Historian A. Scott Berg — Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O'Brien | CONAN on TBS

hello Conan O'Brien here welcome to serious jibber-jabber I'm sitting here with poet surprise winning author a Scott Berg whose latest book Wilson is about the life of the 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson thanks for being here Scott thank you for having me you're a fan obviously of Woodrow Wilson there's a lot to respect there I get the sense he's not in the pantheon at the moment your book may change that why is he not I think he's not at the moment for a couple of reasons the first is and and indeed I should say for decades he was in the pantheon I mean it was generally Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson and then Woodrow Wilson and maybe Franklin Roosevelt would before him fine duking it out but I think part of it has to do with a hundred years later Wilson had views on race which a hundred years ago were fairly centrist but when we look at him today he was he was a racist and an Isetta geisha NIST he thought for very good reasons he was a segregationist but when you look at them today I think they bring him down several pegs in the polls of historians about greatness now how many of his racial views stem from the fact that he you know he's a he's a he's a child of the Civil War he grows up during the Civil War in the south and his parents have strong racial views so does is that where it all comes from well that's that's certainly a great part of it I mean he was born in 1856 in Virginia and he was raised in four states of the Confederate States of America right he remembered the World War of the Civil War rather he carried that trauma really of the war with him he actually looked into the eyes of of Robert E league once as a little boy his first memory was hearing that Lincoln got elected and that there was going to be a war now all that being said he grew up in the segregated south those were the values he knew and I hasten dad Wilson Wilson didn't hate african-americans he wasn't a virulent racist he was somebody who when he became president really understood the South and even though he had integration in his mind he just knew the country couldn't accept it then or that's what he felt anyway he predicted didn't he he predicted that that african-americans there would be racial integration but he said he said it was going to take a certain number of years and I can't remember what it was but it actually works out almost day and date yes yes he said it'll take a generation or two and if you pull out your calendar he got it almost to the Monday that it would happen he he again knew that the southerners especially were not ready to embrace this there were plenty of people he knew who fought in the civil war or who remembered the war as he did and he just figured it was going to take that generation to die and probably the one after that before they could start to accept resocialize invasive or during the way life was run certainly in the south so it's a little with Wilson when it comes to race it's a little bit of a paternalistic view I know it's best I know it's best and this is going to take time which you could see some people quibbling with like force the issue more I think Teddy Roosevelt got some he got a lot of flack for it but history has been very kind to him because he invited Booker T Washington to dinner at the White House now of course reflects very well on Teddy Roosevelt people forget that after Roosevelt did that he didn't do it again that's correct he learned his lesson and I mean America made it clear don't do that I don't do that again and Wilson I should say also always had the door open to African Americans I mean he didn't have them to dinner right but indeed the Oval Office was always open he was always interested in hearing from the most important african-american leaders which he did and I remember being really intrigued by the one african-american writer and civil rights activist whom I respect most who was James Weldon Johnson who I think was far and away the best writer of them all and he visited with Wilson a few times and after his last visit he said I've really got to get over my prejudice of Woodrow Wilson he's not this virulent racist that I thought he said I'm not sure I trust him but I hear what he's saying and I understand what he's saying so we're looking at the bigger picture it's possible that when people talk about the Pantheon or to be even more crass who's in the top five who's in the top eight that Woodrow Wilson has suffered maybe because there's a perception right or wrong that that he was a racist yeah I think that's a big part of it and he's certainly always in the top eight right you know the question is whether he's right after the main triumvirate now you you you start the book this is really stunning and I'd heard other accounts of this but you have a great description of it Wilson going to Paris world war one is over he's going to try and settle the peace and this is unprecedented for an American president to leave the country for a long period of time six months six months because there's no Air Force one a quick trip let's sign an accordion wreck UVic and then turn around and I'll get back for dinner this is he gets on a boat says farewell to America and he's absent from the continent for six months yes when he gets to Paris it's Beatlemania plus times ten times ten backstreet boys whatever you want too what's pretend I didn't say that I know you're a fan but not me I never be able to forget that yeah I know you were you've been at every concert and then you switch 98 degrees the pandemonium that greets Woodrow Wilson he is they compare him to Christ everyone in Europe thinks he is here he is this man that's ascended from the descended from the clouds to save us savior of the world savior of the world and that's so striking because his ascension to the presidency is is stunningly fast and and accelerated he's an academic he is not he's not someone who's done his time in politics and we can talk about other presidents who've gone this route but from the time that he's President of Princeton to Governor of New Jersey briefly to the President of the United States is very fast and then he's in Europe and he's a God and you think about how quickly that all happens this is his political rise is the most meteoric rise in American history beyond that his rise is the greatest in human history that had occurred in October of 1910 Woodrow Wilson was the president of a small College in New Jersey Princeton University in November of 1912 he's elected president of the United States yes it's just stunning in between as you suggested there was this 18 month period in which he was elected governor of New Jersey he won in a landslide he introduced the most progressive agenda of any state in the country and suddenly everybody in America is looking at New Jersey because he's cleaning up the corrupt government he kicked out the very machine that had picked him to be their puppet and that's really what drew a lot of national attention and that indeed when he became president and in March of 1913 he inaugurated the greatest progressive agenda the country had seen and not only introduced items he got them passed right so he proved to be even though with he had an academic background he had very sharp political elbows and very keen political skills he could he could get things done he could go this is particularly interesting today when we're looking at the difficulties that modern presidents have he was able to go to the hill there was actually an office that I didn't even know about till I read your book nobody knows nobody knows about this office there's a small room off the Senate that's for the president he would stay there regularly in this small room working with senators to try and get progressive legislation passed I think no president has used it because it's got a very tricky name it's called the president's room and it just sits there it doesn't roll off the top I'm telling you there's a problem but if you go there today it is locked you have you have to find the man with a key can open it first of all but he was designed strictly for the president's use and no president used it before or since for its designated purpose so Wilson yeah I think sometimes there's a feeling modern presidents or 20th century presidents law doesn't think it's beneath them to go to the hill they don't want to look like they're coming with hat in hand to beg they don't want to look like they're getting down rolling up their sleeves and making a getting in the dirt and making a deal but Wilson was willing to do that he was a scholar mm-hmm but he had studied American political system in the British parliamentary system so he was kind of an expert he was an expert in government on however meant whirl around the world through the years in fact he was definitely an expert in this and it's not just that he was willing to come down to the Congress he was eager to do it I often think Wilson didn't really want to be President of the United States he would have preferred being Prime Minister of the United States he'd liked that parliamentary system and yeah you rallied the troops which were basically already behind you so that was a concept that he was trying to he was trying to introduce that into the American system beyond that though he had really deep feelings about the importance of transparency in American government he wanted to humanize especially the executive branch he wanted people to see there's a real person a flesh-and-blood guy who is the president of the United States he wanted the country to see that and he wanted the Congress to see that so that's why he was there often what's interesting to me is you just brought it up so I'm gonna talk about it one of the prejudices maybe I've had about Wilson is that he does he's his father was a minister and he I always think of him with the high collar the dour expression yes he's a two-dimensional black-and-white character to me yeah it's not just because of his time because there's this sorrow is this humanity to Lincoln there's this incredible energy and excitement to Teddy Roosevelt different presidents can crack through what surprised me reading this book is that Wilson is very different than I thought he was he years of his in his youth he's he's a little bit lost he's he's lovesick he is a ladies man he loves the ladies he's very passionate yeah yeah we could talk a little bit about that we shouldn't he was extremely emotional also and and I think actually this goes back to to your earliest question I think this is this has brought him down a few notches in historians polls also because he hasn't been properly humanized and we have great concepts of of Teddy Roosevelt charging up you know San Juan Hill and all that so they are kind of bigger than life characters Wilson was in fact bigger than life in his own day since that time though we've had to rely on on these black-and-white photographs that I think are rather forbidding I think part of the problem and this is completely self-serving but I don't think he's really had a proper biography about him that has really humanized him and that certainly been been the goal in this book but all the things you suggested he I mean he he did love women he was I mean I read through not hundreds but thousands of love letters he wrote to his first wife as they were courting and then he had a second wife and not at the same time I should add his his first wife dies of Bright's disease right disease which hidden in kidney failure yeah in the White House after one year he was desperately in love with her and now here's the President of the United States I mean this is the stuff of novels the presence of Michael Douglas movie he's a he's a widowed president yeah and he there's probably some bias there probably people that think he should remain where lack aren't been for the rest of his life and Wilson is not having that and he did wear a black armband for about a year right but he he began courting and it's it's kind of fascinating and there's the President of the United States very quietly entertaining a very attractive young widow he was introduced to in Washington and having private dinners with her and and writing hundreds of passionate love letters to her so again oh this is so not who most people perceive Woodrow Wilson and he was in touch with his you know sexual urges I would run Wilson let's talk about that well well he had them and he talked about them and he acted on he wrote about them he did well he well he would write them in in in his love letters certainly I mean when he was courting these women and and I have an episode when he's courting his his second wife actually in which he makes advances to this woman edith bowling gold in the back of a car and back of the of the limousine the white house limo and basically she rebuffs him and she says you're gonna have to convince me you're gonna have to come on in another way and and bring me around and and he does and and within a year they're married and and he does have his way yeah he waited it was the right thing to do he did I was a virgin too until about a year ago the there's also a lot of he's very emotional and this surprised me too he's very emotional about the war Woodrow Wilson to sending young men off to war and he's he takes that responsibility very seriously yeah and makes a big point of when the war has ended of visiting these battle Fields going there and he's very emotional about the lives that have been lost and the fact that he sent these boys off to die he tried to keep us out of war for a long time but he's so you can see that surprised me too that he is he he seems like almost such an eighteenth-century figure to me before I read this book and then I see him now is a much more emotional yeah he's even he's even a 21st century figure as it turns out and I hope we can talk about how Wilson's foreign policy really is what we use today but you touch on what what may be the biggest surprise for me in putting the book together and this be speaks how really passionate this man was and it wasn't just for the ladies it was he had deep feelings about everything and again this is where his childhood I think kicks in remembering the Civil War growing up there seeing the devastation to the south and carrying that with him all his life so when the decision came as president to send his nation into war he he took this very seriously and and when he sent two million men overseas he realized he was signing the death warrants for many of those men and he always copped to it the hundred thousand American soldiers who died he carried that with him I mean it's it's like Lincoln I don't know another president who felt it as deeply as Wilson did and he gives some speeches at these cemeteries that are just heartbreaking in which he basically says I sent these men to their graves and that's why we must have a League of Nations right so that no mother ever has to bury her son a soldier you know that we can go on and maybe we have fought the war to end all wars so this was something Wilson took personally this wasn't politics for him now there's a perception that I had before Wilson before I read Wilson your book it's maybe still borne out for me which is he can seem early on when he's progressive news president he's he's getting a lot of legislation passed and he's able to compromise as his presidency goes on and at the end of World War one he gets this idea of the League of Nations precursor to the United Nations but let's have all the countries agree we can all get together there will never be another war we can sign this agreement all of our differences can be worked out and it is not a popular idea back home with it's a popular with some people but obviously it's politically difficult charged with the Republican Senate Republican Senate does not like it they don't like Americans hands being tied they don't like us being connected that way within like this umbilical cord stretching across the ocean - and they don't like a Democratic president who has come up with this plan after a Democrat he won the war right they wanted to say oh the Republicans will win the peace right will take care of that he'll take care of that but that's where he seems inflexible to me he gets this idea and he there are many opportunities that you can talk about him more depth where he has a chance a chance to get this passed and his big rival is Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and all he has to do is there's some times where there's have Tomica compromise and he can't do it it's fascinating to me because we're seeing right now one of the things that makes this book so fascinating is that there's a very similar scenario that's playing out every day in the newspapers if anyone still reads newspapers on your computer screen or on your phone it is playing out where some people feel that we have an idealistic president who's got an idea and he's not willing to compromise and there's a lot of dissension in the country that's essentially where to me I still feel that Woodrow Wilson was inflexible when it came to the League of Nations is that fair it's more than fair he was completely inflexible and I think there were a couple of things at work the first thing goes back to those cemeteries where he would give these moving speeches and and basically own those dead soldiers he was saying in essence I owe it to these dead men to fight for this league and they gave their lives I will now give my life if I have to for this uncompromised position so that's certainly part of it the second part I think was he he was suffering from certain mental illnesses along the way which is another part of the book he was having we now realize strokes as far back as his 30s in fact this is what stunned me because it's well known that he had a stroke a stroke when he comes back to United States he's in a deadlock with the Senate he decides I'm gonna go and preach my case to the people themselves he gets on a train whistle stop tour I'm gonna go town to town to town this is before you could just go on television or the radio and do it he goes town to town to town falls ill and has a devastating stroke what I didn't realize it comes out in your book in his 30s he's having what he thinks her writers cramps yep from from holding his pen to long ago but it's accompanied by depression and he and losing vision and yes real depression though he would just have what we now call break downs yeah and he was suffering from them but indeed in Paris when they were negotiating that treaty for the six months that the president is not at home sometimes there were days of truly aberrant behavior there's a great scene you talk about where he's rearranging he's rearranging will you tell the story but he's he's had some he's rearranging the furniture he's insisting we all stop and let's rearrange the furniture so it's chromatically more pleasing that's exactly right yes I wanted the the purple chair clashes with the green and let's move all the Reds over here and I want the British to be sitting in the blue chairs and and it's a little manic and a little crazy and the doctor is looking at him he had a doctor who travelled with him all the time who said mr. president let's take a walk and they come back and everything is fine but you know now we're rearranging the world not just rearranging subvert ature and you begin to realize well that he was having no doubt some episodes some cerebral episode and you have to wonder how many of these were happening in other years but also we now know strokes affect emotions and just the body chemistry what's going on and I think a lot of this contributed to Wilson's inflexibility at the very end over the League of Nations part of it was what emotions are flowing which humors are flowing but but part of it too is you know when you're feeling bad you make different decisions your time is you're less free with your time you've really got a husband and you've got two you make quicker decisions and sometimes you make wrong decisions and I think Wilson was doing a lot of that in the last year or two unfortunately they have Universal consequences we need a neurosurgeon to come in here and and talk about this part but I got the sense reading your book that one of the side effects of a stroke might be monomania or where you're just you can't you start thinking about how this mug is is black but not quite as black as the table and if you're having an episode I'm just then become obsessed with how do I get this mug to be as dark as the table and should we get a lighter mug or a darker table and I can't break myself free of that obsessive thought and that's what it starts to feel like with Woodrow Wilson is that he just League of Nations League of Nations League of Nations League of Nations League of Nations and he can't let it go and I will will it into existence and in fact because he was the most religious president we've ever had as well that it is his mission he really did believe that it was God's will that he be president it was Providence he was chosen it was all there and indeed right after he's elected a kind of flaky campaign manager who worked on the campaign but got ill himself in getting Wilson that came to Wilson to get a political job afterwards and Wilson greets him and says before you say a thing you had nothing to do with my getting elected president this I was chosen to do this I came from above so Wilson believed that he really did and the amazing thing is he didn't bring religion into his speeches and talk very often but his religiosity his deep spirituality really informed and infused every decision he ever made now the problem is that can get dangerous if you believe that God made you president you can also believe that all of your decisions are God speaking through you I went through a phase like that unfortunately I have good people around me who slapped me around but stunned to hear the former but not the like yeah but but but so that's the question is did that in hamper his ability at all to be the one in the one breath you're saying he's a very human president he's a real full-blooded three-dimensional human being but he also believes that God has made him president yeah and you know with his religiousness came actually a strange modesty that he had I mean he there was a humility to him he's probably the most humble person with a christ complex we've ever had in the White House but he was both it's it's an amazing juxtaposition of the two but but he did have all that and he felt he felt secure in his decisions yeah and I think I think that's where I wouldn't go so far as to say God was speaking to him but he felt God was allowing him to say what he had to say and that therefore whether it was correct or not if God was gonna have to correct it later on as he might have to that's his business but I am meant to do what I am meant to do and he was always clear about it he was always clear about what his mission was I there's something that you've picked up in this book that I really enjoyed because it tells you something about him and it's also very relatable he was a good hater he could carry a grudge if he was mad at someone he could really work himself up about it and how did that play into his presidency yes yeah his entire life in fact and in fact he wouldn't get worked up in too much of a lather if somebody crossed him the curtain came down you were just out of his life and there are two or three episodes of the people closest to him in his life one when he was a college professor and president I mean he had a dear dear friend whom he used to see several times a day couldn't get enough of him but when there came to be a crucial fight at Princeton about the social structure of the school which Wilson was trying to change and this great friend Jack heben crossed him and voted on the other side Wilson decided never to see him or speak to him again and really went the rest of their lives doing that I mean there were a few occasions in which he had to speak to him formally but that was it and so it was with a couple of his advisers as well he had he had three extremely close advisers for another house Colonel house was one and he's one of his closest friends and advisers with him all the time and then when Colonel house is out he is just out out and and when Wilson leaves Paris where Colonel house has been his chief negotiator Wilson says goodbye to him at the train station Wilson then takes the train gets on the boat but he never saw Colonel house again he never spoke to Colonel house again he called Colonel house his second personality is you know I mean they they were virtually inseparable but again Wilson never saw him and then there was another fellow in the white house named tumult II who was sort of Wilson's chief of staff who had come with him from New Jersey and was an old Paul who really ran that side of things for Wilson but he did something after Wilson left the White House that Wilson disapproved of and again never saw him again never spoke to him again I'm curious about his name's come up before in the conversation with Teddy Roosevelt is you know he's president the turn of the century and for a good part of that decade before before Wilson becomes president and they're both progressives so they both stand for a lot of the same things and in fact Wilson gets a lot of things passed that Teddy Roosevelt would have loved to have gotten passed so you'd think they'd be on the same page yes now during the war Teddy Roosevelt very badly wants to go and fight yeah and he comes to he's too old to fight but he goes to Wilson for a dispensation please let me go and let me fight Wilson won't give it to him that's true and you think sometimes I look at that episode and I've read a lot about Teddy Roosevelt and I've read your book down Wilson and you look at it from both sides and it's hard not to see some element of maybe jealousy or just obviously Theodore Roosevelt said a lot of nasty things about Wilson and was probably jealous of Wilson so Wilson this is an opportunity for Wilson maybe who's a good hater to say I'm not gonna give you the limelight you'd really love to go across to Pett to France and fight maybe even get killed and be and I'm going to deny you that I'm gonna deny you that's that chance in the spotlight is that well everything you said is true and and Teddy Roosevelt detested Wilson oh not at first but then increasingly yeah well once Wilson got into politics he did yeah you know when he was a college professor and they had met he thought oh that's great he's a wonderful scholar let's keep him there at Princeton in here but once Wilson was in the White House everything Wilson did was wrong in Teddy Roosevelt's and unfortunately tell you Roosevelt was you know there's very happy to tell anybody and his speeches and he did and he did and he talked to the press all the time and he basically thought Wilson was a wuss and and had really never left the school yard you know he was a college guy Wilson though proved to be so effective and I think that teddie result the wrong way too now to get to the incident you were talking about when we finally do enter World War one basically Teddy Roosevelt wanted the Rough Riders to write again and he wanted to bring back his whole team and render charge up San Juan Hill or the version in Europe wherever that was gonna really work against crux cannon yes rapid fire and part of what you suggest is true but I I give Wilson the benefit of the doubt here that Wilson is now the commander in chief and he has to deal with a lot of things one of which is do I really want this old soldier now to be mustering his own little army yeah and we're sending them to your end and not only that not only is he an old soldier but he's also a former commander-in-chief a former primary popular extremely popular and how will that be for say General Pershing who is going to be heading out right armies our American Expeditionary Force what's that gonna be like when he's trying to get two million men fighting there and Teddy Roosevelt's getting the headline every day because he's Teddy Roosevelt right he's riding a donkey to try and capture the Kaiser well he's got some crazy some semantic scheme and it's a stunt yeah no and and at the end of the day Wilson did think Teddy Roosevelt was a blowhard yeah and and enough you had your chance and now this is the way we run the government today and it's a very different means there's another Roosevelt we got to bring up which is franklin roosevelt franklin roosevelt is gets his first big key appointment assistant secretary of the navy exactly right from wilson you so and that really gives him franklin roosevelt his start yep if you wanted to you could make the argument franklin roosevelt never becomes president and if it's not for Woodrow Wilson well I I mean I could argue that but I mean certainly this is where his real political career begins I think I'm certainly on a national level right it's the first time he's getting national coverage he fought very hard for Wilson to get the nominee from the Democratic Party in 1912 he was a great supporter in 1916 he was a huge supporter of everything Wilson did he really idolized Wilson he watches Wilson I can see him almost picking up tricks from Wilson and how to how to deal with the press with cabinets and so forth you know Wilson was the first president to hold press conferences and I can see Roosevelt seeing how Wilson was relating to the people was writing to the press he's picking all this stuff up and indeed the progressivism I mean you know Wilson had this incredibly successful new freedom it was called we haven't been specific about that so I should probably we should probably clarify Woodrow Wilson is when he when he takes office there's this again something we're dealing with today there's a 1% of the country that has an incredible amount of power and influence and money and money no income tax is that correct that's correct and Woodrow Wilson comes in and single-handedly tries to and succeeds in getting an income tax and trying to start to build a middle class and not just an income tax but I graduated income tax called us a redistribution of wealth if you like but this was one in which richer people would pay a greater percentage than poorer people he lowered the tariffs he wanted to get rid of the tariffs because everybody had to pay the penny on a pound of sugar well that doesn't mean anything to a rich person but to a poor person that extra penny does count so things like that the Federal Reserve System was something Wilson brought in the eight-hour workday workmen's compensation but the first Jew on the Supreme Court all these things were leveling the playing field in America Wilson wasn't anti rich people he wasn't auntie big business but he was anti unfairness and he wanted everybody to have a shot and so if you look at everything he did in the new freedom or indeed everything he did as a president of Princeton he really was trying to level things here so FDR watched all this and he saw what worked and what didn't work and I think this was very much in the back of his mind when he became president was Wilson fond of Franklin Roosevelt or did he not really know him that well a little above he didn't know him all that well would he you know because he was second-tier he wasn't in the cabinet yeah but what he knew he liked and he certainly knew FDR was a great supporter he was I don't want to call him a lap dog but he he really loved everything Woodrow Wilson did there were moments I felt he was being slightly sycophantic but he was a hard-working guy who wanted to get ahead there's no question about it and as a lot of people forget Franklin Roosevelt ran for vice-president on the Democratic ticket in 1920 with Governor Cox of Ohio and the two of them came to visit the Wilson white house to get Wilson's blessing if you will and at this point Wilson had had his stroke he was in a wheelchair covered with blankets no one saw him from notes down nobody saw the president for a year and a half really except a few people who were invited in and and Cox and Roosevelt were invited in and and this is just me now decades later but I honestly do believe when I see pictures of Franklin Roosevelt and I see pictures of Woodrow Wilson I am sure once FDR was stricken with polio I am sure he flashed back to that day he met Wilson at the White House in the wheelchair and just the way Wilson comported himself the way he tilted his head up and kind of looked straight ahead and you know know no plea for sympathy just keep going charge-charge how to mask a devastating illness yeah it's interesting that I hadn't thought of that but yeah Franklin Roosevelt is the protege to Wilson and Wilson gives him an example of progressive being a progressive president but also how to be completely stricken and hide it from America which is I mean people my parents are that generation people had no idea that that Franklin Roosevelt they understood that he had had a problem with polio but no one thought that he was completely wheelchair nobody had a clue yeah there really didn't it was in the backs of people's minds but people didn't need to didn't see it and the press was complicit which we should talk about how could Wilson be that sick I mean he was today Wilson were president today or if a modern president was stricken devastating stroke that paralyzed his left side yes paralyzed his left side and he'd be rushed to the hospital and he would never go back to the White House correct he'd be relieved of his duties almost immediately how did they get away with it well a lot of things were at work first of all mrs. Wilson the second mrs. was second mrs. Wilson yes did not tweet you know there were no instagrams so she tried to tweet them no one had a device yet and she yeah and she just couldn't get it down to 140 character problems she was so wordy so another everything you know so that was certainly a factor that media and communication was just very different also the way we treated the president was very different there was a sense of privacy a certain element of that also he had very good relations with the press so they were inclined to give him whatever distance they needed well but we're talking a year and a half year and a half and virtually unable for a large chunk of time he could do no work that's correct for a couple of months really and his wife would go in the first lady would go in and into a room and then come out and say okay this is what he wants to do nobody knows what happens she talking to the president or a sock puppet I know when no one knew what was happening in that room quite right and indeed I mean I characterize it in my book as the greatest conspiracy that ever fell upon the White House which is the second mrs. will and a handful of doctors made a decision that they would keep the president's stroke from the world and for a year and a half they did pull that off and basically every decision that had to be made every person who needed to see the president after a few months had to pass through mrs. Wilson yeah and she for all intents and purposes you know it's been argued she became the first female president of the United States but indeed nobody could get past or you know or get to the president without going through her so it's as simple as that and as complicated is that also I should add the Constitution was different than it is today we have a 25th amendment today which which defines presidential disability back then in 1919 when he suffered a stroke that was not the case and so one could happily go along and nowhere was it written what determines when the president is no longer able and they figured well he can still talk he can still think they couldn't really measure the emotional oscillation in his life the mood swings and whatever was going on and their concern was his personal Constitution not the United States Constitution right so that being the case they you know the doctors told mrs. Wilson too much stress will kill your husband so she said well then we'll keep all stress from him right and the way they chose to do it was to have her be the middle person what's shocking to me is that 1920 rolls around mm-hmm Woodrow Wilson is thinking of running again which is insanity I mean he's you were talking about someone who shouldn't have finished his yeah should have been relieved you know two-thirds of the way through his second term he's considering running again and waiting to be nominated hoping he'll be nominated and if he is nominated you get the sense that he would run that he's desperately ill that he would run and he's making lists of cabinet birds and things he wants to run on and this too though see this is where I think the effects of the stroke are kicking in that we can't measure I mean I think there was a touch of madness here that was that there was a euphoria which often accompanies strokes and I think he was not able to make proper judgments and so here here was an example of it we haven't talked about also the logical question which is did anyone think of calling the vice president you know which might have been a good idea I think the vice president would drop by once in a while and and poke him with a stick or you know well I mean I got the sense the vice president was not eager to be President yeah that fair to say that's more than fair and in fact the Vice President was Hamas our marshal of Indiana correct Thomas Riley Indy hey I wrote the book for 13 years I know I got some of the president's name want to quiz you thank you thank you and he did show up a few times but mrs. Wilson wouldn't let him in vice president we're here to see if the president's alive he's in that room you can't see him well I'll be going there it is it is I mean it's sad but there's a comical aspect to it well there are no and you have to understand if you can believe this the office of the vice president was considered a comical position yeah especially unlike today yes exactly we all have the greatest respect for mr. Biden but but then the vice president really did nothing except wait for the president to die yeah and this was a vice president who did not want the president didn't die he didn't want to be President he he really didn't and I I talked to well I talked to hey how about this I talked to Theodore Roosevelt's daughter the legendary Alice Roosevelt Longworth my famous quote from her as if you don't have something nice to say about anyone come sit by me well I can I want to hear it well she had a few others which well well I knew her in my 20s and she was in her late 80s and she I got into a conversation there about Marshall who she claims so I'm sure this is um because it came from her oh that's a good way to test any theory Roosevelt say it had to be false but she claimed that he had a business card that said Thomas r Marshall vice-president of the United States and Toastmaster which he loved being he loved being a postmaster right and she also told me that when they finally did divulge the secret to the vice president that Wilson had a stroke that he fainted yeah so you know this was a guy who didn't really want the gig yeah that being said I often ask myself because these were the same things people said about Harry Truman in 1944 and 45 what if Thomas Marshall had become president who knows if the light were on him who knows but if he wouldn't have become a Harry Truman Harry Truman is a joke to people when he's vice president he's I think he had won one or two meetings with Franklin right that's it he's the same number of failed haberdasher that was it he was the tailor yeah you know and now not until he's president and then look what happened though so that's a fair question to raise about Thomas R Marshall it's a fair question to ask of Edith Wilson and and the doctors who's to say what Marshall might have done or not done the office can change people can change people and who's to say that people might have had such pity for Wilson they might have said to President Marshall you know what let's pass that League of Nations yeah let's do it in Woodrow Wilson's name who knows Woodrow Wilson leaves the White House and in comes his polar opposite yeah Harding yes and Warren Harding is immediately recognizes and tells anybody who will listen I'm in way over my head yes I'm a good poker player I'm fun at a party I'm an idiot and I'm paraphrasing yes you are but not by much but also immediately revealed himself as immoral and fairly corrupt yeah with a lot of cronies and this suddenly Woodrow Wilson's stock if it was down a bit when he left office people start flocking to his house he has a beautiful house I've actually never been there I'd like to see you go there I want to go there the great house people go to his house and flock outside and applaud whenever he comes out to take a ride in his in his car that's driven around in a beautiful Pierce Arrow Pierce Arrow 1919 pierce-arrow and today still have the car the car is actually at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in Stanton Virginia oh it was government property no it belonged he bought it he got his property but he bought it right or he had friends who bought it for him because this was before the days of presidential pensions and a few people Bernard Baruch among them said this is a disgrace so they raised some money privately for the president for Wilson so here Lavaca t'v of Ronald Reagan very modeled Reagan had citizen people powerful California businessman hey this guy was the president let's get him a nice house let's get him let's set him up his his retirement if you can call it that he's sick he's living in this home but I was surprised when I read your book that his retirement he lives for a few years I always thought of him as this figure that it's very tragic he's off on this noble quest he falls sick he leaves office and then fades into darkness and I read your book he's being driven around in this beautiful pierce-arrow and watching a lot of movies he loves the movies and they're screened for him he loves the movie stars he loves all he watches pretty much every movie he can get his hands on everyone and yes and he runs out with monoi and he goes to the theater all the time he loved his vaudeville he loves vaudeville I mean he goes to the vaudeville theater once or twice a week even when he's president when he's president in the best of health he was sometimes hop on a train and go up to New York to see a show you know this is a guy loved theater he loved movies yeah there's a sweet scene that you described where he's watching the he's ill and he's in retirement and he's watching some show and all the actors come out and greet him and he's loved he's beloved he is truly beloved yeah that's when he goes to the to the vaudeville theater and and they would all turn out I mean the actors would go on stage and just acknowledge his presence calling them the greatest soldier of all you know and then they would all flock to his limousine in the alley afterwards as he's leaving to go back and as you said they would turn out to see him you know take his his afternoon drive every day and on occasions like Armistice Day November 11th each year there'd be a thousand people that I'm sure there'd be 10,000 people next year 20,000 people gathering out just to get powerful he's uh he is a rock star here and he became this great icon of well of idealism of peace of freedom of all those things and and that's why I think part of the legend lives on and you know that's that's the good aspect of Woodrow Wilson then that wants examination re-examination the stepping back and looking at the bigger picture he's he's right he's very right about a few things he makes it very clear at Versailles to the European leaders you being too tough on the Germans you and if you extract these kind of penalties from them you're going to them as a country and it's gonna come back to bite you in the ass exactly what happened and you get World War II and he said in 25 years the same countries will all go to war get your calendars out yeah I mean put an X on Tuesday he got it yeah he understood that and and there was no talking to the French the British they were so mad about that war and everybody had this it becomes absurd you're reading about how everyone's they have accountants trying to figure out what a human life is worth and then there's their handing a bill to Germany and saying you owe us I don't even know what the numbers are or what they would be today but you know what you owe us you know hundreds of billions of dollars in in gold to pay us which is an absurd idea you can't there's no it was a tragedy all around for everybody well it was and of course the the rap that Wilson often takes is that he was too hard on Germany too onerous the bill was too great and that that is what led to World War two in truth the bill that Germany was handed was something they could deal with uh and in further truth the Germans never paid it right so that ultimately isn't the reason they went to war again but Wilson did understand that about beating them down this again goes back to his childhood remembering because reconstruction exactly right right and he knew the toll it was going to exact a generation or two lazy humiliate your enemy then they will come back they will they have to just human nature the other thing that and this is the this is a just a much bigger question that relates to where we are today is it's a thought that's a you know been brought up by other people and it's occurred to me a few times is Barack Obama and Woodrow Wilson and possible parallels between the two both academics both very rapid rise yes to very rapid rise to an office to the office of the presidency both of them you could say idealistic as a positive and maybe even potentially potentially as a negative that Woodrow Wilson had a big idea which was his his fourteen points you know his League of Nations and Obama has a big idea which is health care universal health coverage and both very married to an idea yeah and it's their rise and also potentially their fall is that is there do you think it's a parallel there at all well I think there yes I think there are every parallel you've just named I would also add that they were both great orators I mean Woodrow Wilson was the greatest orator of of his day and is in fact the last president who wrote all of his own speeches and he was just an incredible wordsmith as well as a great written how many books before he was he'd written a dozen book dozens books and he was well-known famous as a historian he was it's almost as though Arthur Schlessinger ran for the presidency and got elected by an electoral landslide so that's who Woodrow Wilson was I mean he was our most I was I won't say he was our greatest intellectual but he was among our most famous intellectuals right he ran for president and in 1912 so there's there's that parallel that he and Barack Obama are also very persuasive when they speak so they have that I would say Wilson I think strangely because he was more of an academic really knew how to play the game a little better at least he worked the Congress he knew how to massage them he knew how to elbow them Obama I'm not sure that's the case and yet I think I think you know he's already got his health care thing passed the Supreme Court has passed on it and and I think you know he's up against opposition the likes of which who could imagine it's just relentless so my money's on Barack Obama on this and I think in some ways that's highly wilsonian and I think Obama he reminds me of Wilson a great deal a great deal well it's also I I remember when I think one of the first times that Obama went to Europe and I actually thought about Wilson because he goes to Europe and there is a level of I mean Osmania yeah and also the the Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Peace Prize too soon into his presidency there's a there's a treatment overseas that and then you come back home to the reality which is the same thing that happened with Woodrow Wilson I think Barack Obama I'm a God when I'm in Europe and then I come home you know why don't you know how they treat me yeah I'm in Prague they go crazy but but yeah then your your house for votes in in in South Carolina yeah yeah exactly right so great great similarities no no question about it no they they remind me a great deal of each other it's possible I was talking about with with a good friend of mine who has the loves the same subject and we were talking about this and he said we got into this argument and I'm not sure what the answer is maybe maybe you have an idea is it possible that America the American people are uncomfortable with a president who's got a big grand idea that they are more comfortable Franklin Roosevelt is always shucking and jiving bobbing and weaving same with John F Kennedy they don't marry everything to one idea they'll move they'll change their position Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama will plant their feet proclaim a big idea and stand by it maybe sometimes to the discomfort of the American people it might be something inherently we're not sure we want yeah I think I think Americans are not by nature a philosophical people we don't necessarily want the big concept we want specifics we we like things to work so you know so for bombers well here website health care website just worked that would mean more to us than than the health care law I hadn't been a philosophical notion yeah yeah so I I mean I think there there is genuine truth to that though and and Wilson was truly a man of ideas he would tell you also a man of ideals you know and then we've had other presidents you know who say do you want me to talk about the vision thing I mean a lot of presidents just don't have the vision and don't like talking about the vision right that's an uncomfortable and they think it's hokey they do Wilson was so comfortable talking about that and he was so comfortable he could convince the people people bought into it I think in large measure people bought into Roosevelt's visions as well and and I would say Ronald Reagan was a man of vision yeah and and so it is effective but you but you need the specific programs to back up and you need them to work so that's enough that's another thing and Wilson's did work so that really helped him a lot I mean he came in not just with this agenda but he got it past I mean there was just one measure after another it was just unbelievable which have changed really changed the nature of our country well certainly changed well domestically economically and set up things that Franklin Roosevelt will do that then later on Lyndon Johnson will do that then later on Barack Obama would so it's a it's a there's definitely a progression I think it really does go back to Woodrow Wilson and indeed in foreign policy and this this is either a really good thing or a really bad thing but all American foreign policy to this minute goes back to Woodrow Wilson leading us into World War one when he gave a speech in April of 1917 and said the world must be made safe for democracy and again whether you approve of that or not or like it or not doesn't matter it is the bedrock on which all American foreign policy is built what's in one sentence we went from that's not us we stay here isolation or isolationists to we are no foreign entanglements we're responsible yeah I mean it's it's George Washington who says let us not get entangled that's the whole key exactly but he meant for a period of time until we're strong enough and Wilson reacted to that saying but we are entangled don't you see the world's changed it's got smaller communication transporation it's shrunk the world what happens in Indiana is felt in India you know I mean so these things happen and and Wilson's feeling was okay now that we are entangled how are we gonna deal with this right and this was the way he felt it should be and again this goes back to his religiosity he felt there should be a moral component now to our policy because he felt there should be a moral component to who Americans were and now are now yeah we have a question from the we have an internet question and this is at shadow of Krypton I'm Twitter yes that's the kind of show you're on that shadow of Krypton asks who do you think was the most influential president that's a pretty that's a broad brush but you want to take a stab at it who who well I feel Wilson was of the 20th century anyway I think we have to say Washington yeah it was because he gets the whole thing rolling and the way he gets it rolling and the way he deals with the presidency and then I think you have to jump to Lincoln and as a president basically for the efforts to bring the keep the country together and then to bring it together so I also think I always I always think that Lincoln's greatest gift might have been he's he was our best writer he just just I think that's true just he's he's a poet yeah it's actual poetry that he wrote it's terrible but he's but his whose yeah exactly yeah but but his his his prose was his words just you know I was at an event recently and someone read the Gettysburg Address and I'm crying it's it's good writing yeah and I wouldn't dismiss Thomas Jefferson as as a writer now you know I mean we've had some really amazing thinkers and writers in the White House many more who were not and many more who simply didn't write yeah as I suggested Wilson is the last to write all his own material including some magnificent speeches and not only did he write them he was the best to Nara in the White House he learned shorthand when he was a teenager so he would write the first drafts in shorthand and then he'd sit at a typewriter and type them up himself and it's just crazy to think of a president mr. president hold on you know I'll be there in a minute I'm finishing this speech that that will change the world yeah that will change the world we're so divorced from the idea that someone would write their own speech but he he literally did though yeah I mean I mean these major speeches and most of his speeches he didn't write he was such an credible extemporaneous speaker he would go out to campaign with a note card with five bullet points on it and he could talk for an hour and a half and somebody would then transcribe it and well I've gone through the transcriptions there's not a word out of place there's not a syntactical error there's not a paragraph that doesn't follow its predecessor he was just he was magical really magical and he had a wonderful voice well you've done a great job I have to tell you I'm like I you when I saw that this book was coming out as excited to read it and you've really changed my thinking a lot about about Wilson I don't know I don't know where I put him in the list yet I still Lincoln's number one for me deservedly and then Chester a Arthur of course now Van Buren don't forget Fillmore Fillmore the second George Bush I have my own list yeah which may not correspond to your list at home I like saying at home and we're on the internet your problem I don't know you're watching this this is our box yeah exactly this is this was really fun for me I I hope that if you've had half as much fun as I've had then I'd been a terrible host but thank you so much thank you really if that happens great yeah thanks so much for doing this and the book is is Wilson a Scott Berg and you should get this book it's fantastic and this is Conan O'Brien this has been another serious jibber-jabber do I say anything at the end I can't remember like press ctrl alt 7 and stay away from the pornography because it's fun but ultimately damaging peace out there's a pornography on the internet I don't want you to know about that how do you access no no you don't want to know about this you've got work to do huh cannot beat

Channel: Team Coco

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Keywords: A. Scott Berg, Conan O'Brien (Author), Serious Jibber-Jabber, Team Coco, Wilson (Book), Woodrow Wilson, best moments of conan, celebrity interviews, coco, comedy, comedy sketches, conan, conan (tv series), conan best, conan best moments, conan brien, conan classic, conan funny moments, conan o'brien, conan obrien interview, conan obrien podcast, conan on tbs, conan remotes, funny moments on conan, late night show, talk show hosts, tbs, tbs (tv channel), top 10 conan

Id: VZ05oRchn7Y

Length: 64min 12sec (3852 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2013