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NoDak History: President Wilson’s ill-fated visit

Written by: Steve Hoffbeck

President Woodrow Wilson was a little on the thin side, having been ill for several months, when stepped off the train in Bismarck during the fall of 1919 to rally support for peacekeeping efforts after World War I.

Despite his frail condition, Wilson was determined to make a strong impression on the North Dakota residents who had gathered to hear him speak. And he was dressed in a manner that he hoped would be appropriate for the audience.

(Photographer unknown/State Historical Society of North Dakota) President Woodrow Wilson (second from right) and Governor Lynn J. Frazier (far right) stand outside a building during Wilson's 1919 trip to Bismarck. Several other unidentified men are visible.

According to newspaper accounts, Wilson was “wearing a plain, soft hat and business suit (in) accord with the western atmosphere,” which was in stark contrast to photos of that era that often showed him arrayed in a “high hat and morning formal dress.”

After an early-morning stop in Jamestown, Wilson’s train arrived in Bismarck at 11 a.m. on Sept. 10, 1919.

Wilson was on an historic 30-day speaking tour across the U.S., in which he planned to cover 10,000 miles from the East Coast to the West Coast and back again. The goal was to appeal directly to voters and gain enough support to convince his political opponents to ratify the Versailles Peace Treaty and vote to include the U.S. in the League of Nations.

A year earlier, Wilson played an important role in negotiating peace in Europe and introduced the idea of the League of Nations. But many members of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate opposed joining a multinational peacekeeping organization for fear it would draw the country into additional foreign wars.

Wilson was not well. His high blood pressure was hardening the arteries of his brain. His wife, Edith, and his personal physician, Dr. Cary Grayson, begged him not to embark upon such a rigorous journey.

Still, Wilson went forth that September.

Thousands of people gathered in Bismarck to hear Wilson’s speech after newspaper headlines proclaimed “President Wilson is in town today.” But many “were doomed to disappointment,” a newsman later reported.

Wilson, due to the condition of his voice, decided against delivering the speech in the open air; instead, he spoke inside the Bismarck Auditorium. The venue held only 1,500 people, making it the smallest crowd he had addressed on the cross-country tour.

Nonetheless, the hall was filled and the audience cheered Wilson’s entrance and applauded after Gov. Lynn Frazier made the introductory remarks.

Wilson told his Bismarck listeners that the Senate’s approval of the peace treaty and the alliance with the League of Nations was a “question of war or peace.” He said that the only way to maintain peace was through the new peacekeeping organization.

The president forthrightly claimed that Americans “wanted the League of Nations and that the Senate would ultimately ratify” the Versailles Peace Treaty.

After Wilson’s speech, he was perspiring heavily. His physician, Dr. Grayson, helped Wilson back to the private railway car where a valet gave the president a rubdown. The doctor then gave Wilson “a small cup of steaming hot but weak coffee.”

In Mandan, the president gave a short talk to the crowd that surrounded his private car, telling them that he was so “glad to get out to see the real folks” of North Dakota who could help him in his quest for the treaty approval.

The president stayed only two hours in Bismarck and Mandan and then his train sped west into Montana for speeches there.

Wilson’s health deteriorated further during the following weeks. His facial muscles twitched and he had headaches so bad that he could hardly see. To keep from coughing all night, he had to sleep propped up in a chair.

Finally, after delivering 40 speeches, Wilson collapsed in a “state of exhaustion” on Sept. 30 near Pueblo, Colo.

Dr. Grayson, recognizing signs of an imminent stroke, cancelled the remainder of the speaking tour. And Wilson returned to Washington, D.C., where he suffered a massive stroke on Oct. 5, leaving him paralyzed on his left side and unable to speak.

For a week, the president “lay in the shadow of death,” and hovered “between life and death,” according to The New York Times.

Those close to President Wilson and Dr. Grayson kept the president’s condition a secret. His wife, Edith, served as the acting president for many months after the stroke.

As for the U.S. Senate, it refused to ratify the Versailles Peace Treaty and the U.S. never joined the League of Nations, dooming it to ultimate failure.

Wilson eventually recovered his speech but was a shadow of his former self, lingering on until his death in February of 1924.

Wilson’s visit to Bismarck was an historic moment for North Dakota. But it was also one whistle stop on the path to the president’s demise.

-Steve Hoffbeck is a professor of history at Minnesota State University at Moorhead and a freelance writer for the Great Plains Examiner.

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