Sydney Brooks to Woodrow Wilson

Sydney Brooks to Woodrow Wilson

Brooks, Sydney, 1872-1937

WWP18072

1913 October 7

Sydney Brooks writes to Woodrow Wilson complementing Wilson on his successes thus far in his Presidency and aksing for an interview.

Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

Dear Mr President

As you will see if you can find time to glance through the enclosed articles I have been often enough congratulating you anonymously on the somewhat dazzling start you have made in the Presidency; but I should like, if you will allow me, to do so now over my own name. What you have accomplished has been the most satisfying thing that has happened in America since in the twenty years that I have tried to follow its affairs; & I hope you will feel that in these two articles I have done it & you justice & no more than justice. A quite extraordinary part of the work, the very difficult work, of intepreting America to England falls on my shoulders & I am therefore particularly anxious not to go too wildly astray.
It has been intensely interesting to watch your methods which anyone who knows your writings as well as I do could have inferred in advance. But I wonder whether I have analyzed them, & the idea behind them, rightly? I may have imputed to you, though I don’t think I have, a more definite & deliberate conception of the Presidential functions than you would feel like owning up to. One usually does get tripped up if one ascribes to an Executive or a party leader anything more than a determination to use commonsense in solving the problems of the next twelve hours. I remember McKinley saying to me — it must have been the only epigram he was every guilty of — “Government is always crisis”. So it is to the man who dare not or can not look ahead. But I mean, unless you peremptorily disavow it, to hold to my view that you are following a more or less carefully preferred grand–plan. That at any rate is why all you have done since you entered the White House, & the successes it has met with, seem to me so significant & stimulating.
Based on these & many other topics I am hoping that before long I may be privelged to have a talk with you. Unless something goes very much awry at the last moment, I expect to be in Washington before the month is out; & there is nothing in my trip I look forward to more eagerly than the opportunity of paying my respects to you. Pray therefore do not on any account think of answering this note — or answer it only by allowing me the pleasure of seeing you when I present myself at the White House.

May I be recalled to the Misses Wilson & with you, dear Mr President, believe me to be, with my warm regards & congratulations,
Syndney Brooks

Letter

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924