Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson by William Hazelgrove

Author:William Hazelgrove [Hazelgrove, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621575528
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2016-10-17T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

A SMELLING COMMITTEE

1919

UNCLE SAM WAS NOW IN THE PRESIDENT’S BED. WILSON HADN’T shaved since he had the stroke, and the thin white beard looked like the old man on the poster beckoning men to war. Dr. Grayson stood uneasily waiting for an answer at the foot of the bed. He knew Senator Fall was ready to go to the press if he weren’t allowed to see the president. The room was stuffy and warm with the medicinal odor of the shut-in. Wilson picked at his beard, then looked up with a crooked smile. “A smelling committee,” the president remarked, “The sooner the better.”

Grayson nodded and left, setting the meeting up for 2:30 in the afternoon on December 5. Ike Hoover recorded the preparations. “When the Senate Committee came the great camouflage took place. He had been sitting up in his rolling chair, but when the time came for the committee to arrive he was put to bed. The room was darkened, only one light on the bedside table left burning. He was propped up with pillows and covered over entirely, except his head and his right arm. It was quite impossible for one coming from a well-lighted part of the house to see anything to satisfaction. Mrs. Wilson stood at the foot of the bed, the nurse on the side of the bed, Dr. Grayson in the doorway.”

Wilson carefully tucked his left hand under the covers, and Edith put the Senate report on Mexico on the nightstand so the president could pick it up. All they had to do was wait for Senator Fall. This was high-stakes poker for the presidency and it could have gone either way. Senator Lodge had called Secretary Tumulty and inquired about a meeting with the president beforehand. Tumulty consulted with the first lady and she talked with the president before Dr. Grayson’s visit. Robert Woolley, head of the Democratic Party publicity, had told Tumulty that the president would have to see Fall and Hitchcock or there would be impeachment proceedings.

The president, Tumulty, Grayson, and Edith were all conspiring to present a normally functioning president to the Senate. The Senate, at least the Republican side, had become the enemy circling the castle and looking for a way in. The drawbridge was being let down to admit two and then would be drawn up. The two would report what they had seen to the world.

Secretary Tumulty asked Robert Woolley if he might help them with a “dress rehearsal” in staging the visit. It was Woolley who suggested placing a copy of the Senate report by the table. Wilson often drifted off in midsentence or lost his thought completely. Edith usually nudged him back to the subject; now she might not be able to help her husband if he got in trouble. But she, Grayson, and Hitchcock would be present to try to help.

So the stage was set. The play called for the projection of a recovering president who still had firm control of the levers of power.

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