Plain Woodrow Wilson

This photograph, scanned from Current Literature 53(1912): 249, was captioned "Plain Woodrow Wilson."  As an intellectual, Wilson knew he could seem forbidding to less-educated Americans.  As Current Literature explained:

At a recent meeting John Wanamaker [a prominent department store owner], in introducing Dr. Wilson, said he would not introduce him as Doctor or Governor, but as "plain Woodrow Wilson."  The Governor, when his turn came, thanked Mr. Wanamaker for not laying undue emphasis on the word plain, and then recited his "favorite limerick" that went as follows:  "For beauty I am not a star, There are others more handsome by far; But my face, I don't mind it, for I am behind it; It's the others in front that I jar."