Hey Otterites!
Forgive last week’s brief post and the glaring omission in my interest in Heaven Hill that the distillery just settled a 6 week long labor strike! Hadn’t meant to gloss over that, but instead to focus on the interesting article in Bourbon+ magazine.
Anyway, onward and upward. I started a new book, recommended by our man Francis. A follow up to his A World Undone, I’ve started digging into G. J. Meyer’s The World Remade, which focuses on America’s involvement and entry into World War I.
And Otterites, you know what that means! That’s right, Woodrow Wilson bashing! Meyer doesn’t shy away from putting a few shots across Wilson’s bow either. Sanctimonious, unbending, bathing in reflected worship from people like Edward House, Wilson dithered until he could stop the war in such a way to make himself the greatest human of all time (not just greatest president, but literally wanted to be the savior of the world). The dirty secret of Wilson’s presidency during the war was that while we were officially neutral, we carried Britain’s water repeatedly at Wilson’s direction and House’s insistence. The slightest diplomatic pushback from Wilson, or smallest hint that we might withhold big time cash from Britain, and a negotiated settlement, saving perhaps millions of lives, was very possible. But that wouldn’t have broken German “militarism” (the Brits were every bit as militaristic as the Germans) and wouldn’t have made Wilson the world’s greatest peacemaker since Christ himself.
So as you can imagine I’m already hooked on this one and plowing through it rapidly. Somehow taking manly thwacks at the Wilson piñata never makes my arms tired. Apparently such figures as Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge loved taking swings too.
Beyond Wilson, the story of America’s entry into World War I involves such figures as William Jennings Bryan, Edward House and Robert Lansing. Meyer, like any good storyteller, doesn’t stint on the portraits of these figures either. The most interesting is the Wilson acolyte House. He’s a crucial figure working in the shadows for Wilson, without official “portfolio”. He is a minor figure in most other histories I’ve read, but Meyer is bringing him into focus. Should be good stuff to follow.
At the risk of sounding like a damaged vinyl disc that is repeating a brief section of an audio recording, I am always ready to dig into World War I and bash Wilson. It is a period in US history that is massively misunderstood and barely studied. At once too new yet so far away, the first quarter of the 20th century shaped our world and we are still struggling to cope with those contours. Communism, terrorism, nationalism, racism, fascism, authoritarianism, you name an -ism and WWI and Wilson are probably right in the stinky middle of it.
Make this a strong recommendation of Meyer’s work Otterites. And stay tuned to these pages, as Francis advises he has an epic Macbeth post in the offing this week. That’s right, Francis returns this week.
