Although previous Presidents had maintained contact with reporters, Woodrow Wilson was the first to conduct regular press conferences. This volume contains the transcripts of all of these sessions, which reveal the range of Wilson's day-to-day concerns and his stance in what might be termed intellectual combat. The bulk of the material comes from approximately the first two and a half years of his presidency. We see Wilson jousting and sparring with reporters, scolding them, joking with them, "grazing the truth" in order not to disclose secrets of state, and, more often, engaging in frank...

This volume begins on November 9, 1918, the eve of the Armistice between the Allied and Associated Powers and the principal Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. It ends on January 11, 1919, just before the first plenary session of the Paris Peace Conference. The interval finds Wilson preoccupied with preparations for the conference. Accompanied by a large entourage of State Department officials and "experts" from the Inquiry grup, Wilson sails for France on December 4, convinced that he alone will represent the liberal, forward-looking peoples of the world. After initial meetings...

This massive collection includes all important letters, speeches, interviews, press conferences, and public papers on Woodrow Wilson. The volumes make available as never before the materials essential to understanding Wilson's personality, his intellectual, religious, and political development, and his careers as educator, writer, orator, and statesman. The Papers not only reveal the private and public man, but also the era in which he lived, making the series additionally valuable to scholars in various fields of history between the 1870's and the 1920's.

The opening of this volume finds the Big Four in the midst of the gravest crisis of the peace conference set off by the British cabinet's demand for drastic softening of the terms of the peace treaty to be concluded with Germany. In response to a wave of appeasement sweeping through the British Isles, Lloyd George says that he cannot and will not sign the peace treaty unless his colleagues agree to negotiate sympathetically with the Germans on their reparations obligations, their early admission to the League of Nations, and other matters.

For the entire period covered by this...

Beginning with Wilson's tour of Belgium, this volume then moves to the last days of the peace conference. A great wave of relief sweeps over council chambers in Paris when a new German government sends word that it will accept the peace treaty unconditionally: restoration of peace occurs with the signing of the treaty in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles on June 28. That same night Wilson boards his train for Brest to return to the United States on the George Washington. The voyage provides a period of leisure for Wilson, but there are signs that his strength has been...

The opening of this volume finds Wilson facing domestic and international problems nearly as complex and urgent as those he had faced in Paris a month before. His main task is to assure the Senate's approval of the Treaty of Versailles, but his abilities are severely compromised by what was almost certainly a "small" stroke on July 19. Most Democrats in the Senate will follow Wilson's lead in the controversy over ratification, so his most important potential allies against Senator Lodge are Republican leaders like Taft and about twenty Republican senators, who favor ratification with...

This volume opens with Wilson's tour of the Middle West and West to generate popular support for the League of Nations and to force the Senate to consent to the ratification of the Versailles Treaty without any significant reservations to the League Covenant. After the first speech of the tour, in Columbus, Ohio, Wilson travels to Missouri and Minnesota, the Northwest, California, and into the central Rocky Mountain states. His already dangerous hypertension escalates due to his punishing schedule, and he suffers increasingly from headaches, difficulties in breathing, and periods of...

The opening of this volume finds Wilson still severely disabled from the effects of his massive stroke of October 2, 1919, and unable to deal with a nationwide coal strike and a crisis with Mexico. Slowly recovering, he is able to prevent Democratic senators from voting for approval of a version of the Versailles Treaty that contains reservations. He issues his Jackson Day letter of January 8, 1920, and then vacillates between compromise and intransigence on the issue of reservations. In early February, when he gains enough strength to enter the political scene in person, he dismisses...

As this volume begins, controversy over ratification of the Versailles Treaty enters its climactic stage. Wilson, only partly recovered from a stroke, refuses the advice of supporters who beg him to accept Republican reservations in order to put the Treaty through the Senate, and he puts heavy pressure on those Democratic senators who want to consent to reservations. Twenty-one Democrats defy him when the Treaty comes up for a second and final vote on March 19, but their votes, combined with those of Republican reservationists, fall far short of the two-thirds Senate majority necessary for...

The opening of this volume finds Wilson with neither the physical strength nor any strong desire to become heavily involved in the coming presidential contest between Cox and Harding. Nevertheless, he cannot remain silent on the single great issue of the campaign--American membership in the League of Nations. Not many people heed Wilson's appeals, however, and on November 2, the voters seemingly repudiate Wilson and all he stands for in a landslide majority for Harding and Coolidge. Meanwhile, Wilson gratefully accepts the decisions of his advisers on domestic affairs, and he generally...