"ONE OF THE HIGHEST AND PUREST STANDARDS OF JUSTICE AND OF RIGHT DEALING": FIRST BOOK EDITION OF THE ROAD AWAY FROM REVOLUTION, INSCRIBED BY WOODROW WILSON IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION

WILSON, Woodrow. The Road Away from Revolution. Boston: Atlantic Monthly, (1923). Octavo, original blue-gray paper boards, mounted cover label, uncut. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.

First book edition of Wilson's penultimate work, a meditation on the causes of and solutions to revolution, inscribed by Wilson on the front free endpaper to a longtime friend and staunch supporter, whom Wilson appointed as U.S. Ambassador to China from 1920-21: "Charles R. Crane, with the affection of Woodrow Wilson. August, 1923."

Consistently begged by his friends and supporters to share his views in a magazine, Wilson wrote an essay in 1923, "The Road Away From Revolution." "Typed by Wilson himself, the essay opens by asking what had caused the present unsettled state of the world and by noting that the Russian Revolution was part of a widespread reaction against capitalism and the way it treated people… The clearly marked road away from revolution lay through the reassertion of the highest standards and ideals [largely Christian]" (Cooper, 584). Wilson then sent the essay to journalist George Creel. Creel opted to send his response to Wilson's wife, Edith, due to Wilson's fragile mental and physical health following his devastating stroke. Creel was cautiously critical, suggesting that the piece was not Wilson's best work. As expected, Wilson was devastated and only the intervention of his wife and a friend produced the present piece, a more concise and scholarly version of the original. Wilson sent the revision "to The Atlantic, which published it in the August [1923] issue and later as a short book… 'The Road Away From Revolution,' which would be Wilson's next-to-last published work, contains the germ of later analyses of totalitarianism. The seizure of power in Italy by Benito Mussolini's Fascists had recently troubled him, and his stress on ideals and spiritual values to combat such creeds anticipated later anti-Communist and anti-Fascist views" (Cooper, 584). "'The Road Away From Revolution' is one of the highest and purest standards of justice and of right dealing… Societies must be formed all over the world to study and propagate the conception of spiritual democracy of Dr. Wilson which can alone save the world fro the present chaos" (Shastri, China Weekly Review). Originally printed as part of the Atlantic Monthly issue for August 1923. Recipient Charles Richard Crane was a wealthy American businessman, heir to a large industrial fortune and a noted Arabist. He contributed heavily to Wilson's 1912 election campaign. Wilson rewarded Crane with appointments to the 1917 Special Diplomatic Commission to Russia, known as the Root Commission, as a member of the American Section of the Paris Peace Conference, and to the 1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey that became known as the King-Crane Commission. Wilson later appointed Crane as United States Ambassador to China, a position in which he served from March 22, 1920, to July 2, 1921.

Fine condition.