A White House less than forthcoming with information, a press corps asking basic questions but never digging deeper to find the truth, a public left largely in the dark, and all during a time of a global pandemic. This was the state of the country for an astonishing seventeen-month period in the first part of the twentieth century.
In a chapter of American history not widely known, the sitting president of the United States suffered a stroke and became incapacitated because of it. For 17 months, the federal government was run not by the president but by the first lady of the United States.
Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as the twenty-eighth president of the United States on March 4, 1913, for the first of his two terms as president. Considered the quintessential Progressive Era president, Wilson oversaw a historic growth of the federal government and the administrative state that Americans are familiar with today.
The Wilson presidency was transformative for the country in other ways, with the ratification of several Constitutional Amendments during his time in office. The month before he was sworn in, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, establishing the federal income tax. Three more Constitutional Amendments were ratified during Wilson’s presidency: The 17th Amendment changed how senators were elected from a vote of state legislatures to a popular vote, the 18th Amendment ushered in Prohibition or the banning of the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of alcohol, and the 19th Amendment guaranteed a woman’s right to vote.
Regretfully, Woodrow Wilson is also remembered for re-segregating many branches of the federal government. The first movie ever shown in the White House was the pro-Ku Klux Klan film, The Birth of a Nation, which Wilson and his guests viewed.
While changes were taking place in the United States internally, even greater changes were taking place in the world after World War I started in 1914. While Wilson kept the United States out of the war for over two years, this changed in 1917 when war was declared against Germany and its allies. The United States sent a large force to Europe and lost 116,000 soldiers during the war to secure an Allied victory.
After the war ended in November 1918, Wilson traveled to Europe to broker a treaty he believed would lead to lasting peace in the world. The tenets of his plan were called the “Fourteen Points.” One of these points was the establishment of a League of Nations for countries to arbitrate disputes within the context of an international organization. The proposed League of Nations was made part of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that formally ended World War I.
The Constitution requires that such a treaty be ratified by the United States Senate, many of whom had reservations about how the proposed Treaty of Versailles, and its inclusion of the League of Nations, would affect United States sovereignty. Wilson decided to travel around the country and advocate for the League, hoping public pressure would make the Senate act. But his intense schedule unknowingly led to a genuine Constitutional crisis over something whispered about by the people but never publicly acknowledged – Wilson’s health problems.
Before Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office to become president, he suffered at least two strokes in 1896 and 1906, as well as from chronic headaches and high blood pressure. Another illness during the Wilson presidency weakened Wilson further. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic of the twenty-first century, those alive in the early twentieth century experienced another serious pandemic. The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed approximately twenty-two million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans in a country with less than one-third the population of America today. About 28 percent of the American population became infected, including President Wilson in April 1918.
Wilson survived and wanted to give the impression to the American people that the Spanish Flu would not slow him down. He always wanted to look active and engaged.
On September 3, 1919, the president embarked on a four-week speaking tour around the country that planned to go west to twenty-nine cities to advocate for the League of Nations and Senate passage of the Treaty of Versailles. On September 25 in Colorado, Wilson began showing symptoms such as difficulties with speaking and maintaining coherent thought patterns. The decision was made to cancel the rest of his trip and return to Washington, D.C.
Woodrow Wilson’s health only deteriorated further. On October 2, 1919, President Wilson suffered a blocked cerebral artery – another stroke – that led him to collapse and hit his head on a bathtub at the White House. Wilson’s left side was paralyzed, his vision was impaired, his speech was restricted, and his cognitive abilities were compromised.
The president’s inner circle responded by putting Wilson in his White House bed. The next day, newspapers only reported that Wilson was ill, but no other information was provided. Joseph P. Tumulty, the president’s secretary (who would be considered the chief of staff today), Dr. Cary T. Grayson, the president’s physician, and Edith Wilson, the first lady, became the only ones having or allowing access to the president.
Edith Wilson had not been in President Wilson’s life for very long at the time of his stroke. While in the White House, Wilson lost his first wife, Ellen, on August 6, 1914. However, shortly thereafter, the president began a relationship with Edith Bolling Galt that resulted in marriage between the two on December 18, 1915. It could not have been known then what a vital role Edith Wilson would play in her husband’s presidency.
Amid delicate political negotiations over the League of Nations, as well as the multitude of items faced by every administration, hiding the health crisis of the president was something that could not be easily done. But it seems that this is exactly what the small circle around Wilson did.
Secretary of State Robert Lansing, a man who was with Wilson in Europe and an important part of the negotiations over the League of Nations, was the first to raise the alarm that the president was in an incapacitated state. Lansing pressed Dr. Grayson about the reports that the president had fallen ill. Dr. Grayson lied to Lansing, telling the secretary of state that Wilson only suffered from “a depleted nervous system” and that the president’s mind was “not only clear but very active.”
However, Joseph Tumulty was more candid and suggested to Lansing that the president had suffered another stroke. Lansing immediately declared that Wilson should transfer presidential power to Vice President Thomas R. Marshall. Loyal to Wilson, both Tumulty and Dr. Grayson objected.
Robert Lansing called a cabinet meeting on October 6, 1919, something he was not supposed to do without President Wilson’s knowledge. It was an important meeting because no administration had had to address a situation when a president was alive but incapacitated. The United States Constitution’s only words for such a situation before the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967 are found in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6. It states as follows:
In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
Wilson was not dead, had not resigned, and was disputing, at least through a proxy, that he could not discharge the powers of the presidency. Vice President Marshall did not want to appear too eager to become president, so he declared he would not act unless Congress declared Wilson incapacitated.
The cabinet meeting on October 6 did little to define or answer any Constitutional questions. Nothing was decided except to see how Wilson’s health progressed. Robert Lansing resigned the following year on February 20 for an “assumption of presidential authority” by calling the cabinet meeting without Wilson’s approval.
A pattern emerged over the next 17 months through the end of Wilson’s presidency on March 4, 1921. All important matters intended for the president were first given to Edith Wilson, the first lady. Doctors told Edith that any information that might upset her husband was bad for his health, so she was very judicious in what she told or showed him.
For the American public, the sudden disappearance of President Wilson from public view after “falling ill” so shortly after a high-profile trip throughout the country and public negotiations over the League of Nations led to no shortage of rumors about his condition. Many Americans believed Wilson was in a comatose state, although this was never the case. The press accounts differed wildly about the seriousness of the president’s condition.
Dr. Grayson always put a positive spin on the president’s health when he knew the situation was more troubling. He is reported to have said privately at the time, “He [Wilson] is permanently ill physically, is gradually weakening mentally, and can’t recover.” Grayson later claimed he did this at the insistence of both Tumulty, who was equally non-forthcoming with those who inquired about the president’s health, and Edith Wilson.
Joseph Tumulty assisted a journalist, Louis Seibold of the New York World, with writing a fabricated interview with President Wilson. The fake interview won Siebold the 1921 Pulitzer Prize.
The true condition of President Wilson throughout the remainder of his term is still debated. Wilson received the king and queen of Belgium just 24 days after suffering his stroke, propped up in his bed at the White House. Wilson was able to converse well enough throughout the fifteen-minute meeting.
By December 1919, members of Congress, including Senators Albert Fall and Gilbert Hitchcock, visited President Wilson in his bed at the White House in a forty-minute meeting. Again, it was obvious Wilson was ill, but he was able to interact with the senators.
As 1919 turned into 1920, it was an open secret that Wilson was severely limited. Those outside the inner circle who saw Wilson all reported that he was not in good shape. On April 14, 1920, Wilson met with his cabinet. Most of these men had not seen the president for over seven months, and the cabinet members were stunned by his condition. Treasury Secretary David Houston said Wilson had “difficulty in fixing his mind on what he was discussing.”
Although Congress passed legislation during Wilson’s incapacity, the country moved forward with a president who was a figurehead in most respects. In neither December of 1919 nor in December of 1920, the month which, at the time, was traditionally reserved for a state of the Union address to Congress, did President Wilson give a speech.
On March 19, 1920, without Wilson’s ability to advocate for its passage, ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, and with it, America’s inclusion in the League of Nations, was defeated in the Senate. The United States never became a member of the League of Nations. This international body later failed to stop the devastation of World War II.
Wilson left office and lived for another three years, dying of heart disease on February 3, 1924. For her part, Edith Wilson denied that she acted as the de facto president of the United States during her husband’s incapacity, although she admitted to being the sole authority as to what President Wilson saw and was told. Edith referred to her seventeen-month period as Woodrow Wilson’s presidential caretaker as “my stewardship.”
Many consider Edith Wilson to be the first female president of the United States.
The 25th Amendment
After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, there was some initial confusion over the health of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. In a nuclear age, confusion over who has the authority to oversee the executive branch and the United States military takes on even more importance. Congress sought to remove any ambiguity about this by passing the 25th Amendment in 1967.
While the amendment addresses the presidential line of succession and what happens if, for instance, the president has surgery under anesthesia, the 25th Amendment still leaves some unanswered questions.
Article Four of the amendment has led to controversy in modern times. This provision states that the vice president, along with a majority of cabinet officers, can declare to Congress that the president is unfit to hold office due to either physical or mental illness, transferring presidential power to the vice president. Some have suggested this provision be used as a political alternative to impeachment, a use never intended or contemplated by its drafters. To date, Article Four has never been implemented.
The modern United States president has many responsibilities. There must be stability and clarity regarding who can assume an office with such powers. The presidency of Woodrow Wilson showed America for the first time why this is so important.
For more on this topic, check out the article “How Woodrow Wilson’s Hidden Illness Left America with no President for Over a Year” by Joseph Connor, published at HistoryNet.com.
Steve Villalobos is a Southern California professional who holds an undergraduate degree in American History and political science. He is also a contributor and writer for 1776history.com.
