Finally informed of the facts by a White House reporter, J. Fred Essary of the Baltimore Sun, Marshall vowed he would do nothing to intervene. He told his secretary: "I am not going to seize the place and then have Wilson, recovered, come around and say, 'Get off, you usurper!' " He told his own wife: "I could throw this country into civil war, but I won't." Wilson, still infirm, served out his second term.