Ch 1. - “His Superfluous Excellency”
"[the Office of Vice President] is one anomalous insignificance and curious uncertainty." - Woodrow Wilson, c. 1885 in his book “Congressional Government”.
"[the Office of Vice President] is one anomalous insignificance and curious uncertainty." - Woodrow Wilson, c. 1885 in his book “Congressional Government”.
The typical newspaper headlines the week following October 2nd, when President Wilson passed of a fatal stroke that night.
Perhaps it was fitting that no ticker tape parades commemorated the inauguration of a man who stumbled into the highest public office in the United States by way of mere fate.
Marshall had stood by his now deceased predecessor, watching as his health deteriorated from his battle with the Senate, the only Constitutional body that could confirm his brainchild the League of Nations, and the other issues that afflicted the nation the 28th President saw only he was fit to lead.
All that had taken a clear toll on the New Jersey schoolmaster-turned-politician, up until his peaceful passing in his sleep on the night of October the 2nd. Now-President Marshall remembered the event in his later memoir, Recollections:
“I had often seen to various papers regarding the legislation of the Senate and the workings of the President. This work, at times, required my presence in my office later in the evening than I would have liked. The particular chill of that night, I will admit, certainly contributed to my decision to remain in review. When [Sec. of State] Lansing made his presence clear in the doorway separating me from the upper house of Congress, one could imagine my confusion as to his intention. It wasn’t until he spoke the words, those tragic and morbid words, the words ‘Mr. President’, that I knew the full breadth of the situation he had come to speak on…”
Within hours he had been sworn in, and became the President of a nation with more moving parts than a combustible engine. His first actions were to meet with the cabinet he had decided to keep on, holdovers from the previous management.
Photograph of the 29th President of the United States, Thomas R. Marshall.
- An American Century (p. 2019)
The First Palmer Raids rocked the American labor movement as any actions seen to be a possible preference for Bolshevism were ended violently by raids and deportations, mainly pushed by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
“[President] Marshall entered the office of [Attorney General] Palmer, with an attempt of an affable personality to reach out to the Quaker, a dubious venture. After asking a few questions about the recent actions against the accused ‘Reds’ of the dockyards and factories, there was a hefty silence after the President posed the question he intended to before this meeting: ‘is it not possible for you to relent on the American worker?’. His response shook Marshall, his face became the most serious I had seen in a spell, and we left the room almost immediately at his behest. ‘If the man is so adamantly opposed to workers, perhaps he should just remove all of them! There would then be no chance for his Reds to pop their heads up anywhere in this nation...'”
- Journal of the secretary of the 29th President, Mark Thistlethwaite
“...Mr. President, with all due respect, he who wishes communism upon his fellow countrymen is no ‘American worker’.”
- Reportedly Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s response to President Marshall’s suggestion that he end the raids
In the end, though, there is one issue that is remembered as the signifier of the 29th President: his unique position to make a decision on the Treaty of Versailles and its included League of Nations.
It was his decision to accept the ‘Lodge Reservations’, named after prominent Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, that essentially ensured America be independent in its determination of whether to become involved in foreign conflicts, something the late President Wilson fought hard to prevent despite the fact that it meant the culmination of all his work would die in the Senate, a stressful endeavor that likely contributed to his fatal stroke.
Reportedly it was Thistlethwaite and the Secretary of State Robert Lansing who made the suggestion, counseling the President in not following the political missteps the man he succeeded did, and likely would have in the same situation.
Mixed responses followed the news that the Treaty of Versailles had been ratified by the Senate on November 19th. Yes, church bells may have rung in London and Paris, and cables from the Prime Ministers of both nations, but the loyal Wilsonians of the Democratic Senators protested at home, joined by the widowed Edith Wilson, who made a comment that swept the papers of the nation in a storm of sensationalist headlines of : “...Marshall is an absolutely insufferable man.”
- A League of Dunces (p. 1993)
An unexpected result for the League of Nations on November 19th, as the Senate ratifies the treaty with slight alterations to “preserve American sovereignty”. Herbert Hoover was chosen as the first U.S. delegate to the body.
"WARSAW SURROUNDED!"
- New York Times (p. 1920)
"'A Return to Normalcy'"
- Presidential campaign slogan (c. 1920)
Last edited:
