Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him | Page 2

to important events, I must believe that the portrait will
correct some curious misapprehensions about him.
For instance, there is a prevalent idea, an innocently ignorant opinion in
some quarters, an all too sedulously cultivated report in other quarters,
that he has been uniformly headstrong, impatient of advice, his mind
hermetically closed to counsel from others. This book will expose the
error of that opinion; will show how, in his own words, his mind was
"open and to let," how he welcomed suggestions and criticism. Indeed I

fear that unless the reader ponders carefully what I have written he may
glean the opposite idea, that sometimes the President had to be prodded
to action, and that I represent myself as the chief prodder.
The superficial reader may find countenance lent to this latter view in
the many notes of information and advice which I addressed to the
President and in the record of his subsequent actions which were more
or less in accord with the counsel contained in some of these notes. If
the reader deduces from this the conclusion that I was the instigator of
some of the President's important policies, he will misinterpret the facts
and the President's character and mental processes; if he concludes that
I am trying to represent myself as the instigator he will misunderstand
my motives in publishing these notes.
These motives are: first, to tell the story of my association with Mr.
Wilson, and part of the record is contained in these notes; secondly, to
show what liberty he allowed me to suggest and criticize; how, so far
from being offended, he welcomed counsel. Having this privilege I
exercised it. I conceived it as part of my duty as his secretary and friend
to report to him my own interpretations of facts and public opinion as I
gathered these from newspapers and conversations, and sometimes to
suggest modes of action. These notes were memoranda for my chief's
consideration.
The reader will see how frankly critical some of these notes are. The
mere fact that the President permitted me to continue to write to him in
a vein of candour that was frequently brusque and blunt, is the
conclusive answer to the charge that he resented criticism.
Contrary to the misrepresentations, he had from time to time many
advisers. In most instances, I do not possess written reports of what
others said orally and in writing, and therefore in this record, which is
essentially concerned with my own official and personal relations with
him, I may seem to represent myself as a preponderating influence.
This is neither the fact nor my intention. The public acts of Mr. Wilson
were frequently mosaics, made up of his own ideas and those of others.
My written notes were merely stones offered for the mosaic.
Sometimes the stones were rejected, sometimes accepted and shaped by
the master builder into the pattern.
It was a habit of Mr. Wilson's to meditate before taking action, to listen
to advice without comment, frequently without indicating whether or

not the idea broached by others had already occurred to him. We who
knew him best knew that often the idea had occurred to him and had
been thought out more lucidly than any adviser could state it. But he
would test his own views by the touchstone of other minds' reactions to
the situations and problems which he was facing and would get the
"slant" of other minds.
He was always ahead of us all in his thinking. An admirer once said:
"You could shut him up in an hermetically sealed room and trust him to
reach the right decision," but as a matter of fact he did not work that
way. He sought counsel and considered it and acted on it or dismissed
it according to his best judgment, for the responsibility for the final
action was his, and he was boldly prepared to accept that responsibility
and conscientiously careful not to abuse it by acting rashly. While he
would on occasion make momentous decisions quickly and decisively,
the habitual character of his mind was deliberative. He wanted all the
facts and so far as possible the contingencies. Younger men like myself
could counsel immediate and drastic action, but even while we were
advising we knew that he would, without haste and without waste,
calmly calculate his course. What, coming from us, were merely words,
would, coming from him, constitute acts and a nation's destiny. He
regarded himself as the "trustee of the people," who should not act until
he was sure he was right and should then act with the decision and
finality of fate itself.
Of another misapprehension, namely, that Mr. Wilson lacks human
warmth, I shall let the book speak without much prefatory comment. I
have done my work ill indeed