TLS as president, one page, 7 x 8.75, White House letterhead, November 24, 1914. Wilson writes to Thomas Dixon in New York City. In part: “Thank you for your [letter’s] … generous words about myself and for its frank counsel. I think I feel as deeply as you do the necessity for national defense, and for well-considered action in that direction. Just how the thing should be guided is a question which is holding my thought very constantly….” Dixon (1864–1946) was the minister and writer who penned the KKK-centered novel and subsequent play The Clansman, which served as the basis for D. W. Griffith’s classic The Birth of a Nation. The film, released in the year following this letter, included a number of titles based on quotations from Wilson’s History of the American People, which controversially posited the view that the creation and growth of the Ku Klux Klan was an “attempt by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the ballot or by any ordered course of public action.” Indeed, Wilson’s documented views on race, which included the view that “segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit,” remain one of the most troubling aspects of his legacy. The reference to national defense in the letter is evidently an allusion to similar themes in Wilson’s 1914 State of the Union address, delivered two weeks later. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope. Mild soiling and a few subtle wrinkles and faint bends (one through last letter), otherwise fine condition. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
