Tumulty Joseph P. the 879-1954 - the Joseph Patrick Tumulty Papers Page 1 of 2 William L. Clements Library The University of Michigan Joseph Patrick Tumulty Papers Temporary record Tumulty, Joseph Patrick, 1879-1954 Papers, 1913-1948 2.5 lin. ft. Historical information: Personal and professional correspondence of Joseph P. Tumulty, Private Secretary to Woodrow Wilson from 1911-1921. A New Jersey attorney from a middle class Irish-Catholic family, Tumulty became an important figure in state-level Democratic circles, in the progressivist mold of William Jennings Bryan. After a stint in the New Jersey Assembly (1907-1910), where he sponsored unsuccessful reformist legislation to regulate railroad and utility rates, Tumulty served as an adviser to gubenatorial candidate Woodrow Wilson in the election of 1911. Pleased with Tumulty's assistance, Wilson appointed Tumulty to be his private secretary in 1911 which he ably filled for ten years, including during Wilson's years as president. During his tenure as Wilson's secretary, Tumulty filled many different roles, including press secretary, public relations, campaign organizer for the Catholic and Irish vote, and adviser for minor patronage appointments. His relationship with the president was nearly severed over his opposition to Wilson's remarriage only a few months shortly after the death of his first wife, but Wilson declined Tumulty's offer to resign. Despite this, however, the relationship between the two was never again as close. A 'conservative progressive' in his own estimation, Tumulty was a proponent of women's suffrage, war-time censorship and was a supporter of A. Mitchell Palmer's deportation of 'red' aliens in 1919. It was ultimately his support of Palmer and of the 'wet' Catholic presidential candidate, James M. Cox that led to his final break with Wilson in 1922, and ended Tumulty's influence in Washington. He remained in Washington as a practicing attorney until his death in 1954. The collection consists of retained copies and typescripts of correspondence and appears to have been thoroughly sorted through, with all of the letters to or from Wilson and most other major political figures having been removed. What remains, however, is an interesting assortment providing insight into political patronage during the Wilson administration and a variety of other miscellaneous political issues. M-3079 Subjects League of Nations Presidents-United States--Election, 1920 http://www.clements.umich.edu/Webguides/T/Tumulty.html 10/8/2002 Travers Tumulty guidance and polished his skill to championship gained the admiration and respect so often caliber. bestowed upon sport stars. In 1940, however, he Although Travers entered tournaments as was among the first members of the Golf Hall of early as 1902, he did not win one until 1904, Fame established by the United States Golf when he captured the Nassau Invitational. He Association. In 1949 he was named to the Helms did not win again until 1906, when he took the Athletic Foundation Golf Hall of Fame (now Metropolitan Amateur Tournament in New Citizens Savings Athletic Foundation) in its York City. Then from 1907 to 1915 Travers initial election. He died in East Hartford, Conn. dominated golf. He won the United States Amateur in 1907, 1908, 1912, and 1913, and [On Travers' early career, see Travers' Golf Book was runner-up in 1914. His victory in 1913 set (1913). Nevin H. Gibson, The Encyclopedia of Golf a record for that tournament that was not With the Official All-Time Records (1958), includes broken until Bobby Jones won it five times Travers' golfing exploits in later life. There is valuable material at the United States Golf Association's Golf between 1924 and 1930. Travers again won the House in Far Hills, N.J., and at the Citizens Metropolitan Amateur in 1907, 1911, 1912, and Savings Athletic Foundation in Los Angeles, Calif. 1913, and was runner-up in 1908 and 1910. His Also see the obituaries in the New York Times. Mar. fifth victory (1913) set a record for winning that 31, 1951: Washington Post, Mar. 31, 1951; Time, event that was not broken until 1950. Since Apr. 9, 1951; and Newsweek, Apr. 9, 1951.] Travers lived in Montclair, N.J., and played JACK W. BERRYMAN regularly on New Jersey courses, he usually entered the New Jersey State Amateur. He won TUMULTY, JOSEPH PATRICK (May 5, the event in 1907, 1908, 1911, and 1913, and 1879-Apr. 8, 1954), politician, was born in was runner-up in 1910 and 1912. In 1915, as Jersey City, N.J., the son of Philip Tumulty, a an amateur, Travers won the United States grocer with interests in real estate and city Open by defeating the country's best amateurs politics, and Alicia Feehan Tumulty. His father, and professionals. In addition to being the a state assemblyman for one term, achieved second amateur ever to win this most prestigious middle-class respectability in his blue-collar golf tournament, he had the indisputable neighborhood and could afford to send Tumulty distinction of being the only scratch player to parochial schools and St. Peter's College in listed by the United States Golf Association. Jersey City. Tumulty graduated in 1899, was Travers became a celebrity after the 1913 admitted to the New Jersey bar, and practiced season and, like many athletes at the time, law in Jersey City from 1902 to 1908. On turned briefly to writing with Travers' Golf June I, 1903, he married his childhood sweet- Book. During 1914 and 1915 he wrote many heart, Mary Catherine Byrne. They had five short articles on golfing technique for American children. Magazine. With sportswriter Grantland Rice he While practicing law Tumulty was a critical took advantage of his United States Open but reliable apprentice to the Democratic victory and published The Winning Shot in 1915. machine, greatly influenced by William Jennings His last book was The Fifth Estate: Thirty Bryan's campaigns. He recognized the social Years of Golf (1926), written with James R. value and political appeal of the urban reforms Crowell. promoted by Jersey City's Republican mayor Travers' success ended very abruptly after his during the early years of the century but victory in 1915. He failed to win another major remained a party regular and worked to enlist tournament and turned briefly to a career as a disadvantaged voters in causes beneficial to them cotton broker in New York. On Nov. 28, 1921, and congruent with middle-class progressive he married Geraldine F. Gohman; they had objectives. That action characterized his career three children. Travers remained active in golf in the New Jersey Assembly (1907-1910), where as a member of the executive committee of the he was identified with reforms that included an New Jersey Golf Association and was president unsuccessful bill to empower a state commission until 1932. Financial problems led him to seek to regulate utility and railroad rates. a comeback, but he had little success. One of his As an adviser to Woodrow Wilson, the New biggest regrets in later life was not turning Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate in professional after winning the United States 1910, Tumulty effectively stressed the saliency Open in 1915. of the railroad issue for the suburban vote, In the late 1930's Travers moved to Con- provided liaison to the Jersey City machine, necticut, where he became an inspector at the and spoke at urban rallies-services important Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Company. He often in Wilson's victory. His usefulness and Wilson's taught golf to fellow employees but never really growing affection for him won him appointment 696 Tumulty Tumulty espect so often as the new governor's secretary. Tumulty central issue, but Tumulty had observed that 940, however, he concentrated upon building an organization the more salient issues were domestic: the the Golf Hall of within the party that would be committed to hostility in the Northeast to high war taxes ted States Golf nominating Wilson for the presidency in 1912. and in the agricultural West to the govern- ned to the Helms To that end he influenced the distribution ment's preferential treatment of cotton prices 1 of Fame (now of patronage, conciliated rival factions in Jersey as compared to grain prices. undation) in its City, and recruited Irish-Americans and Italian- Devoted to the president and to Wilson's Hartford, Conn. Americans whose support countered the vision of peace, Tumulty protested that the accusation that Wilson was a bigot. During the secrecy surrounding the deliberations at the Travers' Golf Book 1912 campaign Tumulty screened Wilson's Paris Peace Conference of 1919 would offend the tyylopedia of Golf political mail and served as his press secretary, press. He also warned Wilson that his positions 's (1958), includes a function to which he brought a mastery of on Irish independence and Italian and Chinese :. There is valuable then-novel techniques of public relations. territorial claims would alienate important Association's Golf at the Citizens When Wilson was elected he named Tumulty segments of the electorate and the Congress. .OS Angeles, Calif. secretary to the president, making him the first In the autumn of 1919 he encouraged Wilson's York Times, Mar. Catholic to hold the post. In Washington speaking tour through the country to promote 31, 1951; Time, Tumulty continued to handle political mail and ratification of the Treaty of Versailles; but 9, 1951.] press relations. He also kept the president's after the president collapsed in September, his K W. BERRYMAN calendar, often interpreted public opinion for mission aborted, Tumulty, out of loyalty and Wilson, occasionally edited a state paper, and, conviction, counseled against compromise with RICK (May 5, most important, participated in decisions about the Republicans over questions of United States n, was born in minor patronage that helped to bind parochial sovereignty in the League of Nations. After the hilip Tumulty, a Democratic politicians to Wilson's national Senate's first rejection of the treaty, Tumulty, estate and city purposes. like many other leading Democrats, urged an nulty. His father, By his own definition a conservative accommodation, but Wilson was unyielding. term, achieved progressive, Tumulty shared Bryan's weakness Distressed by the president's rigidity and the his blue-collar for deserving Democrats. Those characteristics defeat of the treaty, Tumulty was aghast at to send Tumulty persuaded his critics, who included Edward M. Wilson's apparent interest, although physically eter's College in House, that he was politically timid. House came broken, in renomination. ed in 1899, was to consider Tumulty's Catholicism a liability and That attitude provoked petulance in Wilson ir, and practiced to misjudge him as indiscreet. Forthright and anger in his wife. Democratic liberals had )2 to 1908. On Tumulty was. When, only months after the been put off by Tumulty's support for Attorney childhood sweet- death of Ellen Axson Wilson, the president's General A. Mitchell Palmer's policies on They had five first wife, Wilson planned to marry Edith Bolling deportation of aliens, and Democratic "drys" Galt, Tumulty urged him to postpone the recoiled against Tumulty's cooperation with the Ity was a critical wedding until after his reelection. Predictably, "wet" James M. Cox, whom the party the Democratic Wilson refused. The second Mrs. Wilson, in nominated as its presidential candidate in 1920. William Jennings league with House, set out to get rid of By the end of Wilson's term in March 1921, nized the social Tumulty. His trust in his secretary shaken, Tumulty had lost both influence and favor. He e urban reforms Wilson tried after his reelection to persuade retained many Democratic friends, but his epublican mayor Tumulty to move to the Board of General continuing association with Cox led to a public he century but Appraisers. Instead Tumulty offered to resign, break with Wilson in 1922. Thereafter pre- worked to enlist "heartsick," as he wrote, "that the end should occupied with his Washington law practice, beneficial to them be like this." Wilson then relented and Tumulty Tumulty confined his politics largely to the class progressive stayed on, but the bond between them was convivial luncheon table over which he presided. erized his career dissolved. Until his death in Baltimore, Md., he remained 107-1910), where During World War I the expanded Executive as admiring of Wilson as he was in his memoir, that included an Office, and especially the Committee on Public Woodrow Wilson as I Knew Him, and as loyal state commission Information, assumed most of Tumulty's former to the memory of Wilson as he had been to the rates. responsibilities. The president frequently re- man. Wilson, the New jected his advice on such matters as prohibition rial candidate in and censorship, and Tumulty's views prevailed ssed the saliency only when others offered similar counsel, as in [The Joseph P. Tumulty Papers in the Library of suburban vote, the cases of Wilson's support for woman suffrage Congress, Washington, D.C., constitute the essential source for any study of his career, supplemented by y City machine, and his appeal in 1918 for the election of a materials in the Woodrow Wilson Papers at the same rvices important Democratic Congress. That tactic embarrassed location and the diaries of Edward M. House in the ess and Wilson's Wilson, for the Republicans gained control of the Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn. him appointment Senate. Wilson had considered foreign policy the Tumulty's memoir, Woodrow Wilson as I Knew Him 697 Turner Turner (1921), exaggerates the author's influence on major estimated at 12 million. Many states amended public policy, understates his political role, adulates their statutes to permit adoption of the commis- Wilson, and contains unintentional but important sion form. For months Turner and AcClure's errors of fact. The only biography of Tumulty is operated an informal headquarters for the move- John M. Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era (1951; repr. 1969); the first edition contains several ment. By 1914 more than 350 cities with one- photographs of Tumulty. There are important assess- fifth of the urban population, had been influ- ments of Tumulty's work in New Jersey and in the enced by the 1906 article. nation in James Kerney, The Political Education of The Galveston triumph led McClure's to send Woodrow Wilson (1926); and Arthur S. Link, Wilson, Turner to Chicago, where he prepared the 5 vols. (1947-1965), especially vols. I and II. There preface for a collection of arricles from Chicago is an obituary in New York Times, Apr. 9, 1954.] newspapers recording day-to-day criminality JOHN MORTON BLUM and violence. Digging into hidden causes, Turner produced an analytical report so reveal- TURNER, GEORGE KIBBE (Mar. 23, ing and convincing that McClure's printed it as 1869-Feb. 15, 1952), journalist, editor, and a long article, "The City of Chicago A Study author, was born in Quincy, Ill., the son of of the Great Immoralities," in the April 1907 Rhodolphus K. and Sarah Ella Kibbe Turner. issue. Chicago's "business of dissipation, His father, who was a real estate broker, died Turner asserted, was based on a powerful when Turner was young; his mother sub- liquor trade, prostitution, and gambling. sequently married James Dayton of Quincy. Louis Filler, a leading historian of the muck- Turner graduated from Williams College with raking era found "the effect of this single article the A.B. in 1890 and began his journalistic indescribable." While journalistic treatment of career the following year as a reporter on the prostitution had previously been veiled in Springfield (Mass.) Republican, then under the generalities, Turner's article brought the white editorial leadership of the younger Samuel slave traffic into the open for public discussion. Bowles. On Oct. 19, 1892, he married Julia Introduced to the nation for the first time were Hawks Parker of Bennington, Vt.; they had no pólitical spoilsmen Michael ("Hinky Dink") children. Kenna and John J. ("Bathhouse") Coughlin. In his early twenties Turner began to write Chicago's reformers demanded action; and in for magazines; and by 1899 he had placed 1910 the mayor appointed a commission on vice stories in McClure's, which also published his composed of prominent educators, clergymen. first novel, The Taskmaster (1902), in which he industrialists, and civic leaders. Turner's dis- conveyed his concern over the unsatisfactory closures were pursued in the commission's plain- relations between employers and their workers. spoken report, "The Social Evil in Chicago." After Lincoln Steffens, Ida M. Tarbell and Ray It was widely noted in other cities that set up Stannard Baker left McClure's to publish their own investigations into commercialized American Magazine, editor S. S. McClure en- vice. listed Turner in 1906 as a staff member and Turner next trained his searchlight on New writer, a connection that continued until 1916. York City. In June 1909 he contended in Turner quickly became McClure's specialist "Tammany's Control of New York by Profes- on urban problems. His first major assignment sional Criminals," also published in McClure's, was to report on the new commission form of that prostitution had been virtually legalized in municipal government set up in Galveston, the city. That November, in "The Daughters Tex., after the devastating hurricane of Sep- of the Poor," he said bluntly that New York tember 1900. Turner's article, "Galveston: A City had become "the leader of the world" in Business Corporation," was published in the "recruiting and sale of young girls of the October 1906. The first report to the nation on poorer classes by procurers" who operated a the Galveston reform, it told how the ward nationwide network as well as a trade in im- system, with its self-serving local aldermen, had migrants. been supplanted, under pressure of the disaster, This article, probably the most memorable of by a city-wide commission of departmental Turner's contributions to McClure's, was fol- experts, similar to a corporation's board of directors. lowed only one month later by the introduction in Congress of the bill that became the Mann- The response was immediate and dramatic. Leaders in many cities sought reprints-Seattle Elkins Act of 1910, banning the white slave traffic from interstate commerce. Within two called for 20,000 copies-and Philadelphia months reform forces had established a New issued its own pamphlet. Some newspapers ran the article in full. The total circulation was York grand jury headed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to investigate Turner's charges. In the May 698 DAB Supp 5