March of 1917 would prove to be a very difficult month for President Woodrow Wilson.

It was during that month that Wilson agonized over his final decision on whether or not to bring the United States fully into the First World War.

During that month, he had very few visitors and meetings, made few public appearances,

no speeches, and gave no press conferences.

The relatively small number of people who had significant interactions with him during this

month often used terms

like depressed and out of sorts to describe the president's demeanor. But one of the very few

meetings that President Wilson had during this month is extremely revealing on a number of levels.

And that was a meeting that took place on the evening of March 19, 1917.

Two weeks before Woodrow Wilson would address the U.S. Congress and ask it for a war resolution.

On that evening, Wilson invited his favorite journalist in the United States,

Frank Cobb, the editor of the New York World, who was a very staunch, progressive, and a big supporter of Woodrow Wilson, to the White

House. Now, this meeting was private and off the record at the time, but seven years later

in 1924, which also perhaps not coincidentally was the same year Woodrow Wilson died.

Frank Cobb's recollection of this meeting with the president was published under the title

on the eve of war.

The following are some excerpts from Frank Cobb's recollection of his conversation with Wooder Wilson on the evening of March 19th, 1917.

Quote,

Everybody who thinks Wilson didn't know his way about and didn't know what he was in for, should have heard

what he said about the war before he went in. Old WW knew his history. He knew what wars were

fought for and what they do to nations that waged them. The night before, he asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.

Cobb is off in his recollection of when this meeting happened.

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