The Resignation of Secretary of State Robert Lansing

Abstract

The resignation of Secretary of State Robert Lansing in February 1920 was an awkward episode in the history of the second administration of President Woodrow Wilson. Not merely did the president ask for and receive the secretary's resignation but both men, president and secretary, publicly announced their deep disagreement. The precise nature of that disagreement has never been altogether clear. The president said that his mind could not work alongside that of his secretary of state. Secretary Lansing said that he simply could not go along with the ideas of the president, which he implied were quite unreasonable. The harsh tone of Wilson's correspondence did not redound to the credit of the great wartime president, who had been weakened physically by a stroke in October 1919. Lansing was generally credited with the best of the argument, such of it as was made public. Yet there was a note of irritation and petulance in his part of the correspondence and some close readers were led to wonder about his judgment, and therefore his usefulness, as the first cabinet officer of the administration.