1920 by Eric Burns

Author:Eric Burns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2015-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Closed Door in the White House

IT WAS PONZI WHO MADE headlines late in the summer of 1920, but there was a much more important story in Washington, D.C. at the time, a story of which few people were aware, a crisis that affected not only the manner in which government was conducted but perhaps the decisions that it made—there is no way to know. It was a kind of crisis that had never existed before and will never exist again.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who as a boy had been called Tommie by his family and friends, was the son, grandson, and nephew of Presbyterian ministers. As a result, Tommie could not help but inherit a certain stiff-necked, churchified rectitude, an image that he carried into adulthood, when he was known by his middle name.

But the Wilsons were not nearly as strict in their religion as their fellow followers of Calvin. Tommie’s father, for example, known to all as Dr. Wilson, smoked, had an occasional drink, played billiards, and enjoyed vacationing at fancy resorts, even when his leisure activities prohibited him from a strict observance of the Sabbath. He also enjoyed tutoring his son; “they talked like master and scholar of classical times,” writes Wilson’s biographer Arthur Walworth, “the father giving the boy in digestible doses what he had learned of the world, of literature, the sciences and theology—imparting it all with humor and fancy.”

However it was imparted, though, theology was probably the most important part not just of Tommie’s lineage, but of his life. Dr. Wilson might not have been a strict Presbyterian, but of the fact that he was a true believer there is no doubt. He displayed it to his son most often when the two of them were alone together on Sunday afternoons.

There were readings … in the big leather-bound Bible. The doctor penciled notes in the margins that interpreted the text in the language of the day. His religion had no cant and was suffused with a love of mankind that often overflowed sectarian bounds.

Young Tommie was exposed to the best that Augusta (Georgia) offered in religious education. In the Sunday school, of which Uncle James Bones was superintendent, the boy memorized the Shorter Catechism. To his roving mind this was as painful as formal schooling, and he did not remember the work permanently.

Yet Tommie … [o]ften rode in his father’s buggy when the preacher made parish calls. His favorite playground was the shady churchyard. … Even as he lay in bed on summer evenings the strains of the organ soothed him. Music affected his emotions; he would sometimes weep at the communion service when moving hymns were sung.

This was Tommie Wilson’s foundation for maturity, and if it seems more appropriate for a minister than for a politician, that is exactly what it should do, for it indicates the kind of elected official Wilson would eventually become. He was sure of the dictates of proper morality and determined to follow them, regardless of storms of disapproval, both public and legislative.

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