Fig 1. Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana
Acting President of the United States
. . .
It was to be the greatest irony in the life of Woodrow Wilson that the fortunes of his beloved League of Nations would come to depend on the readiness of his own ministers to dismiss her creator. Upon his return to the United States in 1919, Wilson found the American public and the members of Congress alike in their distrust for the peace treaty negotiated at Versailles. Having prided herself for more than a century by her indifference to the entangling affairs of Europe, the Columbian republic balked at the president's vision of a new international order, and the future of the treaty in a divided Senate soon came into serious doubt. Though Republican senators led by Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts offered to support the treaty if only certain changes were made to the charter of the League of Nations, allowing Congress to retain the final say on sending American troops to war, Wilson was unwilling to compromise, and for a time it seemed the old professor's obstinance would sink the treaty altogether.
Then, as if by whim of a benevolent god, the wind changed. While touring the country in hopes of kindling popular support for his League of Nations, Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, rendering him practically incapable of executing his day-to-day responsibilities. Initially, First Lady Edith Wilson and the president's closest advisors hoped to keep the severity of Wilson's condition from the public, fearing a fully-informed Congress would seek his replacement by Vice President Marshall. When word did ultimately leak out, by way of a covertly-sent reporter for the Baltimore Sun, the White House's attempts at secrecy rendered exactly that: at the urging of nearly the entire Cabinet, and with tacit approval of the vice president, Congress on December 21 passed a Joint Resolution declaring Wilson constitutionally incapacitated and installing Thomas Riley Marshall as Acting President of the United States.
From the perspective of the internationalists, it was nothing less than a godsend. Absent the self-righteous pride that had crippled Wilson's aborted attempts to negotiate with Congress, Marshall managed a compromise with Senate moderates under whose terms the United States would join the League of Nations, but reserved the right to veto her declarations of war. This condition having been met, the Senate consented — narrowly — to ratify the Versailles treaty.
Assuming office mere months before the National Conventions, Marshall's interim administration saw few further achievements of major import; the nations attention, by this time, was on the brewing presidential campaign. Nominated for a full term over challenges by William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith, Marshall will now face Warren G. Harding — the Republican Governor of Ohio — and Eugene V. Debs — a fellow Hoosier and leader of the Socialist Party — in the general election.
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