[106] William Gibbs McAdoo, a prominent Wilson supporter who married Wilson's daughter in 1914, became Secretary of the Treasury, and James Clark McReynolds, who had successfully prosecuted several prominent antitrust cases, was chosen as Attorney General.[107] Publisher Josephus Daniels, a party loyalist and prominent white supremacist from North Carolina,[108] was chosen to be Secretary of the Navy, while young New York attorney Franklin D. Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy.[109] Wilson's chief of staff ("secretary") was Joseph Patrick Tumulty, who acted as a political buffer and intermediary with the press.[110] The most important foreign policy adviser and confidant was "Colonel" Edward M. House; Berg writes that, "in access and influence, [House] outranked everybody in Wilson's Cabinet."[111]

New Freedom domestic agenda
Wilson giving his first State of the Union address; the first time since 1801 that such an address was made in person before a joint session of Congress,[112] this initiated the modern trend with regards to the State of the Union address.[113]
Wilson introduced a comprehensive program of domestic legislation at the outset of his administration, something no president had ever done before.