President Woodrow Wilson Expresses His Approval of and Gratitude to His Vice President (Contrary to the Claims the Men Disliked Each Other)

“I want to send you just these few lines of sincere and genuine and personal appreciation. The pleasure of being associated with you grows as the months pass, and I want to send you as the session closes this simple message of congratulation and thanks.”

Woodrow Wilson rose to prominance as a progressive, and was elected President on the promise of progressive reforms. He came into the White House intent on expanding economic opportunity for people at the bottom of society and eliminating special privileges enjoyed by the richest and most powerful. In his inaugural address he reiterated his agenda for lower tariffs and banking reform, as well as aggressive trust and labor legislation. For him, his New Freedom agenda was a crusade, and he lost no time in acting on it. He introduced legislation in the areas of tariffs and revenues, banking, antitrust, and trade regulation, and managed to accomplish every one of his major domestic goals. But there was plenty of opposition in Congress, and the key to success was the enthusiastic assistence he received from an unlikely source, Oscar W. Underwood, a former opponent who was Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

Wilson focused first on tariff reform, pushing through Congress the Revenue Act of 1913, which achieved the most significant reductions in rates since the Civil War. He argued that high tariffs created monopolies, kept prices high, and hurt consumers. The act offset lost revenue by providing for a small, graduated income tax as authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was adopted on February 25, 1913. Underwood guided the reform measure through the House in May; Wilson managed to get it pushed through the Senate in October.

Next, Wilson tackled the currency problem and banking reform. Wilson declared the banking system must be “public not private, must be vested in the government itself so that the banks must be the instruments, not the masters, of business.” The Federal Reserve Act passed in December 1913, which established the Federal Reserve system with twelve regional reserve banks controlled by the Federal Reserve Board, a new federal agency whose members were appointed by the President. This new federal system could adjust interest rates, issue currency based on government securities and commercial paper, and control the amount of money in circulation.

The Federal Trade Commission Act passed in September 1914, its principal mission being the promotion of consumer protection and the elimination and prevention of anticompetitive business practices. The act created a new government board appointed by the President and empowered to investigate and publicize corrupt, unfair, or anti-competitive business practices. In promoting this law, Wilson broke with his predecessors’ practice of litigating the antitrust issue in the courts, known as trust-busting; the Federal Trade Commission provided a new regulatory approach, to encourage competition and reduce perceived unfair trade practices. In addition, Wilson pushed through Congress the Clayton Antitrust Act making certain business practices illegal, such as price discrimination, and agreements prohibiting retailers from handling other companies’ products. The new legislation endeared him to labor and farmers because it excluded their organizations from antitrust prosecution under the Sherman Antitrust Act, a problem that had plagued them previously.

On October 17, with the 1914 election just a month away, Wilson wrote Underwood a lengthy letter for publication that started by reflecting on the extraordinary achievements of the past year and a half. “I can not let this session of Congress close without expressing my warm admiration for the fidelity and intelligence with which the program outlined in April and December of last year has been carried out, and my feeling that the people of the country have been served by the members of this Congress as they have seldom, if ever, been served before. The program was a great one, and it is a matter of deep satisfaction to think of the way in which it has been handled.” It continued with a lengthy assessment of the accomplishments and their worth, and concluded with a call to voters to elect a Democratic Congress: “The Democratic Party is now in fact the only instrument ready to the country’s hand by which anything can be accomplished.” The letter was immediately published as a pamphlet. That Wilson chose to send this letter to his ally Underwood instead of the Speaker of the House, or the Vice President as President of the Senate, was, and was seen as, significant.

Thomas R. Marshall was an Indiana Democrat whose administration as governor had been a progressive one and earned him nomination as Wilson’s running mate. However, the two men soon proved a personal mismatch. While Wilson was serious, intellectual and businesslike, Marshall was jovial, full of stories, handshakes and one-liners, and anything but cerebral. Wilson rarely consulted Vice President Marshall, and although Wilson invited Marshall to cabinet meetings, Marshall’s ideas were rarely considered for implementation, and he eventually stopped attending them regularly. In 1913 Wilson took the then unheard-of step of meeting personally with members of the Senate to discuss policy. Before this, presidents used the vice president (who serves as President of the Senate) as a go-between. But Marshall loyally supported Wilson’s programs in Congress, though not reconciled to all of them himself. Some claim that, despite that support, Wilson disliked Marshall.

Wilson was either concerned that the letter to Underwood would be seen as a snub to Marshall and the Senate, or he had received actual feedback of that fact. In either case, he sent Marshall this letter making clear his gratitude to the Senate as well as the House, and espressing his regard for Marshall personally.

Typed Letter Signed as President, on White House letterhead, October 19, 1914, to Marshall, attempting to dispell any impression that he disliked him, while reaching out to the Senate. “I am sure that my colleagues in the Senate realize that my recent public letter to Mr. Underwood was spoken as much in their praise as in praise of the members of the House, for we all stand together as a single team and my satisfaction in cooperating with the members of the Senate has been no less keen than in cooperating with the Members of the House. I want to send you just these few lines of sincere and genuine and personal appreciation. The pleasure of being associated with you grows as the months pass and I want to send you as the session closes this simple message of congratulation and thanks.”

This is the first letter of a sitting President to a sitting Vice President we can recall having, and it provides a fascinating insight into Wilson’s method of management while in the White House.