Ray Stannard Baker to Cary T. Grayson

Title

Ray Stannard Baker to Cary T. Grayson

Creator

Baker, Ray Stannard, 1870-1946

Identifier

WWP16372

Date

1921 October 7

Description

Ray Stannard Baker thanks Cary Grayson for giving him the name of Mr. Gordon in Staunton as he is working on writing and researching the biography of Woodrow Wilson.

Source

Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia

Language

English

Text

My dear Friend Grayson

I have delayed absurdly in acknowledging & thanking you for the name of Mr. Gordon of Staunton. I have no doubt it will greatly help my friend. But I’ve never had to work harder in my life than in the last fews weeks—trying to whip this material into shape so that it could go in the newspapers. It has been a much harder task than ever I imagined it would be: I mean to get it right and accurate in detail. One can write a little book like my former one with relative ease for he hits only the high spots, but there is no use in another hasty book even though it has more bulk: and people, I think, now want the evidence and the proof of what really happened. To boil this out of the enormous amount of material, and above all to make it clear and interesting, I have been finding a great task. Yet it is a great satisfaction to see how well the President stands the test of close inquiry: how he never, even in that Paris madhouse, lost his vision or his determination to keep the doors open to the realization of a new order. That he could not bring the world at the moment to his point of view was unfortunate, and he had to make costly compromises, but the more these international questions are discussed—as in the coming conference at Washington—the more the leaders will discover that they will have to face the old prophet there in S. street!

I miss talking with you: you’ve so friendly an outlook upon life: and when I come down again, sometime, I hope soon, I shall count on a good visit.

Remember me to Mrs. Grayson and to the young gentlemen!

RSB

Original Format

Letter

To

Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/D04039.pdf

Citation

Baker, Ray Stannard, 1870-1946, “Ray Stannard Baker to Cary T. Grayson,” 1921 October 7, WWP16372, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.