Woodrow Wilson to William Jennings Bryan
Title
Woodrow Wilson to William Jennings Bryan
Creator
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Identifier
WWP17708
Date
1913 April 29
Description
Woodrow Wilson writes to William Jennings Bryan about the California Alien Land Bill.
Source
Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia
Subject
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence
Text
Hon. William Jennings Bryan,
Sacramento, California. Hope you will feel free to spend Wednesday in San Francisco, as you suggest. I feel that it is inadvisable to sanction particular statutes or forms of legislation. Our wise course seems to me to be to make it emphatically evident that we are acting just now not as the Federal government, sanctioning this or that but as the sincere friends of California, wishing to be of such service as possible to them in a critical matter whose importance and whose critical character we are better able to advise them of than others would be. The difficulty about sanctioning a particular form of words or of enactment is that it might estop or embarrass us in subsequent judicial action or international negotiation. Our advice should be along general lines and as if we spoke as sincere and by no means unsympathetic friends of California, and yet as mindful of our serious obligations to a friendly Nation. Whatever their final action, we must reserve our independence to pursue the course deemed best in the circumstances. In your present intimate association with the gentlemen there, you can easily make this clear.
With warm appreciation of what you are doing.
WOODROW WILSON.
Sacramento, California. Hope you will feel free to spend Wednesday in San Francisco, as you suggest. I feel that it is inadvisable to sanction particular statutes or forms of legislation. Our wise course seems to me to be to make it emphatically evident that we are acting just now not as the Federal government, sanctioning this or that but as the sincere friends of California, wishing to be of such service as possible to them in a critical matter whose importance and whose critical character we are better able to advise them of than others would be. The difficulty about sanctioning a particular form of words or of enactment is that it might estop or embarrass us in subsequent judicial action or international negotiation. Our advice should be along general lines and as if we spoke as sincere and by no means unsympathetic friends of California, and yet as mindful of our serious obligations to a friendly Nation. Whatever their final action, we must reserve our independence to pursue the course deemed best in the circumstances. In your present intimate association with the gentlemen there, you can easily make this clear.
With warm appreciation of what you are doing.
WOODROW WILSON.
Original Format
Letter
To
Bryan, William Jennings, 1860-1925
Files
Collection
Citation
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924, “Woodrow Wilson to William Jennings Bryan,” 1913 April 29, WWP17708, First Year Wilson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.