and it follows that political improvement is to be sought through moral improvement. In grasping the principle that the quality of power is determined by the conditions under which it is exercised, and that good management of the public business is as much a matter of sound organization as good management of private business, young Wilson doubtless profited by studying Bagehot's works; but the particular application of that principle to the interpretation of American conditions was wholly his own. In a treatise of singular force and vivacity Bagehot had knocked to pieces the old check and balance theory of the English constitution. He showed that its efficacy really depended upon concentration of authority and that the mainspring" was the organic connection of the executive and the legislative branches. Wilson probably took from Bagehot his way of viewing politics from the standpoint of actual practice, but that is all.

This article was so decisive in its influence upon Wilson's career, and it contains in embryo so much of his subsequent thinking and writing upon government, that it deserves special consideration. It begins with a reference to existing conditions.

"Our patriotism seems of late to have been exchanging its wonted tone of confident hope for one of desponding solicitude. Anxiety about the future of our institutions seems to be daily becoming stronger in the minds of thoughtful Americans. A feeling of uneasiness is undoubtedly prevalent, sometimes taking the shape of a fear that grave, perhaps radical, defects in our mode of government are militating against our liberty and prosperity. A marked and alarming decline in statesmanship, a rule of levity and folly instead of wisdom and sober forethought in legislation, threaten to shake our trust not only in the men by whom our national policy is controlled, but also in the very principles upon which our Government rests. Both State and National legislatures are looked upon with nervous suspicion, and we hail an adjournment of Congress as a temporary immunity from danger."

Proceeding to the consideration of causes, the essayist notes a disposition "to cast discredit upon that principle, the establishment of which has been regarded as America's greatest claim to political honor — the right of every man to a voice in the government under which he lives." But he protests against the attempt to make universal suffrage the scapegoat of our grievances and he contends that the true cause lies in the defective organization of public authority.

"Congress is a deliberative body in which there is little real deliberation; a legislature which legislates with no real discussion of its business. Our Government is practically carried on by irresponsible committees. Too few Americans take the trouble to inform themselves as to the methods of Congressional management; and, as a consequence, not many have perceived that almost absolute power has fallen into the hands of men whose irresponsibility prevents the regulation of their conduct by the people from whom they derive their authority."

The parceling of legislative initiative among standing committees, a system peculiar to the United States, is due to the fact that the executive has no means of proposing and explaining measures directly to Congress.

"There is no one in Congress to speak for the nation. Congress is a conglomeration of inharmonious elements ; a collection of men representing each his neighborhood, each his local interest ; an alarmingly large proportion of its legislation is 'special' ; all of it is at best only a limping compromise between the conflicting interests of the innumerable localities represented. There is no guiding or harmonizing power. Are the people in favor of a particular poHcy — what means have they of forcing it upon the sovereign legislature at Washington? None but the most imperfect.

If they return representatives who favor it (and this is the most they can do), these representatives, being under no directing power, will find a mutual agreement impracticable among so many, and will finally settle upon some policy which satisfies nobody, removes no difiiculty, and makes little definite or valuable provision for the future."

The remedy for this situation, he urges, is to establish cabinet responsibility.

"When carrying out measures thrust upon them by committees, administrative officers can throw off all sense of responsibility ; and the committees are safe from punishment, safe even from censure, whatever the issue. But in administering laws which have passed under the influence of their own open advocacy, ministers must shoulder the responsibilities and face the consequences. . • . The Executive is in constant need of legislative cooperation; the legislative must be aided by an Executive who is in a position intelligently and vigorously to execute its acts. There must needs be, therefore, as a binding link between them, some body which has no power to coerce the one and is interested in maintaining the independent effectiveness of the other. Such a hnk is the responsible cabinet."

After getting his A.B. degree from Princeton in 1879, Woodrow Wilson matriculated in the law school of the University of Virginia in the autumn of the same year. While there he applied himself dihgently to forensic training. He developed his voice by joining the chapel choir and the glee club. He was active in the Jeff*ersonian Society, and won its gold medal for oratory. The University of Virginia magazine for March, 1880, contains a report of an oration on John Bright, which Wilson delivered before the Jeffersonian Society; and the number for April contains an essay on Gladstone, signed "Atticus," which was Wilson's pen name in writing for college periodicals.

Just before Christmas, 1880, Wilson left the University of Virginia and returned home. Too great concentration upon study, and insufficient diversion, had brought on attacks of indigestion, to recover from which change of scene was necessary. During the ensuing year he remained at

[18] '

his home in Wilmington, resting, reading, exercising, and restoring his health. In May, 1882, he went to Atlanta to begin the practice of law. In that year Atlanta received a visit from a tariff commission created by Congress and Wilson was among the witnesses who appeared before it. He spoke in behalf of free trade, with a qualification which he thus stated:

"No man with his senses about him would recommend perfect freedom of trade in the sense that there should be no duties whatever laid on imports. The only thing that free traders contend for is, that there shall be only so much duty laid as will be necessary to defray the expenses of the Government, reduce the public debt, and leave a small surplus for accumulation. But that surplus should be so small that it will not lead to jobbery and corruption of the worst sort."

Wilson had not been attracted to Atlanta by any personal associations but simply because the city was growing so rapidly that it seemed to offer a promising field for a young practitioner. As matters turned out it did not give an opening to Wilson. He formed a partnership with ani other 3^oung law}^er, waited for clients who did not come, and meanwhile went on with the studies of jurisprudence and politics that interested him so deeply. Along with those studies went an increasing conviction that they would not be favored by the ordinary employments of a practicing lawyer, and also that their continuance would not aid him in getting business. Such considerations had their final issue in a determination to quit the practice of law in order to become a professed student and educator in the field of jurisprudence. Johns Hopkins University was at that time making a strong appeal to the South as an institution for postgraduate work, and he went into residence there in the autumn of 1883. The following year he was appointed to a fellowship in history. He spent two years at Johns Hopkins University, during which he finished a thesis, upon the acceptance of which the degree of Ph.D. was conferred upon him, in 1886. His career at Johns Hopkins was brilliantly successful. He made a strong impression upon his associates, both by his intellectual power and by his personal traits. He acquired the sort of reputation in university circles that marks one as a coming" man and puts one forward for academic preferment. The call, indeed, came before he had taken his doctor's degree, and he left Johns Hopkins to join the faculty of Bryn Mawr College in 1885. But such was the appreciation of the university authorities that they arranged to keep him still associated with their work through a visiting lectureship to which he was appointed in 1887. His two years at Johns Hopkins closed the pupillary stage of his career. It was rather protracted, as he was in his thirtieth year before he had finished his preparatory studies and was fairly launched in his career as an educator. But it soon turned out that the delay had not been disadvantageous, for he had laid down broad and solid foundations upon which he now rapidly erected a commanding reputation.

Chapter II

IN entering upon the career of an educator, Doctor Wilson at the same time entered upon a period of intense activity. It was as if the preparatory stage had been employed in assembling materials and in setting up apparatus whose products now came forth in remarkable quantity and variety. Lectures, public addresses, books and essays, closely stud the record of the ensuing years. These varied activities went on concurrently, but for convenience of examination they will be dealt with best by classes, and the present chapter wdll be devoted to a consideration of his work as an educator.

His original appointment at Bryn Mawr College in 1885 was that of an associate in history. The following year he became associate professor of history and political science. In 1888 he accepted a call to the chair of history and political economy at Wesleyan University, and in 1890 he was called to the chair of jurisprudence at Princeton University. In addition to the work of these chairs he delivered a lecture course at Johns Hopkins University, and he was lecturer on constitutional law at the New York Law School. His work in history, jurisprudence, and politics was amply recognized by the academic world. The degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Lake Forest College in 1887, by Tulane University in 1898, by Johns Hopkins University in 1901, and Yale University conferred upon him the degree of Litt.D. in 1901. He was elected president of Princeton University in 1902, and since then has received additional degrees.

Doctor Wilson's literary activities were what first brought him into public notice, but those pursuits were not so engrossing as to prevent him from giving thoughtful consideration to educational problems. As soon as his position in the academic world was solidly established, addresses upon educational topics became a marked feature of his activities. In 1893 he delivered an address at the International Congress of Education at Chicago on the question of whether an antecedent liberal education ought to be required of students in law, medicine, and theology. This address affords an instance of his facility in getting at the heart of a subject. He began by observing:

"We shall, I think, escape entanglements if we note at the very outset the two-fold aspect of the subject. It may be discussed from the point of view of the individual who is seeking professional instruction as a means of gaining a livelihood, or from the point of view of society itself, which must wish to be well served by its professional classes. The community will doubtless be inclined to demand more education than the individual will be willing to tarry for before entering on the practice of his profession. To which shall we give greater weight, the self-interest of the individual, or the self-interest of the community?"

The issue could hardly have been more concisely or more exactly stated, and the ground was cleared at once for an illuminating discussion of the professional value of a liberal education, pointing out the need and also the existing inappreciation of it. He remarked :

"The practical side of this question is certainly a very serious one in this country. That there should be an almost absolute freedom of occupation is a belief very intimately and tenaciously connected with the democratic theory of government, and our legislators are very slow to lay many restrictions upon it. Our colleges and universities, and our law and medical and theological schools have seldom endowment enough to render them independent of popular demands and standards. They are wholly independent, however, of each other, and cannot be constrained to accept any common scheme or standard. Even if the public had made up its mind very definitely on this subject, no means are at hand to facilitate concerted action. Keform must come piecemeal, and by example ; not all at once and by authority. The remedy for the present state of affairs in this country seems to me to lie in resolute independent experiment by individual institutions. Let leading universities and colleges that have or can get money enough to make them free to act without too much regard to outside criticism, first erect professional schools upon a new model of scholarship, and then close the doors of those schools to all who have not a first-rate college training."

It is on those very lines that the effort to improve professional qualifications in this country is now being carried on.

At the meeting of the American Bar Association at Saratoga Springs, August 23, 1894, Doctor Wilson delivered an address on legal education. This, as it was for a special audience, went into technical detail, but in the main it was a plea for breadth of preparation. Here is a typical paragraph :

*'To take a definite example, in order to make my meaning clearer, it is a favorite idea of mine that commercial law should be taught along with the history of commerce, which will make it plain what gave rise to the relations of business with which the law deals, how the forms of commercial negotiation and of commercial paper came into existence, and how statutes and all the imperative regulations of the law have come after the fact, fixing obligations already habitually recognized, or at any rate ready to be put into form, and so simply serving merchants, not inventing transactions for them. One portion of our law we already study in this way — the law of real property. It has retained forms and phrases which we cannot understand without turning back to examine the feudal system and the social conditions of the middle ages; and so we are happily obliged to give heed to its genesis. We ought to do the same for every portion of the law."

In an article contributed to the Forum for September, 1894, he considered the relation of university training to citizenship. In this he had something to say on the relative values of a classical training and a scientific, and also as regards national ideal in the character of a university. Truth is without geographical boundary, but there can be a national selection of truth.

*'In order to be national, a university should have, at the center of all its training, courses of instruction in that literature which contains the ideals of its race and all the nice proofs and subtle inspiration of the character, spirit, and thought of the nation which it serves; and, besides that, instruction in the history and leading conceptions of those institutions which have served the nation's energies in the preservation of order and the maintenance of just standards of civil virtue and public purpose. These should constitute the common training of all its students, as the only means of schooling their spirits for their common life as citizens. For the rest, they might be free to choose what they would learn. . . .