Grosvenor B. Clarkson to Woodrow Wilson
Title
Creator
Identifier
Date
Source
Text
This is entirely a personal expression. I wish to say that I believe your statement to the country asking that it return a Democratic congress is wholly justified. It means a little something for me to say that. I was raised in the rock-ribbed Republican faith. My father, the late James S. Clarkson, was chairman of the Republican National Committee, served on its executive committee throughout four national campaigns, and six times sat in national conventions as delegate-at-large from the state of Iowa. I have been through three national campaigns myself in a confidential capacity. I believe that it will interest you to know that my father, almost up to the day of his death last June, had no patience whatever with the Republican criticisms of your conduct of the war and invariably said, "Support the President." My father, however, spent his entire life and his entire fortune in doing and saying what he believed to be right; he simply didn't know any other road.
For myself, party ties as such no longer interest or hold me. I believe in you and in your direction of this country's part in the war. One of the things that makes me say that is that in twenty months of war-time service in the Council of National Defense, I can not recall a single action on the part of the Council bearing on administrative matters which has had a political flavor. I have never heard even raised the question of the political faith of an appointee of the Council either during the terrific days when that body made its now historic mobilization of the industries of the Nation, or later. Frankly, before coming to Washington I would not have believed such a non-partisan attitude possible. That is one reason, among very many others, why it has been easy for me, of a totally different affiliation in the past, to give my undivided loyalty to your administration, and I shall continue to do so.
I hope that you will not misunderstand the purpose of this letter. There are no reservations of any nature in my mind. There is nothing whatever that I seek at the hands of the Democratic party or at the hands of the Administration. My chief desire is to get back into business when the war shall have ended. I feel very strongly on the question of the undivided support of yourself in the prosecution of this war; feeling as I do, I could make no other expression than that which I have here made, even though I burn a good many bridges as I do so.
Faithfully yours,Grosvenor Clarkson
Secretary of the Council.
The President,
The White House.
Original Format
To
Files
