Cary T. Grayson Diary
Title
Cary T. Grayson Diary
Creator
Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938
Identifier
WWP16316
Date
1920 November
Description
Cary T. Grayson reports on President Woodrow Wilson’s reaction to the election returns for 1920.
Source
Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia
Language
English
Text
The physicians, both Admiral Grayson and Doctor Ruffin, were without apprehension as to serious physical effects on the President of a great Republican victory in November. Doctor Ruffin had said that while defeat would, in his opinion, not injure the President physically, undoubtedly victory would be a great assistance in hastening his complete recovery. Admiral Grayson always insisted that the President had an enormous reserve force which would help him to weather any storm. The Admiral said more than once: “He has never failed to rise to an occasion.” The Admiral on the day before election had a long talk with the President which reenforced the Admiral’s confidence that the President was thoroughly prepared for whatever might result.
The President was able even to jest a little when Mrs. Wilson remarked that Governor Cox was going to visit the devastated regions during a vacation which he proposed to take. The President laughed and said he did see why the Governor need go that far to see devastation - there was plenty of devastation here in America in the Democratic ranks.
Notwithstanding the confidence of the President’s physicians, some of his lay friends were uneasy particularly as the President at least professed to believe confidently in a Democratic victory. His friends, who foresaw that defeat was inevitable and would probably come in huge dimensions, took occasion to talk as pessimistically to him as they could, but their pessimism seemed to make no impression on the President. They could not help fearing an unhappy result to his health, and, perhaps, an even more unhappy result on that abiding faith which he has always had in the people and which has so sustained him. Both these fears proved to be absolutely ungrounded. All who saw the President in the days immediately following the election felt that he looked stronger than he had looked for some time, and his state of mind was excellent. There was not in him the slightest disposition toward bitterness. In a conversation two days after election he talked very seriously about the country, saying that what happened to either party, Republican or Democrat, was unimportant compared with the fate of the country, that such a landslide indicated (among other things) that people would expect impossibilities from the Republican administration more than they could fulfill if they would, more than they would if they could, and that when the inevitable defection should begin it might run into very dangerous forms. He talked very simply and very quietly, but there were once or twice little shadowy movements around the corner of his mouth, which the person to whom he was talking had never noticed before, an impression impossible to describe, but which clearly indicated yearning love for his country and a sense of his own helplessness to “do anything about it.”
As one talked with him that morning, or rather one listened to him talk, he did seem to see a manifestation of a purified and exalted “Americanism” by the side of which much of the campaign talk on that same topic seemed cheap and tawdry.
Later in the day the President seemed more cheerful than he had been for some time, laughed more, told two or three characteristic anecdotes which had nothing to do with politics; indeed, seemed to get his mind pretty well off of politics. It was as if all immediate care and anxiety had been removed and he had but one thought in his mind - the thought of the country. One never saw his patriotism more sublime than in these days following the election. It was as if his own fate counted for nothing and as if indeed temporarily even the thought of his party was secondary, -- merely the hope that the country would escape disaster.
By the way, he did say one thing in the morning which should be recorded. He said that in his opinion America would enter the League of Nations during the Republican administration, but that it would be in his judgment an entry which would be good neither for America nor for the League; that it would be in the spirit of “America uber alles”, which, as he said, was not the spirit in which the League could be made beneficent to the world.
The President was able even to jest a little when Mrs. Wilson remarked that Governor Cox was going to visit the devastated regions during a vacation which he proposed to take. The President laughed and said he did see why the Governor need go that far to see devastation - there was plenty of devastation here in America in the Democratic ranks.
Notwithstanding the confidence of the President’s physicians, some of his lay friends were uneasy particularly as the President at least professed to believe confidently in a Democratic victory. His friends, who foresaw that defeat was inevitable and would probably come in huge dimensions, took occasion to talk as pessimistically to him as they could, but their pessimism seemed to make no impression on the President. They could not help fearing an unhappy result to his health, and, perhaps, an even more unhappy result on that abiding faith which he has always had in the people and which has so sustained him. Both these fears proved to be absolutely ungrounded. All who saw the President in the days immediately following the election felt that he looked stronger than he had looked for some time, and his state of mind was excellent. There was not in him the slightest disposition toward bitterness. In a conversation two days after election he talked very seriously about the country, saying that what happened to either party, Republican or Democrat, was unimportant compared with the fate of the country, that such a landslide indicated (among other things) that people would expect impossibilities from the Republican administration more than they could fulfill if they would, more than they would if they could, and that when the inevitable defection should begin it might run into very dangerous forms. He talked very simply and very quietly, but there were once or twice little shadowy movements around the corner of his mouth, which the person to whom he was talking had never noticed before, an impression impossible to describe, but which clearly indicated yearning love for his country and a sense of his own helplessness to “do anything about it.”
As one talked with him that morning, or rather one listened to him talk, he did seem to see a manifestation of a purified and exalted “Americanism” by the side of which much of the campaign talk on that same topic seemed cheap and tawdry.
Later in the day the President seemed more cheerful than he had been for some time, laughed more, told two or three characteristic anecdotes which had nothing to do with politics; indeed, seemed to get his mind pretty well off of politics. It was as if all immediate care and anxiety had been removed and he had but one thought in his mind - the thought of the country. One never saw his patriotism more sublime than in these days following the election. It was as if his own fate counted for nothing and as if indeed temporarily even the thought of his party was secondary, -- merely the hope that the country would escape disaster.
By the way, he did say one thing in the morning which should be recorded. He said that in his opinion America would enter the League of Nations during the Republican administration, but that it would be in his judgment an entry which would be good neither for America nor for the League; that it would be in the spirit of “America uber alles”, which, as he said, was not the spirit in which the League could be made beneficent to the world.
Original Format
Diary
Files
Collection
Citation
Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938, “Cary T. Grayson Diary,” 1920 November, WWP16316, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.