Dreamers and Deceivers (11 page)

Wilson put forth this plan before the war ended, hoping to terminate hostilities without a surrender on either side. It was an effort to create “peace without victory.” Other Allies did not seem so keen to surrender their sovereignty to an international body, but Wilson knew that he could persuade them.

The speech received triumphal reviews from the only voices that really mattered to him: Edith and the
New York Times
. “No public utterance you’ve ever made was greeted with such acclaim,” his wife said later that night. The
Times
soon agreed, declaring that the Fourteen Points rivaled the Emancipation Proclamation in their importance.

Republicans, however, begged to differ. They did not like the idea of an international body usurping America’s sovereign rights. The president worried about building enough support, but Edith assured him that opposition would soon be wiped away by popular acclaim.

Wilson realized his wife was right yet again.

Aboard the USS
George Washington

North Atlantic Ocean

March 4, 1919

The president was gray. He had a temperature and the chills. His head throbbed. The voyage to Europe for peace negotiations had only just begun, and Grayson already feared for the president’s ability to handle what might be weeks of tedious debate and negotiation. He urged the president to rest, but Wilson dismissed his advice.

Since the armistice in the Great War had been declared the previous November, the president had worked nonstop in pursuit of his League of Nations dream.

His most vociferous opponent, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, had been expressing grave misgivings about any plan that might subjugate U.S. sovereignty or range of action to an international body. He did not want America bound to what he called “the intrigues of Europe.” He
also wanted the United States to be able to deploy forces wherever it wished, whenever it wished, without the consent of an international body.

“I have my own diagnosis for my ailment,” Wilson told Grayson with only half of a smile, “I suffer from a retention of gases generated by the Republican Senators—and that’s enough to poison any man.”

Paris, France

April 14, 1919

Grayson had attended to his patient day and night for weeks now. Ten days earlier, the president had been seized with coughing fits, severe diarrhea, and shortness of breath. Grayson had at first suspected food poisoning, but he changed his diagnosis to severe influenza after Wilson’s temperature reached an alarming 103 degrees. In the days that followed the president looked like a walking dead man.

Despite his patient’s dire condition, Grayson put on his game face for reporters and other delegates, issuing a constant stream of hopeful and optimistic updates. Only in private did his confident smile fade. In a letter to a friend Grayson confided: “From your side of the water you cannot realize on what thin ice European civilization has been skating. I just wish you could spend a day with me behind the scenes here. Some day perhaps I may be able to tell the world what a close call we had.”

Paris, France

April 28, 1919

“It’s House,” Wilson muttered. “He’s got the servants acting as spies. They’re monitoring everything we say.”

Grayson assured his patient that this wasn’t true. In recent days, the president had seemed to rally from the worst of his illness, only to plunge into even deeper distress. His face twitched and his hands shook so much at times that he could not even shave himself.

Now he was spewing seemingly paranoid or incoherent ideas, like this accusation of spying against Colonel House, his friend and most loyal advisor.

Grayson knew that this was only the latest incidence of Wilson’s bizarre behavior. Recently, after a luncheon on the peace process, the president had noted the arrangement of chairs in the room. “This isn’t in order,” he’d said. He then urged Grayson to help him put red chairs in one section for the Americans, green in another for the British, and the remainder of chairs in place for the French.

To Grayson’s growing astonishment, the president had also reversed himself abruptly on a multitude of important decisions. In earlier discussions, Wilson had proven reluctant to support the severe punishment that the British and French were advocating against Germany, such as cutting up some German territories, disarming the nation completely, and imposing huge reparations. Then he completely reversed himself. Before he became ill, Wilson had adamantly opposed a proposal to put German’s former kaiser on trial. After he returned to negotiations, he put forth a resolution to do just that.

Leaving the sick room, Grayson found himself confronted by curious reporters. He again told them the same thing he’d been saying for weeks. “It’s influenza. I’m afraid the president has suffered a relapse.” He blamed Wilson’s toiling away in poorly ventilated rooms and unfavorable weather for the most recent bout.

Returning to his room, Grayson fretted. What if the press learned that he’d sent for two medical experts from America to rush to the president’s side? What if someone with authority suggested what Grayson already knew to be a very real possibility: that the president wasn’t suffering from the effects of influenza, but from a stroke?

Washington, D.C.

September 3, 1919

As he boarded the train at Union Station, Cary Grayson tried to conceal his distress—but it was largely a futile effort. Only he and Edith knew the true state the president was in: He was peaked; his face was
pale; and he twitched involuntarily. Over and over Grayson had tried to persuade Wilson to see the disastrous consequences that could result from this impending trip, but, as always, he refused to listen.

Grayson agreed with the president’s vision for the League of Nations and believed it would be an historic effort to end all wars. He was less sure, however, about Wilson’s refusal to consider any compromises to the proposal. Grayson believed that such rigidity bordered on insanity. Moreover, it was politically impractical. Anyone who read the papers knew that the League, at least the way Wilson insisted on it being constructed, was a nonstarter with both Congress and the American people.

Never lacking confidence in his own ability to persuade, Wilson was convinced that this three-week train trip would turn the tide of public opinion in favor of the League—thus forcing buckling senators to vote in its favor. He had scheduled dozens of speeches in places from Ohio to Indiana to Montana to Colorado to California and back in an effort to round up support.

But Grayson thought the trip was far too onerous for the oft-ailing president. He’d noticed that flashes of rage came more quickly to Wilson now. The president was frustrated that everyone was treating him like he was a different person. Even if they didn’t say it to Wilson directly, Grayson knew that his friends and advisors all thought the president was missing a step.

Now, as the train began to make its way out of the capital, Grayson wondered if Wilson might ever make it back home to Washington.

Indiana State Fair

Indianapolis, Indiana

September 4, 1919

Wilson stood on a platform at the state fairgrounds and held forth before thousands of curious people. He saw in their eyes the profound effect he was having on them as he thundered against opponents of the League. Citing Article XI, one of his favorites in the Covenant of the League of Nations, Wilson declared “that every matter which is likely
to affect the peace of the world is everybody’s business, and that it shall be the friendly right of any nation to call attention in the League to anything that is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations.

“Under the Covenant of the League of Nations, we can mind other peoples’ business and anything that affects the peace of the world, whether we are parties to it or not, can by our delegates be brought to the attention of mankind!”

The crowd roared—and Wilson smiled, knowing that victory was now only a matter of time.

On Board the Presidential Train in Montana

September 6, 1919

With each day of travel, Cary Grayson saw that Wilson’s condition only seemed to worsen.

The president was muddled in his speeches: He said Baghdad was in Persia, rather than Iraq; he confused the dates of treaties he was citing; and he claimed to have descended from American revolutionaries, when, in truth, none of his ancestors had lived in the colonies during the Revolutionary War. Most of these occurrences could be laughed off, the inevitable result of too many speeches, but Grayson knew Wilson was a man of precision. His faltering was, Grayson feared, a sign of greater trouble.

Wilson could barely eat, so Grayson prepared a daily diet of liquids and soft foods for him. Now severe throat pain was making it hard for the president to even swallow. Grayson, having watched the steady progression of symptoms, now had a new diagnosis in mind. With Edith listening anxiously by his side, he told the president that he had developed a throat infection, an alarming sign that his overall health was beginning to fail.

Pueblo, Colorado

September 25, 1919

As her husband delivered his fortieth speech in half as many days, Edith looked on with growing concern. He was not sleeping. His breathing was labored. He would sometimes appear to be choking. He would lose his train of thought during speeches, and he’d often repeat himself. He was more rigid than she’d ever seen him. Even with her.

Just before his speech, Edith asked Wilson to stop and take a respite. “No,” he told her. “I have caught the imagination of the people. They are eager to hear what the League stands for. I should fail in my duty if I disappointed them.”

It was true that thousands were turning out to see him. What wasn’t quite as clear was whether any of them actually opposed the League to begin with. Sure, there were occasional signs of dissenters—“Shall American boys police the world?” men would call out to him—but they didn’t seem to Edith to be likely converts to her husband’s cause. Which made her start to wonder: What was the point of this trip? Preaching to the choir would not change anything.

Speaking outside a large hall, underneath splendid red, white, and blue bunting, Wilson greeted the crowd. “Mr. Chairman and fellow countrymen, it is with a great deal of genuine pleasure that I find myself in Pueblo, and I feel it a compliment that I should be permitted to be the first speaker in this beautiful hall. One of the advantages of this hall, as I look about, is that you are not too far away from me, because there is nothing so reassuring to men who are trying to express the public sentiment as getting into real personal contact with their fellow citizens.”

Wilson, his voice gathering steam, then accused opponents of the League of being disloyal to their country. “I have perceived more and more that men have been busy creating an absolutely false impression of what the treaty of peace and the covenant of the League of Nations contain and mean.

“I find, moreover, that there is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the
same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty.”

He went on for an hour, until his head throbbed and his voice was hoarse. He defended the League and attacked his opponents. He said his efforts were essential to a just and lasting worldwide peace. And then he brought the audience, and some journalists as well, to tears as he closed his speech by citing the sacrifices of the American dead. “There seems to me to stand between us and the rejection or qualification of this treaty the serried ranks of those boys in khaki, not only those boys who came home, but those dear ghosts that still deploy upon the fields of France.”

As Wilson basked in the thunderous applause, Edith cried as well. Not because of her husband’s words, but because she knew he would not make it much longer.

•  •  •

Edith Wilson beckoned the maid into her compartment. It was very late at night, so the First Lady said little as the maid brushed her hair and then offered a massage. With her husband sleeping in the next room—at last, he was getting some rest!—the women made a special effort to keep quiet.

Before long, they heard a knock on the door. It was the president.

“When you are finished,” he called out, “will you come in here?”

A pause, and then: “I’m very sick.”

Quickly summoning Dr. Grayson, Edith listened in horror as her husband now admitted what they’d all known for so long. He had tried to sleep, but the pain was unbearable. He couldn’t breathe. He was nauseous. She could see the muscles on his face twitching. He had difficulty moving his left side.

She saw a worried look crossing Grayson’s face and her heart began to race. She wondered if her husband would even survive the night.

On Board the Presidential Train to Kansas

September 26, 1919

5
A.M.

Cary Grayson came to the same conclusion as the First Lady: The western tour was over. The reporters would be told the president had an illness attributed to exhaustion. A telegram would be sent to Wilson’s daughters informing them of his early return, but assuring them there was nothing to worry about. All other stops were canceled. The conductor would send messages down their route to clear the tracks for the train’s speedy return to Washington.

Everyone agreed to the plan, except for the president, who, despite having managed to dress himself, still looked piteously ill.

“No,” Wilson told them. “No. I must keep on.”

Grayson could not relent to his friend’s whims. Not this time. “Any other course than returning to Washington,” he warned Wilson, “might bring disastrous, even fatal, consequences.”

But Wilson would not relent. Grayson and Edith looked at each other with exasperated expressions. The First Lady knew what she had to do.

Edith went into the bathroom and retrieved a small mirror. With tears in her eyes, she brought it to her husband. “Look at yourself.”

Wilson took the mirror and, for the first time, saw the reality. He swallowed hard and choked back tears. “I don’t want to be a quitter.”