Ray Stannard Baker to Woodrow Wilson
Title
Ray Stannard Baker to Woodrow Wilson
Creator
Baker, Ray Stannard, 1870-1946
Identifier
WWP16521
Date
1924 January 7
Description
Ray Stannard Baker writes to Woodrow Wilson about creating a book that would cover extensively his life and career.
Source
Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia
Language
English
Text
COPY
Dear Mr. Wilson
The more I think and write about you and your work the more interested and fascinated I grow: and the more important to the country and the world seem the correct interpretation of your message and of the things you symbolize. You have a vision essential to the safety of the world: one that ought to be made thoroughly clear.
I spoke to you once -- as poorly as only I know how to speak! -- about going forward with a further and more complete study of your whole career. I have a great ambition to do this and do it thoroughly: but I do not wish to undertake it unless I can feel behind me as complete a confidence on your part as I felt in the utilization of the Peace Conference material: unless I can also, at some later time, as you may think wise and proper, have full and first access to all of your other personal material -- letters, memoranda and documents -- so that what I should write would have full authority.
I had also a plan, which I think I suggested before, of beginning soon -- so that I could do the work in a leisurely and thorough way -- of visiting the places where you have lived, and of talking with men who have, through the years, known you best, and thus getting together a mass of foundation material. On such a work I should want much more time than I had on the Peace Conference book -- to give it a quality and unity not possible there. It ought to be done without any pressure for publication -- and appear when it was truly ready. I should wish to do it, as I could find time, along with my other work. Of course my association with you and my study of your work at the critical period have given me a great deal of vital material -- which no one else has -- much indeed that I could not use in “Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement” -- but it has only whetted my appetite for more. I have a vision of a book that will be a kind of handbook of Americanism.
Someone, at some future time, will do this work -- well or poorly. If there is anyone who can do it better than I can -- with clearer understanding of a broader background of knowledge -- he ought to be the man -- and I’ll help him for the work itself is the important thing. But you will not misinterpret me when I say that I think I’m the man!
I thought the best way of presenting this subject was the direct way. I thought, knowing you, that you would like this best. And I will not argue it at all -- for if it does not, of itself, impress you as desirable, why, that is the answer! If you do like the plan and are willing to have me tackle it I shall be glad to know it. If not, it will not in the least change my feeling toward you.
Sincerely yours,
Ray Stannard Baker
Dear Mr. Wilson
The more I think and write about you and your work the more interested and fascinated I grow: and the more important to the country and the world seem the correct interpretation of your message and of the things you symbolize. You have a vision essential to the safety of the world: one that ought to be made thoroughly clear.
I spoke to you once -- as poorly as only I know how to speak! -- about going forward with a further and more complete study of your whole career. I have a great ambition to do this and do it thoroughly: but I do not wish to undertake it unless I can feel behind me as complete a confidence on your part as I felt in the utilization of the Peace Conference material: unless I can also, at some later time, as you may think wise and proper, have full and first access to all of your other personal material -- letters, memoranda and documents -- so that what I should write would have full authority.
I had also a plan, which I think I suggested before, of beginning soon -- so that I could do the work in a leisurely and thorough way -- of visiting the places where you have lived, and of talking with men who have, through the years, known you best, and thus getting together a mass of foundation material. On such a work I should want much more time than I had on the Peace Conference book -- to give it a quality and unity not possible there. It ought to be done without any pressure for publication -- and appear when it was truly ready. I should wish to do it, as I could find time, along with my other work. Of course my association with you and my study of your work at the critical period have given me a great deal of vital material -- which no one else has -- much indeed that I could not use in “Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement” -- but it has only whetted my appetite for more. I have a vision of a book that will be a kind of handbook of Americanism.
Someone, at some future time, will do this work -- well or poorly. If there is anyone who can do it better than I can -- with clearer understanding of a broader background of knowledge -- he ought to be the man -- and I’ll help him for the work itself is the important thing. But you will not misinterpret me when I say that I think I’m the man!
I thought the best way of presenting this subject was the direct way. I thought, knowing you, that you would like this best. And I will not argue it at all -- for if it does not, of itself, impress you as desirable, why, that is the answer! If you do like the plan and are willing to have me tackle it I shall be glad to know it. If not, it will not in the least change my feeling toward you.
Sincerely yours,
Ray Stannard Baker
Original Format
Letter
To
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Files
Collection
Citation
Baker, Ray Stannard, 1870-1946, “Ray Stannard Baker to Woodrow Wilson,” 1924 January 7, WWP16521, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.