POLITICAL NOTES: Intimate Papers

The Intimate Papers of Colonel E. M. House, edited by Professor Charles Seymour of Yale, last week began a series of 43 periodic appearances in 52 newspapers. Not only do the articles appear in papers of nearly all leading U. S. cities but in papers of London, Paris, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Vienna, Rome, Buenos Aires, San Diego and Osaka. The New York Herald-Tribune bought the newspaper rights to publication and vended them to other papers. The Boston Globe boasted that it had paid $25,000 for exclusive New England rights.

The period covered by the memoirs is practically confined to the period from the first meeting of House and Wilson (1911) to the U. S. entrance into the World War (1917).

Professor Seymour declared in a “Note of Acknowledgment”:

“The responsibility for the choice and arrangement of these papers, as well as their interpretation, must rest upon me. Colonel House, whose sense of the scientific historical spirit is very lively, agreed that no essential document which might affect the historicity of the narrative should be omitted. Whatever deletions appear in the published papers have been dictated by the exigencies of space or by a regard for the feelings of persons still alive, and in no case do they alter the historical meaning of the papers.”

And Colonel House “foreworded”:

“Dr. Seymour in arranging these papers has felt it his duty to assume a highly critical attitude toward some of the chief actors. Especially he has attempted to present the great central figure of the period, Woodrow Wilson, in a purely objective light. As for myself, I frankly admit that I was and am a partisan of Woodrow Wilson and of the measures he so ably and eloquently advocated. That we differed now and then as to the methods by which these measures might be realized, this book reveals as one follows the thread of the story, and never more sharply than in the question of military and naval preparedness.”

The nature and method of the memoirs are typically indicated by Col. House’s diary account of his first meeting with Mr. Wilson (on Nov. 24, 1911):

“He came alone to the Gotham quite promptly at 4,” recorded House, “and we talked for an hour. He had an engagement to meet Phelan, afterward Senator from California, at 5 o’clock, and expressed much regret that he could not continue our conversation. We arranged, however, to meet again within a few days, when at my invitation he came to dine with me. . . .

“From that first meeting and up to today (1916) I have been in as close touch with Woodrow Wilson as with any man I have ever known. The first hour we spent together proved to each of us that there was a sound basis for a fast friendship. We found ourselves in such complete sympathy in so many ways that we soon learned to know what each was thinking without either having expressed himself.

“A few weeks after we met and after we had exchanged confidences which men usually do not exchange except after years of friendship, I asked him if he realized that we had known one another for so short a time. He replied: ‘My dear friend, we have known one another always.’ And I think this is true.”

As a counter attraction to the House Memoirs, the Hearst press* began to publish on the same day: The Diary of Woodrow Wilson’s War Cabinet, Written by His Closest Friend and Adviser, Eight Years in the Cabinet—in short, the memoirs†of David F. Houston, Wilson’s Secretary of Agriculture, later of the Treasury.

Mr. Houston’s memoirs begin very chattily, as for example the description of the first gathering of the men who were to be Wilson’s Cabinet, held on March 5, 1913:

“When I reached the Cabinet room I found there most of my associates. Josephus Daniels (Navy) appeared to be hugely enjoying the experience. He was having sensations at the rate of a dozen a minute. He came toward me and exclaimed: ‘Isn’t it great? Isn’t it wonderful?’

“Secretary William C. Redfield (Commerce) also was having numerous palpitations, with Albert S. Burleson (Postmaster-General) and Lindley M. Garrison (War) as close seconds. James C. McReynolds (Attorney-General), Franklin K. Lane (Interior) and William B. Wilson (Labor) were taking the experience calmly. William G. McAdoo (Treasury), I imagined, was saying to himself: ‘How in the mischief did I get here and what am I doing?’ and Bryan! . . .

“After a few good stories and some witty remarks from the President, Bryan and others, we discussed when we should take the oath of office.”

*In some cities the Hearst press purchased the rights to the House memoirs—for example, they were purchased by the Chicago Herald-Examiner.

†These same memoirs in somewhat amplified form began appearing in the World’s Work with it a February issue.