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...

This volume opens on Christmas Eve, 1920, in the waning days of the Wilson administration. Wilson and his advisers have no program other than to bring the administration to a decent end. The Cabinet meets for the last time on March 1, 1921. Emotions run high as various members recall the battles they have fought with their chief, and Wilson, tears rolling down his cheeks, dismisses them with the benediction: "Gentlemen, it is one of the handicaps of my physical condition that I cannot control myself as I've been accustomed to do. God bless you all." The end of the Wilson presidency evokes...