The Legal and Political Foundations and Meaning of President Wilson's Great Western Tour

September 4, 1919 is a red-letter date in history. On that date President Woodrow Wilson, wearing a sailor straw hat after Labor Day revealed his famous smile when he arrived in Columbus, Ohio. There, he delivered the first of forty-two speeches which concluded on September 25, in Pueblo, Colorado. Those twenty-two days marked the most memorable train trip in history - President Wilson's Great Western Tour: a journey through sixteen states aboard the special seven-car Presidential train, the Mayflower.

The train was aptly named, for the President's speaking tour symbolized the hope of the world, just as the Pilgrims' hope led them to set forth for the New World hundreds of years before.