A WILSONIAN PARADOX
by PHILLIP R. SHRIVER*
Historians are often prone to
conjecture, "What might have
happened if--?" Perhaps no other
event in the history of the
United States has been the subject of
as much hindsight speculation
as this nation's refusal to join the
League of Nations after the
conclusion of the first World War. Not
a few historians have
suggested that World War II was in
large degree made inevitable
when the United States declined to
assume the role of world
leadership proposed by President
Woodrow Wilson.
In attempting to explain the failure of
the Wilsonian program of
American internationalism through our
non-participation in the
league, many have concluded that the
president was in no small
measure personally responsible for that
failure due to certain errors
of judgment which went a long way in
alienating public and con-
gressional opinion from his program.
Among these errors, none was
to prove more costly than his decision
to attend the Paris peace
conference in person. This was a
decision without precedent in our
history, for which Wilson was to be
censured by friend and foe
alike who maintained that the primary
duty of the president was
to remain at home to solve the very
difficult problems incident to
the nation's post-war readjustment. To
a subordinate, they con-
tended, should have gone the task of
preparing the peace treaty
at Paris.1
Paradoxically enough, this presidential
decision which did so
* Phillip R. Shriver is an assistant
professor of history at Kent State University.
1 The best account of this opposition to
the president's going to Paris is given in
Thomas A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and
the Lost Peace (New York, 1944), 71-86.
See also Charles Seymour, The
Intimate Papers of Colonel House (4 vols., Boston,
1926-28), IV, 209-216; David F. Houston,
Eight Years with Wilson's Cabinet, 1913-
1920 (2 vols., Garden City, Long Island, 1926), I, 350;
Henry Cabot Lodge, The Senate
and the League of Nations (New York, 1925), 98-99; Denna F. Fleming, The
United
States and the League of Nations,
1918-1920 (New York, 1932), 55-57;
Robert
Lansing, The Big Four and Others of
the Peace Conference (Boston, 1921), 38-39;
Arthur D. Howden Smith, Mr. House of
Texas (New York, 1940), 285-288.
147
148 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
much to bring ultimate defeat to the
Wilsonian program actually
constituted a refutation by Woodrow
Wilson of an earlier stand
on the subject of a president leaving
the country which he had
been compelled to take in the summer of
1913. It was in July of
that year that the American ambassador
to France, Myron T.
Herrick, conceived the idea that
Franco-American friendship would
be considerably enhanced if the
presidents of the two nations,
Poincare and Wilson, would exchange
visits with one another.2
To accomplish this end Ambassador
Herrick commenced on July 15,
1913, a rather lengthy correspondence
with President Wilson, which
extended into mid-October.3
As far as a visit by President Poincare
to the United States was
concerned, Woodrow Wilson at first
expressed himself as being in
complete accord with the idea. Yet
he most emphatically denied his
ability to reciprocate with a
personal visit to France! The
president
expressed and explained this inability
to visit France--or for that
matter any other foreign nation--while
holding down the office of
chief executive, in the following three
hitherto unpublished letters:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 25, 1913.4
My dear Mr. Ambassador:
It is a very attractive program you
suggest in your interesting letter of
July fifteenth. You are quite right in
believing that President Poincare would
have a most cordial welcome in the
United States and that a visit from him
would be hailed with great pleasure. But
I dare not promise that I could
return the visit. I think the people of
the United States are very jealous of
having their President go far from his
post at Washington or disengage
himself for any length of time from
duties which, as I now perceive, have
no intervals and no end.
2 Cursory reference to this matter is to
be found in T. Bentley Mott, Myron T.
Herrick, Friend of France (New York, 1929), 101.
3 See Herrick-Wilson correspondence,
July 15-October 14, 1913, in the Herrick
Collection in the Western Reserve
Historical Society Library, Cleveland.
4 These
three letters are in the correspondence referred to in footnote 3 above. They
are typewritten, save for the signature,
which is in Wilson's hand. Carbon copies of
the Herrick letters to which Wilson is
replying are not in the correspondence.
A Wilsonian Paradox 149
I hope that you will express to
President Poincare my warm appreciation
of his inquiry and convey to him my most
cordial personal greetings.
Sincerely yours,
/s/Woodrow Wilson
Hon. Myron T. Herrick
American Embassy,
Paris, France.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
August 18, 1913.
My dear Mr. Ambassador:
Of course, the idea of a visit to the
United States by President Poincare
is most attractive to me, as it would be
to any American, because I am sure
the whole country would accord him a
most cordial and enthusiastic
welcome; but I dare not say that it
would be possible for me, while I am
President, to leave the United States.
Indeed, I know it would not be.
I hope that, if you have the
opportunity, you will convey my warm
personal good wishes to the President of
France.
In great haste,
Cordially and faithfully yours,
/s/Woodrow Wilson
Hon. Myron T. Herrick,
American Embassy, Paris
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 14, 1913.
My dear Governor Herrick:
I must frankly say I am afraid it is not
wise to urge a visit to the United
States upon President Poincare. It would
be impossible for me to return
the visit.
Of course, I do not mean that he would
not receive the warmest kind of
welcome, for he would, and I should be
perfectly delighted to have him
come, but my own judgment is that the
representations you have already
made are sufficient to let him feel our
cordial spirit in the matter, and that
inasmuch as I cannot offer to return the
visit it is not expedient for us to
urge it diplomatically.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
/s/Woodrow Wilson
150
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Hon. Myron T. Herrick
American Ambassador,
Paris, France.
Because of the evident tone of finality
in the last letter from the
president, Herrick abandoned the idea
of persuading Wilson to
make the Atlantic crossing to France,
though he continued to work
for a visit of President Poincare to
the United States right down
to the outbreak of World War I the
following summer.5
Had Woodrow Wilson, at the conclusion
of that war in 1918,
recalled his own advice, formulated
five years before, and remained
in Washington instead of absenting
himself for six months at the
Paris peace conference, the final
outcome of the question of our
participation in the League of
Nations--indeed, of the coming of
World War II--might have been vastly
different.
5 Herrick-Wilson correspondence, January
6-March 28, 1914, in the Herrick Collec-
tion. See also Mott, Myron T. Herrick, 102.