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

• Author: Janas, Michael
• Position: Book review

Woodrow Wilson's Western Tour: Rhetoric, Public Opinion and the League of Nations. By. J. Michael Hogan. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006; pp. xi + 212. $17.95 paper.

Sprung from a closely contested election, he was the architect of a controversial war supported with contrived means and close attention to information management. The good times did not last, however, and his party lost control of Congress during his second midterm election. Rather than engage in a vigorous partisan conflict, he left town, sought his legacy in international affairs, and took his case directly to the people.

As we approach the centennial of Woodrow Wilson's presidency, we are drawn both to its eerie similarity to present circumstances and to his part in setting into place the elements of the modern presidency. Because he was a debate coach and academic, acutely interested in the role of rhetoric in government, we feel empowered to judge Wilson according to his own standards.

Students of the presidency are in the midst of a rhetorical reevaluation of Woodrow Wilson. On the heels of Robert Kraig's exhaustive study comes J. Michael Hogan's new work. Hogan integrates close textual analysis with a concise historical rendering of Woodrow Wilson's last public speaking tour. Hogan's previous work on public deliberation and civic engagement, especially in the Progressive movement, uniquely qualifies him for this examination.

The book begins near the end of Wilson's final public tour, with his speech in Pueblo, Colorado. Then, moving backward, it examines Wilson's place in Progressive-era ideology, particularly his well-known views on the president as a statesman-orator who sought to form public opinion by keeping "common counsel." In its third part, Hogan tracks Wilson's western tour and documents his uncharacteristic shift toward demagoguery. In its final part, Hogan returns to the Pueblo speech, proffering a close textual analysis of the canonical address in contemporary and historical context. The book's epilogue evaluates the long-term implications of the tour and Wilson's legacy.

Western Tour is an attractive work for students of presidential rhetoric. After the midterm election loss of 1918 and the end of the Great War, Wilson threw himself into international relations. He left Washington for months at a time to participate in the peace negotiations in Europe. Although his behavior at the negotiations has been the object of much speculation (most...