The President Who Just Had a Cold | OPINION | Opinion

On October 2, 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffered an ischemic stroke, leaving him physically and mentally disabled until his term ended in March 1921. The president had difficulty speaking, seeing, feeding himself, making sound judgments, and even writing his own name. As White House Chief of Staff Usher Ike Hoover wrote in his memoirs, the president looked as if he were dead.

Yet the illness was shrouded in secrecy, and Wilson remained commander in chief for two more years. How could a bedridden man continue to hold such a position? There are three figures who particularly contributed to misleading the American public.

The first was Woodrow Wilson’s loyal personal physician, Dr. Cary T. Grayson. In order to keep the President’s medical information secret, Dr. Grayson concealed the severity of the stroke from the President’s Cabinet and Congress. He did not even tell President Wilson himself how severe the stroke was.

Stay informed: Sign up for daily opinions in your inbox Monday through Friday

When Secretary of State Robert Lansing called a cabinet meeting, Dr. Grayson was given the responsibility of signing the “paper of disability,” which would have allowed Vice President Thomas Marshall to serve as acting president. However, Dr. Grayson refused to sign the paper, claiming that “the President’s mind is not only clear, but very active.” Without medical confirmation, President Wilson’s cabinet had no basis for encouraging presidential succession. After all, as Dr. Grayson stated, the only thing troubling the President was a bad cold.

Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson, was also responsible for Wilson’s continuation of the presidency. She claimed, “if he resigns, the greatest incentive to recovery will be gone.” During the 17 months that President Wilson was bedridden, Mrs. Wilson exercised considerable political power, which she later called her “stewardship,” with Mrs. Wilson assuming complete control of the president’s cabinet. Members of the cabinet took orders from Mrs. Wilson rather than from the president, and when a vacancy arose for Secretary of the Treasury, she alone interviewed and contacted applicants.

When Secretary of State Lansing admitted before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he had not seen the President in months and reprimanded the President’s family and doctors for their dishonesty with the American public, he was forced to resign. Although Mrs. Wilson claimed that she made no executive decision, she later admitted that she alone determined what the President could see and decide. What the President did not see, she would do. Twenty-eight bills became law without Wilson’s signature, and he did not deliver his annual address to Congress in 1919 or 1920.

With Lansing’s public statements and the disappearance of one of the most powerful men in the world, Americans by early 1920 had serious doubts as to whether President Wilson was as healthy as Dr. Grayson reported. Edith Wilson responded to these concerns by initiating an interview with the New York World, a New York newspaper so influential that it had played a major role in creating the aggressive stance that led to the Spanish-American War in 1898. The interview was conducted by reporter Louis Seibold, who wrote two reports of the interview that were published on June 18, 1920. One, entitled “Visit to Woodrow Wilson,” provides a detailed account of the meeting with the President and provided descriptions of his health, including a statement that the President “is now doing more work than before confinement.” Seibold wrote of “a great improvement in the President’s physical condition.”

The other, “Interview of Woodrow Wilson,” depicted a seemingly regular conversation about American politics. During these interviews, the president displayed his regular intelligence, political passions and quick wit.

The articles were so influential that Louis Seibold won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. However, these articles were entirely fabricated by Edith Wilson and Joseph P. Tumulty, President Wilson’s secretary, who wrote the statements and gave them to Seibold for publication.

The interviews successfully manipulated the American public into believing that a man who “looked dead” was actually suffering from a bad cold and could serve another year as President of the United States.

Joey Buff is an intern at the Independence Institute in Denver. He is a junior at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, majoring in psychology, philosophy, and religion.