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On September 25, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson collapsed in Pueblo, Colorado causing him to cancel his scheduled tour. His health never recovered and he suffered a stroke on October 1st or 2nd. An excerpt from the article:

"The rest of the tour was cancelled, and the train rushed back to Washington, D.C. On the night of Oct. 1 or 2, the president suffered a stroke. Wilson was paralyzed on his left side. His health would only continue to decline.

"The stroke itself was very bad, but for Wilson, the problem was it was a perfect storm," Cooper said. "About a week after he suffered the stroke, he came down with a very bad urinary infection, a high fever, and that really debilitated him and was life-threatening. So, it's that combination that just did him in."

For the last year and a half of his term, Wilson was not a fully functioning president. The First Lady, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, let nothing come out about his health. It took three months before an attending physician let slip the gravity of the situation.

Even as the rumor mill swirled, Edith Wilson and others staged elaborate set-ups to make it seem like the president was much less impaired than he was.

Meanwhile, Edith Wilson and others began running a shadow government to lead the country under the guise of the president."