Woodrow Wilson's Western Tour: Rhetoric, Public Opinion, and the League of Nations (review)

Success can be judged by a number of standards. In Woodrow Wilson's Western Tour, J. Michael Hogan presents a new standard with which to judge Wilson's campaign for the League of Nations; he evaluates it in light of the ideal set forth by Wilson himself. As an academic, Wilson laid out the characteristics of an "orator-statesman," and it is with this standard that Hogan measures the president's success. Hogan's approach brings to light new information on Wilson's tour and encourages further academic inquiry into the role of the president, the public, and public deliberation in the United States.

The book centers on Wilson and his League of Nations tour across the United States. Traveling west by train, the president addressed the public's concerns regarding the ratification of the League of Nations treaty. Faltering health forced Wilson to cut his tour short, and late in 1919 the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty completely, not even ratifying it with reservations attached. To carry out his analysis of this tour, the author begins by describing Wilson's ideal "orator-statesman" and by positioning the trip within its historical background. Hogan argues that the president demonstrated a deep faith in the ability of people to take part in informed deliberation and believed his role as president was to take policy discussions from the political realm to the people. Committed to providing "common council" for the citizens of the United States, Wilson believed that he was the "spokesman for the whole people" (54). Drawing from Wilson's scholarly writing, the author shows how, for Wilson, the ideal statesman shunned the common emotional appeals of the day and relied solely on a rational presentation of the issues. It is in relation to this standard that Hogan assesses Wilson's rhetorical performance over the course of the tour.

With this criterion in mind, Hogan follows the president's progress across the United States. At each stop from Columbus, Ohio, to Pueblo, Colorado, the size of the crowds, the extent of the press coverage, and the content of the president's speech are recorded in detail. Wilson explained to the audience the need for the League of Nations and addressed the public's concerns about specific aspects of the treaty. Hogan notes how, as the trip progressed, Wilson began lashing out at his critics and scorning compromise, even with those moderates who favored ratification of the treaty with a few reservations. He used emotional stories of his visit to an American cemetery in France and of mothers who had lost sons in the battle to play on people's fears of another war. In so doing, the author argues that Wilson strayed further and further away from fulfilling his "orator-statesman" ideal. Throughout the book, Hogan directs attention to this oscillation between the use of the ideal model of speech and the common emotive language of the day as Wilson trekked westward.

Hogan provides a close reading of Wilson's speeches on his Western tour, which he believes have been mostly neglected by other scholars. By contrasting the speeches with Wilson's ideal, the author hopes to shed "light on an important transitional moment in the history of American public address" (25). The president's tour, Hogan effectively argues, marks a change toward a more modern understanding of the rhetorical presidency. This book also fills other holes left by historians in the scholarship on Wilson's Western tour. For example, there has previously been a failure to factor in Wilson's intent in touring the nation. He set out by train, as Hogan brings to light, "merely to 'report,' 'expound,' or 'discuss' the treaty—but not to engage in 'oratory' or 'debate'" (61). For each city along Wilson's tour, Hogan details the analysis of historians, the commentary of the reporters of the day, and the text of the...