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To the memory of my dear mother Alicia Tumulty whose spirit of generosity,loyalty, and tolerance I trust will be found in the lines of this book
In preparing this volume I have made use of portions of the followingbooks: "The War The World and Wilson" by George Creel; "What Wilson Did atParis," by Ray Stannard Baker; "Woodrow Wilson and His Work" by William E.Dodd; "The Panama Canal Tolls Controversy" by Hugh Gordon Miller andJoseph C. Freehoff; "Woodrow Wilson the Man and His Work" by Henry JonesFord; "The Real Colonel House" by Arthur D. Howden Smith; "The ForeignPolicy of Woodrow Wilson" by Edgar E. Robinson and Victor J. West. Inaddition, I wish to make acknowledgment to the following books forincidental assistance: "My Four Years in Germany" by James W. Gerard;"Woodrow Wilson, An Interpretation" by A. Maurice Low; "A People Awakened"by Charles Reade Bacon; "Woodrow Wilson" by Hester E. Hosford; "WhatReally Happened at Paris," edited by Edward Mandell House and CharlesSeymour, and above all, to the public addresses of Woodrow Wilson. Imyself had furnished considerable data for various books on Woodrow Wilsonand have felt at liberty to make liberal use of some portions of thesesources as guide posts for my own narrative.
Woodrow Wilson prefers not to be written about. His enemies may, and ofcourse will, say what they please, but he would like to have his friendshold their peace. He seems to think and feel that if he himself can keepsilent while his foes are talking, his friends should be equally stoical.He made this plain in October, 1920, when he learned that I had slippedaway from my office at the White House one night shortly before theelection and made a speech about him in a little Maryland town, Bethesda.He did not read the speech, I am sure he has never read it, but the factthat I had made any sort of speech about him, displeased him. That was oneof the few times in my long association with him that I found himdistinctly cold. He said nothing, but his silence was vocal.
I suspect this book will share the fate of the Bethesda speech, will notbe read by Mr. Wilson. If this seems strange to those who do not know himpersonally, I can only say that "Woodrow Wilson is made that way." Hecannot dramatize himself and shrinks from attempts of others to dramatizehim. "I will not write about myself," is his invariable retort to friendswho urge him to publish his own story of the Paris Peace Conference. Hecraves the silence from others which he imposes upon himself. He is quitewilling to leave the assessment and interpretation of himself to time andposterity. Knowing all this I have not consulted him about this book. YetI have felt that the book should be written, because I am anxious that hiscontemporaries should know him as I have known him, not only as anindividual but also as the advocate of a set of great ideas and as theleader of great movements. If I can picture him, even imperfectly, as Ihave found him to be, both in himself and in his relationship to importantevents, I must believe that the portrait will correct some curiousmisapprehensions about him.
For instance, there is a prevalent idea, an innocently ignorant opinion insome quarters, an all too sedulously cultivated report in other quarters,that