William Elliott azelgrove's Blog, page 24
December 2, 2016
Is There Historical Precedent For Donald Trump? Yes...Huey Long
There is nothing new under the sun. History proves it. The Great Kingfisher preceded Donald Trump by eighty plus years. He would have given Donald a run for his money. A Louisiana Governor who started a Share the Wealth program that millions signed up for during the Great Depression, Long was a populist who ran Louisiana as its own country. Long had a constituency of poor people hard hit by the Great Depression and he promised to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. He was big on infrastructure programs and swore he would give people back their jobs. Franklin Roosevelt called him the most dangerous man in America when he decided to run for President
Long didn't believe in the Federal Reserve and wanted to abolish it. He wanted to build roads bridges and schools. He wanted to tax corporations to keep people in their homes. Now here is where it gets interesting. Long marketed his Share the Wealth programs though a new medium that few understood the power of. He bypassed regular media and went right to the people. A powerful speaker who worked himself into a frenzy he used radio like no one had ever imagined. From 1932 to 1935 he created a national following by telling people that Washington was taking their money from them and that they had to get rid of the fat cats. And he was the outsider who could do it...he would drain the swamp.
Long joined forces with another man who had discovered radio as a powerful medium to build his following, a catholic priest and commentator named Charles Coughlin. Coughlin and Long understood the new medium of radio and like Trump and his twitter account neatly sidestepped mainstream media with their own appeal to the masses. An assassin ended Huey Longs dreams in 1935 but many believed he would have beaten Roosevelt in 1936.
Here the comparison ends...as Donald Trump made the final leap into the White House. History will be written from here on.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
Long didn't believe in the Federal Reserve and wanted to abolish it. He wanted to build roads bridges and schools. He wanted to tax corporations to keep people in their homes. Now here is where it gets interesting. Long marketed his Share the Wealth programs though a new medium that few understood the power of. He bypassed regular media and went right to the people. A powerful speaker who worked himself into a frenzy he used radio like no one had ever imagined. From 1932 to 1935 he created a national following by telling people that Washington was taking their money from them and that they had to get rid of the fat cats. And he was the outsider who could do it...he would drain the swamp.
Long joined forces with another man who had discovered radio as a powerful medium to build his following, a catholic priest and commentator named Charles Coughlin. Coughlin and Long understood the new medium of radio and like Trump and his twitter account neatly sidestepped mainstream media with their own appeal to the masses. An assassin ended Huey Longs dreams in 1935 but many believed he would have beaten Roosevelt in 1936.
Here the comparison ends...as Donald Trump made the final leap into the White House. History will be written from here on.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
December 1, 2016
Has There Ever Been an Election Like This Before? Yes 1876 and it was even worse.
Recounts and all. Ruther B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden in 1876. Hayes the Republican lost to Tilden in the popular vote by an even wider margin than Trump to Clinton. And the election was rancorous and racist. Here is the kicker. Tilden won the electoral as well. So Hayes lost the popular and the electoral college. One would think he was done. Not so in 1876. Hayes called the election rigged. Sound familiar? And demanded that there be a massive recount. There was and in the end Hayes turned four states republican under the cloud of voter fraud in the recount! Still, it didn't matter, Ruther B. Hayes snatched the election from Tilden and became President.
So what does this mean to us. We have Jill Stein who probably lost the election for Clinton with her Green party. A fact she ignores by saying both candidates were equally bad and she was the logical alternative. And so the recount begins with Trump saying he could have won the popular except there was voter fraud. The Clinton's are standing on the sidelines technically but watching every carefully. No one thinks Steins recount will prove anything but if we look back to 1876 we see there are no certainties. It gets even worse. A back room deal decided the election in 1876 when 20 disputed electoral votes came into play with the Democratic bosses agreeing to throw the election to the republicans if they wouold withdraw Federal Troosp from the South. In essence Tilden won but became a victim to a back room deal called the compromise of f 1877.
So what does this mean? Hayes had both the electoral and the popular vote against him and he turned it around to win. A recount is a public assessment of the election and in a democracy this is important. It gives both sides a chance to make sure nothing was missed. And upsets do happens. Back room deals happen. Think if Hayes had walked away and not challenged the results in the four states that turned the tide. Hillary too lost in four crucial states and she has one up on Hayes, she won the popular. Rutherford would have killed for that advantage.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
So what does this mean to us. We have Jill Stein who probably lost the election for Clinton with her Green party. A fact she ignores by saying both candidates were equally bad and she was the logical alternative. And so the recount begins with Trump saying he could have won the popular except there was voter fraud. The Clinton's are standing on the sidelines technically but watching every carefully. No one thinks Steins recount will prove anything but if we look back to 1876 we see there are no certainties. It gets even worse. A back room deal decided the election in 1876 when 20 disputed electoral votes came into play with the Democratic bosses agreeing to throw the election to the republicans if they wouold withdraw Federal Troosp from the South. In essence Tilden won but became a victim to a back room deal called the compromise of f 1877.
So what does this mean? Hayes had both the electoral and the popular vote against him and he turned it around to win. A recount is a public assessment of the election and in a democracy this is important. It gives both sides a chance to make sure nothing was missed. And upsets do happens. Back room deals happen. Think if Hayes had walked away and not challenged the results in the four states that turned the tide. Hillary too lost in four crucial states and she has one up on Hayes, she won the popular. Rutherford would have killed for that advantage.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
At Least We Don't Have To Watch The News Anymore
I was addicted. The talking heads. The panels. Anderson Cooper turning one way and then the other and legitimizing the absurd. Now we don't have to watch these people anymore. Forget about the fact they were all wrong about the election. Forget that they switched positions like the wind. The real reason we don't have to watch the same people pontificate night after night is because it doesn't really matter. The election proved we were just watching entertainment dressed up as news. In the end style over substance took the day.
I turned on the television last night just to take a peek. There was Anderson doing his thing with Elizabeth Warren. He listened with a new face. Sort of hard bitten. The dispassionate better get ready for the new order expression. But the United States was all red how do you respond to that? Yes the coasts are blue and the interior is red that would account for the vast stretches of the West. But again Anderson is in shock and awe mode. David Gergen the veteran was the man who got me to turn off the box when he compared Donald Trump to FDR after he saved some jobs in Indiana.
In a way it doesn't matter what they say. The fact is talk is just talk. Spin. And we were the people they were spinning to and in the end none of it mattered a bit. In the end spin is spin and we wasted hours watching the center ring not aware that the circus had already left town. Better to cue up reruns of Downton Abbey. At least there is veracity.
Madam President The Secret Presdency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
I turned on the television last night just to take a peek. There was Anderson doing his thing with Elizabeth Warren. He listened with a new face. Sort of hard bitten. The dispassionate better get ready for the new order expression. But the United States was all red how do you respond to that? Yes the coasts are blue and the interior is red that would account for the vast stretches of the West. But again Anderson is in shock and awe mode. David Gergen the veteran was the man who got me to turn off the box when he compared Donald Trump to FDR after he saved some jobs in Indiana.
In a way it doesn't matter what they say. The fact is talk is just talk. Spin. And we were the people they were spinning to and in the end none of it mattered a bit. In the end spin is spin and we wasted hours watching the center ring not aware that the circus had already left town. Better to cue up reruns of Downton Abbey. At least there is veracity.
Madam President The Secret Presdency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 30, 2016
If Women Ruled The World Would Be Better Off
Lets face it, women are better people than men. I know I am a man. If you are married then you know what I am saying. Women are taught and have empathy at a very early age. It is in the genes. But more than that boys are told to act in self interest. Getting ahead and achieving is preeminent. And the guidelines are unclear. If you happen to make the football team by flattening the other kid so much the better. Or if you best the school bully with a punch in the nose even better. Or if you ride down the street with no hands and plow into a car then you are commended for being a daredevil.
Girls are told on the other hand to think of others. To put others before yourself. Ever watch women get together and compliment each other. I like your dress. That is cute on you. Ever see men do that. Men stare at each other and rarely give out compliments...they are too busy bragging. Men brag while women give compliments. The world is full of braggarts. In face we are up to the brim with braggarts and now we have a braggart in chief.
So how does this all relate to the world? Well. Wars. The ultimate hubris. Helping the less fortunate. The environment. Human rights. Civil discourse. We just saw a slash and burn campaign of men hacking each other up. Hillary never seemed to have a knack for it. But no. I believe after the Donald tour the world would be better off with those girls who were told to think of others before themselves. Man... do we need that now.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edth Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
Girls are told on the other hand to think of others. To put others before yourself. Ever watch women get together and compliment each other. I like your dress. That is cute on you. Ever see men do that. Men stare at each other and rarely give out compliments...they are too busy bragging. Men brag while women give compliments. The world is full of braggarts. In face we are up to the brim with braggarts and now we have a braggart in chief.
So how does this all relate to the world? Well. Wars. The ultimate hubris. Helping the less fortunate. The environment. Human rights. Civil discourse. We just saw a slash and burn campaign of men hacking each other up. Hillary never seemed to have a knack for it. But no. I believe after the Donald tour the world would be better off with those girls who were told to think of others before themselves. Man... do we need that now.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edth Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 29, 2016
Starbucks Nation
Maybe Donald Trump was elected because people have nowhere to go anymore. If you work at home then eventually you will end up at Starbucks. Get out of the house and find somewhere you can hunker down. There are people working there but there are a lot of other people there too. The chronically unemployed. Some homeless people. Disaffected teens. Old men brought by daughters and sons who have moved back home. Old women brought by the same. And you have to ask the question where do people have to go?
F. Scott Fitzgerald said there is nothing greater than the difference between the sick and the well. Or the unemployed and the employed. The old and the young. The lonely and the married. There is a great marginalized swath of people in the United States. They cant participate in our LCD culture anymore. They don't resemble people on television in any shape or form. Not that anyone does. The talking heads that did such a bad job on the election are all very wealthy people having a fantastic time preening on television in clothes middle class people cannot afford.
We are a jeans and tennis shoes people. This is the new peasant ware. And now that Donald Trump has been elected we are all peasants and serfs. The Uber rich will parade past us like a reality show of the rich and famous except this show will run for possibly eight years. And so the left behinds will grow and Starbucks will fill with people in walkers and on canes in their faded jeans and tennis shoes. People who have nowhere to go.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
F. Scott Fitzgerald said there is nothing greater than the difference between the sick and the well. Or the unemployed and the employed. The old and the young. The lonely and the married. There is a great marginalized swath of people in the United States. They cant participate in our LCD culture anymore. They don't resemble people on television in any shape or form. Not that anyone does. The talking heads that did such a bad job on the election are all very wealthy people having a fantastic time preening on television in clothes middle class people cannot afford.
We are a jeans and tennis shoes people. This is the new peasant ware. And now that Donald Trump has been elected we are all peasants and serfs. The Uber rich will parade past us like a reality show of the rich and famous except this show will run for possibly eight years. And so the left behinds will grow and Starbucks will fill with people in walkers and on canes in their faded jeans and tennis shoes. People who have nowhere to go.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 27, 2016
The Womens March on Washington
WOMEN'S MARCH ON WASHINGTON- JANUARY 21st, 2017
OFFICIAL STATEMENT, National Organizers
On January 21, 2017 we will unite in Washington, DC for the Women’s March on Washington. We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families -- recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.
The rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us--women, immigrants of all statuses, those with diverse religious faiths particularly Muslim, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Native and Indigenous people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, the economically impoverished and survivors of sexual assault. We are confronted with the question of how to move forward in the face of national and international concern and fear.
In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.
We support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities. We call on all defenders of human rights to join us. This march is the first step towards unifying our communities, grounded in new relationships, to create change from the grassroots level up. We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society. We work peacefully while recognizing there is no true peace without justice and equity for all. HEAR OUR VOICE
Womens March
Madam President The Secret Presideny of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
OFFICIAL STATEMENT, National Organizers
On January 21, 2017 we will unite in Washington, DC for the Women’s March on Washington. We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families -- recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.
The rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us--women, immigrants of all statuses, those with diverse religious faiths particularly Muslim, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Native and Indigenous people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, the economically impoverished and survivors of sexual assault. We are confronted with the question of how to move forward in the face of national and international concern and fear.
In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.
We support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities. We call on all defenders of human rights to join us. This march is the first step towards unifying our communities, grounded in new relationships, to create change from the grassroots level up. We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society. We work peacefully while recognizing there is no true peace without justice and equity for all. HEAR OUR VOICE
Womens March
Madam President The Secret Presideny of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 26, 2016
Black Friday Special on Madam President $12.00
Washington Post asks the Question: Did we already have an unelected Madam President? WASHINGTON, DC - 11/20 /2016 (PRESS RELEASE JET) — Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson has been chosen as a Literary Guild Selection. Released on Oct 17th by Regnery, the highly researched narrative is already a Bestselling History Book Club Selection with a Five Star Foreword review. The story of the First Woman President is gaining steam. After a CSPAN filming at the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington DC, Author William Hazelgrove is making ripples with his story of Americas First Woman President. Now the Washington Post has posed the question: did we already have an unelected Madam President? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...According to acclaimed author, William Hazelgrove Hillary Clinton would not have been our first female president. Edith Wilson took the mantle of First Woman President almost a hundred years ago. Months before women won the right to vote, a woman was secretly running the Executive Office. Few know the hidden history of Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency – until now. Author William Hazelgrove provides an engaging portrait of the woman who became the acting president of the United States in his new book
Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
(October 17; Regnery Publishing; 978-1-62157-475-0; $29.99).Assuming the authority of the Oval Office after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, Edith’s presence was quietly acknowledged in D.C. circles at the time, but since then her legacy has largely been forgotten.
A senator during her time called her “the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man.” Now, the full history of America’s first female president is finally revealed."Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
A senator during her time called her “the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man.” Now, the full history of America’s first female president is finally revealed."Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 23, 2016
Madam President Winning by Over Two Million Votes
No wonder people are pissed off. Not since 1876 has the country had anything like this. A candidate who has won the general election by over two million votes and lost. The Electoral College is not broke it has just made a ghastly mistake for the United States. A candidate who now has to govern when most of the people voted for the other person. And they are still counting. Al Gore of course is the poster child for the great steal but now we have Hillary Clinton. The problem is the margin keeps getting wider.
Ok. Someone loses the popular vote by say 100,000 but wins the electoral then you say well ok it sort of represented the will of the people. Someone who wins but loses the general by say 750,000 then you get a funny feeling but still you shrug and say well that is our system. Ok now you have someone who has lost by a million votes but who will be president. Now you are beginning to wonder if something isn't really wrong. At two million people you realize that the wrong person was elected president.
So what can we do? That is the question. What if it becomes three million votes...four million? An investigation? At what point do you say not only is the electoral college broke but it just put the wrong guy in office? Lets face it, no one wants to deal with this. At what point does this change from sour grapes over the outcome to how do you acknowledge that the United States might have just had a bogus election? Answer that one.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
Ok. Someone loses the popular vote by say 100,000 but wins the electoral then you say well ok it sort of represented the will of the people. Someone who wins but loses the general by say 750,000 then you get a funny feeling but still you shrug and say well that is our system. Ok now you have someone who has lost by a million votes but who will be president. Now you are beginning to wonder if something isn't really wrong. At two million people you realize that the wrong person was elected president.
So what can we do? That is the question. What if it becomes three million votes...four million? An investigation? At what point do you say not only is the electoral college broke but it just put the wrong guy in office? Lets face it, no one wants to deal with this. At what point does this change from sour grapes over the outcome to how do you acknowledge that the United States might have just had a bogus election? Answer that one.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 21, 2016
Watching West Wing Now Is Like Watching Camelot
I didn't watch West Wing when it came out. I do that. I don't watch shows until they are ten years old. Something strange about cant watch popular shows when they are popular. But now I am hooked on the Bartlett Administration. The show is something out of Camelot now. The knights of the round table AJ and the rest pledge themselves to the Bartlett agenda lest they fall on their sword. Toby, Sam and the rest are errant knights running to the moral order set by the commander in chief who habitually draws a line in the sand and then crosses it but quickly confesses and then has penance. This is straight out of the Wizard of Oz now.
Our current political climate is so different it has made the show a love letter to the early 2000s when the United States was clearly on one side of the moral card and the rest of the world was on the other. Or so we thought. Bathos and pathos rules the day on West Wing with our dedicated missionaries struggling to find right in a tangled up recognizable Washington establishment. That world is so gone now it is hard to find where to place these characters. Especially Jeb Bartlett.
He is a brilliant man who has self knowledge and humility and takes the presidency very seriously but himself less so. The ultimate Commander in Chief agonizing over the appointment of his secretary while ordering assassinations albeit unwillingly and then admitting to the fact. Even the opening sequence speaks of a world long ago with the flag flapping over the august black and white photos of the cast. Clearly this was designed for an American public willing to buy in that while our leaders are flawed they are basically good.
One cannot help but think or Richard Harris in the forest lamenting over the loss of Camelot. There once was a world....
Order Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
Our current political climate is so different it has made the show a love letter to the early 2000s when the United States was clearly on one side of the moral card and the rest of the world was on the other. Or so we thought. Bathos and pathos rules the day on West Wing with our dedicated missionaries struggling to find right in a tangled up recognizable Washington establishment. That world is so gone now it is hard to find where to place these characters. Especially Jeb Bartlett.
He is a brilliant man who has self knowledge and humility and takes the presidency very seriously but himself less so. The ultimate Commander in Chief agonizing over the appointment of his secretary while ordering assassinations albeit unwillingly and then admitting to the fact. Even the opening sequence speaks of a world long ago with the flag flapping over the august black and white photos of the cast. Clearly this was designed for an American public willing to buy in that while our leaders are flawed they are basically good.
One cannot help but think or Richard Harris in the forest lamenting over the loss of Camelot. There once was a world....
Order Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
November 19, 2016
Washington Post Review: Did We Have An Unelected Madam President?
As battleground states trickled, then gushed, into Donald Trump’s column and the electoral map turned redder and redder, the New York Times scrapped its “Madam President” front page.Later, a photo made the rounds on social media of the paper’s design editors huddled around a screen, reenvisioning what might have been an “iconic” A1. Newsweek’s prematurely distributed “Madam President” commemorative cover, sent out by one of the magazine’s licensees, had to be recalled.The startling defeat of Hillary Clinton seemingly consigned the notion of a woman running things at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to the realm of prime-time television and movies — for now, at least. One woman, however, came about as close as any woman ever has to being a female commander in chief. She was Edith Bolling Wilson, the second wife of the 28th president, Woodrow Wilson. Her legacy is revisited in William Hazelgrove’s useful and crisply written, yet ultimately unpersuasive history: “Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson.”Edith was the first woman to hold a driver’s license in Washington, according to Hazelgrove, and she proudly laid claim to being a descendant of Pocahantas. Her life was transformed in late 1919 when her husband suffered a serious stroke, and his attending physician, Francis Dercum, laid out a plan: “Have everything come to you. . . . See if it is possible by consultations with the respective heads of the Departments to solve them without the guidance of your husband.”"Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson," by William Hazelgrove (Regnery History)The president retreated from the public eye for months, and his wife, as Hazelgrove copiously documents, began to filter the deluge of correspondence that came his way from various government agencies. The first lady’s control of the flow of information did not go unnoticed by an increasingly skeptical Congress. Sen. Albert Fall (R-N.M.), an ardent antagonist of the Democratic president, declared: “We have a petticoat government! Wilson is not acting! Mrs. Wilson is President!”Hazelgrove posits that in the decades since, there has been a “cover-up” to conceal the first lady’s role during her husband’s long illness, a deception in which “historians have been complicit.”If that is true, one of their best allies in the snow job is Edith herself. To his credit, Hazelgrove cites her memoir, where she writes, “I myself never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs.”Still, Hazelgrove isn’t buying it, and the evidence he presents is enough to remind us that Edith was, at a minimum, an exceptionally consequential figure in her husband’s White House. As the president’s infirmity deepened and the business of the White House stalled, government officials took to addressing their letters about presidential business directly to her. The proposed State of the Union text was sent to her, and her handwriting appeared on important papers. She pitched the agriculture secretary on switching to treasury, though she said she was communicating her husband’s wishes.Edith’s primary motivation, in Hazelgrove’s telling, was a hope that by insulating her husband from stress, she might have been able to save his life. Her guide in this effort was Wilson’s confidant and physician, Cary Grayson, who kept the press at bay with vague statements about the president’s health while advising that the ailing leader “shouldn’t be bothered with any matters of official character. . . . It was to be a complete rest, not partial rest.”The public’s expectations about a woman’s role in the White House came into focus in the hubbub after Woodrow Wilson met with the Queen of Belgium, one of the few people allowed to see him. Mistaken reports that he wore a “torn sweater” for their chat (it was apparently only a “worn” garment) prompted many women to send yarn to Edith. She was expected to stitch together her husband’s wardrobe — not his policies.Yet, outside the public eye, she was enmeshed in the daily combat of governing, particularly during the ferocious debate over her husband’s failed proposal for the United States to join the League of Nations, an alliance that Wilson needed Congress to ratify. The president’s foes on Capitol Hill countered with a list of changes — dubbed “reservations” — that would have altered the agreement Wilson had made when he signed the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. But, according to Hazelgrove, Edith “blocked the majority of entreaties to compromise. . . . In doing so, she also deprived him of the necessary input to adjust his position.”Opinions newsletterThought-provoking opinions and commentary, in your inbox daily.Sign upEventually, Hazelgrove writes, Edith relented and asked her husband to consider compromise. Her recollection of that moment in her memoir contributes to the impression that the president was still in charge: “Little girl, don’t you desert me. . . . Better a thousand times to go down fighting than to dip your colors to dishonorable compromise.”A. Scott Berg, a biographer of Woodrow Wilson, wrote that Edith Wilson “failed to acknowledge the commanding nature of her role, that in determining the daily agenda and formulating arguments thereon, she executed the physical and most of the mental duties of the office.” She “did not become, as some have asserted, ‘the first female President of the United States,’ ” Berg wrote, “but she came close.”What Berg is describing — and what Hazelgrove, despite his most fervent efforts, ends up illustrating most convincingly — sounds like Edith playing the role of a Madam Chief of Staff more than a Madam President.A woman has never held that vital position. In this post-Clinton world, it’s worth pondering whether a headline trumpeting the first female White House chief of staff might make the papers before the one that evaporated on election night. It might be a place to start.MADAM PRESIDENTThe Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
Chicago Sun Times
"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning
