It was a bewildering way to run a government, but the officials waited in the West Sitting Room hallway. When she came back to them after conferring with the president, Mrs. Wilson turned over their paperwork, now riddled with indecipherable margin notes that she said were the president’s transcribed verbatim responses. To some, the shaky handwriting looked less like that written by an invalid and more like that of his nervous caretaker.
This is how she described the process she undertook:
“So began my stewardship. I studied every paper, sent from the different Secretaries or senators, and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I myself never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband.”