The Washington times., 1925-03-09
The Myth Of Mrs. Peck and Woodrow Wilson

something quite outside the Calvin
| cycle. And how fearfu1ly tfe
Scotchmarl must have backed OIL
scandalized and scared; but how
eagerly the Irish in him must have
run to meet the blessed apparition
But the Peck letters furnished
salacfous gossip for two campaigns
and did a cruel injustice to q good
woman and blameless man. Dean
| Andrew r. West, of Princeton, who
was Wilson'S most scornful enemy
testffies to his certainty that there
is no dust of the primrose path
| upon Wilson's feet.
| Instinctiyely Roosevelt touched
| the Wilson defense in his charac-
terization of Wilson as the apothe-
cary's clerk in an affair or the
heart. That story is worth recit.
ing. The campaign SANDERS were
brought to Rooseyelt's attention by
q political manager, and Roosevelt
| Indignantly demanded that SO 1ar
las his friends and partisans were
CONCERNED the whispering stop.
roosevelt proclaimed his funda.
| mental belief In the integrity OF
his adversary. and the bursting into
nronoonitory wrinkles until his face
looked like a ruddy baked apple,
the Colonel squeaked:
t'What's more, it wouldn't
work. You can't cast q man rs
Romeo who looks and acts SO
much like the apOthecary,s clerk!
After the campaign the Wilson's
| went to Bermuda. where Mrs: Peck
lent them her house. Following
her divorce she took the name o.
her first husband and became Mrs.
Mary hubert At Bermuda Mr..
and Mrs. Wilson walked and rode
and talked and lOafed and invlteo
their souls, letting the scent on
the. clean air and the JOY OF the
teauteous landscape heal tne
breaches that the hard months OF
the campaign had made. return
ing. they visited Mrs. Hubert IN
New York, where there was gooo
talk for an hour or so ana q
merry matching of minds.
The close kinship OF spirit De
tween Mrs Peck and Wilson y
further evidenced by his message 70
her after the death or his WlIe IN
1914. It was a great TRAGEDY.
Surely IL Ellen Axson@ had Deen
spared, she would have strengthened
him in the dark hours tnaL were
coming: would have persisted even
stronger in life than she hveo III
habit and memory. And the Worlo
might have been better Worid II
she could have stayed in 1t. Her
passing inevitably had to cripple
woodrow Wilson sadly.
at want YOU to be the first to
know from me-. he declared to Mrs.
Hubert a few hours after Ellen
Axson's death, 'of Ellen's passing.
He wrote a beautiful letter to
this old friend out of heart
deeply wounded. She was family
friend who had visited in the
White House during Mrs. Wilson's
lifetime.
Wrote Of Marriage.
In the latter part of the follow
ing year, upon his marriage to Mrs.
Edith Boiling Gait, woodrow VIII
son again said to his old friend.
Mary Hubert, II want you to be
the first to know" but this time
IL was "of my great happiness"
After his first wife's death, sew
Hubert to write. Then they
Three years and eight months
passed-while the world at first
eagerly and then doubtfully listened
to the doctrine of democracy
preached by the man Wilson.
After the armistice, he went to
the leaders Of Europe with his
plans.
Forced to compromise, to- accept
lower standards than he had set,
Wilson, discouraged, came home
and wrangled with the Senate. AT
length it was plain that the Sen
ate would reject the covenant Of
the League of Nations, his pet
dream, and destroy his good works.
So, in August, 1919, the President
| discouraged with OBJECTIONS in his
own party and in the Senate, de.
-cided tc go to the American people,
making what he called 1.-The appeal
to Caesar"
Needed His Help.
In Los Angeles he found a note
from Mary Hubert, and he and
Mrs. Wilson went 10 see her. She
told him what she had written to
him some time before, that the
whispering campaign which had
connected their names so cruelty
in 1915 had resulted during the
war, when spies were busy with
nothing to- do, in a thousand an
noyances to her, invasion of her
privacy by agents from the Federal
Department Of Justice Of his own
Administration; that yellow news
papers had haunted and bounded
her. and that she was troubled and
needed his help.
Naturally what she said shocked
him, and he was in no condition to
stand any shock. Also he found her
with her money gone. her SON i'll,
and trouble beating upon her. The
butterfly of Bermuda, gay and
beautiful, with the quick and love
ly mind, the agile, spr1te-like-soul,
the gracious and charming heart,
| was all chilled. saddened, beset
| with fear-the butterfly in autumn.
Her plight would have smitten q
harder heart than his. So he left
Los Angeles puzzled and worried,
| with no residence in his mind or
spirit, and no reserve in his BODY
to reinforce his tired nerves, II
was the beginning zof the end.
| Copyrigh, 1926, by The Bell Syndicate.