This Week in Texas Methodist History  July 9

Bishop Hendrix Shares Podium with Governor Woodrow Wilson, October 28, 1911

On the last weekend of the Texas State Fair in Dallas in 1911 Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey made an appearance supposedly to deliver a lecture on the Bible, but his real purpose was to advance his presidential campaign.  He made the most of a whirlwind trip to Dallas and Fort Worth as he met politicians, and business, civic, educational, and religious leaders, some of whom were already members er of Wilson Clubs formed to promote his candidacy.  

He travelled by train to Texas, stopping by Little Rock to drum up support in Arkansas and arrived in Texas in time to deliver three addresses on Saturday October 28.  The first was at the State Fair where he talked about the Bible.  It was not an original address.  He had delivered the same speech the previous May.  Bishop Eugen Hendrix of the MECS delivered a sermon on the occasion and they were joined by Samuel Palmer Brooks (1863-1931) President of Baylor University.  

The party then moved to Dallas First Baptist Church where Governor Wilson addressed the audience on the tercentenary of the King James Version of the Bible (mistakenly identified as the St. James Version in the New Orleans Christian Advocate.) Wilson and his party then boarded a special interurban train and went to Fort Worth where he delivered his third address of the day.  

Although Wilson was Governor of New Jersey, he was really a Southerner, having been born in Virginia and raised in Presbyterian parsonages in Georgia and South Carolina.  His preacher father was a staunch supporter of the Confederacy and one of the leaders who created the Southern Presbyterian Church after Presbyterians split north and south.  He was elected to the governorship from the presidency of Princeton University where he developed a reputation as an educational reformer.  He won the 1910 election, was inaugurated governor in early 1911 and almost immediately began running for president.  In July 1911 he named "Colonel" E. M. House of Austin as his campaign manager.  House was a power broker in Texas politics who saw a chance for Democrats to return to the White House.  

You know the rest of the story.  Wilson won both the Democratic nomination and the presidency when he beat President Taft and former president Theodore Roosevelt.  Texas reaped important rewards for its early support of Wilson.  House was offered any Cabinet position besides Secretary of State (promised to William Jennings Bryan) but declined formal office to become an intimate advisor to Wilson, especially in foreign affairs.  Bryan held the office of Secretary of State but House was more influential.   Bryan busied himself negotiating treaties while Wilson and House made the important decisions.  

Besides House as the most intimate advisor, three Texans were named to the Cabinet:  David Houston in Agriculture (later Treasury); Thomas Watt Gregory as AG, and Albert S. Burleson, Postmaster General.

President Wilson is often described as a Progressive.  His progressivism was mainly in the economic sphere.   The Federal Reserve System was created land boniness regulation were proposed to help the average citizen against the power of the corporations.  In the area of race relations and civil rights, Wilson was far from progressive.  For example, Burleson oversaw the segregation of the Post Office Department.  Wilson's screening of Birth of Nation is well known.  Although not as notorious as his successor, A. Mitchell Palmer, Gregory headed the Justice Department that imprisoned Eugene Debs for encouraging noncompliance with conscription. He and Burleson were the point men in the administration in suppressing free speech. (BTW Gregory Gym at UT is named for him.)

Lest you think I am totally critical of the Texans in the Wilson Cabinet, let us lift up the career of  David Houston.  He was an academic and president of Texas A&M and UT.  His memoir, Eight Years in Wilson's Cabinet is my favorite cabinet memoir.