WOODROW WILSON AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER HESTER E. HOSFORD BEN B. IJNDSEY THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF Mrs. Ben B. Lindsey " One or two elections don't count in a lifetime, and those of us who believe in things have enlisted for the rest of our lives. Do the gentle- men who for the sake of maintaining their own power resist these changes suppose that we are going to sit in the game for any shorter time than they are? Whatever may be the limitations of individual human life, there are men so moved bv conviction, so confident in the hope of reform, so certain of the legitimate and just demands of the people, that they can fight these battles with the debonair air of those who see the future, and thus who know there is nothing that can stop the heroic progress of the American people in the movement toward the control of their own affairs." Woodroii' Wilson. WOODROW WILSON AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER By HESTER E. HOSFORD imfcfeerbocfcet (G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS) NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, igia BY HESTER E. HOSFORD Dc&icateO TO THE MEMORY OF MY STAND-PAT ANCESTORS WHOSE SINCERITY I REVERE AND HONOR BUT WHOSE POLITICAL TEACHINGS I AM UNABLE TO ACCEPT PREFACE I AM aware that it is considered the proper thing for an author to preface his or her work with an apology, but I have never been able to understand why one should write a book and then apologize for having written it, since I know of no compulsory process whereby an author may compel any one to read his work. Instead of making an apology I prefer to make a request. If any reader, especially an ex-political boss, chances to glance his eye over these pages, and then de- cides that I deserve to meet a violent death, will he kindly remember that I prefer to be suspended from a hickory limb? Candidly, I do not believe that I am worthy of the honor of being burned at the stake. Such special distinctions were intended, evidently, for Joan of Arc and her disciples, for whom I have the greatest reverence; but perish the thought, that I should ever aspire to their social caste! I am fully conscious that I am lacking in the essentials of a militant reformer. I have merely been interested, for a few years, in the game of politics, as it has been, and is now being, played. I have jotted down a few thoughts, here and there, now and then, chiefly for the purpose of giving to myself a little mental discipline, and, incidentally a little practice in telling historical truth. " To tell the truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the unimpeachable first principle of all right dealing; vi PREFACE and historians have no license to be quit of it. Unques- tionably they must tell us the truth, or else get them- selves enrolled among a very undesirable class of persons, not often frankly named in jjolite society. But the thing is by no means so easy as it looks. The truth of history is a very complex and very occult matter. It consists of things which are invisible as well as of things which are visible. . . . " How shall a writer take the palate of his reader unawares, and get the unpalatable facts down his throat along with the palatable? " Long before Woodrow Wilson was talked of as a prospective Governor or a possible President, I came across an essay written by him, which contained the expressions here quoted. Remembrance of them filled me with timidity when I thought of writing an account of the recent regeneration of public affairs in New Jersey. But it occurred to me that those who read books deal- ing with political history understand, in some degree, the difficulties which a writer on these subjects must experience. This dispelled some of my fears lest I get myself " enrolled among a very undesirable class of persons." Accordingly, I set to work to properly instruct myself, in order that I might tell the story of " Woodrow Wilson and New Jersey Made Over," with the hope that possibly the achievements of those who have been instrumental in securing progressive legislation in New Jersey may fur- nish an inspiration to other reformers. If my efforts shall lead any one to a broader knowledge of the career and unselfish purposes of Woodrow Wilson, I shall be doubly repaid for the labors which I have performed. May I add that whatever may be said) in these pages PREFACE vii concerning the machine system of government and pri- vate management of public affairs, it is hoped that no one will believe that the author's purpose is to deepen the gulf of animosity between the "special interests" and " the people " ? Every one in this progressive decade ought to see clearly that whatever permanent improvement is to be made in our political institutions must take root in an honest effort of both the classes and the masses to ex- change their points of view. When they can to a greater degree think in each other's terms, the ground will be broken and a fundamental law of co-operation will establish a progress of which we have not yet dreamed. Laws, no matter how sound, can never do this. They can only help to set the pace. In the end the voluntary enforcement of the law by all classes, because they love justice, will elevate our standards of life as nothing else can. There is even a remote possibility that there will come a time when our social organization will rise above the necessity of all statutes, except the " Higher Law." Many public-spirited citizens, in New Jersey and else- where, are entitled both to my gratitude and condolences for the assistance which they have rendered me in the preparation of this work. I am especially indebted to the New York Sun, whose frequent effusions have been a constant source of stimula- tion and encouragement to me while I have been occupied in this delightful task. H. E. H. ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, February 17, 1912. " The mere moral impulse in me is of no force unless it can be translated into action. It is immoral to pro- pose for the United States something that is not of bene- fit for the whole United States. It is immoral to promote legislation for your business unless it is also for the in- terest of the rest of the country. Our government is not a paternal institution." WOODROW WILSON. " And yet it seems to me that the only way to come to a common understanding is by standing up and talk- ing about it, and the radicalism lies in the statement of the fact, not in the proposal of the remedies. " I understand, just as you understand, that we can go at a too rapid or radical pace in remedying the things which are wrong, because the structure of society is made of a very delicate fibre. Interests, whether these gentlemen will admit it or not, are so interlaced that you cannot deal with one at a time without dealing with all of them ; we are so bound together in common causes of life that if you detach one part of it impression thrills through every part, and every sane man understands, therefore, that you have got to touch the body politic with the nice art of the prudent physician, but what would you say of the physician who was so prudent that he did not get to the bottom of the diagnosis? " The diagnosis is radical, but the cure is remedial ; the cure is conservative. I do not, for my part, think that the remedies applied should be applied upon a great theoretical scale; nobody is wise enough to have the absolute ' by the wool ' ; nobody is big enough, nobody comprehends in his single brain, no group of men com- prehend in their common conference all the interests in- volved in the great nation. You have to take item by item and symptom by symptom ; you have got to remedy one thing at a time, but you must do it, not upon a prin- ciple of hostility, but upon a principle of reconciliation." WOODROW WILSON. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE MACHINE VERSUS POPULAR GOVERNMENT ... 3 Contains a Hint of the Story which Is to Follow. The Political Pendulum in Representative Government Classification of Democrats and Plutocrats Honest Party Organization Contrasted with Corrupt Machine Government Our Real Governor, a Friend of Organization A Picture of Machine Government, Ancient and Modern The Political Boss A Few Questions for him to Answer Students of Political Problems Invited to New Jersey to Study History A Remarkable Governor who Kept his Pledges to the People We Heard Something Drop in the State of New Jersey A Fracas between the Machine State Chairman and the People's Governor How it Ended Our State in a Political Rut J. Lincoln Steffens's Prophecy in 1905 A Non-resident's Rebuke to New Jersey Citizens Our Answer: We were Waiting for a Leader who Came " in a Mysterious Way " He Brought with him the Light of a New Day And Delivered us from the Seventeen-year Locust. CHAPTER II GOVERNOR WILSON'S NOMINATION AND ELECTION A UNIQUE CAMPAIGN 18 A Question from the Start Who Discovered Wood- row Wilson? The American People The Demo- cratic Machine Did Nominate Governor Wilson; but Why? What Happened? A Political Lion Came Forth, who Could not be Caged in the x CONTENTS PAGE State House by either Board of Guardians The Man's Insight How he Leads What was Predicted from the Start by Those who were Associated with him in Politics A Hint *as to his Fitness Why Did Dr. Wilson Consent to Become a Candidate for Gov- ernor? His Speech when Nominated The Reaction A Change in the Plans of Republicans Wood- row Wilson Gained Ground with Rapidity during the Campaign Extracts from Campaign Speeches Dr. Wilson Compared with Samson What Horse-power is Woodrow Wilson? The Pivot on which the Campaign Turned The Bosses only Smiled when they Listened to Woodrow Wilson's Promises to the People But the Overlords, not the People, Mis- understood him Elected by a Plump Plurality. CHAPTER III THE SMITH-MARTINB CONTROVERSY . . . .32 A Dramatic Spectacle What Created a Most Extra- ordinary Situation A Glimpse of an Interesting Personage A Few Sidelights Turned on his Po- litical Manoeuvres The Man's Record as Published by his Contemporaries Smithism The People had Long Wanted to Start Something but they had Heretofore Lacked an Executive who Dared to Be a State Spokesman But now Times had Changed A Fearless Leader What this Meant to the State Who Were the Brave Mariners in the Storm The State Schoolmaster Taught the People His Whole Plea Was : " Come and Let us Reason Together " The Moral Obligation and the Responsibility of a Great Opportunity The Jeffersonian Quality of Gov- ernor-elect Wilson's Speeches during this Contest The Main Facts of them Quoted By what Standard Shall we Judge New Jersey's Governor? The Gi- gantic Size of the Man whom he Licked" The Big- gest One-man Politician in America " After All, Posterity must Pronounce the Final Verdict upon him. CONTENTS xi CHAPTER IV PAGE PROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE STATE HOUSE . . .42 A Governor who Made the Most of his Mental Dis- cipline A Word-picture of Woodrow Wilson He had Never Visited the Trenton Legislature, up to the Time of his Inauguration A Parallelism be- tween his Career as Governor and his Career as an Educator A Glimpse of his Ancestry Views of a Conservative Southerner Dr. Wilson's Educational Training He Found Himself Early He Practises Law, but Gives it up to Continue Academic Work His First Book He Enters the Teaching Profes- sion He Marries a Southern Lady of Distinguished Family Their Children Dr. Wilson is Appointed Professor of Jurisprudence, at Princeton His Ser- vices on Faculty Committees An Exceptional Pro- fessor Honored by other Universities His Literary Career Continues He is Unanimously Chosen Presi- dent of Princeton Brings Order out of Academic Chaos Founds Preceptorial System, which Proves an Innovation His Third Stroke to Democratize the Institution His First Battle for the Forces of De- mocracy in Conflict with Special Privilege Because Wealthy Gentlemen Gave Money to Princeton, they Could not Dictate the Academic Policy The Class- room Atmosphere must be Kept Democratic Presi- dent Wilson Continued his Fight for Democratic Standards to the End But the Office of College President Did not Afford Him Sufficient Opportunity to Exercise the Numerous Resources within himself Naturally a Fighter for Popular Rights He Re- signs the Presidency of Princeton to Accept Nomina- tion for Governor Leaves University in Flourishing Condition America's Foremost Living Historian A Constructive Educator Becomes a Constructive Statesman Translates himself with Ease from the World of Author's Politics to the Practical Institu- tion itself. xii CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE KBBPING FAITH WITH THE PEOPLE . . . .66 Zealously Desirous of Interpreting the Popular Will Faith in the American People Governor Wilson Did not Dragoon the New Jersey Legislature But he Did Use the Preceptorial System in Dealing with the Side-steppers Daylight and Fireworks-at- night Methods He Stimulates the Legislators to a Consciousness of their Responsibility He Leads the Average Citizen to Look Ahead with him The Lonely Dignity of the Poor Man when he Goes to Vote The Key-note of Governor Wilson's Political Conscience; to Study the Interest of the Whole People The Function of a Legislature to Look after the General Good Restores Contact between the People and their Representatives; How? Gov- ernor Wilson Has a Way, All his Own Only Custom Kept him off the Floor of the House He Exercised Fearlessly his Executive Functions There Must Be Some Force to Bring Public Opinion into Legisla- tive Business The Initiative and Referendum Will Help Wilson's Exact Position on these Measures Where Are Bills Edited? Necessity of Executive Leadership Acute Consciousness of Responsibility The American People Have Reason to Be Sus- picious Woodrow Wilson Grouped with the Elect Immortals of the Republic And a Governor who Could Discipline a New Jersey Legislature ought to Be. CHAPTER VI REFORM LEGISLATION 78 The People and the Legislators Overwhelmed with the Programme of Legislation Seriously Proposed in Governor Wilson's Inaugural Message But the Greatest Surprise of All Was that he Meant Every CONTENTS xiii PAGB Word he Said A Six-cylinder Type of Governor Strikes Trenton with a Bang; and it Certainly Is a Slow Town Some Things Started A Drastic Public Utilities Law Enacted in Spite of Protests from Corporations And there Has Been Something Doing Since it Went into Effect A Few Results The Employers' Liability Law A Real Direct Primary Law which Bade Defiance to Machines and Bosses A Corrupt Practices Act which Reinforces the Election Law and Does Away with " Spook " Voters and Dishonest Elections It Keeps Both the Voters and the Candidates for Office Straight A Commission Form of Government Act Numerous Other Measures Passed which Introduced Modern Methods in Place of Obsolete Relics of Past Years One of the Most Remarkable Records of Legisla- tion that Has Ever Distinguished a Single Legisla- tive Session in this Country J. Lincoln Steffens's Prophecy Fulfilled. CHAPTER VII ELEVATION OP THE TONE OF PUBLIC OFFICE . . .90 Necessity of Inducing the Right Men to Become Po- litical Leaders in Order that we may Provide a Stimulus for our Legislators What Is the Greatest Service which Governor Wilson has Rendered to the People of New Jersey? An Opinion Ventured Con- cerning the Final Judgment which Historians will Pass on Woodrow Wilson He Bears the Distinction of Being the First Governor to Insist on Keeping his Constituents Informed Concerning the Official Con- duct of their Representatives And Some of the Lovers of Representative Government Threw up their Hands at such a Democratic Innovation The Good Doctor's Answer Representative Government has Failed to Represent There is Nothing Unconstitu- tional in Strides toward More Democracy Great Britain's Democracy Trusting Executives with xiv CONTENTS PAGE Greater Power will Require Greater Caution in Choosing them We Must " Learn to Know our Able Men " Our Obligations to our Legislators of which we Must not Be Unmindful They Should not be Placed under Temptation, when we Can Prevent it Various Forms of Political Knavery Bribery, in Modern Times, the Crudest Form We Cannot Draw a General Indictment against Public Officials Many Measure up to their Official Respon- sibilities; Some Are Waking up; the Honest Stand- patters; and those who Knowingly Follow the Wrong Standards A Body-politic can Rise no Higher than its Fountain Source The Main Cur- rents in Political Life Stimulation Necessary We Have not yet Reached a Millennium in New Jersey; but there are Hopes that we Shall at Least Reach Salvation This Chapter a Sequel to Discoveries which were Made by the Author while Collecting Material for this Story Some Facts which Show that Too Often the Wires have been Cut between the People and their Representatives. CHAPTER VIII THE REACTION ON THE BODY POLITIC . . . .99 A Picture of Governor Wilson's Nation-wide Influence A Good Thing Came out of the Land of Mos- quitoes and Nazarenes Who Wants Woodrow Wil- son for President? Who Does not? Why Did the New Jersey Assembly Swing Back? The Manipula- tions of a Bi-partisan Machine Essex the Pivotal Spot The Home of the Former Sunny Jims Revenge, Sweet Revenge Political Trading Why the Governor would not Speak in Essex The Smith- Nugent Machine Ostensibly Stripped of Representa- tives in Trenton By Compromising himself the Governor might have Had a Democratic Legislature Outside Essex the Democrats Gained No Post- mortem for Woodrow Wilson Men Faking under CONTENTS xv PACK Cover of the Democratic Party Cannot Injure him The Machines Cannot Undo him He stands Out "Like Mars at Perihelion" A Republican Legisla- ture Does not Worry him " We are all Sworn to Serve the State," he Says Members of the Legisla- ture Obligated More than ever before to Carry out Platform Pledges Governor Wilson Has a Back-bone instead of a Wish-bone He has Brought the Ghost of Popular Government back to Life The Warnings of a Statesman who Sees We Must Remember History The Analysis of the New Jersey Election by those who Understand. CHAPTER IX THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE MAN . . . . 106 What Proves that the Time Is Ripe for Change? Reasons for Optimism in Political Life But we Must not Overlook Defects in our Political Organiza- tion Some Grave Problems Requiring Solution New Economic Conditions The Economic Question which Concerns us Most: the Increase in the Cost of Living A Revision of the Tariff Necessary The Greatest Test of the Progress of any Age We Can only Progress through the Leadership of Great Men We Give our Measure by our Attitude toward them Few of our Greatest Statesmen Presi- dents Shall History Continue to Repeat Itself? Facts we Must be Sure of, before we Choose a Leader Continued Reference to Governor Wilson and his Views What he Says of the Tariff He Would not Disturb Anything Honest What Is the Trouble with Business? Indefinite Policies Shap- ing Policies to Meet Permanent rather than Tem- porary Interests of Country The Question of Reforming the Financial System The Money Mono- poly, the Greatest Question of All Some Pointed Questions Concerning it An Attempt to Answer them The Eighth Wonder of the World Samuel CONTENTS PAG! Untermyer, on Governor Wilson's Famous Harris- burg Speech Getting at the Root of the Money- Monopoly The Regulation of Corporations Legit- imate and Illegitimate v Corporations Inadequacy of the Sherman Anti-trust Law Restoration of Business by Putting it on a Sound Basis Conserva- tion What it Means in its Broadest Application Extension of Service which the Government shall Render its People To Realize Popular Government Machinery of Control Must be Placed in People's Hands Governor Wilson Does not Believe in the Recall of Judges Is he a Radical? There Is a Conservative Ring in his Actions Pays Tribute to American People's Sense of Justice and Practicality The Chief Place for Political Experiments Woodrow Wilson, a Friend of Organized Labor A People's Man before he Is a Party Man Prin- ciples of Progressives in both Parties Practically Identical Wilson on World Peace Time Opportune for a Real Leader to Come Forward But Shall we Recognize him? We Have not Always Been Able to Choose the Men Best Fitted to Lead us The Present Time Demands Eternal Vigilance from the American People The Time The Place The Man Democracy Another Word for Opportunity What Have we a Right to Expect from the Democratic Party? The Business of the National Convention Shall it Be Possible for a Faction of Special Inter- ests to Defeat a Man of the People? An Infini- tesimal Inconsistency in Woodrow Wilson's Political Opinions Disposed of The Charge of Ingratitude Replied To What Do his Achievements Indicate? A Fearless State Spokesman who Would Be a Fearless National Voice We Need a Modem Justinian We Are Clamoring for Leadership Who Is Best Fitted to Lead? Woodrow Wilson Is a Southern-Northerner and a Northern-Southerner, a Yankee-Doodle-Dixie Candidate, and a Thrust at the New York Sun We Return to Carlyle's Theory Concerning the Placing of the Man of In- CONTENTS xvii PAGE tellect at the Head of Affairs A Picture of the Future which the Author Hopes to Live to See A Political Love Feast which Might Follow Woodrow Wilson's Election to the Presidency. SUPPLEMENT 144 What Representative Newspapers, Magazines, and Prominent Men say of Woodrow Wilson Biblio- graphy Used by the Author: BIBLIOGRAPHY WOODROW WILSON'S Published Works, and United States Senate Reports, Volume 10, Fifty-third Congress, Second Ses- sion, Serial Number 3188. ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece Page 21 25 39 41 45 49 54 60 64 80 99 103 119 140 Woodrow Wilson and New Jersey Made Over CHAPTER I MACHINE VERSUS POPULAR GOVERNMENT " There are certain interested people going round saying that I am trying to break up the organization. I am doing nothing of the kind. The organization they mean is merely a clique of politicians; a group of men here and there, who are com- missioned in aid of special and private, not public interests. They are neither Republicans nor Democrats. I am going to fight them to the end. They are getting nervous, not because I am fighting them, but because you are on to them. " The main object of what we are attempting, both in State and Nation, is to establish a close connection, a very sensitive connection between the people and their governments; both in the State and in the Nation, in order that we may restore in such wise as will satisfy us again, the liberty and the oppor- tunity in whose interests our governments were conceived. " But some men put a false interpretation upon this. There is a certain unreasonable fear in the air as though the process we have been going through were in some degree vindictive, as if there had been bitter feeling in it, and the intention to discredit those who opposed it. " The crash of political organizations has been only the crash of those who did not comprehend, or resisted, when there was no right reason for resisting, and forgot that their very reason for being was that they might serve opinion and the movement of the people's will. If any systems of political practice have collapsed, only those have collapsed which were unsuitable to the objects which they proposed to serve. " We are no longer in the temper of attack. We are ready for remedy and adjustment, and begin to see where to begin and in what direction to move. A promise of statesmanship follows a threat of revolution. There can be no mistaking this. Programs are taking the place of Philippics, and programs can 4 WOODROW WILSON be soberly examined and assessed, as unqualified criticisms and denunciation cannot be." Extracts from political addresses. WOODROW WILSON. " To every action there }s an equal action in an oppo- site direction," a platitude repeated since Galileo's dis- covery ! But all truth is old. In all countries or states where representative government is said to exist, it is organized with power theoretically well balanced, but the political pendulum swings, with varying degrees of regularity, according to social and economic conditions, between the extremes of plutocracy and democracy. If when the pendulum reaches the latter point it ever finds civic conscience and civic consciousness so well developed that the people as a unit can be trusted to choose the best and to maintain it, then an ideal political destiny will be in sight, and the energy which we have previously consumed in swinging back and forth in a cycle of changes will be directed toward constructive progress. Every time that a revival of democracy takes place, the optimists declare that we have advanced beyond party lines; that class distinction is disappearing; that we are beginning to recognize that the welfare of the whole depends upon the moral and intellectual virility of each member of a commonwealth; that it is better for all men to be free. Some of our Utopian friends even tell us, when we are passing through these delightfully stimulating periods, that the interest which has been aroused in individuals will be sustained, and that they can be depended upon to contribute their share toward the perpetuation of the most worthy civic standards, even after the leaders who have wrought these political innovations have ceased to exist. We perceive a keener edge on our patriotism and we entertain a hope that there will come a time AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 5 when each citizen will do his part toward immortalizing the principles of the great. We characterize each era of regeneration as a " New Democracy." If we could be sure of an ever alert, discriminating, and energetic citi- zenship to select the ablest and most sincere men avail- able for leadership, and we could rely upon our citizens to support every age of reform, we would be able in a not far distant epoch of history to realize a democracy which would mean the whole of the people, not a part of them; a democracy which would mean free men, not owned men. Each democratic decade brings new hope, but like every institution, democracy brings its errors. De Tocqueville has told us that the remedy for the evils of democracy is more democracy. Modern experi- ence teaches us that the thoughtful De Tocqueville was right. The plutocrats will emit a roar at such doc- trine and relegate its advocates to the scrap heap of undesirable citizens. A plutocrat may be either a Re- publican or a Democrat so called; for there are Pluto- cratic Democrats, Democratic Democrats, Democratic Plutocrats, and Full-fledged Plutocrats. The dyed-in-the- wool plutocrat is rapidly becoming an extinct species, but he still exists. He is the man who accepts with reluctance the principles of manhood suffrage. He looks upon popular education half heartedly, half suspecting that it may arouse a discontent among the masses, which may in the end swamp special privilege. He regards approachable legislatures as safety valves against the encroachments of what he calls the " mob." He believes in "judicious bribery." He considers the boodle which he contributes toward this purpose a part of his chari- table duty, to shield society from legislation representa- tive of the envy and ignorance of the masses. He suspects the sincerity of radical legislators, and when they begin 6 WOODROW WILSON to sweep down cobwebs in our State capitols, he thinks their action a signal inviting an approach from the in- terests. In other words, he would make us believe that reform bodies are blackmaijing institutions, which extort money from corporations under threats to control their relations with the people. The benevolent plutocrats, in a quicksand of despair, being utterly unable to appreciate the motives and char- acters of those who honestly strive to interpret the popu- lar will, have frequently misunderstood them. Extreme measures have been resorted to. " The kingdoms of the world and the glory of them " have been exhibited from high mountains ; and " the powers that be " confounded, when these temptations have been resisted. We still regard the plutocrat as an interesting psycho- logical product. He would return to the days of feudal barons if he could, but modern society won't let him. He laughs at the attempts of democracy to equalize oppor- tunity, by creating a political and industrial freedom where every individual shall be given his best chance. He insists that the plain people shall be kept in fear and awe of the possessors of wealth, who are to be revered as the accumulators of the world's money, wis- dom, and everything else worth while. In fact, the sacredness of wealth is to be upheld over every other institution. One of our mighty moneyed men, in a moment of vehement outrage, during a wave of political house- cleaning, protested thus: " I make it a rule never, except when talking with members of my own class, to speak harshly of even such rich men as the late Jay Gould, for fear that what I say may cause suspicion about the great institution of wealth itself. If I think it is not divinely ordained, but AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 7 is the product of rare ability and hardness in the struggle of life, I don't want my coachman to know it. I prefer to have him think that I am a better man than he is, and therefore have more money. And I am, too." In other words, this holier-than-thou, self-sufficient, and superior human being, not made a little lower than the angels, but belonging in, or to a stratum above them, would smother any sentiment which encourages men to think for themselves, and he would suppress as dangerous any influence which propels forces of constructive dis- content. Such an individual would keep the shutters of society closed and the curtains drawn, that its faults might not be nakedly exposed outside the inner shrine. But the Napoleons of power deceive themselves. The people may be cheated, but not fooled. The knights of plutocracy have a childlike faith in the dupability of mankind. They proclaim to the lawmakers how neces- sary it is that they shall be protected from the hostility of the muckrakers and the mob, in order to stimulate business and preserve prosperity. They appeal to the gullible voters, by attempting to make them believe that the people get the lion's share of the prosperity. In limes past, there has been enough money circulated to verify this impression, particularly at election time. Flexible statistics have been released from cold storage, and the batteries of political rings recharged. We have heard much, past and present, of government by political machines; more than we are ever to hear again if the progress which we are making is a true indication of the eventual restoration of popular rights. Many have confused honest party organization, which is representative, with corrupt machine government, which is misrepresentative. A comparison will show a wide divergence of purposes. The organization is responsive 8 WOODROW WILSON to the popular sentiment of its party. The machine regards the party as an efficient instrument through which a few special interests may secure immunities and privileges. The organization seeks to serve the people's interests, according to its best understanding of them, by incorporating the principles and ideas of its party into stable government. The machine does not keep faith with the people, but places its own party in jeopardy, through the violation of platform pledges. Every one recognizes the necessity of party organization, which is legitimate, so long as its prime object is to serve the people. When an organization deteriorates and becomes an obnoxious machine, then it is individuals who are at fault, and the party is not responsible. Following in the footsteps of our " real Governor," we have no quarrel in this volume with any organization whose purpose is to uphold honestly the traditions and the political creed of the party which it represents. Instead, we prefer to support enthusiastically such patriotic efforts. With the hope that machines now in existence will send their wayward bosses to camp-meeting to reform, that they may become healthy and useful organizations, a picture of machine government, ancient and modern, is here drawn. In the first place all governments have resulted from the inherent tendency of society to organize for the furtherance of its purposes, legitimate and otherwise. It would be difficult to say when honest organization was first supplanted by the mighty movement of machine domination. Perhaps Pharaoh was the creator of this infernal institution, and an account of the antechamber conference between him and the militant reformer, Moses, with the astute Aaron present, flaunting his magical rod, and offering here and there a suggestion, might be illumi- Like Caesar, Governor Wilson personally encouraged every man to do his duty. The smile of the Governor makes friends for him, and it will make votes for him too. Copyright, Underwood and Underwood, New York. " Contrary to the general belief, I am an organization man. It depends, however, upon what that organization is for. If an organization is privately owned, I am not for it. If, on the other hand, it is used as a means of expressing the views of the people, I am certainly in favor of it." Woodrow Wilson. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 9 nating. Possibly this incident even afforded an inspira- tion for the wielders of the waving " big stick " of recent years. We remember with satisfaction the punishment which the unrelenting Pharaoh received, but the ten plagues laid upon the Egyptians were not to be com- pared in their disciplinary effects with the weapons of popular government hurled relentlessly at the heads of our about-to-be-dethroned modern bosses and their power- ful official and industrial allies. These weapons are the direct primary, initiative, referendum, recall, short bal- lot, modern corrupt practices laws, and the probability of the election of United States Senators by a strictly popular vote. Within the next few years after these defensive measures have been thoroughly tested, we shall know whether machine government has met its doom or whether " We have scotched the snake, not killed it." For many years self-respecting private citizens have resented living under municipal and state administra- tions, and we may almost say, a national government controlled by the political, financial, and social combina- tions seeking exclusively the prosperity of the special interests, and the promotion to high offices of ambitious money changers of the temple of the Stock Exchange. But the Americans are an ingenious people, and by study- ing the experimental features of other nations, and by observing the progress of many of our own States, we are discovering means whereby we may insure the per- manent existence of a democratic republic, with the high- est degree of personal liberty compatible with the general interest. The enemies of machine government tell us that its destruction is essential to the preservation of a govern- ment by, for, and of the people. By a strange coinci- dence these enemies of the machine are friends of 10 WOODROW WILSON democracy. They have the situation figured out thus. A machine is only able to sustain a strain that is equal to the strength of its weakest part. There are four elements indispensable to the existence of a political machine: The Kings of finance -|- the political bosses -f- the interest- owned public officials + the people who don't care = the political machine. The financial masters are the prime movers of the special interests, men of aggressive, though agreeable personalities, disciples of Jupiter, ordained to rule, Hydra-brained, with tongues as smooth as mercury, and gifted with that marvellous insight into character which enables them to win the confidence of men and to appoint political bosses who will deliver successfully " the golden apples of the Hesperides." To complete the ma- chine the middle-man or boss must be able to depend upon a large body of subservient legislators and ether officials, gravely thinking about nothing, and a body politic, the majority of which is in a jellylike, comatose condition. He is the best boss who has at his command the largest number of legislative puppets, who never fail to carry out the will of their dictator. With the labors of Her- cules on his shoulders, the boss must be a man of some parts; a charming companion, but an autocrat, who can make the best use of campaign funds, dictate nomina- tions, control committees, engineer elections, ' influence ' the press, and even create circumstances which will perfect the work of his organization to the minutest detail. (And the taxpayer pays the bills.) The boss is never a king among men, but frequently he is a czar. He is never a true leader, but often he is a driver. Like the centurion of Scripture, he must be able to say, " I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man ' Go,' and he goeth ; and to another ' Come,' and he AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 11 cometh ; and to my servant, ' Do this,' and he doeth it." It is apparent from this analysis of political machinery that the weakest essentials of the machine's anatomy, in future, when we learn how to use effectively the instru- ments of popular government, will be those who make the laws and the electors who vote for them. In the State of New Jersey, an executive who refuses to take orders, and a few reformers, almost as scarce as were the righteous of Sodom and Gomorrah, are responsible for this civic regeneration, now in the process of development. Since the people and the lawmakers are the two chief sources of strength underlying machine-made govern- ment, and there have been recently exhibited through an awakened public conscience evidences of a tottering foundation, the outlook is encouraging. It looks as if the prophecy of the late Mayor Jones of Toledo, Ohio, would be fulfilled : " The political kings' or bosses must go to work and earn their living with the rest." Thus the bosses, if they have not been so long in the harness that their present habits have become incurable manias, may reform ; and free from their unholy alliances with captains of industry, they may use their political experience to serve their State and country as they should be served, thereby avoiding the embarrassment of be- ing forcibly ejected by their public-spirited contempo- raries. Perhaps if they can be induced to believe that the institution which they represent has outlived its use- fulness, they will vote to abolish their own dictatorships, and so make themselves popular. In fact, the bosses, with their expert knowledge, might be able to see better reasons for their own dethronement than we mere mortals could ever discover. For instance, they might be able to tell us why it would be better to 12 WOODROW WILSON elect officials to act as free agents, who would be respon- sible to the people, than to elect men who would willingly be " jerked about by unseen wires," behind the scenes of the legislative stage. Perhaps they could inform us why corporations prefer to' deal with legislators under the discipline of the machine bogey, rather than with law- makers of free thought and independent action. We might learn from them why those identified with the special interests are almost universally opposed to the modern reform institutions mentioned before in this chapter. If the benevolent motives of the few, who constitute self-appointed committees to look after the interests of the many, exceed their desires for personal advantage, why do they not cover themselves with glory by en- couraging the measures of self-government, so as to stimulate individuals to think for themselves, thereby relieving the Incorporated Society of Manufactured Thought of much of its labor? Some of us who are gravely interested would like to know why the bosses of both parties fly to each other's rescue when an alarm of people's rights is sounded. Still others of us are anxious for information as to why Executives in many States (not New Jersey, 1911, or a few other progressive States still permitted space on the maps) continue to appoint to lucrative offices only men considered safe and sane by the special interests. Then again, the discovery has been made that in every place where gross election frauds have been exposed, the political machine has fortified the corrupt practices by a Chinese wall. So much for generalites, before we proceed to person- alities. But here we beg to invite students of political problems to come to New Jersey to study history and the machinations of a system, the methods and influences AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 13 of which have ramified not only to every section of this State, but to many other States and even to the nation. Eight here it may not be out of place to ask local questions. Hence we inquire why the support of the State Democratic machine disappeared as magically as a witch's wand when the Governor-Elect chose to keep his pledges to the people? We may be able to answer this question ourselves, because simultaneously with such an event as is here described we heard something drop in the State of New Jersey. It was a former United States Senator, the Honorable James Smith, Jr., who, rumor has it, was made of enamel leather, coated with sugar, and he struck hard on the pavement of public opinion. But more of him hereafter. A few months later our Democratic State Chairman, who, by the way, is a nephew of our veteran ex-boss, founded the New Jersey Branch of the Ananias Club, at which time he proposed the name of Governor Wilson, who was declared ineligible for membership, on the ground that he had kept every promise which he had made to the people of the State. Now James Nugent, for that was the Chairman's name, is an ex-State Chair- man with the accent on the Ex. It happened this way. Comrade "Jim" Nugent and the Governor had failed to see things alike. Mr. Nugent thought that the State government should serve the machine and its purposes, while the Governor said that it should serve the people, whereupon Chairman Jim told the Governor that he was no gentleman. So when the Chairman gave a little birthday dinner, the Governor could not be invited, because Mr. Nugent only associates with gentlemen who measure up to his standard. Here the State Chairman proposed a slanderous toast to the Governor, which his guests, though gentlemen, had the 14 WOODROW WILSON courage to resent, and because no one would drink with Mr. Nugent, he drank alone. Since then he has been unkindly dubbed, "Drink-alone-Jim." The State com- mittee elected a new State Chairman. If Mr. Nugent has any spare time he might read with profit the fable of " The Fly on the Bull's Horn." Since the purpose of this book is to tell the story of the civic regeneration of New Jersey, a few facts of State history, to bear our generalities, may be of interest. Our State pride assures us that no matter how deeply we may have allowed ourselves to become submerged at times, in a political rut of vaporous haze, some of us have always been able to see over the rim, and to catch a glimpse of individual rights as they should exist, in time to dispel the mists of a vitiated atmosphere, and to create a stimulus for the bracing breezes which are sure to follow the injection of ozone into political life. J. Lincoln Steffens wielded a prophetic pen when he wrote in 1905, " New Jersey's real fight has just begun. Your machine and your corrupt special interests are not thoroughly aroused yet, but they will be awakened to a true sense of the situation. New Jersey will be one of the first three States to get out of the hole." We hope later on in this volume to prove that New Jersey was number one of the States to which Mr. Steffens referred. New York and Pennsylvania were on his list. At the outset it must be admitted that back of all anaemic and corrupt conditions in government lie the apathy and indifference of those who do not interest themselves in politics. This class is wholly responsible for machine government and its attendant evils, and we still have left in our own State many citizens belong- ing to the indifferent and the ignorant types. A cosmo- politan population, containing a large foreign element, AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 15 easily controlled by political machines, and, incidentally, a constituency which prefers golf on Election Day to a half-hour at the polls, presents sociological conditions of a most complicated character. Naturally we like to blame fate for the greatest number of our misfortunes; probably because we know that she will not shirk the responsibility, and it is the easiest way for us to apologize for our own deficiencies. So the physiography of New Jersey has been blamed for much of the civic lethargy of our citizens, and an im- pertinent non-resident observer has given us a thrilling shock by accusing a majority of Jerseyites of doing their thinking in New York and their voting in New Jersey. Perhaps that is why a few reforms began in New York before they got started in New Jersey. While we ap- plaud our critic's sentiments more than his good man- ners, we shall respond to the criticism by saying that we do most of our thinking when under the stimulation of a wise and unselfish leadership, perhaps because we know that only through practical guidance can we hope to realize our ideals of political progress. We exclaim with Carlyle : " We cannot do without great men," although we become discouraged at times because we have had such forgeries. " So many base plated coins passing in the market, the belief has now become common that no gold any longer exists, and even that we can do very well without gold." At such periods when man loses hope, Nature brings forth a true son of reform, "working in a mysterious way its wonders to perform," sometimes through such crooked channels as corrupt political machines, which occasionally bring forward strangers into politics, supposed to be un- sophisticated in the arena of the political game; thereby "entertaining angels unawares." 16 WOODROW WILSON The great body of independent voters from which, all progressive movements take their beginnings, and in whose hands the main leverage of all reform rests, rises up, half hopeful, half distrustful, and casts its lot with the side least under suspicion, wondering if "any good thing can come out of Nazareth." Generally when the people are passing through these crucial stages they choose wisely; hence proving their right to self-govern- ment in all that this comprehensive term implies. Re- cently we have had in our own State a striking example of such an historical incident, followed by a reaction, which indicates that our political institutions have, at last, been thoroughly cleaned up, although some of the people are not quite ready to use aggressively the numerous instruments of reform recently placed in their hands. But we have secured the entering wedge, broken the ground, and in the end we will plough through, although we have been in the dark so long that at first the light hurts our eyes. Our incipient experience is not surpris- ing. We must rise to the occasion and use our new tools, not let them rust. Never before in the modern chronicles of the commonwealth has there been such an opportunity for the people of New Jersey to exercise the rights of free government as exists to-day. Never before has there been such an opportunity for the State to test the fitness of its people for democratic government. And this unique epoch of history, in a State where, for nearly a half century, careful scrutiny of facts shows that representative government has been only a name, leads us to the interesting story of the entrance into politics of Woodrow Wilson, the scholar-governor, who has, as we shall later see, studied politics according to the facts rather than the theories involved. That his AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 17 arrival in the political world was timely is proven by the failure of the seventeen-year-locust to return to us in 1910-11. How we escaped this visitation will be told later in our story. CHAPTER II GOVERNOR WILSON'S NOMINATION AND ELECTION: A UNIQUE CAMPAIGN " The Princeton sage is the man of the hour and the medium by which the Democratic party is to have its hunger for the plums of victory appeased after so long a wait." JAMES SMITH, JR., ex-United States Senator. August 13, 1910. " The key-note of this campaign is to give the people access to their own government." From a campaign speech made by WOODROW WILSON. How could the man who sounded the trumpet of free- dom, echoed by the latter utterance, have been nominated for the high office of Governor, at the dictation of the champion State boss and his retainers? And thereby hangs a tale. When I began to write this story I was under the impression that machine politicians discovered Woodrow Wilson, but an investigation proved, as we shall later see, that it was through his published works and public addresses that he revealed his capacity for a career of statesmanship. It was really the best people in America, and not any individual, who discovered Woodrow Wilson, although a political machine did bring him forward. We be- lieve, however, that this action was partly due to a strong popular sentiment in his favor. In an interview with the Governor, I ventured to say, 18 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 19 u The machine in New Jersey did one splendid thing for our State which should never be forgotten." The Governor looked at me inquiringly. " That was when it nominated you for Governor." " They would never do it again though," he said smilingly. Of course every one in the United States, who reads the newspapers, knows by this time why the old Smith- Nugent machine, of New Jersey, would never again con- sciously render any more favors to Woodrow Wilson, A.B., A.M., LL.B., Ph.D., LL.D., and Litt.D., whose degree G. N. J. would never have been conferred except for the kind offices of our sugar-coated ex-United States Senator and his lonesome nephew, James Nugent, who is now undergoing political ostracism. It seems hardly just to the interests of the State and the nation that such splendid press agents for our great Governor should be in any way restrained. These two gentlemen have given our executive much valuable adver- tising; and if they were to be allowed to go on hurling their verbal artillery at the head of our State House captain, they might help to make him President of the United States as unintentionally as they intentionally made him Governor of New Jersey. The incidents connected with Governor Wilson's nomi- nation always reminded me of a story of a tornado which once struck a one-ring circus in Georgia. The main top was blown down, the menagerie's tent was destroyed, all the cages were upset, and the animals escaped. The management huddled about a stove in a cross-roads store and peered pessimistically into a dismal future. The chances were they would never get the animals back. By and by a negro approached. " Did you-all lose a giraffe? " he asked. 20 WOODROW WILSON " We lost everything," said the manager shortly, " but we will pay you if you get the giraffe back." Sambo left, with a promise to bring the animal, re- marking of the latter that he was " a powahful bad- tempered creature," and that he had bitten the poor colored man ferociously. The manager explained that giraffes kick but never bite. Then he assured Sambo of a liberal reward. In a few minutes the negro returned leading by a rope around his neck the strongest lion in captivity. " Wo 'a," said Sambo jerking at the rope, " gimme mah money, heah 's youah giraffe and he bites." Since ex-Governor George T. Wert's time, 1893-96, the Democratic party of New Jersey had dwindled into a one-ring circus. Several times their tents had been struck by the greed and wealth of both great political machines. Some of their showiest attractions, George L. Record, for instance, had escaped, followed the Jumbo of the Republican party, and taken refuge in the pro- gressive side-show of that organization. Naturally, when machine government under the auspices of the Republican party for sixteen years failed to furnish the people a show worth their money a clamor of discontent prevailed. The Democrats, with the opportunity thus created by their discredited opponents, resolved to rehabilitate their circus and to cast their eyes about for a political ring- master. A few of the managers, who regarded honesty as a lost virtue, preferred an executive of the giraffe type, who would kick, but not bite. These Democratic leaders, so-called, went in search of a biped who would kick only just enough to make the people think that he wanted a reform, but without really meaning busi- ness, a process which some previous governors had put over us. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 21 But it happened for once that the bosses failed in discrimination, and as they had trusted in their own judgment so long, they did not take a mind-reader or clairvoyant along when they went to interview Doctor Wilson. *And so it came to pass, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ten, that this Democratic machine brought forth a political lion, who could not be caged in the State House by either Board of Guardians ; who esteemed his obligations to his country to be greater than his obligations to a group of indi- viduals; who could soar high in the realms of prosaic theory and descend with equal grace and ease without the loss of force to practical action; whose faculties were so trained that the meeting of emergencies was only necessary recreation, whose insight into character and power to analyze men and their motives resulted in nu- merous revival meetings, in both political parties, not only during his campaign, but after his election, which proved that his converts were not of the backslider's type. And so it is predicted by those who have worked with this leader, who leads, not by making men think what he thinks, but by making men think for themselves, that he will go right on making good, demonstrating his capacity for managing practical affairs, and proving that virtue in statesmanship is not a lost art, until the Demo- cratic party will be convinced that it can trust Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, to become its guide, with the assurance that the disciples of Jefferson, Jackson, Tilden, and Cleveland will not get lost in the woods. Such is the story of the " scholar's " advent into poli- tics, now said to be " the literary man in politics." Those who have read Doctor Wilson's Congressional Govern- ment, published when he was twenty-nine, The State, 22 WOODROW WILSON History of the American People, Constitutional Govern- ment in the United States, and numerous other literary productions pertaining to political and historical problems of government and their solution, are able to see why the political world attracted him. The corollary, why Doctor Wilson attracted the political world, is of even greater interest. Many college professors have written books on political science, many have achieved notable distinction in this field, and some of our most worthy ones have filled public offices admirably and discharged the duties of ambassadorships most efficiently, but Gov- ernor Wilson is the first university president to travel with lightning rapidity from the place of academic executive to possible President of the United States. Interest centres in the remarkable development of a man of such parts that he has drawn the attention as a desirable Presidential candidate of a large number of both conservatives and radicals from ocean to ocean. Much of the history of this unique national figure is reserved for other chapters, but the story of his nomina- tion, as the reader has already discerned, may be summed up in this : the Democratic machine-men believed that they had in their midst a theorist of statesman-like ideals, but who, when translated to the field of practical politics, would prove himself a politician in swaddling clothes; honest, perhaps, but easily blind-folded, tame, manage- able, and perfectly harmless, in all that the word " harm- less " means, as interpreted by the State bosses, or the would-be bosses, as we say now. So it was an occasion for great rejoicing when the good Doctor gave out the assurance to a party of over- solicitous friends, on July 15, 1010, that he would become a candidate for Governor of New Jersey, if it were the wish and hope of a majority of thoughtful Democrats Copyright, Underwood, New York. But it happened for once that the bosses failed in discrimination, and, as they had trusted in their own judgment so long, they did not take a mind- reader or clairvoyant along when they went to interview Doctor Wilson concerning his possible candidacy for the Governorship. AND NEW JERSEY HADE OVER 23 that he should accept the nomination. It must be re- membered that the office sought the man first, last, and all the time. Many thought, at this time, that back of Doctor Wil- son's nomination was concealed the most desperate struggle for the control of the nation by the Democratic party since the " Gum-shoe " campaign of Parker in 1904. Whatever may have been the plans of the bosses the spirit of their dreams was destined to be changed. When the announcement of Doctor Wilson's nomina- tion was made no one in the State with pretensions of enlightenment could have safely inquired, Who is this man Wilson? For fifteen years, Doctor Wilson had spoken with increasing frequency and influence to audiences of representative people, before prominent clubs, organiza- tions of bankers, lawyers, educators, and in fact all classes of business and professional men. Not only was he among the first of " Who 's Who in New Jersey," but in the imaginary "Blue Book" of the United States his name must have appeared conspicuously among the men worth while: among the great, and not the near great. When on September 16, 1910, the future Governor of New Jersey received word from his friends in the Demo- cratic State Convention that he was nominated, he hastened from the golf links, where he received the news, to the scene of political enthusiasm, and delivered his speech of acceptance with the simplicity of a schoolboy. He spoke like this : " I feel the responsibility of the occasion. Respon- sibility is proportionate to opportunity. It is a great opportunity to serve the State and Nation. I did not seek this nomination, I have made no pledge and have given no promises. If elected I am left absolutely free 24 WOODROW WILSON to serve you with all singleness of purpose. It is a new era when these things can be said, and in connection with this I feel that the dominant idea of the moment is the responsibility of deserving. I will have to serve the State very well in order to deserve the honor of being at its head. . . , " Our platform is sound, satisfactory, and explicit. The explicitness of the pledges in it is a great test of its sincerity. By it we will win the confidence of the people. If we keep the confidence, we can keep it only by performance. " Above all the issues there are three which demand our particular attention: first, the business-like and economical administration of the business of the State; second, equalization of taxes; and third, control of cor- porations. There are other important questions, like the matter of a corrupt-practices act, liability of employers, and conservation, but the three I have mentioned will dominate these. " We must have a public service commission with the amplest powers to oversee and regulate public service corporations, not powers to advise, but powers to control. " States are primarily the instruments of controlling the corporations and not the Federal government. . . . It is my strong hope that New Jersey will lead the way in reform; moreover the State can find out whether it has been creating corporations to elude the law." At the conclusion of his speech Doctor Wilson struck the key-note of his statesmanship. " Did you ever experience the elation of a great hope, that you desire to do right because it is right and with- out thought of doing it for your own interest? At that period your hopes are unselfish. " This in particular is a day of unselfish purposes for Democracy. The country has been universally misled and the people have begun to believe that there is some- thing radically wrong. And now we should make this AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 25 era of hope one of realization through the Democratic party. " The time when you can play politics and fool the American people has gone by. It is a case of put up or shut up. We must show the people that we are not looking for offices but for results. . . . " Maine is a word that has stirred many feelings. They had a Democratic Governor named Plaisted and waited until his son grew up to get another. In the meantime they had been learning by experience the need of getting the second one. " We have come to a new era, just as when the founders of the country established a new era in the history of the world when they founded this government. We have got to reconstruct a new economic society, and in doing this we will have to directly govern political methods. In doing this we will be doing something as great as did our forefathers. " America has one special distinction. It is not that she has wealth and resources. Many a nation which had wealth rotted away before America was born. It is that America was born with an ideal, freedom for its people." With such a declaration of principles, Doctor Wilson entered political life, but even after this many honest people were full of grave doubts for the future. It stood as a fact that Doctor Wilson was a machine product, and Jerseyites had long before lost faith in political machines. Still, nearly every one believed that the Re- publican nominee, if elected, would do substantially as the State "bosses" wanted him to do. There was a chance that Doctor Wilson meant what he said. The people took advantage of the doubt. They had been fooled so long by the Republicans that they knew it was not possible to be duped worse by the Democrats. Then, too, many thoughtful people had observed that in the beginning mere mention of Doctor Wilson, as a gnber- 26 WOODROW WILSON natorial candidate, had resulted in the reshaping of the plans of the party in power. The platforms of the two chief parties were as near alike in their principles as Siamese Twins. The independent voters decided that the best thing to do was to help the " outs " to oust the ins.'* In the meantime the clever Professor kept right on gaining ground every time that he addressed an audi- ence, always assuring his hearers that he had accepted the nomination with the understanding that if elected he was to lead the party, and that he would assume the duties of his office untrammelled by any promises, save those he made to the people. But even the eloquence and power which flowed like quicksilver from a personality radiant with mental mag- netism were not to be compared in interest, by a studious observer, with the looks of hope and expressions of con- fidence revealed by the countenances of Doctor Wilson's listeners. The people followed him, not because he had been nominated by the machine, but in spite of it. Mr. Wilson, not the machine, led the Democratic party, in 1910. In New Jersey they spell conservative in hieroglyphics. To illustrate the force, strength, and sincerity of Doctor Wilson's appeals to an ultra-conservative people, some of his most characteristic campaign expressions are here quoted : " I take leave to believe that there is one singular question that underlies all the other questions discussed on the political platform, at the present moment. That singular circumstance is that nothing is done in this country as it was done twenty years ago. The old party platforms of twenty years ago read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. We are in the presence of a ,*--, ^ * >- Copyright, Underwood, New York. When on September 16, 1910, the future Governor of New Jersey received word from his friends in the Democratic State Convention that he was nominated, he hastened from the golf links, where he received the news, to the scene of political enthusiasm, and delivered his speech of accep- tance with the simplicity of a schoolboy. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 27 new organization of society. We are eagerly bent on fitting that new organization as we did once fit the old organiza- tion to the happiness and prosperity of the great body of citizens. We are conscious that that order of society does not fit and provide that convenience, or happiness, or prosperity to the average man. We are not legislat- ing for exceptional men, for the rich, for the poor, for any class. We are trying to find out what is for the common interest of every individual, providing he lives honestly and strives honorably in the profession to which he has devoted himself." Taying a compliment to America and the power it exerts, Doctor Wilson said : " But what has made us strong? The toil of millions of men, the toil of men who do not boast, who are in- conspicuous, and who live their lives humbly from day to day, and this great body of workers, this great body of toilers, constitute the might of America. What is the manifest duty of all statesmanship? It is to see that this great body of men, who constitute the strength of America, are properly dealt with by the laws, and properly nurtured and taken care of by the policy of the country. " Well, what hinders ? What stands in the way ? Why you know that everything really worth discussing comes to the question of the corporations. What I object to is that some of these corporation men are taking joy rides in their corporations. You know what men do when they have a joy ride. They sometimes have the time of their lives and sometimes, fortunately, the last time of their lives. Now many of these corporation men are taking joy rides in which they do not kill the people that are riding in their touring-cars', but they kill the people they run over. " Competition is being done away with. You are still in the modern organization of business but not one bit of legislation has been passed to meet these essen- tial circumstances. The trouble with the legislation, in 28 WOODROW WILSON regard to corporations, is that in respect to our punish- ment we treat them as persons, like individuals, and they are not persons, they are not individuals. Do you sup- pose that there is any corporation whose business is so badly handled that the officers of the corporation could not tell you who originated any particular act of the corporation? If the officers who ordered the thing done do not know who did it then they don't know their business. They do know who ordered it done, and the man who gave the orders is the man the law ought to punish. " The point is that we must change the law in order that we may do the remarkable thing of finding the man who really is guilty. Then, when we find some- body that has done that thing that he ought not to do, even though he was authorized to do it by the corpora- tion, put him into jail. Our jails are used to great advantage, but the philanthropy might be extended. The moralizing effect of the jail ought not to be withheld from certain classes of the community. "Then we are tired of seeing legislation in favor of the ' special interests ' and want legislation in the general interests. When I say that we are tired, I mean that the American people are tired and they are going to show it in the next decade in a way that will make some gentlemen's heads swim." Perhaps this kind of speech answers the question why Mr. Wilson was bound to prove himself no novice, but a great moral force in his* dealings with men and affairs. When Doctor Wilson speaks he reminds us of the story of Samson. A Sunday-school teacher once told a class of boys of Samson's exploits, mentioning that he killed a lion, slew thirty men, slaughtered three hundred foxes, and carried away the gate of Gaza as though it were a feather. All the boys listened in amazement, with ears and mouths open, when one fellow said, " Say, teacher, what horse-power was Samson anyway?" What horse- AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 29 power do Woodrow Wilson's speeches and achievements indicate? Enough to be a strong Governor? Yes. A President? Decidedly. But to return to the development of Doctor Wilson's gubernatorial campaign. The pivot on which the contest turned was what is known as the Wilson-Record matter. Ex-Governor John W. Griggs, in a Republican cam- paign meeting, taunted Doctor Wilson with being a mere scholar, unfamiliar with practical life and public ques- tions. In a reply soon after, Doctor Wilson expressed his willingness to meet any candidate in the State in joint debate. George L. Record, now a progressive Re- publican, who executes those artistic partisan flops which make him the envy of less agile men, issued an accept- ance of the challenge. He addressed to Doctor Wilson nineteen questions, which the latter answered with such perfect satisfaction that a large number of the progressive Republicans voted for him. The reply which Mr. Wilson made to Mr. Record proved to be so truly prophetic that a part of it is quoted with the hope that future governors may take the cue by arranging to make their programs before and after election match: " You wish to know what my relations would be with the Democrats whose power and influence you fear should I be elected governor, particularly in such important matters as appointments and the signing of bills, and I am very glad to tell you. If elected I shall not either in the matter of appointments to office, or assent to legislation, or in shaping any part of the policy of my administration, submit to the dictation of any person, or persons, ' special interests,' or organization. I will always welcome advice and suggestions from any citizen, whether boss, leader, organization man, or plain citizen, and I shall constantly seek the advice of influential and 30 WOODROW WILSON disinterested men representative of their communities and disconnected from political organizations entirely; but all suggestions, and all advice, will be considered on its merits and no additional weight will be given to any man's advice because of his 'exercising, or supposing that he exercises, some sort of political influence or control. I should deem myself forever disgraced should I, in even the slightest degree, co-operate in any such system. I regard myself as pledged to the regeneration of the Democratic party." Mr. Record also inquired: "Do you admit that the boss system exists as I have described it? If so how do you propose to abolish it ? " Mr. Wilson said: " Of course I admit it. Its existence is notorious. I have made it my business for many years to observe and understand that system, and I hate it as thoroughly as I understand it. You are quite right in saying that the system is bi-partisan ; that it constitutes ' the most dan- gerous condition in the public life of our State and nation to-day ' ; and that it has virtually, for the time being, * destroyed representative government and in its place set up a government of privilege.' I would propose to abol- ish it by the reforms suggested in the Democratic plat- form, by the election to office of men who will refuse to submit to it, and who will lend all their energies to break it up, and by pitiless publicity." Still hoping to corner the Governor, Mr. Record named the bosses : " In referring to the Board of Guardians, do you mean such Republican leaders as Baird, Murphy, Kean, and Stokes? Wherein do the relations of the special inter- ests of such leaders differ from the relation of the same interests of such. Democratic leaders as Smith, Nugent, and Davis?" AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 31 Mr. Wilson answering this, said: " I refer to the men you named. I mean Smith, Nugent, and Davis. They differ from the others in this, that they are in control of the government of the State while the others are not, and cannot be if the present Democratic ticket is elected." In reply to Mr. Record's question, " Will you join me in denouncing the Democratic ' overlords ' as parties to a political boss system ? " Doctor Wilson replied, " Cer- tainly I will join you, or any one else, in denouncing and fighting every and any one of either party who attempts any outrages against the government and public morality." Such utterances as these only made the " bosses " smile. James Smith, Jr., once remarked, upon an occa- sion when he heard Doctor Wilson declare that if elected to the governorship he would be left free to exercise a leadership uninfluenced by the dictation of any " special interests," "He talks like that in Newark, and can get away with it. He is a great man." But it was Mr. Smith who misunderstood Doctor Wilson ; not the people. When the election returns came in, they showed that the Republican party, which, we remember, had had con- trol of the Legislature for sixteen years, and which had elected Eepublican governors since 1896, was admirably walloped. The " Grand Old Elephant " could not hedge by attributing the whole of its defeat to the influence of the nation-wide revolt against the party in power. That many of the causes of the landslide in this State were local, was indicated by the plump plurality of more than 49,000 for Governor Wilson, whereas ex-Governor John Franklin Fort's plurality, in 1907, was only 8000 Republican. CHAPTER III THE SMITH-MARTINE CONTROVERSY " Be thankful for what you get unless it is what is really coming to you." JOHN L. HOBBLE'S column in New York Evening World. " When scholars become doers then a new era will begin." DUDLEY FIELD MALONE, Assistant Corporation Counsel of New York. THE bleachers on the diamond are sometimes amazed at the combination of honesty and skill exhibited by amateur players, who have observed much but practised little. From the time the Governor-elect stepped out of the batter's box to hit the first curve it promised to be a rich, rare, and racy game, between the Machine League and the People's Team. The Governor was bound to succeed because he gave all his attention to the game and none to the grandstand. It was a most exciting event. The winning team was to be awarded the United States senatorship in the 1911 contest. Heretofore the election of a United States senator had always been a simple process, executed by the machine, " in a corner." The people, of course, had had no voice in the matter. The Senatorial Preference Primary Law, enacted in 1907, was to be operative for the first time. James E. Martine, Democrat, farmer, and reformer, had received more votes in the primaries than any other candidate. Many legislators of both Houses had promised their con- stituents that they would vote for that candidate for 32 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 33 United States senator who received the highest number of votes in the primary contest, and there was a plank, as broad as a lumber camp, in the Democratic State Platform favoring a national constitutional amendment for the election of United States senators by popular vote. And the Democrats had swept the State. Now were they to prove themselves sidesteppers and trimmers or were they to establish a principle which should become a sacred precedent? It happened that there were a few who, for the sake of personal convenience, preferred the former policy and they assumed the " What-has-posterity-done-for-us " atti- tude. Among these was James Smith, Jr., the courtly State boss, whom Lord Byron might have described as: " The mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat; With such true breeding of a gentleman you never could divine his inner thought" (before election) ; "Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange," Although, it is said, that he fleeced the people with a cry of protection; For into a United States Senator, but change his title, " And 't is nothing but taxation." (Apologies to Lord Byron's shade.) At this juncture it is interesting to recall that before Dr. Wilson consented to become a candidate for Gov- ernor it was understood that Mr. Smith was out of poli- tics and that he was not a prospective candidate for a seat in that most distinguished body of distinguishable misrepresentatives, Seidlitz-powder reformers, and con- spicuously small number of people's men, the United States Senate. The people were not given an opportunity of telling 34 WOODROW WILSON the State dictator what they thought of him in the primaries, because he had not permitted his name to be used as a candidate. Thus he had himself given in- directly to the public the impression that he was not in the contest; particularly, since it was well known that the newspapers owned by him had supported the senatorial preference privilege in terms of unqualified approval. That Mr. Smith was not to enter the political game, had been set down in the books as a fact; especially when the State chairman, James Nugent, of the Jim-Jim machine, ever present but now deposed, assured several assemblymen that " Uncle James " was not to be in the senatorial race. But men are ever prone to change their minds, and so we woke up one morning to find that Mr. Smith was a candidate. It really was not much of a surprise for we had known this distinguished gentleman a long time, and we had every reason to remember him; for he had always been of the reversible action type. And, well, when it came to political manoeuvring he certainly could skate a figure-eight with an ease and elasticity which, for years, had amazed and confounded mere man. At political tight-rope dancing he beat anything of which I have ever heard. It is easy to understand why any man of such wonderful resources would possess enough commendable qualities of heart and head to insure him many loyal friends on whose assistance he could rely, whenever his pleasure required. But there were also those who knew Mr. Smith intimately, who thought that it was about time to " start something," unless we intended to abide forever under the yoke of " Smithism." Accordingly, to refresh the memory of the old and help towards the education of the young, a few reformers got their heads together and published Mr. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 35 Smith's record. They announced that his old game, which had been played twice to launch his senatorial candidacy, was to secure an invitation from his home legislative delegation to enter the lists, so as to create the impression, "We cannot do without you. Please come to our rescue that ' representative government ' may be preserved." It was charged upon the best authority that means were used by the boss's lieutenants which had Biblical sanction for their wisdom, but were entirely without legal foundation as to their righteousness, espe- cially in cases where the invitation to Mr. Smith was forced according to the Scriptural injunction: " Agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the Judge, and the Judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out from thence until thou has paid the uttermost farthing." Most extraordinary things occurred at the midnight conferences in Ifflin's Caf6, the Lenni Lenape Club, and other exclusive resorts in Newark, followed by mys- terious automobile expeditions to the homes of assembly- men before the dawn of day. Another thing which the reformers showed in their published records of Mr. Smith's activities was that " Prior to his political supremacy New Jersey had elected consecutively nine Democratic Governors and five Democratic Legislatures. James Smith, Jr., was elected to the United States Senate in 1893. One year after rock-ribbed Democratic New Jersey rolled up a Repub- lican majority of nearly fifty thousand, launched a solid Republican delegation to Congress, and elected a Legis- lature Republican by over sixty. " From that time until Woodrow Wilson entered the 36 WOODROW WILSON field the State was Republican. Democrats, with their eyes open, had repeatedly said that they attributed the principal cause of continued Republican success to the treachery of their old time monarch, and a continued fear since that Democratic success would again bring him into power." Back of this warning were the thunder-clouds of sus- picion, which had hovered in the air since the time " when," to quote further from the ex-Senator's record : " Mr. Smith had been characterized by Grover Cleve- land, as one of the Sugar Trust Senators, who, with four other members of that body, had refused to pass the Wilson Bill as it came from the House, until the interest of the Sugar Trust had been protected to the extent of restoring the tax on sugar. " Citizens of New Jersey had protested vociferously at the time of the official investigation into the report that Mr. Smith and other senators had been speculating in sugar, and although Senator Smith's memory was amaz- ingly lacking in regard to his stock transactions, he testified that it was his impression that he had purchased a thousand shares of sugar stock." With these facts revivified the people saw the situation as it was: stripped of the glamour of that bountiful personage who had contributed so generously to charity, and, as the reformers say, to both party machines of New Jersey, in order to protect and preserve the special interests. But of what use to see clearly if there are no lead- ers to guide honestly and wisely? The vision of the people had been clearing for years, but the anti-boss leaders were at a double disadvantage, because they were hopelessly in the minority and they had lacked an exec- utive who dared to be a State spokesman. But now times had changed, and a kind dispensation of Providence had AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 37 brought forth a man with principles as sound as the Ten Commandments, uncompromising and fearless. Even his enemies, with their minimum degree of faith in human nature, knew that it would be as impossible to approach him as it would be "to scale the ramparts of Jehovah and pluck from Heaven's diadem its brightest star." Neither could this leader be blindfolded by mere sem- blance or outward appearances. He called a spade a spade, and so when a certain gentleman went to call on Woodrow Wilson in November, 1910, "he came away sorrowful, for he was very rich." When a pig, walking on a railroad track, meets an engine, it has been observed that the engine does not alter its course. About three months after the visit to which we refer, James E. Martine was elected to the United States Senate on the first joint ballot of the Legislature. He received forty-seven votes, six more than were necessary for election. Mr. Martine had not spent one dollar in seeking election as senator. Neither had he solicited directly or indirectly the vote of any member of the Legislature. During the Smith-Martine contest Governor-Elect Wil- son had become a most practical and constructive po- litical leader. He had been making some very eloquent, grave, and earnest speeches since his election. He had also discovered that the opposition to one-man power was more negative than constructive; and that it evinced more detestation of bossism than it did the existence of a strong progressive sentiment. And this interesting academician had found out in the meantime who were the brave mariners in a storm. "There were many," to quote from Senator Harry V. Osborne, the young prince of Democracy, who engineered 38 WOODROW WILSON the fight in Essex, Smith's own county, "who camped in the cellar until the cyclone was over and then they emerged." And while the Governor^Elect had been continuing his education the people had improved their unprecedented opportunity of being taught by the State schoolmaster a few lessons concerning the establishment of Democratic government. They had passed through the unique experi- ence of being led by a State spokesman who believed in executive interference where the rights of the people were seriously menaced, and yet this interference was in no way offensive to any honest believer in popular government. The prophecy of James Smith, Jr., was fulfilled. " The Princeton sage " was, indeed, " the man of the hour," and his whole plea had been, "Come and let us reason to- gether." There were no words of bitterness, only the irresistible appeals of one who had spent nearly thirty years in the study of political questions; a student and teacher with an abiding faith in Democracy, who saw himself and could lead others to see the moral obligation, the responsibility of a great opportunity to establish the principle of popular election of United States senators as a step towards more Democracy. A true American who believes that the people see clearly where their hope lies, called upon his constituents not to betray a sacred trust. There was no tirade against an individual, no violent declamation against any one's character, but a denunciation of the State Machine, as an incident in the System, based on the alliance between Privileged Business and Politics. " It is not," said the new chief of Democracy, " a capital process to cut off a wart. You don't have to go to the hospital and take an anaesthetic. The thing AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 39 can be done while you wait and it is being done. The clinic is open and every man can witness the operation." The speeches which the Governor-Elect made during this crisis were such as Jefferson might have made. The main facts of them will make history. " A gentleman was talking to me a gentleman who has been prominent in the public service of this State, and he said to me, ' This is a fight that is going on all over the country, but New Jersey is the bloody angle. . . .' He was referring to the battle-field of Gettysburg, where, at a certain angle of a stone-wall the very slaughter of the day centred. This has always been known since as the bloody angle, and this campaign in New Jersey is the bloody angle of national fights. But our fight is not like the fight at Gettysburg where gallant heroes were engaged on both sides, where the fight was open; for in this battle one party is supplying the ammunition and keeping under cover, dodging from tree to tree and from ambush to ambush, while the other party stands in the open and challenges them to the contest ; the bloody angle indeed, but it will not be our bodies that are in the breach. " 1 have heard a great many men hope for compromise. God defend us against compromise. Every man who is afraid to stand to his guns wants compromise. Every man who finds a duty difficult to perform wants the form of the duty changed, but change it for him and you simply confirm his weakness. ... I appeal to Mr. Martine never under any circumstances to withdraw. . . . " And I want to point out to you that Mr. James Smith, Jr., represents not a party but a system; a sys- tem of political control, which does not belong to either party and which, so far as it can be successfully managed, must belong to both parties. Do you know what is true of the special interests, at this moment? They have got all their baggage packed and they are ready to strike camp over night, provided they think it is profitable for them to come over to the Democratic party. They are waiting to come over bag and baggage and take 40 WOODROW WILSON possession of the Democratic party. Will they be welcome? Do you want them? There is no question of the Demo- cratic party in this business, gentlemen. There is no question of any party. I often think in this connection of the song in lolanthe, & comic opera, 'The party I belong to is the party I sing this song to. . . .' " Business interests are involved in this matter and not political principles. These business interests intend, if they can, to own the organization ; that is, the govern- ing organization in the affairs of America. They cannot own it if the business is done in the open. They can hold it if it is done under cover. They won't strike their camps and move over in the daytime. They will move over in the night-time. I pray God we may never wake up some fine morning and find them encamped on our side. " It is the privilege of the legislators who represent the Democratic party in the Legislature of New Jersey to enjoy the greatness of the people of New Jersey. It is their privilege once for all to put New Jersey on record as on the people's side, as determined, no matter who may suffer for their stand, to see to it that only the judgment of the people be registered in this State from this time on, and then we shall have established our connection with the records of liberty ; then we shall have taken our place in those handsome annals of history which record how men have massed themselves, caught a single idea with genuine enthusiasm, forgotten their differences, sunk their selfish interests and, united in irresistible force, have carried men to the next level of achievement, where they can look forward to still greater achievements, when not only the histories, but every future generation shall look back and bless them and say: Those men saw the light and rescued us from those things which would have put us to shame; and they made it possible for us as self-respecting communities to govern our own affairs. "Shall we not make this one of the years which shall always be marked in the annals of New Jersey as a year of regeneration ? " Copyright, Brown Bros., New York. ' ' Do you know what is true of the special interests at this moment ? They have got all their baggage packed, and they are ready to strike camp over night, provided they think it is profitable for them to come over to the Democratic party. They are waiting to come over bag and baggage and take possession of the Democratic party. Will they be welcome? Do you want them?" Woodrow Wilson, during the Smith-Mai'tine contest. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 41 A man's power must be measured in proportion to the tests which he can meet, the men whom he can conquer. We must judge New Jersey's Governor by this standard : by the gigantic size of the man whom he licked ; licked, not whipped, because when a man is whipped he can " come back," but when he is licked never. Here we must remember that of all political bosses in the U. S. A., New Jersey took the palm, up to 1911. We believe that we really had the tiggest, "busiest, and bossi- est boss which modern time has produced. It is safe to say that a careful examination of his record makes the work of some similar men in other States look like mere child's play. " Yes," a prominent politician said to me, " Mr. Smith had something on every one of the other big State bosses; Richard Croker once referred to him as 'The Biggest One-Man Politician in America'; and Grover Cleveland, when told that this Democratic United States Senator owned a Republican newspaper, said : ' A truly remarkable man,' and then repeated thoughtfully, 'Yes, a very remarkable man.'" We can only give the reader a glimpse of this most picturesque of moving pictures, for it would require the work of a lifetime to represent him in his " coat of many colors." I have heard men of the best standing, who began their careers as newsboys or office boys, give Mr. Smith the credit for a start in life." Many times they have spoken of his disinterested kindness to them. Others have told me of his cold-blooded treachery. Per- haps, Fate unkindly gave to him "the sly chameleon spirit," and while the present generation is beginning to think that it understands him, it must, after all, be left to a dispassionate posterity to pronounce a verdict upon him. CHAPTER IV PROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE STATE HOUSE x " To work for the people, that is the great and urgent need." VICTOR HUGO. " THE modern university is no longer a cloister," said Governor Wilson to the writer in response to a statement to the effect that some people thought that he had emerged from such a place and thereby marvelled at his record. " When a young man inquires of me, ' What is the college for?' or 'Why do we study a certain subject?' I often cite, as an illustration, the double trapeze. No one ever asks, what do we use the double trapeze for. It is obviously for the purpose of developing the muscles that they may become elastic and ready for action. So with mental discipline, obtained through a collegiate course, which furnishes the best training. The powers of the mind are developed so as to make it flexible, that the faculties may be brought readily into play." " Yes, we can do that which we have not been trained to do, providing the faculties have been developed and rightly used," said the Governor, without the least hesi- tation, in reply to a query concerning the fitness of disciplined minds for undertaking new enterprises. The chief State executive had been in office about five 1 The reader will remember that the principal contest in the Smith-Martine controversy occurred before Governor Wilson's inauguration. Author's note. 42 Copyright, Brown Bros., New York. EX-UNITED STATES SENATOR JAMES SMITH, JR. The courtly State Boss, whom, it is said, Richard Croker once desig- nated as " The biggest one-man-politician in America." By what standard shall we judge New Jersey's Governor? By the gigantic size of the man whom he licked licked, not whipped, because when a man is whipped he can come back, but when he is licked never. NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 43 months when he said this, and there had been "some- thing doing " every day ; so that he was the first con- venient example of his own theory which occurred to the interviewer's mind. The slender man, who was sitting in the Governor's swivel chair, talking so smoothly and convincingly, is five feet eleven inches in height. He has a high fore- head, penetrating gray eyes, and a mouth expressive of both kindness and firmness. His manner is cordial, his countenance frank. His face suggests a keen sense of humor, and those who associate with him are frequently treated to one of his original witticisms or humorous stories, of which he has a large supply. His humor is not unlike that of Lincoln, and its homely pointing of a moral puts one in mind of Franklin. Alto- gether, Woodrow Wilson is an attractive and stimulat- ing personality, of great intellectual power and deep culture. In talking with him one thinks : This man has a keen sense of justice, an admirable sense of proportion; his knowledge is profound ; his keen intellect grasps a situa- tion quickly; he discriminates carefully; he is self- reliant, yet open to conviction, but he must see things from a broad perspective before he makes a decision ; he is energetic, yes his energy is boundless, but there is an echo of precision in his actions even when he lets loose, when his vitality is at white heat. One listens, observes, thinks, goes away, and thinks again and again. It is not the stimulus of an effervescent personality which one feels and then forgets, but rather the inspiration which comes from a trained thinker, who can express himself clearly, eloquently, and persuasively. He uses the best diction. When he speaks he plays neither to the orchestra nor to the gallery, but both understand 44 WOODROW WILSON him. In leaving a hall where he had spoken to a mixed audience, I heard such remarks as these: " By George, he means it. He is no f ourflusher ! " " What faultless diction, what a masterly address ! " " Political convictions intense but sound." "There is character back of a man like that. Such utterances only emanate from a man of immovable resolution." " What a combination of energy, power, and con- science," and then : " They can't put anything over on him ! " It was, indeed, a tremendous surprise to the shrewd politicians to find on board the ship of state a skilful and efficient political captain, who understood the most direct course, who read the compass with perfect ac- curacy, and who saw each flashlight and signal in time to avoid the breakers and shoals. It was true that the new commander had never before held a captain's license. He had never even been a first mate in the game of politics. To be perfectly literal, he had never, up to the time of his inauguration as governor, visited the Trenton Legislature. To use the Governor's own words, "The people hardly knew what to expect of me; the dice had been shaken against them so often ; now they were afraid that they had a man who did not know how to shake dice." The outcome of the senatorial contest inspired hopes for better things, but few dared to look forward to such a programme of reform as we shall hereafter describe. It would have been a very irrational thing for even the most optimistic to have hoped for so much as the State received, unless, perchance, some diligent students had read the voluminous works of their scholarly chief, and AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 45 made a study of the former university president's methods of handling men and affairs, while he occupied the chief place of authority in one of our oldest and best established seats of learning. In fact, it would have been necessary to have pene- trated further than this the background of this fascinat- ing man's life if one would have anticipated successfully his career. What were the influences which had brought him forward? By what route had Fate decreed to land her man? To what extent, and how, had Fate been assisted in her purpose? " That is best blood that hath most iron in it." Scotch-Irish blood has always contained plenty of red corpuscles; and when sustained by the oxygen of a Southern atmosphere, impregnated with a love of jus- tice and freedom, these corpuscles are not likely to be- come depleted, particularly when stimulated in their early existence by the privations incident to a long period of bloodshed and dreadful days of reconstruction. For Woodrow Wilson is a son of Southern soil, who retains vivid recollections of his boyhood and youthful days when the Civil War and the reconstruction period brought suffering and hardship to the Wilson family. Reverend Joseph R. Wilson, a distinguished scholar and theological professor of the Presbyterian faith, was his son's teacher, mentor, and guide. The deeply pious streak in Governor Wilson's nature, his love of books, his passion for idealism, and his heart full of sympathy for every honest man's cause, which is written in every line of his thoughtful face, are but the natural qualities, inherited from a father and mother, both descended from those who devoted their lives to literature and the Church. I once heard him say : " It is very difficult, indeed, for a man, for a boy, who knows the Scripture ever to 46 WOODROW WILSON get away from it. It haunts him like an old song. It follows him like the memory of his mother. It reminds him like the word of an old and revered teacher. It forms part of the warp and woof of his life." Naturally, Woodrow Wilson's parents, who appreciated his studious inclinations, gave him the advantages of the best tutors and schools. Like most ministers, the Reverend Joseph Wilson moved occasionally. Thus Staunton, Virginia, where Governor Wilson was born, December 28, 1 856 ; Augusta, Georgia ; Charleston, South Carolina ; and Wilmington, North Carolina, each have a claim upon the statesman, whose prestige is daily attracting the serious attention of increasing numbers. I interviewed James Sprunt, British Vice-Consul, one of the oldest and most conservative citizens of Wilming- ton, North Carolina, who has known Woodrow Wilson from boyhood, and who knew his parents, intimately. I asked for information as to Governor Wilson's early years. This distinguished Southerner, who weighed very care- fully every word which he uttered, said : " From a boy Woodrow Wilson was a thinker and scholar. His mind was much beyond his years and no one who knew him was surprised by his later achieve- ments. He came honestly and naturally by his great qualities of heart and mind, for his father, whose memory we revere, and his sainted mother, who was a Woodrow, were not of common clay. The father was a giant in physical and mental proportions, and his mother was one of the brightest and best of women. " I admire Governor Wilson, and I am proud of his record in public life. His leadership in our political affairs would mean much for the good of the American people. His great learning, his exact scholarship, his balanced judgment, his rugged honesty, and his profound knowledge of political science place him, I think, far AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 47 above all other prominent Democrats, as the reform candidate for President." Sticklers who insist that a square inch of heredity germinates more character than a square mile of environ- ment will be gratified to discover long lines of ancestral virility in both the Woodrow and the Wilson families. But after we have pried diligently into the past and not been disappointed, what is more refreshing than to know that the man of the present generation lives up to his traditions and not on them? Can we conceive of anything more to our heart's desire than the one who is inwardly conscious of a rich inheritance, but who modestly fears that he may in some way fall short of meeting the responsibilities which his heritage brings him? A man who has caught the spirit of Woodrow Wilson and his traditions is the Rev. Dr. Peyton H. Hoge, of Peewee Valley, Kentucky, who chats of the Wilsons and Woodrows in this fashion : " I was the successor of Dr. Joseph E. Wilson, as Presbyterian pastor, in Wilmington, North Caroliana. I first met him when I went to the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church of which he was the clerk for over a quarter of a century. I presented him a letter from the Session of the church filled with ex- pressions of their devotion to him, and commending me, a young pastor, to his interest. I shall never forget the fatherly greeting that he gave me nor the kind and noble words that he said to me. He was a man of most dignified presence, with the head of a senator and a leonine mass of silvery hair. His manner was stately but redeemed from austerity by great benignity of counte- nance and kindliness of address. His English was mas- 48 WOODROW WILSON terly, his diction superb, and his quick and ready wit was spoken of in every circle. In nearly every house in Wilmington his portrait hung in some place of honor. I felt everywhere that I went that there was a high tradition to be maintained. " Once when Reverend Wilson came to Wilmington to deliver an anniversary sermon during my pastorate, he read me a letter from his son Woodrow. It was full of filial devotion and loving memories of the people and of the place, and at the same time of the tender insight into the mingled feelings of joy and sorrow that the visit must bring his father, for this was not long after his mother had been taken from them. " I never met Mrs. Wilson, but the parsonage or manse, in which Mrs. Hoge and I lived belonging to and ad- joining the church, was made beautiful by the roses and other flowers in the culture of which Mrs. Wilson was an adept. The room of the church nearest to the manse was the infant or primary room of the Sunday-school, in the building of which she had been greatly interested and where she reigned supreme. It was also the meet- ing-place of the women of whose Missionary Society she was the organizer and president. She had the fine strong intellect for which her brother, the celebrated Dr. James Woodrow, was famous. " Marion Woodrow, Governor Wilson's aunt, was my mother's dearest friend. In going through mother's let- ters after her death I often had to stop to read those of Marian Woodrow. There are no such letters now, so beautiful in their handwriting, so faultless in their expression, and so filled, as letters never are now, with beautiful thoughts on all one's reading and experience. They bore the stamp of genius and the impress of a lofty soul. But alas! they were destroyed through an AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 49 accident. They would be invaluable now in seeking to trace to their sources some of those elements of genius and power that make Woodrow Wilson the coming man, the man of the hour. " The last time I saw Mr. Wilson was at the Governors' Conference in Louisville, in 1910. He was the lion of the day, and when I succeeded in finding him for a few minutes' conversation, he wanted to talk of old friends, the old church, and the old town of Wilmington. " I told him that my greatest wish was that his dear father might know what he had now become. He re- ceived this with no affected modesty, but with the con- sciousness of one who has a mission and a responsibility." One of Governor Wilson's schoolmates in Columbia, South Carolina, speaks appreciatively of his early asso- ciations with his now distinguished friend : " He was a gentle, manly boy. I was several years younger than he and often at recess he worked my ' sums ' for me." Miss Helen G. McMaster, also of Columbia, South Carolina, says : " Young Wilson always impressed me as shy; I used to see him quietly reading in his father's study and he never came into the parlor to see the com- pany. He was a thoughtful, retiring boy given to books." " The spirit of a youth who means to be of note begins betimes." Before he was eighteen years of age, Wood- row Wilson entered the Freshman class of Davidson College, North Carolina, where he remained only one year. This college is, and was, at that time, small; so that it was thought best to send the promising young student to an institution which would offer him larger opportunities. Princeton, with its ancient traditions dating back to 1746, its long record of usefulness, and its list of famous graduates, seemed a most desirable place for the young man to continue his schooling. It 50 WOODROW WILSON was here that he matriculated in 1875, and the Princeton Class of 1879 proudly numbers him among its graduates. In college young Wilson was popular with both the faculty and his student associates. He won the reputa- tion of being a genial fellow, in modern terms, " a good mixer," warm-hearted, companionable, and worth know- ing, both for the social side and the virile qualities of mind which he possessed. He could do more than one thing, for his records show that not only did he study well and read omnivorously, but he also played a good game of baseball. What impresses us most is that he began early to think seriously, which fact ought to be an inspiration to every young man in the American commonwealth, for it must be admitted, by the closest observer, that most young men never attain much because they are so late in waking up, in finding themselves, that is, if they ever wake up at all. But this man, Wilson, evidently found himself early, as is indicated by his literary ability recognized during his collegiate years, and his youthful genius in oratory, in which practice he spent most of his spare time, not in bombastic spurting, but in actual hard work. He had a natural fondness for Edmund Burke, whose wisdom and style attracted him. By degrees he discovered that the study of law promised to interest him more than anything else. He devoted two years to this, at the University of Virginia Law School, where he remained until 1881, when he captured the medal in oratory awarded by the Thomas Jefferson literary society. Two years of professional law practice in Atlanta, Georgia, proved to him that the theory and principles of legal science engaged his interest more than did the business side. Perhaps this was because of his inborn Copyright, Underwood, New York. GOVERNOR WILSON IS INTERESTED IN ATHLETICS. Here lie is watching a Princeton-Yale football game. As a collegian young Wilson himself played a good game of baseball. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 51 tendency to go to the root of things, and to obtain a mature view, before assuming to have the qualifications to experiment with A's and B's affairs. The field of specialization seems to have attracted him first, in order that he might obtain the mental discipline and judgment necessary to qualify him for dealing in general principles. We may observe that it has often been a matter of record, although it is by no means an established fact, that the period of incubation in true leaders is com- paratively long. A real leader is of necessity modest and will not thrust himself into places of deep and grave responsibilities requiring experience. He prefers to fit himself for a place of service, and to trust that his capacity for serving will be measured by his fellow-men, who will seek him and place him where his opportunity to serve will be in proportion to his preparation, talents, and degree of usefulness. To return from this digression to the turning point in Woodrow Wilson's career. Dean Kinley, of the Univer- sity of Illinois, says that when he was a fellow-student with Mr. Wilson at Johns Hopkins, Wilson explained to him his determination not to follow the law, saying, " The law has ceased to be a profession and has become a mere trade." That he chose wisely when he decided to return to his studies is apparent from the brilliant record which he soon made in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, where he received his Ph.D. degree. It was while here that his first book appeared. This was Doctor Wilson's Congressional Government, which became a standard text-book in many high schools and colleges; and it won cordial recognition in many foreign countries. Sydney Webb, of London, once told Winthrop More Daniels, that he thought that Mr. Bryce derived the idea of Bryce's American Commonwealth from Mr. Wil- 52 WOODROW WILSON son's Congressional Government. It is a comprehensive study of the United States Constitution in its practical application to the problems of government and the exi- gencies arising under it. 'ftie Constitution is vigorously upheld; but the uses to which it has sometimes been put are shown in certain instances to have been wrong. Doctor Wilson makes clear in this book his belief that reforms can be achieved by constitutional methods and that our problems can be solved by law without recourse to revolutionary processes. So masterly a production from the pen of a student, not yet thirty, gave a true index of what might be expected of him when he should reach maturer years. It seems most natural that such a mind, with its thirst for knowledge and its aptitude for discretion and pru- dence, should have sought to discipline itself further, and to insure greater wisdom by seeking an outlet for its energies in a vocation where one's resourcefulness is perpetually tested through the stimulus which one gives to other minds; where an ideal must be put into daily practice, if one is to win and retain confidence and esteem; and where there may be established one of the most delightful human relationships, through the con- tinual contact of individual with individual, where both are striving toward the realization of the best. And so at the conclusion of his post-graduate course, we are gratified to see this serious scholar, who above all other things he can do can make others think, entering the great army of teachers, where he was to set an example worthy of the emulation of every member of the teaching profession, and of all who aspire to serve humanity through this means. It was a most famous school, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, noted for its high standards, that was so AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 53 fortunate as to secure the services of this worthy Pro- fessor of Political Science. In fact, Dr. Wilson was one of the original faculty of Bryn Mawr, and he helped to organize its courses of study. It was about this time that this most natural sort of man did another most natural thing. The balmy Southern air is conducive, so the poets say, to dreams filled with emotion, tenderness, and romance. They tell us that in the Sunny South the azure skies azure a little bit more than they do in any other part of the country. However this may be, it is certain that our Johns Hop- kins post-graduate displayed the same degree of versatil- ity while working for his degree there that he had indicated by the variety of his activities while a student at Princeton ; for he found time for other things, besides attending lectures and preparing a scholarly thesis. He had made an occasional trip to Savannah, Georgia, where dwelt a charming Southern lady of rare beauty and accomplishments; and, a short time before Woodrow Wilson became Ph.D., he also received another degree, and became Woodrow Wilson, M.M., for he married Miss Ellen Louise Axson, of a distinguished Savannah family, descended from the Cavaliers. That the Gov- ernor showed as excellent judgment, in this important matter, as he has since made apparent in every step of his career, is proved by the ideal domestic happiness which has been the good fortune of the Wilson family. Mrs. Wilson is an invaluable complement to her dis- tinguished husband, an ideal wife and mother, and a landscape artist, whose paintings in oil have been honored with approval by the best painters and art critics in America. Three charming daughters have blessed the Wilson union : Margaret, who is the possessor of a rich soprano 54 WOODROW WILSON voice, and who is now taking voice culture in New York ; Jessie Woodrow, who, like her mother, is an artist of ability, and a sociological worker, whose services at the Light House, Philadelphia} have helped to make that church settlement one of the most successful in America ; and Eleanor Eandolph, who is now an art student at the Academy of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia. Three years after Governor Wilson's marriage he re- signed his professorship at Bryn Mawr; and for two years occupied the chair of History and Political Economy at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecti- cut. While here he was appointed Professor of Juris- prudence and Political Economy at Princeton University, where he entered upon his duties in 1890, succeeding to a chair made famous by his predecessor, Professor Alexander Johnston, perhaps the foremost of the newer scientific students of American political history. The power to kindle interest and to make his subjects alive, by leading those in his classes to comprehend facts in their relationship to our social and economic organi- zation, characterized his instruction. The courses which Doctor Wilson presented became very popular and he was soon recognized as a man of unusual attainments, both by the students and the university authorities. His services on faculty committees added to his use- fulness ; and he did some of his best work as an import- ant member of the Committee on Discipline. To illus- trate his intense practicality, it should be noted that Professor Wilson had mastered shorthand that he might not miss the advantages afforded by this ready means of keeping a safety-deposit vault filled with cor- rect and valuable data, available for use whenever the occasion requires. This acquisition, with the ability to initiate and to execute plans, made the popular professor 4^f~ *t* , &j. '# ., &&M * - i ' * ' ^ |; AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 55 indispensable in the committee work of the university. Notice, that he must have been ever conscious of the laws of competition; and that he must have realized that it is necessary for every competitor, in any field, to equip himself with excellent credit; a superior grade of stock, and a general outfit of practical utilities, if he is to be advanced to the place where he may exercise his greatest usefulness. Woodrow Wilson, as a member of the faculty at Prince- ton, then, could do many things that the average pro- fessor cannot, or does not do. Many of those who worked with him predicted that he was a marked man, chosen by destiny to come forward. When Yale selected eight men from the whole country to receive the degree of Doctor of Letters, at its bi- centennial celebration, Woodrow Wilson was one of the eight. He has been accorded the degree of Doctor of Laws by Lake Forest College, Tulane University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Vir- ginia ; and he was recently chosen by Harvard University to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Commence- ment. While connected with Princeton University Doctor Wilson's prolific pen was always busy, although the most important of his text-books Professor Wilson completed during his professorship at Wesleyan. The State, a text- book on historical and practical politics, has had the rare distinction of serving as the accredited text in over a hundred universities, including in the number, Oxford University, England. After he became established at Princeton he wrote continually for the best periodicals; and that he was producing things worth while was as- sured by the constant demands which the publishers made of him. 56 WOODROW WILSON A writer in The Library of the World's Best Literature says of Woodrow Wilson's literary work : " It is conspicuous for its suggestive thought and thor- ough knowledge. Dr. Wilson's studies of contemporary politics and institutions have won wide attention^ for their thoughtful and searching analysis, presented in a style of exceptional attraction, and inspired by a sincere desire to interpret and promote the good in American methods. His more general essays upon topics historical or literary have, by their decided charm, made Professor Wilson known to a far larger audience than a profes- sional writer or teacher upon such themes usually reaches. "For the series called Epochs of American History he wrote a book on Division and Re-Union, 1893, in which the disintegrating influences of the Civil War and the subsequent processes of recovery are traced. From 1893 also dates An Old Master and Other Political Essays* containing a delightful appreciation of Adam Smith, and further papers developing the author's views upon poli- tical principles and forms. The volume Mere Literature, 1898, displayed his ability as an essayist in the wider sense, upon themes calling for a synthetic literary hand- ling. An admirable sketch of George Washington, clearly and sympathetically delineating his characteristics on the social and domestic side, appeared in 1897. " In the present tendency to adopt the scientific method in writing on politics and history, and to deify the accumulation and parade of material, scholars of Pro- fessor Wilson's type are needed and welcome. He not only insists in his writings upon the necessity and value of the literary method in such studies but in his own person illustrates his meaning. He is a student who makes past and present vivid by his interpretation of the raw stuff of facts and records." The year in which his History of the American People appeared, 1902, Doctor Wilson was elected president of Princeton University, by the unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. He was the first layman ever chosen AND NEW JER8E7 MADE OVER 57 for this office. The position of college president in modern times has called for more executive ability than what is termed scholarship. That the new president labored under many difficulties, in the early days of his administration, as well as later, is evidenced by the fact that much of the available income of the institution was tied up by arrangements made before his accession to the presidency. But the Doctor has always been equal to the overcoming of obstacles, and he devises methods, and adopts readily processes suitable to any emergency. He can bide his time or act quickly as the circumstances require; so he resolved not to be hampered by condi- tions which could not be immediately altered, and centred his attention and energies on things at hand, a course which he has pursued since his entrance into politics. Before Dr. Wilson became president the university curriculum had become confused, almost chaotic, at least antiquated. There were three hundred and fifty courses of study. Mental indigestion was a chronic disorder. Doctor Wilson set himself to the task of reforming and simplifying this unwieldy and complicated system. He systematized four well-defined courses leading to four distinct degrees; and thus brought order out of academic confusion, by arranging the studies of each course in a logical sequence. Naturally, under the old system of many courses, the chaos was intensified by the lowering of standards. Higher standards of admission and of routine scholarship were now established. So much for Doctor Wilson's first reform stroke. Now for the second. This consisted of the introduction by the president, of the preceptorial system, which brought an innovation; but to set this new idea into motion money was called for. By this time, 1905, the trustees of the University had discovered President Wilson's busi- 58 WOODROW WILSON ness capacity, and they had begun to augment the income of the college. He had won their confidence through attention to business and self-abnegation. To carry out the preceptorial plan, sixty-five new men were added to the faculty, each with the title of assistant professor, and the privilege of voting in faculty meetings. Groups of students numbering from two to five at one time, never exceeding five, were assigned to each pre- ceptor for his personal supervision. " The object of this arrangement," as described by its originator, "was to draw the faculty and the undergraduates together into a common body of students old and young, among whom a real community of interest, pursuit, and feeling would prevail." The preceptors devoted their energies to the work of counselling and guiding, meeting those assigned to them three or more times a week. The students' ex- ercises with them were conferences not recitations. This intimate intercourse of personalities produced most satis- factory results, and made the labors of those who took part in the work not tasks, but delightful pursuits which led to a natural enjoyment of science and letters. The habit of reading, practically lost under the lecture sys- tem, was recultivated. Students were assisted in making a right choice in the selection of books and they were led to a broader appreciation of the best literature. This new system attracted wide attention and the merits of it appealed strongly to the student body. There was everything to be gained by it and nothing to be lost, since the preceptors neither set nor corrected examinations. This feature of President Wilson's college administra- tion is regarded by many educators as his principal achievement during his presidential career, but the pro- ject conceived by him, after he had the preceptorial system well under way, would probably have surpassed AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 59 in breadth of results any of his other college reforms if he had not been checked in the course of the progress of his next effort. The quadrangle system, or "quad plan," was, in its inception with Doctor Wilson, wholly an educational project. It was not until the opposition of privileged individuals had blocked this scheme, that this educational policy was seen to have been opposed by the same kind of influences which seek in political life to uphold special privilege. Under the abuse of the lecture system Dr. Wilson be- lieved that intellectual vitality among the generality of college students had been undermined, and that with the exception of a mechanical compliance with certain set tasks the spontaneous activities of college boys had been too largely absorbed by non-academic interests and pur- suits. Referring to these influences, President Wilson said. " The side-shows have become so numerous, so divert- ing, so important if you will, that they have eaten up the circus, and, we, in the main tent, are often obliged to whistle before our audiences, humiliated and discouraged." These activities, to a remarkable degree, centred about the self -constituted social organizations, known as the permanent upper class clubs, for Princeton excludes the fraternities as such. The upper class clubs, at Prince- ton, of which there are over a dozen, have handsome properties and are essentially the counterparts of the social clubs in any great city. Naturally, as their mem- bership includes only about one half of the two upper classes, and as their standards of maintenance put them beyond the reach of students of limited means, a line of cleavage is sharply drawn between the club members and the non-members. Before a student is admitted to mem- bership, it must be assured beyond a doubt that he con- 60 WOODROW WILSON forms to a very exacting social standard, even in one or two instances partaking of hereditary qualifications. Many who fail of an election to a club, or to what they regard as an eligible club, K feel their college career is blighted, in that they are in some large measure de- barred from the fellowship of their more fortunate class- mates. Some have even felt that they must leave college in acute disappointment over their ill-success in this respect. The imperative necessity of " making a club " works downward upon the two younger classes. They must shun anything that would seem like catering to upper class club men to insure their election ; and they not unnaturally fall into small cliques bent upon demon- strating negatively by smug conformity to conventions their fitness for club membership. The whole system is divisive in its effects, breaking down wholesome sponta- neous mixture of all kinds of men in college, and con- fining men in large degree to the standards of their own small social set. It was Doctor Wilson's plan to reinvigorate intellec- tual interests by the close contact and stimulation of teachers living at close range and on terms of friendly intimacy with their students; and the artificial barriers erected by club conditions to a ready and complete association of all sorts and conditions of students, he had hoped to eradicate by assimilating the external conditions of college life and residence, so that these barriers created by the clubs might be removed. Dr. Wilson had hoped to institute a process which would not annihilate the clubs, but which would reorganize them on a basis of democracy, where all students might enjoy their advantages. This he proposed to do by annexing the clubs to the University which was to con- trol them and make their usefulness universal. Thus the AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 61 president's quadrangle system was designed to break down the lines of cleavage between those in the clubs and those on the outside. Each quadrangle was to fur- nish what the best club furnished, including the dormi- tories. The club houses were to be maintained in a comparatively economical way, under the administration of the University ; and each unit was to house and board about one hundred men of all four classes, with an admixture of the teaching force, in modest comfort but without luxury. When first presented to the Board of Trustees, this plan, which was a novel departure from tradition, seemed feasible, and it was voted to adopt it, with only one man dissenting. It seemed too good to be true that such an extraordinary change for the better should be brought about with such apparent ease ; but the friends of democ- racy rejoiced too soon, for the summer following the trustees' decision the university alumni clubs started strenuous opposition to the proposed reorganization, thus creating the first breach between Doctor Wilson and the Princeton authorities. Here he had to fight his first battle for the forces of democracy against " special privilege." But the odds were tremendously against him, although he had the support of a very large percentage of the faculty and of the bulk of the student body. The wealthy alumni brought so much pressure to bear upon the university board that in the fall of 1907 the trustees voted to request the president to withdraw the quad- rangle plan. Doctor Wilson withdrew it, but with keen reluctance, for he knew it meant the defeat of academic democracy and the triumph of class privilege. No longer could he entertain the hope that every student might breathe the air of democratic freedom within the Princeton domains. 62 WOODROW WILSON Doctor Wilson had not wanted to see his policy prevail because it was his; but rather because he wanted to see privileges equally distributed, which would give every man his best chance. With such an innate love of the people's rights, is it to be wondered at that this ideal Democrat went into politics? Would it not have been most inexplicable if he had resisted this irrepressible tendency to fight for popular government? The culminating difficulty in President Wilson's Prince- ton career came when the new Graduate School was to be erected. He wanted to substitute simplicity, economy, and efficiency in building, for architectural splendor and unnecessary magnificence. His idea was to develop pro- fessorships, create new chairs, found scholarships, build up opportunity, and provide the best training for citi- zenship. He advocated the use of money for making and developing men, instead of putting it into unnecessary purchases of bricks and mortar. In this plan, too, he was opposed; for the traditions of Princeton called for the most expensive buildings, with elaborate furnishings for the interior, and artistic exterior surfaces which bear no indication of economy. That the utmost extravagance prevailed in the construc- tion of the new Graduate School is proven by the author- ized statement that it represents an investment of seven thousand dollars per capita of students to be housed therein. This vast expenditure of funds for building seemed to Doctor Wilson inconsistent with a proper sense of proportion; for he is a prudent manager. He studied and audited the budget of the University with as much care and precision as a multi-millionaire would exercise in the management of a colossal enterprise. But it is hard to convince most plutocrats that a great por- AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 63 tion of surplus capital should be devoted to the general interests of humanity. They are more inclined to think that the bulk of it should be appropriated to the per- petuation of their own names and memories; then if there are any husks left they may be given to the masses, but even then generally with a string tied to them. Of course there were many members of the Million- aires' Club who poured funds generously into the coffers of Princeton, and this they did with worthy and com- mendable purposes, but, too often, with the proviso of dictating the objects for which their money should be used. But there were a few whom President Wilson had to disabuse of the idea that because they gave money they could dictate the academic policy of the University. It took courage to do this, but the Doctor has never lacked in this most essential element of honor. He po- litely assured some most estimable gentlemen that their privileges terminated with their specifications for the use of their donations for certain buildings, students' prizes, and class scholarships. Emphatically they could not give money to be used for educating people accord- ing to the personal ideas and ideals of the donors. Princeton must remain a free and independent institu- tion of learning, so long as Woodrow Wilson was its academic head. Professors must be allowed a free hand in their various departments, and the president and the faculty were to determine what standards should be established and how they were to be maintained. In other words there was no compromise with "special privilege" The social life might be governed ~by pluto- cracy; l^t the class-room worlc and instruction must be kept democratic. Even the most thoroughbred aristocrats on Princeton's board saw President Wilson's point of view, although 64 WOODROW WILSON they could not always think in his terms. They, at least, knew the man to be honest, fearless, and most efficient; and they were nearly all glad to retain him as the University's official head. But it is not surprising that the field of opportunity afforded by the office of college president in a university where conditions tended toward aristocracy did not en- able Doctor Wilson to exercise to the best advantage the numerous resources within himself; and that he was called to a place of distinction which corresponds better with the attainments and capabilities of the man. The one " who has been faithful over a few things " ought to go on being made " ruler over many." When Doctor Wilson resigned the presidency of Prince- ton, after he had accepted the gubernatorial nomination in 1910, he left behind him a record which gave him the rank of America's foremost living historian in that field which deals with the political and social develop- ment of the nation. Princeton, under his administra- tion, had grown more rapidly than ever before; and the retiring president left its affairs in a most prosperous and flourishing condition. He had proved himself a con- structive educator. Now he was about to prove himself a constructive statesman. The New York World in commenting upon Woodrow Wilson as a candidate for Governor of New Jersey, said : " Of all the candidates for any office in any State the man who has done the most to raise the political, moral, and intellectual level of the campaign is Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. Like Lincoln, Mr. Wilson has put the thoughts of a statesman into simple, homely, nervous speech, touched with humor, and convincing in earnest- ness. At a time when unbridled speech is sadly common he has been constant in courtesy, he has not shuffled, he While Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton University he politely assured some most estimable gentlemen that because they gave money to the institution, they could not dictate its academic policy. Here the good Doctor fought his first battles for Democracy. Never, for an instant, did he compromise with special privilege ! AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 65 has not evaded any issue. Not often in recent years has any American State had an opportunity of electing as Governor a man of such capacity and fitness. For New- Jersey not to secure Woodrow Wilson's services would not be a New Jersey misfortune merely, it would be a national misfortune." As Governor of our State he has measured up to and gone beyond the expectations of even his most ardent admirers. Dudley Field Malone in a recent speech, commenting upon the New York Sun's designation of Governor Wil- son as a " peripatetic philosopher," said, " If more of our ' peripatetic philosophers ' who gangrene in our universities would go out and work like Governor Wilson, it would be better for the country." As governor, we shall see that he has demonstrated a most remarkable capacity for translating himself from the world of author's politics to the practical institution itself, without the " loss of force or momentum." CHAPTER V KEEPING FAITH WITH THE PEOPLE " Woodrow Wilson stands before the people to-day as that rarest of phenomena, a public man who, elevated to office, faithfully keeps his pre-election promises. " When he indicated his willingness to resign the presidency of Princeton and lead his party as candidate for Governor of New Jersey he was looked upon as an interesting but mistaken gentlemen; when he appeared 'on the stump' in effective speeches and met the wiles of his opponents with political sagacity, he became a factor seriously to be considered; when he won the election, he took rank as a national character; and since he has put on the robes of office, he has displayed qualities that reveal his equipment for a part in public affairs for which no other man in the nation seems equally fitted." Quoted from COLONEL HENRY WATTERSON, in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Marse Henry said this, July 13, 1911. " We had a preliminary skirmish and the stranglehold was broken, and if ever I saw a happy, relieved, self-respecting body of gentlemen, it was those New Jersey legislators, freed of the stranglehold. We have got to break that stranglehold if we do it with sticks of dynamite." GOVERNOR WILSON after the Smith-Martine contest. IF ever there was a leader desirous of interpreting the popular will, Woodrow Wilson is one of that brand of leaders. He believes in the good sense of the American people. He has read history and he remembers it. " What are the best reasons for optimism in our political life?" I asked him. 66 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 67 " Why, the progress we are making," was his immediate reply. "One of the best indications is that society is looking itself over. The people are awake from East to West and North to South." In one of Governor Wilson's public addresses, he said : " I don't fear revolution. I don't fear it even if it comes. I have unshaken faith in the power of America to keep its self-possession. If revolution comes it will come in peaceful guise, as it came when we put aside the crude government of the confederation, and created the great Federal State, which governs individuals, and which has been these one hundred and thirty years our vehicle of progress. And revolution need not come. I don't believe for a minute that it will come. Some reconstruc- tions we must push forward, which a new age and new circumstances impose upon us, but we can do it all in calm and sober fashion like statesmen and patriots." And, it was " in calm and sober fashion," except when numerous sidesteppers attempted to violate their cam- paign pledges, that the 1911 session of the New Jersey Legislature did its work. Then these offenders were sum- moned to a conference with their preceptor, and shown the error of their ways. You see the preceptorial system can be used in a legislature as well as in a college. None of us outgrows the necessity for preceptors, even after we leave school. " It is a mistake for any one to think for a moment that I dragooned those men," the Governor said to me. " We worked together in a common cause." This was what I had heard over and over again, from assemblymen and senators, and nearly all of them, whom I interviewed, volunteered the information that keeping the faith would not have been possible except for the direction and guidance of a wise leadership. Like CaBsar, Woodrow Wilson personally encouraged every man to do 68 WOODROW WILSON his duty. He prodded every man to the limit of his energy. When mild methods did not produce the desired results, the Governor tried more effective means of discipline. When a sidestepper balked, Dr. Wilson applied the remedy. If a man is big enough to find it there is always a remedy for every weakness, in any situation which he may meet. I once knew a man who cured a balky horse, whose habit of balking had become second nature. He would even balk when it would have been easier to have done his work willingly. One day the owner of the horse held a bottle of ammonia under the animal's nose. This was five years ago, and he has never balked since. One conference with our statesman-governor was enough to cure a balky assemblyman or senator. The Governor continued: " You don't want the legislature bossed by the gov- ernor; of course not; but it can be arranged to give its members a chance to answer on the same platform with him. The great thing to be desired is debate; debate among authoritative persons as well as debate upon the stump, and the more thorough-going, the more fearless this debate is, the better." This kind of talk was the only weapon which Governor Wilson held over the heads of some of the machine men at Trenton, when they insisted upon inserting jokers in bills, or framing elastic legislation which should osten- sibly meet campaign pledges by giving to the people the skeleton of reform, but without the muscles and red blood to support it. It was through " daylight," and tireworks-at-night methods that the people were kept informed concerning affairs at the State Capitol in 1911. Not since George Washington spanked the Hessians has there been an historical event of such great importance AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 69 as the reform accomplished under Governor Wilson's leadership. When Nature casts a hero to play a part, she is gen- erous enough to prepare him for it. She gives him many rehearsals in private, where he can play to an imaginary audience, and then after she puts him upon a public stage it is only necessary for him to go behind the scenes at intervals, to strengthen his part by further study of himself and other men. But, in the end, it is not the elegance of the hero's paraphernalia, or the charm of his manner, or the sound of his voice, or even the combina- tion of these, which decides what the measure of his influence shall be. It is his sincerity which takes hold and commends him to immortality! Earnest conviction and clear vision added to sincerity insure the only true greatness, and the truly great man always keeps faith with those whom he represents. Some one has said that a leader is one who is going in the same direction with the people, but a little bit ahead, which only means that a leader must see farther than the average citizen; that a leader must stimulate the average person to look ahead with him. This course of action has characterized Governor Wilson's political record. Note w r hat he says of the average man : " You know that communities are not distinguished by exceptional men. They are distinguished by the aver- age of their citizenship. ... I often think of the poor man when he goes to vote: a moral unit, in his lonely dignity." " The deepest conviction and passion of my heart is that the common people, by which I mean all of us, are to be absolutely trusted. The peculiarity of some repre- sentatives, particularly of the Republican party, is that when they talk about the people, they obviously do not include themselves. Now if, when you think of the 70 WOODROW WILSON people, you are not thinking about yourself, then you do not belong in America. " When I look back at the processes of history, when I look back at the genesis of * America, I see this written over every page, that the nations are renewed from the bottom, not from the top; that the genius which springs up from the ranks of unknown men is the genius which renews the youth and energy of the people ; and in every age of the world, where you stop the courses of the blood from the roots, you injure the great, useful structure to the extent that atrophy, death, and decay are sure to ensue. That is the reason that an hereditary monarchy does not work; that is the reason that an hereditary aristocracy does not work, that is the reason that every- thing of that sort is full of corruption and ready to decay. " So I say that our challenge of to-day is to include in the partnership all those great bodies of unnamed men who are going to produce our future leaders and renew the future energies of America. And as I confess that, as I confess my belief in the common man, I know what I am saying. The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. The man who is in the melee knows what blows are being struck and what blood is being drawn. The man who is on the make is a judge of what is happening in America, not the man who has made; not the man who has emerged from the flood, not the man who is standing on the bank looking on, but the man who is struggling for his life and for the lives of those who are dearer to him than himself. That is the man whose judgment will tell you what is going on in America, and that is the man by whose judgment I for one wish to be guided so that as the tasks multiply and the days come when all will seem confusion and dismay, we may lift up our eyes to the hills out of these dark valleys where the crags of special privilege overshadow and darken our path, to where the sun gleams through the great passage in the broken cliffs, the sun of God, the sun meant to regenerate men, the sun meant to liberate them from their passion and despair and to lift us to those uplands which are the AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 71 promised land of every man who desires liberty and achievement." The Governor appealed to all the citizens when he was a candidate for office, and he held himself responsible to the people who elected him. During the discussion of the Direct Primary Bill, now a law, some one said to him that if it were enacted it would, in the end, crush the machine which nominated him. "True," said the Governor, "the machine nominated me, but fortunately it was the people who elected me." The interest of the whole people is his constant study. This may be said to be the key-note of his political conscience. " Government should not exist for the advantage and protection of a part of the people, but for the whole people," Dr. Wilson often said during his campaign. This was a reminder of duty which the Governor gave in his inaugural message to the Legislature: " Our business is to adjust right to right, interest to interest, and to systematize right and convenience; in- dividual rights and corporate privileges upon the single basis of the general good; the good of whole com- munities; the good which no one will look after or suffice to secure if the Legislature does not." When he was in training for the part he was to play, Dr. Wilson had said in an able article on " The States and the Federal Government," published in the North American Review in 1908 : " There are many evidences that we are losing confidence in our State Legislatures, and yet it is evident that it is through them that we attempt all the more intimate measures of self-govern- ment. To lose faith in them is to lose faith in our very system of government, and that is a very serious matter." 72 WOODROW WILSON And again: "It is the privilege of independent local opinion and individual conviction which has given speed, facility, vigor, and certainty to the processes of our economic and political growth." Governor Wilson's idea, then and now, consisted in this: that the faults of State governments are not due to the constitutional divisions of power between the States and the Nation, but to the loss of contact between the people and their legislatures, which contact has been lost through private management and organized selfish- ness, representative of political managers, who serve their own interests and the interest of those with whom they find it profitable to establish partnerships. There were two methods by which Governor Wilson proposed to restore contact between the people and the Legislature in New Jersey: one, by injecting publicity into legislative committees, heretofore labelled, " No ad- mittance " ; and the other, by turning the hose of public opinion on the Legislature through executive leadership. "Put up or shut up" (before quoted), and "Pitiless publicity " are the Governor's favorite slogans. There was nothing which gave the chief executive more pleasure during the last session of the Legislature than to sit for hours in conference with committees, framing legislation, or to meet the entire Assembly in the Supreme Court Chamber, where he persuaded them to pass the Direct Primary and Election bills. Here the Governor found his shorthand as useful as it used to be when he took notes in the class-room, or later when he served on faculty committees. Here he could use his gift of elo- quence as well as he did when lecturing before a class on Jurisprudence, or making a campaign speech. " Was it custom which kept you off the floor of the House and the Senate?" I inquired. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 73 " It was," and then the Governor made an explanation. " The whole country, since it cannot decipher the methods of its legislation, is clamoring for leadership ; and a new r61e, which to many persons seems little less than un- constitutional, is thrust upon our executives. The people are impatient of a President who will not formulate policy and insist upon its adoption. They are impatient of a* governor who will not exercise energetic leader- ship: who will not make his appeals directly to public opinion and insist that the dictates of public opinion be carried out in definite legal reforms, of his own suggestion. " It is considered something more than a breach of propriety for an executive to venture to dictate to the legislative branch of the government, and yet this scruple is undoubtedly based upon an ignorance of our actual constitutional" provisions. Almost every State constitu- tion not only gives the Governor what the Federal Con- stitution gives the President, the right to send messages to the legislature, expressing his views upon public mat- ters in any way he pleases, but also, like the Federal Constitution, gives him the right to recommend measures without naming or restricting the form in which his recommendation of measures shall be made. It seems perfectly clear that it is the explicit prerogative of prac- tically every American executive to recommend measures if he pleases in the form of bills. It is no presumption on his part, therefore, and no invasion of the rights of any other branch of government, if he presses his views in any form that he pleases, upon the law-making body." Once when Governor Wilson was accused of exceeding his constitutional rights on account of the pressure which he brought to bear on the Legislature, he simply read to his accuser this section of the New Jersey constitution : "The Governor shall communicate by message to the Legislature at the opening of each session, and at such other times as he may deem necessary, the condition of the State, and recommend such measures as he may deem expedient." 74 WOODROW WILSON And then the Governor said : " Inasmuch as it is next to impossible to determine who is running the legislature from the inside, there is an instinctive de- sire that there should be some force directing and leading it from the outside; some force which shall be obvious and therefore responsible, open to the view of everybody and subject only to the restraints of public opinion. Public opinion must by hook or crook get into the business. If it cannot get into it through committee-rooms, it may possibly get into it through executive leadership. If these things don't work the Initiative and Referendum will." " And that is exactly where some of your friends be- lieve that you are making a mistake in regard to the Initiative and Referendum," I interrupted. " No one proposes to substitute the Initiative and Referendum for our present methods of legislation, but everybody perceives that as legislation is now managed, public opinion cannot reach it. The Initiative and Referendum is a means of lodging in the people an in- strument of control, of which the legislators shall at all times be conscious. " My visit to Oregon and my observation at first hand of the direct legislation law there has not only convinced me of its success as a practical measure but also forced upon me the conclusion that it is a conservative rather than a radical force. The preparation necessary to the proper operation of the law induces calm reflection." " Will this not be an efficient means of safeguarding the editing of bills by reducing the number of loop-hole measures, whose authors will fear the use of the Initiative or the outcome of the Referendum ? " " I knew where a great many of the measures of the New Jersey Legislature originated until the last session. They were drawn up in the offices of certain corporation lawyers. That is where they were drawn up, almost in- variably, and these gentlemen objected to anybody else drawing them up. They objected to having an ordinary AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 75 citizen, not connected with a big corporation, assume to suggest a bill. "Nearly all bills are privately edited. When I was in Portland, The Oregonian announced that there were two legislatures in the State: one at Salem, and the other under W. S. U'Ren's hat (the originator of the Oregon system). The implication was that it was most undesirable to have a legislature under Mr. U'ren's hat. After this I remarked in an address before the Portland Commercial Club, that I would prefer legislation drafted under W. S. U'Ben's hat, or under any honest man's or fearless leader's hat, to laws drafted under God knows whose hat." " Speaking of leaders, do you not believe that the life of every leader impregnates the entire body politic; that a leader's influence reaches each of us whether we are conscious of it or not?" "Oh, it does," said the Governor, and this time he spoke most intensely. His manner and voice reflected the deep sincerity that lies in him. I then realized that the Governor was fully conscious of his responsibilities ; that he would never venture where he did not believe himself to be prepared to serve the people's interests; that he would always keep the faith. The words of the lips may deceive, the glances of the eye, or the gestures of the hand, but the essence of char- acter, the silent influence we radiate can never deceive. " Don't you believe that the bad examples of some of their leaders have made many of the French people super- ficial, and led them to esteem the froth more than the substance of things ? " I inquired. " The French have naturally an analytical strain. They are suspicious and they have reason to be, and so have we," and now the Governor spoke decidedly. 76 WOODROW WILSON I then told him a story of a high school boy who was asked this question : " If Thomas Carlyle were to write a Heroes and Hero Worship to-day, based on American political characters, what ories would he be most likely to choose? " The boy's answer was: " Benjamin Frank- lin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson." At this the Governor smiled modestly, and replied in a manner which indicated that the schoolboy's classifica- tion, so far as Woodrow Wilson was concerned, was only the result of youthful enthusiasm. (I believe that the youth will prove himself a prophet.) Will not a governor, who, from the very first, could discipline a New Jersey Legislature, and secure in one year more for the people of the State than had been secured in all the previous history of the commonwealth, deserve to be honored not only by the Hall of Fame, but to live in the memory of every true American, as long as the Republic shall stand? Notice, Woodrow Wilson, in every event of his career, has begun things right; observe carefully his first stroke in every new undertaking. There is no compromise, no bungling. He seems intuitively to know what is due the people. You see it had never been the custom of the old bi- partisan machine of New Jersey to concern itself about promises after election, but Governor Wilson took it upon himself to assist the citizens of the State to secure the legislation for which they had been vainly hoping for years. As the reform measures passed it was often remarked that some gentlemen who had previously dedicated their energies to the defeat of similar bills now expressed AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 77 pleasure in voting for them, but there were reasons why. Governor Wilson's straightforward campaign had awak- ened the people, and he kept up their interest. The com- paign before election was a tame affair compared with the recrudescence which followed. The New York Evening Post, in commenting upon the work of the New Jersey Legislature after the 1911 ses- sion, said: " Governor Wilson's tact and skill, his far-reaching knowledge of political conditions, and his undaunted courage, combined with a dogged insistence that the Legislature redeem its pledges; these things have re- sulted in writing into law in a remarkably short space of time the pledges of the Democratic platform. The bosses have been routed; there has been no suggestion of graft or corruption; no midnight orgies in low road- houses marked the wind-up of this session, and the legis- lation that has been enacted will attract attention all over the country because of its thorough-going character." The success of Governor Wilson in a machine-ridden State in inducing the Legislature to keep faith with the people, will constitute one of the most interesting and inspiring chapters in the history of American politics. Is it not safe to predict that, if elected President, he will do for the nation as much as he has already done for his own State? That the general reader may have an acquaintance with the merits of the Wilson programme, the following chapter is devoted to a review of the most important laws enacted in 1911. CHAPTER VI REFORM LEGISLATION " I earnestly commend to your careful consideration the laws in recent years adopted in the State of Oregon, whose effect has been to bring government back to the people and to protect it from the control of the representatives of selfish and special interests. They seem to me to point the direction which we must also take before we have completed our regeneration of a government which has suffered so seriously and so long as ours has here in New Jersey, from private management and organized selfishness. " It is not the foolish ardor of too sanguine or too radical reform that I urge upon you, but merely the tasks that are evident and pressing; the things we have knowledge and guid- ance enough to do and to do with confidence and energy. I merely point out the present business of progressive and ser- viceable government, the next stage on the journey of duty. The path is as inviting as it is plain. Shall we hesitate to tread it? I look forward with genuine pleasure to the prospect of being your comrade upon it." From GOVERNOR WILSON'S Inaugural Address. LEGISLATION in the general interests in New Jersey! The Oregon system! To bring government back to the people ! " Shall we hesitate to tread the plain path of duty? " and, " I am to be your comrade upon it! " Surely it required a long record of consistent deeds back of a governor who wrote such a message to insure his being taken seriously. A few years ago we would almost have questioned the sanity of an incoming gov- ernor who would have dared to propose such innovations. 78 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 79 And there was no misunderstanding that the new chief executive meant that the Legislature should get down to business at a Thomas-Edison rate of speed. After denouncing the State's laws in regard to the relations of employer and employee as inadequate and impossible, urging the passage of an adequate Public Utilities Bill, the necessity of extending and perfecting the Primary laws, the imperative need of ballot reform and honest election laws, the executive who came intro- duced as an untrained theorist, unacquainted with the game of politics casually remarked : " We have lagged behind our sister States in these important matters, and should make haste to avail ourselves of their example and their experience. Here again Oregon may be our guide. " This is a big programme, but it is a perfectly con- sistent programme, and a perfectly feasible programme, and one upon whose details it ought to be possible to agree even within the limits of a single legislative session." Whish! Whack! Bang! Clear the track! A "Twentieth- Century-Limited " programme for Trenton ! During his campaign the Governor had been talking about corpora- tions taking joy rides, and evidently he had made up his mind that to overtake some of these joy riders it is often necessary to take a joy ride ourselves. But Trenton is a little slow. It only supports one taxicab, No. 1122 N. J., and the first thing which one sees in a journey from the Pennsylvania Depot to the Capitol is a cemetery. Naturally, a six-cylinder ninety - horse-power type of governor was bound to attract some attention when he arrived. That the effect was local as well as State and nation-wide is proven by the adop- tion in Trenton of the Commission form of government, earnestly recommended by Governor Wilson. But to get back to his reforms and the qualities of 80 WOODROW WILSON his statesmanship which secured them. " I am accused of being a radical. If to seek to go to the root of things is a radical, a radical I am." And again, " Do you want to stand pat? Do you want to stand still? Do you want all the things that have been safeguarded against? Or do you want to do what is so characteristic of the American people, to turn bravely about ? " Governor Wilson is glad that he is not a standpatter. He says so. He wants twentieth-century tools for twentieth-century workmanship. The crude institutions of party conventions; the em- ployee's burden of fighting powerful, composite employers ; corrupt practices in elections ; and " toothless " public utilities commissions, belong to an age of cave-dwellers in whose habitations we may find to-day the same tools which we would now be using if all of our ancestors had been standpatters. The eradication of inefficient laws and the substitution of up-to-date reforms were the chief features of the Wilson programme, which gave to our State national prominence, in the rdle of progressiveness. And the re- form legislation was all accomplished in spite of the pressure brought to bear by the bi-partisan machines and their formidable lobbyists. It must be remembered that while the Assembly was Democratic, it contained many " trimmers," and the State Senate was Republican by three majority. " With cannon to right of them and cannon to left of them," the Governor, the Senate minor- ity leader, Harry V. Osborne, and the people's men in the Assembly, had a continual fight on their hands. But the Governor was the pilot, who saved " The Ship of State " from wreckage. Mr. Osborne edited a Public Utilities Bill. This meas- ure has been declared by many of the ablest lawyers in AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 81 the United States to be the most stringent in the Union. " It has," as the Governor says, " teeth in it." It gives the Public Utilities Board, appointed by the Governor, the power to investigate upon its own motion, or upon complaint of any one in writing, any public utility; grants the Board authority to fix rates, to enter the premises of any public utility, to test appliances, to exact safe, adequate, and proper service, to require a system of accounts and annual reports kept in such form as the Board may prescribe; to determine whether in- creases of rates are reasonable, and to suspend the same where unjust, with the burden of proof to show that the increases are reasonable to lie wholly upon the public untilities corporation making the same. No pub- lic utility can make any unjust discrimination or prefer- ential rate, extend its indebtedness, or issue stocks or bonds payable in more than one year from date, without the consent of the Board ; nor can it sell, lease, or mort- gage, dispose of or encumber its property, without the approval of the Board; nor transfer its stock to other companies. The Board may order and direct proper pro- tection at grade crossings. It may refuse to make valid privileges or franchises granted to any public utility by any political subdivision of the State, where such privi- leges are not in the State's interest The Board makes its own rules for hearings, may compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of records, may exact any testimony, even though it incriminate witnesses. Failure to comply with any order of the Public Utilities Board makes the offenders subject to a fine of $100 per day; and observance of the orders of the Board may be enforced by mandamus or injunction, or by suit in equity. The misdemeanor clause of the law is as strong as an eight-ply Manila rope, and when the bill was in progress, 82 WOODROW WILSON the corporations kept a vigilance committee installed night and day in Trenton, seeking the elimination of this feature, in particular; but for once their efforts were in vain. Under the law, any person or public utility corpora- tion which shall perform or assist in performing any act prohibited by the law, or any public utilities corpora- tion which shall fail or neglect to perform its duties, as required by the act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. If any provision of the law is finally declared uncon- stitutional, no other provision is to be affected by the Court's decision. Although the present law has only been in force since May 1, 1911, several reprehensible evils of public ser- vice corporations have been corrected, and indications are that the interests of the people, as well as those of the corporations, will ultimately be conserved and insured. Here are some of the most important things which the Commission has done. A ruling has already been made which extends the street-car transfer privileges in Newark, where 350,000 people are benefited. The Adams Express Company has been compelled to extend its de- livery service free to the Hill Crest section of Trenton, where it had formerly extorted excessive charges from the residents of that locality. The Consolidated Gas Company has been required to reduce its rates for gas and electricity in sixteen communities. In Newark the Public Service Railway Company attempted to abolish school children's commutation tickets. The Public Util- ities Board ordered these tickets restored and the Public Service Company secured a court review, by certiorari, with the result that the Supreme Court sustained the action of the Board. The tickets are again in force. New Jersey AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 83 commuters appealed to the Commission to secure a reduc- tion of railroad rates between Jersey points and New York. Since this was a matter coming under the juris- diction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, our State Commission urged the claims of the commuters before that body, with the result that a reduction of rate schedules was ordered. Heretofore, the railroads have refused to sell commu- tation and special-rate tickets from places within the State to Jersey City and Hoboken. They have only recognized New York as a terminal point. Our Utilities Board has ordered that tickets must be sold to those commuters thus discriminated against. The Commission has made an order that corporations which receive certificates of approval for issuing securi- ties must make half-year reports of the amount of stock or securities issued, sold, and delivered, and the extent to and the purposes for which the proceeds have been disbursed. This is, of course, to prevent stock-watering. A rule has been established which makes it mandatory that corporations operating under limited franchises shall continue to give safe and adequate service after the ex- piration of the terms of the franchises. Before ratifying a franchise the Commission may impose conditions which shall insure the permanent efficiency of a corporation's service. The Board has forced a telephone company to give adequate service upon demand. It has ordered better protection at grade crossings, and has refused to approve the building of new grade crossings, where public safety threatened to be endangered. It has compelled the build- ing of elevators in a large tunnel-station. It has ordered a reduction of Pullman rates to seashore points. It has required a railroad company to restore a bridge illegally 84 WOODROW WILSON removed. It has enforced rules for safeguarding traffic on railroads and trolley lines. In the interest of the corporations, and in justice to them, it has refused in one case to approve a franchise of an independent gas company, where competition would have been wasteful and expensive. It has refused to order the Pennsylvania Kailroad to build a station, at a place on its New York tunnel line, where such a building would have meant great expense to the company, and serious interference with its through passenger traffic. More discipline of the corporations is on the way as soon as the Board can complete its data, where investiga- tions are being conducted. The Employers' Liability Laws of New Jersey were obsolete relics of past years handed down from a time when machinery was unknown. Our present law places the responsibility of looking after the injured on the employer, thus properly charging the expense against the cost of production, the same as any other expense, instead of having the injured depend on charity. In the last analysis the consumer will and should bear such burdens. The new law makes provision for the equitable distribu- tion of the money which heretofore has been wasted in litigation. It may be operated under one of two sections. The first provides that the amount of liability for accidents shall be determined by suit in court, if the employer or employee shall so elect. But in case of suit, the old " fellow-servant " and " contributory negligence " clauses are eliminated. The second section provides for definite compensation for all injuries sustained by employees in course of their employment. Recognizing that workmen's compensation means in- dustrial peace and employers' liability industrial war, AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 85 the Public Service and some other large corporations have already made preparations for operating under the second section of the law, with the cheerful consent of those in their employ. Our former Direct Primary Law only provided for the nomination of municipal officers, assemblymen and senators, by the people. Now it has been extended to every elective office, including the governor, congress- men, members of the county and state committees, and delegates to the national conventions. The State conventions of both parties are held at the same time, one week after the primaries. Instead of being composed of delegates, selected by no one knows whom, they are made up simply of the candidates named in the primaries. Those nominated for senators and assemblymen, with the hold-over senators of each party constitute the members of each convention. The gov- ernor is a member of the convention of his own party. By this plan the number of delegates in each of our state conventions is cut down from nearly one thousand to less than eighty. Presidential Preference primaries are provided. New Jersey is the only Eastern State which has this kind of primary. Candidates for the Legislature must file with the County Clerk one of two statements: either that the candidate will vote for that nominee for the United States Senate who receives the highest number of votes in the candi- date's party in the primary preceding the election of a United States Senator; or that he shall consider the vote of the people for United States Senator as a recom- mendation, which as a member of the Legislature he may disregard, if he sees sufficient reason for so doing. Personal registration is required in municipalities con- 86 WOODROW WILSON taining more than five thousand people. No one is al- lowed to vote at the primary until he registers for the general election. Registration involves the answering of a series of questions by 'the voter regarding his iden- tity. Voters who can write must sign their statements. If a voter cannot write he must make a further identifica- tion statement in lieu of his signature. The sample primary ballots are mailed to each voter, but these bal- lots cannot be voted. Ballots to be voted at the primaries are given to the citizens at the primary polling places on primary day by the election officers. None of these ballots is allowed outside the polling places. The same process is used in regard to the distribution of ballots before and at the general election. On elec- tion day the voter must sign his name on the poll-book that it may be compared with the signature on the registration book. He must sign before he receives a ballot. Illiterate voters, who cannot write, must here make answers to questions concerning their identity and the answers are compared with those which were made when they registered. At the primaries there are separate ballots for each party. At the general election the single or blanket ballot is used. Party emblems are abolished. The voter votes for individual candidates whose names appear in alphabetic order, with the party to which each belongs indicated by its name, at the right. He must vote a ballot, not a ticket. The new Election Law is strongly reinforced by the Corrupt Practices Act. All committees designated by candidates to carry on their campaigns are required to file itemized statements showing every receipt and ex- penditure, and each candidate must file a sworn state- ment of his personal contributions. There is also a limit AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 87 to the amount which candidates may spend, in seeking nomination and election. This varies according to the salary paid by the office. Any candidate who fails to comply with this feature of the law must forfeit the office to which he shall be elected. All campaign literature must bear the inscription of the writer's name. No money may be spent for trans- porting voters to the polls, unless they are physically unable to go, in which case the expense is paid by the county. There are various specific acts designated which con- stitute violations of the law. Candidates are protected from solicitations of private individuals for churches, clubs, charitable institutions, and other organizations. Corporation contributions in any form are positively for- bidden. Pay envelopes must not bear political inscrip- tions. No political hand-bills containing threats or coercive statements can be posted in factories under penalty of forfeiture of the charters possessed by the corporations guilty of such misdemeanor. Any person violating this provision is also guilty of a misdemeanor. The secrecy of the ballot is strongly safeguarded. The records of corruption in the conduct of elections in this State in previous years have been most disgraceful and extraordinary. Accordingly, the new law makes fraud- ulent voting and ballot-box stuffing practically impossible. The destruction of records in the recent Atlantic County election frauds, where Judge Samuel Kalisch, appointed by Governor Wilson, the first Hebrew, in the State, ever elevated to the Supreme Court Bench, so ad- mirably applied the law to the offenders, led to most stringent legislation for the punishment of such notori- ous lawbreakers in future. Altogether, with these measures of protection we are pretty well intrenched 88 WOODROW WILSON against repeaters and election crooks of all classes. Al- ready it has been discovered in carrying over the primary registry lists from 1910 that thousands of voters, who resided on vacant lots at that time, have moved away, evidently because they did not like the new election laws; or possibly because New Jersey winters are get- ting colder. Wagon-loads of sample ballots mailed to "spook" voters have been returned to the post-offices. " One thing is sure," as the governor says, " only flesh- and-blood men will vote in this State, in future." Another step forward in progressive legislation was taken by the enactment of a statute which gives cities and municipalities of the State the privilege of adopting the commission form of government, under what was known originally as the " Galveston Plan," which provides for the complete abandonment of nomination of candidates for office by political parties, the abolition of ward bound- ary lines, the merging of the legislative and the executive functions in a commission, the right of the recall of elective officers, and the initiative and referendum. Add to this list of reforms the regulation of cold- storage, the substitution of indeterminate sentences for criminal offences, the rectification of abuses in connec- tion with false weights and measures, the reorganization of the State's school system, the abolition of contract labor in our penal institutions, the legislation in the interest of the blind, the regulation of the age, employ- ment, safety, health, and work-hours of persons employed in mercantile establishments, an act for the safeguard- ing of business buildings against fire; a law compelling all railroad corporations to pay their employees twice monthly, and a law extending the civil service to em- ployees of the State, counties, and municipalities, and we have one of the most remarkable records of legislation AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 89 that has ever distinguished a single legislative session in this country. Was not New Jersey really the first of the three East- ern States " to get out of the hole " ? Did not J. Lincoln Steffens's prophecy come true ? CHAPTER VII ELEVATION OF THE TONE OF PUBLIC OFFICE " No Democrat of modern times has come into the running, Samuel J. Tilden alone excepted, with half at once of the equip- ment and the claim of the eminent Governor of New Jersey. He may be fairly described as the intellectual, not to say the moral, light of the Democracy of the new day, which is dawn- ing upon us. It was Tilden, another Wallenstein, who assembled the broken forces into the desolate camps of Democracy, after the ruinous campaign of 1872. If we are to have a recrudes- cence and not a mere revival, it will come at the hands of Woodrow Wilson. It will not be possible at the hands of some nondescript crossing the dead line of the two thirds rule at the end of self-seeking dicker and barter. These have far too often discredited the national conventions of both our parties. Let us hope they will not cheat Democracy in 1912 of an actual leader and a great victory." Quoted from COLONEL HENRY WATTERSON, in the Louisville Courier Journal, October 3, 1911. This is what the Colonel thought before the now famous Harvey- Wilson-Watterson rumpus. " You will never elevate the tone of public office until the people evince more interest in the tone of their public officers." HARRY V. OSBORNE. How are we going to elevate the tone of public office to correspond with the increasing dignity and power of the State and the Nation? A question which has puzzled and perplexed us for some time) and to which there can be "but one answer. We must exercise greater care in the choice of public officials. We must seek executives 90 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 91 gifted not only ivith a capacity for leadership, lut who have an immaculate conception of duty and public trust. Obviously, if we can induce such men to become political leaders, our legislators will give us better service because of the stimulus which the executive gives to them through intimate contact. And this does not mean the influence of a dominating personality, as some would make us believe. It means that executives may establish stand- ards in public life which shall call forth the very best energies of officials. Do you know, after all, what is the greatest service which Governor Wilson has rendered to the people of New Jersey? Let us see. He met the professional time- worn politicians of the State on much higher ground than they anticipated, and many of them were gradually, almost unconsciously, elevated to the Governor's world of idealism, the principles of which he has proven may be applied to practical affairs. The secret of his leadership does not lie in his ability to bring men under the control of his irresistible influence, but rather in the purity of his moral vision, and he seems utterly unconscious of the fact that his purposes and ideals are in such decided contrast with the seasoned timbers in politics. If we may venture an opinion thus early, we believe that when historians pass their final judgment upon Woodrow Wilson they will say : Here was a man whose invigorating statesmanship took such a hold of the gen- eration in which he lived that that generation was re- vivified; liberty asseverated; representative government restored; men made free; and public officials reinspired with a new consciousness of responsibility. Mr. Wilson bears the distinction of being the first governor to insist that it is the duty of the State executive to keep the constituents of State legislators 92 WOODROW WILSON informed as to the official conduct of their representa- tives. His action is entirely consistent, for he told the people, over and over again, when he was a candidate for office, that he would, if Delected, return to them with a full account of his stewardship; and that at the same time he would report to them concerning the records of the members of the Legislature. " A schoolmaster for governor " was a jest in his cam- paign. Dr. Wilson took this good-naturedly, and said, " Yes, and a schoolmaster is one who is trained to find out all that he can and then tell it as plainly as he can," and ever since his election to office, he has been " finding out things " and " telling things." " This is not a campaign meeting. It is a conference of fellow-citizens," the Governor said, when he came back to the people to fulfil his promises to instruct them concerning what happened at Trenton last winter. In these conferences he aimed " to reconnect our system of government where necessary with the real movement of public opinion." What we needed for a long time in New Jersey was an executive who would wake us up with an alarm-clock ; not the kind that makes a little noise like a toy whistle and lets you go back to sleep again, but one that sounds like a fire alarm. Before Woodrow Wilson arrived on the scene our governors had been of the cuckoo-clock type: soothing to the nerves, and not at all inclined to disturb our slumbers. Of course in a State where for so long we had used only tallow candles with which to inspect public affairs, naturally when incandescent lights were turned on some people objected and exclaimed : " What manner of man is this who comes to us with new customs and devices, of which we know not? What is to become of represen- AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 93 tative government if we take such strides towards democracy ? " The Governor answered : " We are told now that all of the new programmes are assaults upon representative government, and we have heard recently some very eloquent tributes to represen- tative government. I am entirely willing to join in those tributes, provided we can get it, but recently we have not had it, and therefore I am just about as much interested in eulogies on representative government in the United States, as I would be in eulogies on the enjoyable life in the planet of Mars. " It is very beautiful in theory, but does it work? Are the interests that you have been living under in New Jersey, the institutions that you had prior to last winter, were they representative of you? Did you get the things that you voted for? Were the promises of the platforms fulfilled for you? You know what happened." From this it will be seen that Governor Wilson is deeply aroused by the failure of representative government to represent. Some have said that perhaps he assumes too much responsibility in his desire to make over represen- tative institutions. But evidently the creators of our constitutions in- tended that the executive should make it his business to discover the needs of the people, minister to them, and assume the chief burden of responsibility. Those who look upon executive interference as an unauthorized departure from established precedents, have apparently misread both the State and the Federal constitutions. Is it not possible that we are learning to make better use of the privileges already conferred by the Constitution, and that according to the most natural laws of progress we are becoming more constitutional instead of less so, as some alarmists fear? Certainly the object of those 94 WOODROW WILSON who constructed our constitutions was to give us free government, and it was left to the generations after to develop the best processes of applying the principles of the Constitution so as to insure the highest degree of freedom consistent with the interests of each decade. We may prudently take pattern in some things from a nation which existed long before us, and which was onr first teacher. At the Governors' Conference at Spring Lake, New Jersey, Governor Wilson in referring to the leadership of executives, said : " One of the most interesting governments in the world and a government that is the most free government, except our own, is based upon this very principle. The exec- utive of Great Britain undertakes to formulate prac- tically all of the legislation of the Kingdom. When the Legislature refuses to follow it, Parliament is dissolved, the executive goes to the people and says, ' Will you send us men who will follow us, or will you not?' The consequence is that Great Britain is the strongest gov- ernment in the world. Not only that; it is the most direct democracy in the world." This suggests the advantage of giving to our executives the support which they need. And if we are to trust them to exercise a broader influence, we shall have to take on more responsibility ourselves, and seek dili- gently for able men. " Certainly it is a fearful business, that of having your able man to seek and not knowing in what manner to proceed about it. That is the world's sad predicament," exclaimed Carlyle. But as our familiarity with public affairs increases, we shall not find it so difficult to discover our able men. We shall learn to think in the terms of our wisest leaders, even though we cannot keep step with them. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 95 But in our desire to be loyal to our executives we must not lose sight of our obligations to our legislators. Gov- ernor Wilson has pointed out the dangers of placing our lawmakers under temptation. " You know, very much to our discredit, that we pay members of the Legislature in New Jersey only $500 a year. No man for f 500 a year, without some indepen- dent means, can afford to represent you. And to pay them but $500 a year is to put them under direct tempta- tion. I don't mean temptation to take money, but a temptation to be acquiescent on the side where business interests are involved. Now some members of the Legis- lature are employees of large business concerns. These business concerns put the screws on those men whenever there is any danger of any pending legislation being against their interests. "I remember a member of the New Jersey Legislature who was honest and who desired to do the right thing. He had a small business. The long session of the Legis- lature drew so heavily upon his business that it lan- guished and when the session neared its end he was near bankruptcy. This man had notes in the bank and we found that certain interests were forcing payment and would not let up unless he voted for a certain man for United States Senator. Had it not been for the * indis- creet ' acts of men like myself, that man would have become a bankrupt or have voted for the big interests. Happily we made it public and he was cared for. " The representatives of big business had said to this man, ' Don't you see that our direct interest is in the present schedules of the tariff? Don't you see that it is imperative that we should have the right man to represent us in the United States Senate, to see that the tariff is not too freely tampered with? Do you expect us to retain you in our service or to pay you the same salary if you act contrary to our interests, as if you act in accordance with our interests?" 1 Of course bribery is the crudest form of political 96 WOODROW WILSON knavery. It is not the weapon most commonly used to insure the servility of legislators. Refusal of credit, efforts to ruin a man's business, through rumors both slanderous and libellous, and threats to check the careers of young men in politics, are the chief means by which political bosses seek to coerce free men. In spite of the pressure which big business brings to bear on politics, the situation does not admit of a general indictment of even the majority of public officials in the past. And it certainly is only just to say that a large number of the present incumbents of office measure up to their responsibilities. Some are in the process of awak- ening. A few are still numbered among those who " stand pat," because they honestly believe it is best for all, and still fewer are knowingly following the constel- lation of selfish interests, that they may gain a cluster of stars with which to adorn their crowns in this world, since they are quite confident that they will have to do without either stars or crowns in the next. It seems to be a natural law that the people can rise no higher than the fountain source of a body politic will permit. Fortunately in republics we can alter both the fountain source and the main current in political life. The difficulty lies in that it is not always possible to choose the right fountain source, or to place in power the main current which will carry out the people's will. Some main currents consume so much of the energies and substance of their branches that there is a flood, characterized in practical politics as an overflow of com- mercial prosperity, but which upon examination proves to be only a superfluous concentration of power and privi- lege, to which the masses have contributed their best energies, to be consumed by a few who flatter themselves AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 97 that they have created marvellous opportunities for the many; and that the latter should be honored by the privilege of serving their bountiful benefactors. Still other main currents take from their tributaries a legiti- mate force with which to propel their motions, but they give back to their feeders, through other channels, any surplus nutriment instead of consuming it in needless surfeit and waste. But no political current can dis- charge its functions with efficiency, unless the fountain source stimulates it with force and energy. And in New Jersey we needed all the stimulation that we have yet received, and " For that which we are about to receive make us truly thankful." We have not by any means reached a political millennium in this State, but there are hopes that we shall, at least, reach salva- tion. We have cleaned up some of the underbrush and removed part of the quagmire underlying our political life. The writer heard an old-time standpatter ex- aggerate the situation by saying : " What does this re- form mean? We cannot even hand one of our friends a match with which to light his cigar at election time without danger of being arrested for bribery." The reader may by this time have a suspicion that this chapter is a sequel to a few discoveries that were made by the author while collecting material for this story, and that the reader may not suspect me of leaving more in the ink-pot than I have told about New Jersey politics and politicians, here are some facts which helped to elucidate my remarks on elevating the tone of public office. An ex-Governor told me of a State official, high in rank, who on the day before his retirement from office supplied himself with fifty dollars' worth of postage stamps, charged to the State. When his successor 98 WOODROW WILSON arrived there was not a postage stamp to be found, which is only an illustration that proves that all petty thieves are not arraigned in Police Court. At another time, some years ago, when capital of sixty thousand dollars had been provided for suppress- ing a piece of legislation in the people's interest, it happened that the corporations which furnished the money were afraid to trust the legislators, and that in turn the members of the Legislature were afraid to trust the corporations. It was the old story of " the pot calling the kettle black," but finally a lobbyist was found in whom both sides had confidence. Accordingly he held the stakes. " But the best-laid plans of mice and men," you know, and this time the Fates intercepted men's plans most unkindly. The lobbyist dropped dead; the sixty thousand dollars became a part of his estate; and his widow now enjoys the income from it. Such disclosures help us to realize that frequently the wires have been cut between the people and their officials. Some legitimate wire-tapping can be done to advantage; and a few underground cables will help to establish direct communication between the American people and their representatives. But, in the end, the statesman, not the muck-raker, lifts us out of the rut. The latter gives his mite; the former touches the body politic at every point. The statesman of the day furnishes steam and a derrick so strong that it will raise dead weights. He has arrived. 1 1 Probably the Short-Ballot will prove to be one of the most effective agencies for increasing the efficiency of public officers. This form of ballot can only be secured through granting to Executives the authority to appoint more officers; and by making more appointive offices subject to the Civil Service. CHAPTER VIII THE REACTION ON THE BODY POLITIC " Fools stare and wise men see." EDWIN BJORKMAN. " Who can touch politics and keep his hands clean? Woodrow Wilson." RABBI WISE. SCENES of rousing cheers! Crowded halls! Argus- eyed audiences! Hopeful faces! Banks of palms and flowers! Groups of newspaper correspondents! And in the centre of a platform on which are seated many think- ing men, stands the Governor of New Jersey. Thou- sands of listeners are eager for his message. Where? In Oregon. In Washington. In Colorado. In Cali- fornia. In Kentucky. In New Mexico. In Texas. In Wisconsin. In Michigan. In Pennsylvania. In Mary- land. In Virginia. In New York. In New England. In every place which he has visited. The Nation has spoken to New Jersey where the Demo- cratic party is rent asunder by the wrath and fury of a boss whose power has been crushed by a fearless gov- ernor. The voice of the people has said: Truly a good thing has come out of the land of mosquitoes and Naza- renes! The Nation is big enough to welcome a master statesman no matter where he may hail from. It is becoming more evident every day that the political machines do not want Woodrow Wilson for President, but the independent voters do. Why did the New Jersey Assembly swing back? Because there was a fusion of 99 100 WOODROW WILSON the bi -partisan (" buy -partisan ") machine forces of the State, which seek to check the political fortunes of Governor Wilson, and because the political machines are on the job doing business at the old stand every day in the year, and the people are not. Then there are still those among us who sing, " As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," but there are also those who sing, " As it was in the beginning, and is now, but, e by gum,' it has got to stop." And the Governor of New Jersey sings the latter song with as much zest now as he did before our last State election. Every one must have known what would happen. There was Essex, normally a Republican stronghold and the home " of that profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us " ; those lonely and isolated gentlemen who before Woodrow Wilson's time were known as the sunniest of Sunny Jims; whose smiles cast such a radiance over the com- munity that for many years we dispensed with all other light. Humiliated by their disappointment in not being able to control Governor Wilson and the last Legislature, only one course of action was open to them. Revenge, sweet, delicious revenge! Revenge at any price! Split the Democratic party! Mark Wilson and his colleagues for slaughter ! were the orders which were repeated from lip to lip in the camps of the bosses. And it worked. A trade was made. The influence wielded by the Smith- Nugent gang lent itself to the Republican machine. The Democratic Essex organization worked for the election of Republican members to the Legislature in exchange for Republican votes for a machine Democrat for the high and mighty office of sheriff. Twelve Republican assem- blymen and a Republican senator from Essex were elected. This was the pivotal county of the State, and AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 101 if it had gone Democratic, the Legislature would have been saved for Democracy. It was the only county in the State where the Governor did not speak during the campaign. Why? Because the Democrats presented a machine ticket, including nominees who had broken faith with the people during the 1911 session of the Legisla- ture. There was only one Essex Democrat named whom the Governor could conscientiously support. This was Senator Harry V. Osborne, who had a record for pro- gressive legislation " clear as crystal." Governor Wilson issued a public letter in Mr. Osborne's behalf, but the machines combined and knifed him in the organization districts. In spite of this he ran way ahead of his ticket. In delivering the Legislature to the Republicans the Smith-Nugent machine now has, ostensibly, no represen- tative in that body. Had Governor Wilson been willing to sacrifice principles for party solidarity he might have secured a Democratic Legislature. But, you say, would it not have been possible for the Democrats of New Jersey to have carried the Legislature without Essex? Hardly. The State under normal con- ditions has been Republican. Both party machines are anti- Wilson and they did their fighting in the dark, while the Governor fought in the open. The Smith machine maintains an organization in every county in the State. Every candidate who supported Governor Wilson, or who was backed by the Governor's friends, was bitterly op- posed by Smith's machine. The progressive elements of the two chief parties have not yet come together in the open and galvanized their resources into life. A well-organized minority easily overcomes a scattered majority, and it generally follows everywhere that a period of radical legislation results in the temporary re- turn of the former minority party to power. As it is, the 102 WOODROW WILSON New Jersey Assembly now has thirty-seven Republicans and twenty-three Democrats, while the Senate stands eleven Republicans and ten Democrats. Outside Essex the Democrats gained one senator and a few assemblymen. There was no candidate for a State office running this year. Popular sentiment is easily determined by com- piling the votes cast for the candidates for the Assembly, who run in each county every year. The final returns on file in the office of the Secretary of State show that New Jersey went Democratic in 1911 by a plurality of 3100. Governor Wilson's enemies began to plan a political post-mortem for him as soon as the returns of the last election came in, but indications are that he will prove himself the liveliest corpse which the political machines will encounter. The men who have been faking under cover of the Democratic party for years ought not to be able in the last analysis to handicap a man who leaves it entirely to the people to decide whether he is to be their choice for the highest office which the nation can bestow. If Wilson wins it will be because the people want him and because the machines do not. Governor Wilson has injected new life into the dry bones of politics. The machines cannot undo the work already accomplished by him, nor deprive him of the glory of his past achievements. He stands on the hori- zon of political life " like Mars at perihelion." Whether the Legislature is Republican or Democratic the question always before him is, " How are we to re- sume popular government? " Because Woodrow Wilson is Governor of New Jersey the pledges made in both party platforms this year were distinctly progressive, and there is an executive in Tren- ton who has a back-bone instead of a wish-bone, a back- AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 103 bone like a circus-pole, and who will insist that promises to the people must be kept. The partisan complexion of the Legislature is of far less importance to him than its being composed of men who are willing to co-operate with him in securing " reforms planned in the interest of the whole State," which, to use his own phrase, " We are all sworn to serve." The members of the Legisla- ture of New Jersey, in future, will be obligated more than ever before to carry out their platform pledges, because every member of the majority party in the Legislature is a member of the State convention of his party when the platform is adopted. He takes part in the discussions and deliberations of the convention and helps to form its decisions on every feature it contains. Thus an unheard of precedent is established. Volumes might be written on the invigorating local reaction of Governor Wilson's political influence. It was said that "Alexander Hamilton touched the corpse of public credit and it sprang upon its feet." Woodrow Wilson touched the ghost of representative government, and it promises to materialize as a living force destined to insure the permanency of our Eepublic. Let us not be unmindful of the warnings of a states- man who is disturbed by the dangers and pitfalls incident to an era, when, in numerous instances, representative government has failed to represent. We are still a young nation, and it behooves us to remember history. Repub- lics and democracies have flourished, then declined, become oligarchies, and perished from the earth. We quote editorially from the Newark Evening News: " Give it time and with political machinery as it now is the oligarchy knows that it will be able to pervert our utility commissions, our tariff boards, and all other machinery of government to its will, precisely as it per- 104 WOODROW WILSON verted the devices of government our forefathers pro- vided. It hopes to fasten itself firmly in the dictatorship of financial bonds, by the interlocking system of credit. It can see far enough to., its desire, the time when its will will be unchallenged in America. " ' After us the deluge,' they think, if they think of these things at all. They only know that representative government means the end of their selfish rule of to-day. Because Woodrow Wilson is the foremost champion of representative government he must be downed at all costs. That done the future can take care of itself. " The ' interest ' publications can be as malicious as they please. Their press associations leave out con- venient words or paragraphs, and circulate misrepresen- tations as they will, but the truth is seething underneath them. " The issue is representative government or eventually something really radical. The blind see only that Wilson is the champion of political freedom, like enlightened nations such as Canada and England enjoy. For that he is to be defeated at all costs. " Beyond to-day they do not see to-morrow ! " But there are those who do see and who will lead others to see. James T. Lloyd, chairman of the Demo- cratic Congressional Committee, has given out this statement : " When the people of the United States learn that the New Jersey Legislature is Republican because of James Smith, Jr., who was defeated for election to the United States Senate by the Legislature last winter, I doubt that it will result in injury to Governor Wilson. Many people believe that ex-Senator Smith represents every- thing that is bad in politics, and if so, his delivery of New Jersey to the Republicans would tend to strengthen Governor Wilson with the people rather than to weaken him." The New York Evening Post says : " It would certainly AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 105 be a queer reason for opposing Wilson as a candidate for the Presidency to allege that he had suffered locally from the vengeance of a boss whose power he had defied and broken." And just take notice that Woodrow Wilson has never been jumped off the checker-board as he was about to enter the king-row. The psychological moment meets him more than half-way, and when Opportunity knocks at his door he is up and dressed. CHAPTER IX THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE MAN The present time presents the grave problem of distributing the fruits of labor and capital, so as to insure the greatest good to the greatest number, without impairing the structure of a government based on freedom, established, vouched for, and guaranteed by our Constitution. A work of regeneration must be accomplished without destroying existing institutions. How shall it be done? How can it be done? Through the ballot- box. Yes, but there is a power above the ballot-box; a power wielded by the statesman who is not self-centred, who is not clambering by means of every effort to reach some high place, but, who, forgetful of himself, has been content to devote his energies to elevating the standards of American citizenship, first, as a teacher, who must take rank as one of the foremost educators of the present century; second, as a writer, whose contributions to literature and history are sure to be an im- perishable legacy bequeathed to future generations; third, as Governor of a State which, for years, has been waiting for an executive who could and would deliver it from political oligarchy. Woodrow Wilson's message is " Reform abuses, and teach the people to release their energies intelligently, that peace, justice, and prosperity may reign." Shall we heed the voice which has brought an invigorating tonic into our political life, or shall we decline to listen? Men say that we must meet present day issues; that we must restore competition, or else face State Socialism; that we must, in some way, bridge over the chasm which exists between special privilege and the people. Can it be done? We are hopeful. If Providence could spare a Washington until representative government became established; if Providence could spare a Jef- 106 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 107 ferson until Democracy became a living issue; if Providence could spare a Lincoln until the preservation of the Union was assured; then Heaven, we hope, can spare another man until the gates of Opportunity open wide, and the Goddess of Liberty, standing at the entrance, exclaims: Peace be with you. The AUTHOR. Some one has said: " The stock-argument of the Republican party is still that it freed the slaves, about forty-five years ago. It did; but how many slaves has it ever freed since?" When I mentioned to the Governor that I proposed to tell the story of " New Jersey Made Over," and that I intended to label one chapter "The Time, the Place, and the Man," he protested. " Won't you call it, ' The Time, the Place, and the Men,' in order to give the splendid men in the Legislature, who stood by me, credit? To be just? And to encourage? I believe you should do this." But the altruistic Governor, who is inclined to give too much credit to the Legislature, did not understand that I intended to develop my story in relationship to the Nation. " Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds; Reason and Government, like two broad seas, Yearn for each other with outstretched arms, And roll their white surf higher every day. The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change." LOWELL. WHAT proves that the time is ripe? A general dis- satisfaction which indicates a progressive and construc- tive sentiment; that which seeks to build, rather than to destroy. The presence of this sentiment is a healthy indication. The discontent is of a wholesome nature. There are still many reasons why we should remain optimists at this period of the twentieth century. We 108 WOODROW WILSON have had more than one hundred and twenty years of what seems successful national existence; we have a universal system of popular education, and, without doubt, our inherited reverence for free institutions has inoculated us with strong progressive tendencies. But we must not magnify the excellencies of our gov- ernment and overlook its defects. There are still grave problems remaining unsolved. We have not yet found out just how to strike the right balance between free trade and protection; or how to establish a financial system on a sound basis. Then there are the questions of the development of the army and navy, so as to afford us the right protection without consuming too much of the nation's resources; the race problem with its arising complications; the conservation policy best for the pre- servation of our interests; the education of the average person so that he or she will not be compelled to spend so much time in the struggle for existence; the matter of securing greater uniformity and co-operation among the States in regard to legislation covering the divorce problem; taxation, employer's liability, the control of public utilities, and the regulation of elections. There are, too, the problems arising under inefficient municipal governments, which promise to be reformed through gov- ernment by commission; and there are reasons for be- lieving that eventually we shall be entirely rid of a spoils theory of government, through the advantages of the civil service. We have also to contend with the evil of executive use of Federal patronage for political purposes, which has already created a bulwark of such proportions that we shall find it a difficult matter to withstand its influence when it is necessary to make a political change. These are among the gravest problems which the present time presents. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 109 We are face to face with new economic conditions, which have come upon us with the force of an avalanche. They present issues which require our sober considera- tion. They touch vitally our very lives. Probably the economic question which concerns the majority of us most is that of the increase in the cost of living, which every one recognizes is out of all pro- portion, when compared with the corresponding increase in wages, salaries, or average incomes. Statistics are flexible things; so we shall not attempt to state what the percentage of difference is. Authorities differ; but the main facts are obvious. The purchasing power of a dollar declines, amazingly, every year. We are conscious of injustice underlying a system of government which makes present conditions possible. {Something is wrong; more than one thing is wrong. We must seek to correct the evils of the present system through a change, which shall be based upon a reform process, neither revolutionary nor strictly conservative. This process must necessarily have for one of its features the revision of the tariff. The term tariff is synonymous with taxation. The term protective tariff, in modern times, is synonymous with what amounts to extortion. " New times demand new measures and new men ; The world advances; and, in time, outgrows The laws that in our fathers' days were best." The greatest test of the progress of any era is the attitude of the people toward a new moral or political possibility. And new possibilities are conceived, pro- jected, and brought to pass by great men. Therefore, the reception which we give to these men indicates what manner of people we are. It is generally admitted that in the United States few 110 WOODROW WILSON of our greatest statesmen have been Presidents. We have had more than one man " who would rather be right than be President." Must history continue to repeat itself, or shall we prove our* right to be called progressive by selecting in future the right man for the right place, the man whose achievements indicate that he can suggest methods and put into motion reform processes which shall eventually help toward the solution of many of our present problems? And in choosing a leader, it is an unsafe piece of business to trust any man, unless we can first determine where his sympathies lie. We have examined the record of a great thinker and doer, who has devoted himself to the study of governmental affairs. Let us learn more of what he thinks. Governor Wilson maintains that the big question of the day is one of adjustment between economic problems, public opinion, and our system of legislation. He has said : " We collect enough money from the people. The trouble is we don't collect the right sums from the right ones. . . . Everything comes down to this. What is the matter with the tariff? That is a long story, and there is a great deal the matter with it. If you go through the tariff schedule you will find some nigger in every wood- pile; some little word, put into almost every clause of the act, which is lining somebody's pockets with money. " You know what the policy of protection has been in the past. There are some things that may be said in favor of the protective policy, and historically speak- ing the protective tariff has not in the past very greatly increased the cost of living, but in recent years and months it has greatly increased the cost of living. Why? Because it has been a protective policy? No, not espe- cially that, but because the wall of protection has been so high that the great domestic industries have been AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 111 able to form great combinations behind them, knowing that anybody with whom they could not come to an understanding would break in and hurt the game; and so they have been able to limit the product and increase the price. " Men are making a cover of the tariff and a cover of the corporations. So all the men that we want to get out of control are covered now. We have got to organize a great hunt. We have got to find their burrows and smoke them out. I am not interested in the burrow. I am interested in the hunt and the animal that is in it. " You know the story of the Irishman who while dig- ging a hole was asked, ' Pat, what are you doing, digging a hole?' and he replied, 'No, sir, I am digging the earth and leaving the hole.' It is also like the same Irishman, who was digging around the wall of a house. He was asked, ' Pat, what are you doing ? ' and he answered, ' Faith, I am letting the dark out of the cellar.' Now that is exactly what we want to do, let the dark out of the cellar. " Now look at what the Republican party has done in the so-called revision of the tariff. The only thing it has done is to change the tariff; and that is the only way they have revised the tariff. I believe it is the fashion that the tariff system, of to-day, at any rate, was made in Ehode Island and there is a certain gentleman, who lives in Illinois, who co-operated in standardizing this fashion. And what are the standards of these gentlemen in Rhode Island and Illinois? Do you know that the Republican party undertakes to guarantee profits to the industries of this country? Do you know what this means? It means that the poorest factors are drawn in with the best; that the least economically managed factories are united with the most economically managed, and that a level is struck; so that all will make a profit. And that is another premium offered in this country on the system these gentlemen have fashioned. " We are not attacking men. We are attacking a sys- tem. The men are most of them honest. The great majority of them believe that in serving their own they 112 WOODROW WILSON are serving the interests of the people at large. They stand at the wrong point of view. They are like athletes trained in a game, after the rules of the game have been changed, they have .such extraordinary political gifts; they are such good athletes, that the deepest pity of it is that you cannot make them forget and begin all over again, and play the game according to the new rules of the people. They seek their objects, not by public argument, but by private management. Legisla- tion is framed, digested, and concluded in committee- rooms. Of course the chief triumph of committee work, of covert phrase and unexplained classification, is the tariff law. "Ever since the passage of the outrageous Payne- Aldrich tariff law, our people have been discovering the concealed meanings and purposes which lay hidden in it. They are discovering item by item how deeply and deliberately they were deceived and cheated. This did not happen by accident. It came about by design; by elaborate, secret design. Questions put upon the floor in the House and Senate were not frankly or truly an- swered, and an elaborate piece of legislation was foisted on the country, which could not possibly have passed if it had been comprehended by the whole country." Governor Wilson says of " Tariff for Revenue Only " : " We are rich enough, we are safe enough in our pros- perity, we are sure enough of our capacity, of our skill, of our resourcefulness, to set ourselves free at last. We are ready now in our maturity to return to the only uses of government of which the mature can approve. Taxation must never be used for the benefit of some at the expense of others. The power of the government must never be loaned to those who cannot sustain them- selves. The only legitimate object of taxation is revenue for the support of the government. " I dare say that we can never have free trade in this country. It is wise and necessary that we should leave direct taxation, for the most part, to the States for the maintenance of their governments and enterprises. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 113 The Federal Government will probably always derive the greater part of its needed revenues from duties on im- ports. But it is possible, as it will be wise, and in the long run imperative, to base those duties upon the revenue needs of the government and not upon a theory of protection. " This change cannot be brought about suddenly. We cannot arbitrarily turn right about face and pull one policy up by the roots and cast it aside, while we plant another in virgin soil. A great industrial system has been built up in this country under the fosterage of the government, behind a wall of unproductive taxes. The change must be brought about, first here, then there, and then there again. Circumstances have cleared our per- ception of the facts with regard to some of the tariff schedules, and we can deal with them with a relatively free hand without any fear that we shall create damag- ing disturbances in the business of the country. We must move from step to step with as much prudence as resolution. " And while we do so we must create by absolute fair- ness and open-mindedness the atmosphere of mutual con- cession. There are no old-scores to be paid off, there are no resentments to be satisfied, there is no revolution to be attempted; men of every interest must be drawn into the conference as to what it behooves us to do, and what it is possible for us to do. No one should be ex- cluded from counsel, except those who will not come in upon terms of equality and the common interest. We deal with great and delicate matters. We should deal with them with pure and elevated purpose, without fear, with- out excitement, without undue haste, like men dealing with the sacred fortunes of a great country, and not like those who play for political advantage or seek to reverse any policy in their own behalf." Commenting upon the protectionist ground of the Re- publican party, Governor Wilson says: " In the last national platform of the Eepublican party, 114 WOODROW WILSON the country is promised duties which will equal the difference in the cost of production between this country and the foreign countries with which our manufacturers are obliged to compete, ' in addition,' it is naively added, ' to a reasonable profit.' One cannot help wondering how anybody who knows anything of the real circumstances of industry could have drawn such a plank with a straight face. " It is not too much to say that the whole proposition is ignorant and preposterous. No protectionist of the earlier school ever allowed his mind to go so far as this in its extremest vagary. Taken in its plain, logical sig- nificance, this can mean nothing else than absolutely universal protection. " If this country is to be the snug harbor for those who are at a disadvantage in the markets of the world, why should it not also, by the convenient method of combination, be a refuge for those who are also at a disadvantage in the markets of America itself? Are there not evidences that it has become just that? Have not the great combinations, recently effected in this country, brought about just such a result? " Of a dozen mills or factories brought together in a single trust or combination, there is always a very con- siderable variety in the cost of production. In some the machinery has not been brought up to date, the plant is not built in a way to lend itself to the most efficient methods of production ; the market is not quite so access- ible; the source of raw materials is more difficult of access. " Again and again it has happened that after the com- bination was effected, the less efficient factories and mills were closed down, and only the more efficient con- tinued in operation; but the business as newly consti- tuted had to carry the cost of the original merger of the inefficient mills and factories. They were probably put into the combination at a figure greatly exceeding their real value. This figure enters into the issue of the securities of the corporation; the profits must be made upon those figures if the stockholders are to get di- AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 115 vidends ; and so the country must carry for an indefinite period inefficient establishments which have been actually closed and put out of business." These are the same views which were entertained by Dr. Wilson when he wrote, in October, 1909, an able article for the North American Review, called " The Tariff Make-Believe." A standpatter who read this said to me : " Don't you believe that if Wilson were elected President he would disturb business?" Then I recalled what I had so often heard the Governor say in public speeches: " I don't know of any one, who recommends reform in our system, who wants* to disturb anything honest. We want an equilibrator; we want something to counteract sudden, too radical changes. But let it be understood conservatism is not inconsistent with change, sometimes with very rapid change. I will not admit that simply to sit tight is to sit safe. Those who hold back must re- member that they are sitting on a moving machine. I will let things alone if you will hold things still, but if I see certain patent abuses, it seems to me most unpatriotic to keep hands off. " Is it going to disturb business to get back on a con- stitutional and honest basis? Are you willing to stand for that business ? Is it going to hurt business to restore confidence? What is the basis of prosperity? The basis of prosperity is co-operative; the basis of business and prosperity is confidence ; the basis of prosperity is a new figure and spirit in the social body. If you depress the working classes, for example, make them hopeless and resentful, and give them the feeling that they are not getting their just dues, do you suppose that they are going to be the producing class they were ; do you suppose that the wealth is going to be produced as it would be if they felt they were partners in the thing, justly treated, honorably dealt with, generously paid? " What is the matter with the business of this country at the present time? Men continually say in my ear 116 WOODROW WILSON that business is not in a satisfactory condition in this country. They point out this undertaking and that un- dertaking and the other that is running at half force as if waiting for somethihg. " Is there a business man who does not know that the trouble with business now is uncertainty? You do not know what is going to happen to-morrow. Why don't you know? Because the men who are in authority tell you one thing to-day and another to-morrow ; because the President of the United States, his Attorney-General, all those associated with him, give out one utterance one day and then the next day take it back and apologize for it. " You have heard the President speak about the execu- tion of the Anti-Trust Law. You have heard the Attorney- General quoted with regard to that. Do you know what either of them is going to do? Does anybody know? Do they themselves know what they are going to do? What evidence have you that you know what they are going to do? They have everybody guessing, their friends included, and you cannot conduct sound business upon a test of guessing. You have got to know what the morrow is going to bring forth. " Unless business is sustained by the confidence of the public that it is just ; that it is founded upon necessity ; that it rests upon fair dealing; that there is fair com- petition; that everybody has an equal show you know what is going to happen. There is going to be universal restlessness, suspicions, envy, malice, a gathering force of passion which sooner or later will tear at the very roots of the whole structure and destroy it. "What is justice, then, in politics and in the field of business? Here are the remedies we propose in order to reproduce confidence. That is the object of every bill that I am interested in. I want to see the policies of the party that I belong to shaped not to the temporary, but to the permanent interests of business in this country. " Canada declined to have commercial relations with us. Why should they fear union with us? Because they are vastly ahead of us in things that make for orderly AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 117 life and steady business. We have staggered from panic to panic, while their banking system, their financial sys- tem and their corporation system are on a stable basis that we have not known or reached. America is behindhand." Lawrence O. Murray, Comptroller of the National Cur- rency, in his annual report recently submitted to the Second Session of the Sixty-second Congress, makes this startling statement. " The dishonest practice by officers of National Banks of receiving personal compensa- tion for loans made by the bank, is a growing evil, and has already reached such proportions as to call for criminal legislation on the subject. In this manner," he adds, "either the bank is defrauded of lawful in- terest which it would otherwise receive, or usurious interest is exacted of a borrower by a corrupt officer. A secret reward to the officers is sometimes a deliberate bribe for obtaining a loan on insufficient security." Mr. Murray recommends that " Federal or State corporations holding stock in National Banks be made liable to assess- ment as shareholders." He also asks Congress to extend to ten years the statute of limitations for the prosecution of offences under the National Banking laws. We propose, in all seriousness, a new question for debating clubs, Which is on the safer and the more stable basis in the United States to-day: business or aviation ? We have already spoken of the great question of re- forming the financial system. Governor Wilson has pointed out that control of credit is dangerously con- centrated; at any rate, all credit upon any large scale. " The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as that exists our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out 118 WOODROW WILSON of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. The growth of the nation, there- fore, and all our activities, are in the hands of a few men, who, even if their action, be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved, and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men." These utterances by Governor Wilson have brought forth national and international comment. Some of the New York papers inquired after the Governor's Harris- burg speech, " Where does the money monopoly exist? How is it acquired? How is it exerted? and what are the evils attending it ? " all questions quite easily answered. About the time that Governor Wilson made his famous money monopoly address, some remarkable transactions occurred in Wall Street. J. Pierpont Morgan & Company extended their colossal tentacles until the total assets of the banks controlled by them exceeded $1,000,000,000. While this sum is not all Mr. Morgan's money, it is for his firm to say where it shall be loaned or invested. The Morgan triumvirate of banks, insurance com- panies, and trust companies is, without doubt, the eighth wonder of the world. The principal railroad com- panies, the country banks, the oil and steel industries are subservient to the will of the " money monopoly." This is a dominating factor in politics, as well as finance; for bankers, political bosses, courts, and corporation counsels understand that the Morgan octopus is the main- spring of commercial life, without whose aid the wheels AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 119 of industry cannot turn round. The most superficial observer can see that there is danger in this system. Samuel Untermyer, the distinguished New York law- yer, recently stated : " Governor Wilson of New Jersey did not mistake or overstate either the facts or the immediate overshadow- ing peril from the growing concentration of the money power in America. The situation is unlike anything to be found in any other part of the world. Every man, with an intimate acquaintance with the conditions, knows that the dangers are little understood as yet, and are vastly underestimated. The two great and difficult pro- blems that confront us are: first, to curb the concentra- tion of the money power, and second, to regulate and control the industrial competition engaged in interstate commerce." If we are to get at the root of this matter we must seek to control the extent to which the money monopoly may make use of other people's money, and to regulate the power which is now exercised by the money magnates over the lives and fortunes of others. The recent bill of complaint submitted in the name of the United States Government in the suit for the dissolu- tion of the steel trust contains the same allegations which Governor Wilson was the first man to make public. Speaking at the Jackson Day dinner, January 8, 1912, in Washington, D. C., Woodrow Wilson said : " The greatest danger that now confronts this country is not in the single combination of capital. Though this is dangerous enough in all countries. The danger lies in the combination of combinations, in the existence of a single group of men who own the banks, the vast mining interests, the water-power industries and other great companies. 120 WOODROW WILSON " It is a colossal task to disentangle this colossal com- munity of interest. These combinations of combinations are the dangers which we must seek to remedy carefully and slowly. " We must break this spiral of concentrated power which is ever coiling closer and closer. For myself, I believe in the good old rule of the Donnybrook Fair: ' Hit all the heads you see.' Make sure before that your shillalas are made of good Irish hickory. Lop off special favors wherever they are to be found. Cut off these excrescences. You may do it safely. For you will know that you are not cutting living tissue. We can break this community of interest, and we can do it without hurting the individual parts, though there are instances where I would not consider it necessary to be unusually polite. You can't establish competition by law, but you can take away obstacles to competition by law." The problems arising under the money monopoly in- tersect closely those relating to the regulation of cor- porations, concerning which Governor Wilson has some ideas, and with which he has had much experience in New Jersey. He says: "To put Federal law back of the great corporations would have been to give them the right to dominate and override local conditions. We believe in the exercise of the Federal powers to the utmost extent wherever it is necessary, that they should be brought into action for the common benefit. But we do not believe the inter- vention of Federal powers either necessary or desirable. The task of right regulation in the case of common carriers, in particular, whose business spans a score of States, is a task in which we must, co-operate with one another, and with the Federal authorities. " One of the fundamental things to remember is that there are legitimate corporations and illegitimate cor- porations. The one is intended to aid business, the other is intended as a monopoly in restraint of trade and does AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 121 exercise monopoly. It is that thing the country has made up its mind it is not going to stand." Governor Wilson has criticised the Sherman Anti-Trust Law for its looseness in defining both offences and penalties. "We want a law for our business that will give an absolutely clear definition of what is illegal and what is legal. We want an absolute definition of what is going to be done if the law is violated. Some impatient business man said : ' If they are going to send somebody to jail, why don't they get to work and send them to jail and let us get through with it. We are not objecting to sending them to jail ; we are objecting to not knowing whether they are going to jail or not.' " The enterprise we are engaged on is the restoration of business in America. Business can be restored only by putting it on a foundation universally just and open to the examination of other just men." What does Governor Wilson believe to be the best policy of conservation? is a frequent question. " Even the large matter of conservation is more a question for the States than for the Federal government. The Federal government can act in the matter only in so far as it still controls lands and forests and mines and water courses. The great bulk of the land of the conti- nent and of its resources has passed out of Federal con- trol long ago. The States must determine whether the natural resources of the country are to be exhausted or renewed, wasted or conserved, and the matter will re- quire all the more careful statesmanship and planning, because it will touch life very intimately at many points. "We shall not be satisfied until we have found the way, not only to preserve our great natural resources, but also to conserve the strength and health and energy of our people themselves, by protection against wrongful 122 WOODROW WILSON forms of labor, and by securing them against the myriad forms of harm, which have come from the selfish uses of economic power.." " It seems to me that ihe fundamental question of conservation in America is the conservation of the energy, the elasticity, the hope of the American peo- ple. I deal a great deal with friends, for I have had such friends all my life, who are engaged in manufac- turing in this country, and almost every one of them will admit that while he studies his machinery, and will dis- miss a man who overtaxes the machinery so that its bear- ings get heated, so that the stress of work is too much for it, so that it is racked and overdone, not a man of them dismisses a superintendent because he puts too great a strain upon the souls and hearts of his employees. We rack and exhaust and reject the man machine, and we honestly, economically, thoughtfully preserve the steel machine; for we can get more men we have only to beckon to them; the streets are full of them waiting for employment; but we cannot, without cost, get a new machine. " Now that kind of conservation is a great deal more than the question of overstraining the factories. If I knew my business and were a manufacturer, what would I do? I would create such conditions of sanitation, such conditions of life and comfort and health as would keep my employees in the best physical condition, and I would establish such a relationship with them as would make them believe that I was a fellow human being, with a heart under my jacket, and that they were not my tools, but my partners. " Then you would see the gleam in the eye, then you would see that human energy spring into expression which is the only energy which differentiates America from the rest of the world. Men are used everywhere, men are driven under all climes and flags, but we have boasted in America that every man was a free unit of whom we had to be as careful as we would be of our- selves. America's economic supremacy depends upon the moral character and the resilient hopefulness of our work- AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 123 men. So I say, when you are studying questions of con- servation, realize what you have been wasting, the forests, water, minerals, and the hearts and bodies of men. That is the new question of conservation. I say new, because only in our day has the crowding gotten so close and hot that there is no free outlet for men. Don't you re- member that until the year 1890, every ten years when we took the census, we were able to draw a frontier in this conntry ? It is true that in what is called the golden age, 1849, when gold was discovered in California, we sent outposts to the Pacific and settled the further slope of the Rocky Mountains. But between us and that slope, until 1890, there intervened an unoccupied space where the census map-makers could draw a frontier. But when we reached the year 1800 there was no frontier discover- able in America. "What did that mean? That meant that men who found conditions intolerable in crowded America no longer had a place free where they could take up land of their own and start a new hope. That is what that meant, and as America turns upon herself her seething millions and the cauldron grows hotter and hotter, is it not the great duty of America to see that her men remain free and happy under the conditions that have now sprung up? It is true that we needed a frontier so much that after the Spanish War we annexed a new frontier some seven thousand miles off in the Pacific. But that is a long cry, and it takes the energy of a very young man to seek that outlet in the somewhat depressing climate of the Philippines. " So we now realize that Americans are not free to release themselves. We have got to live together and be happy in the family. I remember an old Judge who was absolutely opposed to divorce, because he said that a man will be restless as long as he knows he can get loose but that so soon as it is firmly settled in his mind that he has got to make the best of it, he finds a sudden current of peace and contentment. Now there is no divorce for us in our American life. We have got to put up with one another, and we have got 124 WOODROW WILSON to see to it that we so regulate and assuage one another that we will not be intolerable to each other. We have got to get a modus vivendi in America for happiness, and that is our new problem. And I call you to witness it is a new problem. America never had to finish anything before; she has been at liberty to do the thing with a broad hand, quickly, improvise something and go on to the next thing; leave all sorts of waste behind her, push on, blaze trails through the forest, beat paths across the prairie. But now we have even to stop and pave our streets, we are just finding that out. I suppose it was good for the digestion to bump over the old cobble stones, but it was not good for trade, and we have got to pull up the cobble stones and make real sidewalks that won't jolt the life out of us. Let these somewhat whimsical comparisons serve to illustrate what I am talking about. " Now there is another new thing in America, and that is trade. Well, you laugh at me and say, * Why, America has been supreme in trade ever since she was created ' ? Has she? We have traded with one another, but we have traded with nobody else in proportions worth mention- ing. Yes, we have in grain, in the great food stuffs, but do you know what is happening? Our food-stuff exports, our grain exports are falling, falling, falling, not because we produce less, but because we need more ourselves. We are getting nearer and nearer to the point where we will ourselves consume all that our farms produce. Then we will not have anything with which to pay our balance, will we? Yes, we will, because while our exports of grain have been falling, our exports of manufactured articles have been increasing by leaps and bounds. " But under what circumstance? Long ago, after we had forgotten the excellent things that the first genera- tion of statesmen had done for us in America, we deliber- ately throttled the merchant marine of the United States, and now it is so completely throttled that you are more likely to see the flag of the little kingdom of Greece upon the seas than the flag of the United States. And you know that the Nation that wants foreign com- merce must have the arms of commerce. If she has the AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 125 ships, her sailors will see to it that her merchants have the markets. I am not arguing this with you, I am telling you, for the facts, if we look but a little ways for them, will absolutely demonstrate this circumstance, that we have more to 'fear in the competition of England, Ger- many, and France, because of the multitude of English, French, and German carriers upon the sea than we have to fear from the ingenuity of the English manufacturers or the enterprise of the German merchants. "Anybody who has dealt with railroads knows what I am talking about. Eailroads in America have made and unmade cities and communities have they not? They would do it now if they were not watched by the inter- state commerce commission. We are obliging them to work without discrimination, now, but they at one time discriminated as they pleased, and they determined where cities were to grow and where cities were to decay. "Very well. The same thing is happening upon the high seas. The foreign carrier can tell you where you can go and where you cannot go. He can discriminate against you and in favor of his own merchants and manu- facturers, and he will, because he does. " And while all this is going on, and we lack the means, we are fairly bursting our own jacket. We are making more manufactured goods than we can consume our- selves, and every manufacturer is waking up to the fact that if we do not let anybody climb over our tariff wall to get in, he has got to climb to get out; that we have deliberately domesticated ourselves; that we have de- liberately cut ourselves off from the currents of trade; that we have deliberately divorced ourselves from world commerce; and now, if we are not going to stifle economic- ally, we have got to find our way out into the great international exchanges of the world. There is a new question. " I was speaking in Boston the other evening at a real estate exchange, and I asked those gentlemen what is going to keep real estate values in Boston steady? T asked them if they realized what was likely to happen 126 WOODROW WILSON after the year 1915. You know that in that year it is likely that the great ditch in the Isthmus will be open for commerce. We are not opening it for America, by the way, because we have 't any ships to send through it; we are opening it for England and Germany. We are pouring out American millions in order that German exporters, ^English exporters, and French exporters may profit by our enterprise ; and when that is done, of course something is going to happen to America." Governor Wilson holds most decided views on the ex- tension of the service which the government shall render to its people; for instance, the necessity of establishing a Parcels Post, a Federal Income Tax, and more numerous Postal Savings Banks. He believes that we can only realize popular govern- ment through putting the machinery of political control, both in state and nation, in the hands of the people, through extended direct primaries, a short ballot, and, as we mentioned before, wherever necessary and practical, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall : although he does not believe in the recall of judges. He holds the opinion that since judges are not lawmakers, their duty is not to determine what the law shall be, but what the law is; that it is sufficient that the people should have the power to change the law when they will; that it is not necessary that the people should directly influence by threat of recall those who merely interpret the law already established. Many who listen to Woodrow Wilson believe him to be a radical, and yet every now and then, if one watches him closely, he will observe that while Governor Wilson's utterances are perfectly straight from the shoulder and have a radical ring, yet he qualifies them with such con- servative expressions as these: AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 127 " We ought always to recognize that it is of the very essence of constructive statesmanship that we should think and act temperately, wisely, justly, in the spirit of those who reconstruct and amend, not in the spirit of those who destroy and seek to build from the foun- dations again. . . . " The American people is an eminently just and an intensely practical people. They don't wish to lay vio- lent hands upon their own affairs; but they do claim the right to look them over with close and frank and fearless scrutiny, from top to bottom. . . . " Every direction you turn you will see that what we are straining after is to bring the government back within the touch of the people and to use it in behalf of the people." And again we inquire, "Where is the chief place in which nearly all political experiments shall begin?" Woodrow Wilson says: " The States are the trying out grounds of our political system. They are full partners with the Federal govern- ment in the inspiriting programme of reform. More and more, therefore, would it seem, will the energetic men of this country find their profitable field of service in the politics of our States. It is becoming evident that they are to be the battle-ground of political form." Have we in Woodrow Wilson a friend of organized labor? Yes. " I have always been the warm friend of organized labor. It is in my opinion not only perfectly legitimate, but absolutely necessary, that labor should organize if it is to secure justice from organized capital. And every- thing that it does to improve the condition of working- men, to obtain legislation that will impose full legal responsibility upon the employer for his treatment of his employees and for their protection against accident, to secure just and adequate wages and to put reasonable 128 WOODROW WILSON limits upon the working-day and upon all the exactions of those who employ labor ought to have the hearty sup- port of all fair-minded and public-spirited men ; for there is a sense in which the condition of labor is the condition of the nation itself. The laboring man cannot benefit himself by injuring the industries of the country. But I am much more afraid that the great corporations, com- binations, and trusts will do the country deep harm than I am that the labor organizations will harm it, and yet I believe the corporations to be necessary instruments of modern business." Is Woodrow Wilson a strong party man? He is, first of all, a people's man. To be sure he is a Democrat with a big " D " ; but notice what he says about discarding party labels. " The interesting thing of our politics now is that men are not labelled. You cannot tell from the way a man voted last time how he will vote the next time. Men are beginning to find out that the safe line is the right line." " What keeps the progressive elements of the two great parties apart ? " I inquired. " The reasons are sentimental," he replied. " The prin- ciples are practically identical. As to how long the pro- gressive branches of the two parties will stay apart we cannot tell. It won't be forever." In a recent speech concerning the progressive move- ment Governor Wilson said: "The great progressive sentiment which now more and more dominates the country, and only awaits its opportunity to determine the policies of the Government is not accidental, is not merely a passing phase expres- sive of the temperament of an eager people. It is a thing that has arisen steadily by natural and inevitable force, like the tides of the ocean. " The most profitable thing that we can do, in order to reassure ourselves, is to ask why this great body of AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 129 progressive opinion has grown so strong; why it has spread to almost every part of the country. " The facts are unmistakable enough. The history of the present administration has illustrated them at every turn. " We have seen an honest and patriotic man in the Presidential chair struggling with the rising power, in- volved in greater and greater difficulties, because he did not understand that power, or comprehend the great pur- poses that lay behind it, and yet unable to curb it and seeming, in spite of himself, to increase its volume by the very acts attempted to check it. " What has happened ? What is it that the stand-pat ranks of the Republican party vaguely battle with? Why is the country attempting to break away from old party formulas, and blaze a new path for itself in politics under a changed leadership, and by new measures of reform? " Because within less than a generation all the economic conditions of life and business in this country have changed almost beyond recognition, while our politics have all but stood still. There has been much con- troversy. There has been loud shouting as if upon a field of battle. Some measures of reform there have been, but there has been no steady, consistent force to give them their full effect, to guide them, to adapt them to conditions all along the line. The sum of the matter is that our life has changed and that our policies are belated. " Our laws lag almost a generation behind our busi- ness conditions and our political exigencies. " Those who insist upon undertaking the adjustment; those who argue that our laws should be brought up to date to the date marked upon the calendar of our economic advance and change, are called radicals, not because they would change the facts, but because they would adjust the law to the facts. " I do not perceive in the United States any danger- ous volume of passionate dissatisfaction. It seems to me that the air grows clearer rather than thicker. There is no sign of storm on the horizon, but there are many 130 WOODROW WILSON signs of a hopeful and better day. Those who once con- tended that nothing was the matter are now admitting that a great deal is the matter, that much has been done in the world of business and in the money market that ought not to have been done. They are growing willing to discuss the matter, to confer, to admit the necessity for remedies, and while their temper has changed the temper of reformers has perhaps grown more sober. They are beginning to discuss the practicable means of change in a more direct and businesslike way. "Recent investigations have been of the greatest ser- vice. They have disclosed and are disclosing, item by item, just the methods of business which have been most harmful and most unjust. I think they have opened the eyes of the very men who gave the testimony. " We see that somewhere near the centre of the whole trouble lies the great system of governmental favors which we call the tariff. Bound about the tariff has been built up a body of business undertaking in which control has been too much concentrated. In order to maintain this control it has been necessary to be sure of the patronage of the Government, and so business has gone deep into politics. Legislative action has been controlled by special business interests. Party machinery has been used to serve private purposes and to make sure pecuniary profit. The whole normal process of government has been reversed and government itself has come to be pri- vately owned. The phrase may be exaggerated, but it is only the brief epitome of a state of affairs the main facts of which are only too plain. " And so progressives are drawing together, not to destroy anything, but to effect a wholesome readjust- ment; not hastily, not by any too extensive plan which runs beyond what we see and know, but item by item we must set the government free from private control and set business free from private control, so that the economic courses of our life may run free again, and that with their freedom we may return to individual opportunity and open the gates to fresh untrammelled achievement. . . . This is the gospel of the progressive." AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 131 What does Woodrow Wilson think about the world peace movement? "No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace out of his acquiescence. The most solid and satisfying peace is that which comes from this constant spiritual warfare ; and there are times in the history of nations when they must take up the crude instruments of bloodshed, in order to vindicate spiritual conceptions. For liberty is a spiritual conception, and when men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare. I will not cry peace so long as there is sin and wrong in the world." An attempt has been made in this volume to present both the records and the views of a statesman who is looming large as a possible President of the United States. Eeference has been made to some of the greatest pro- blems of the states and the nation not yet solved. The time is most opportune for a man of understanding, pa- triotism, energy, initiative, force, fearlessness, and experi- ence to come forward and help us to work out reform processes which shall meet not only present emergencies, but which shall comprehend the needs of the future. Many such times have occurred in our history, but not always has there been a leader on hand to meet the issues, and sometimes we have not been quick to recognize the merit of those who might have served us most ad- mirably and efficiently. In fact, we have quite often deprived ourselves of the best service which our states- men might have given us, through distrust, envy, ig- norance, and a fear that possibly some little pet hobby or industry might suffer, if certain leaders came forward. We have discounted the splendid attainments of many great men, and then, later, when we have discovered that 132 WOODROW WILSON there was much in their philosophy and ethics which we needed, we have turned round, stolen the thunder of those whom we have previously scorned, and clothed with power some individual who was progressive enough to take the cue, and make the application of the rejected man's principles. We take it for granted that the majority of the people now realize that there is something wrong in our organi- zation and administration of government, but are we going to seize the opportunity and turn a search-light on the facts? Are we going to march with dark-lanterns into the recesses of the Hall of Private Management? Or shall we continue to compromise and barter and trade until we have nothing left worth saving? Shall we, when we find a plague spot in government " cut deep " and remove it by the roots, or shall we sprinkle it over with toilet water to conceal the odor? We are on the eve of a critical era. We are being tested every day. Shall we meet the test? And change, unless it is the right change, will not settle anything. We must give our very best thought, attention, and action to this matter. Things are getting by the boards every day. Men very often go out of office; ~but methods do not. The Demo- cratic revival in this country is only a part of a world movement which is taking place from the Occident to the Orient. No government can reach or retain its efficiency, unless the people pursue a policy of eternal vigilance. The time is now. THE TIME, THE PLACE Emerson tells us "America is another word for op- portunity." We may say Democracy is another word for opportunity. If it stands for anything it stands for equality of privileges, not the cornering of privileges. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 133 The contest is not one between parties, but one between principles ; between the special interests and the people. It is an old, old story. We are only passing through a test period the same, except for different economic con- ditions, through which the progressive nations across the water have each passed. Should not the Democratic party, with its sacred traditions and principles, be the instrument for re-Jeffersonizing the present age, and delivering the American people from an era of beauti- fully indefinite policies? Will not its record during the last session of Congress, when it demonstrated most efficiently its capacity for carrying out the popular will, commend the Democratic party to all lovers of free gov- ernment, regardless of former party affiliations? THE PLACE the Democratic national convention whose function shall be to select "the ablest and most sincere man available " to lead us. Carlyle has told us that often, indeed, time has called for a great man when no great man has appeared. Now the time calls. A great man has arrived. Shall the place unite with the needs of the time and place the man where he may render his greatest public service ; or shall the hostility of some faction of special interests, inspired by malice or some imaginary fear, make it possible through the two thirds rule, necessary to nominate a Democrat in the national convention, to defeat this man of the people? We know right well what becomes of parties when they cannot find their right leader. Let us hope that the year 1912 will not witness a " Tweedle-dee " candidate running on a " Tweedle-dum " platform in one party ; and a " Tweedle- dum" candidate running on a "Tweedle-dee" platform in the other great political party. Some interested gentlemen have examined Woodrow Wilson's record with a microscope; and they have found 134 WOODROW WILSON what may be called one infinitesimal inconsistency, namely, that he did not believe in the initiative and re- ferendum when he taught Jurisprudence at Princeton. The answer of any thinking person to this must be that the initiative and referendum are only experimental fea- tures in their incipient stages in the United States. They have not been in use long enough, except in a few Western States, to furnish any very conclusive evidence of their practical success, or permanent efficiency, but as the ex- periment develops we are growing to think kindly of both these features of reform, and indications are that they will demonstrate a high degree of usefulness. Naturally, a great many of us have changed our minds since the theory has been more carefully studied, and, in many cases, put into what will, no doubt, prove successful operation. Wise men still change their minds. And we should remember that " A foolish consistency is the hob- goblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Not only have the gentlemen determined on Governor Wilson's political destruction, made it a crime for one to change his mind, but they have likewise made it a crime for one to tell the truth. If we are correctly informed Colonel George Harvey asked Governor Wilson a direct question, point blank. Very well, then, the Governor answered it, point blank, without any frills or furbelows. Straightway, the Gov- ernor's enemies cried " Ingrate," " Lese majesty ! " Then we must admit, must we, that if a man of political aspira- tions talks honestly, frankly, and candidly he endangers his prospects ? Well, if we must, we must, that 's all ; yet we refuse to believe that right-thinking people will repudiate a man who refuses to buy his way with double- dealing, flattery, and intrigue. We remember that AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 135 Emerson defined a friend as " one with whom we may he sincere." All right then. Was Governor Wilson talk- ing to a friend, and was he with friends, when the Man- hattan Club incident occurred? We would like to know. Our curiosity is aroused. However that may have been, we do know that on account of Colonel Harvey's "supposed environment," even though his editorial activities in Governor Wilson's interest were sincere and independent, many people were suspicious of Harvey's aggressive advocacy of the Wilson candidacy. Many of Governor Wilson's friends, Colonel Watterson among them, had suggested to the Governor that it would be a good idea for Colonel Harvey to tone down somewhat his editorial support. These intimations reached Colonel Harvey's ears, and when he questioned Governor Wilson, requesting a frank reply, what could Mr. Wilson, in the name of honor, do, but tell the truth ? For this he is to be punished. " Let us come to the conclusion of the whole matter." Governor Wilson did not wish to have the entire country misunderstand him, and he refused to accept, without protest, support coming from a publication, which is said to be directly owned and controlled by the special interests. If Woodrow Wilson wins, in the great na- tional contest, he will not enter the White House wearing any man's harness. He will go to Washington, if he goes at all, as he went to Trenton, a free man. He needs only the disinterested support of the people who believe thoroughly in him and in his principles. No embellish- ments from any source are necessary. The plain truth disseminated by the plain people will go a long way. If Woodrow Wilson's achievements do not carry him to the place of distinction which he deserves, it is better that he shall not reach it. 136 WOODROW WILSON The Washington correspondent of the Newark Evening News. John E. Lathrop, says: " It is now accepted as true that Governor Wilson was asked by Colonel Watterson or Colonel Harvey to take financial assistance from Thomas Fortune Ryan, that he refused and that at least Colonel Watterson was annoyed because his efforts to commit Governor Wilson to the political chaperonage of Evan had gone awry. " And the acceptance generally here of that as the ex- planation of the much-bruited affair has caused that re- action which has been expected from the beginning. This reaction is sweeping. It appears to have wiped out the slight injury that an insufficient statement of the facts at first had produced for it was not denied that, at first, the opponents of Governor Wilson produced a tem- porary situation that was not advantageous to the New Jersey candidate. " To-day, instead of indulging in adverse criticism of Wilson, for the part he played, he is commended; and in addition the disposition to condemn Watterson and Harvey is noticeable. In fact, indignation is expressed on every side at what appears to have been an attempt to lead Governor Wilson into political affiliations which would have destroyed all his hopes of enjoying further confidence of the people of the country. " The importance attributed to the affair resulted from the human consideration, rather than the exact estimates that were made of the political importance either of Watterson or Harvey. It had been sought to create the impression that Wilson was not loyal to his friends; and the deep-down motive, doubtless, was to sow in the minds of political workers all over the country the sus- picion that Wilson's election as President would not be to their interest. " For a few days, this effect was produced. But, upon the general publication of the facts relating to the at- tempt to lead him into the ultra-conservative political camp, an entirely different character of comment was AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 137 noticed here in the many places where politics is talked, even before the state of the weather. " The Washington Herald prints an excerpt from a Southern paper, which says that, ' judging from the Watterson-Harvey matter, if Wilson were to be Presi- dent, he would not be " a good-natured man surrounded by men who know exactly what they want"' para- phrasing the now famous epigram of the late Senator Dolliver, of Iowa, when he was describing President Taft. " It is realized now that that excerpt exactly expresses the result that has come from an undoubled ' frame-up,' the object of which was to get Wilson in a position so that he would have to join the reactionaries. "It adds to, although it does not originate, the con- viction that the reactionary influences in American po- litical life have determined that, if it be within the limits of human power, they will defeat Wilson for the nomina- tion for President. "Political Washington now knows that this plan has been laid ; that in its execution mighty forces are enlisted, and that men high in social and financial circles are com- mitted to it. The facts connected with the Harvey-Wat- terson affair, and others brought out by the agitation caused by it, clearly point out to experienced observers the character of the conflict just now being waged for the control of the national conventions of both the great political parties. "This conflict is Titanic in its proportions. It has enlisted on the one side those persons and interests who do not want to witness an 'open door' administration, but wish to have the country's politics fall again to the level of the days when campaign committees vied with each other in getting contributions from financial magnates. "No honest chronicler of Washington events can es- cape the duty of recording that the effect that has been produced by the Watterson matter has been distinctly beneficial to Governor Wilson. It has served to unmask some of the motives that prompt and plans that have 138 WOODROW WILSON been laid by the reactionary political forces. The mes- sages pour into Washington from the ends of the con- tinent that the affair is now understood, and that, instead of injuring Wilson, it has immensely helped him." Then after a private controversy has caused innumer- able public quarrels and foolish conjectures; after can- non have belched forth their fire; after the dead and wounded have been carried from the battle-field, after Colonel Watterson has had spasm after spasm in rapid succession, the correspondence of Governor Wilson and Colonel Harvey is made public. And all there is of it makes only a very short story. Governor Wilson be- lieved that he had hurt Colonel Harvey's feelings, and then manfully apologized for it. The Governor explained that his only thought with reference to the support of Harper's Weekly was to convince the public of the inde- pendence of the Weekly's position. Treading upon the heels of the publication of the Wilson-Harvey letters, comes the final statement (let us hope), of Colonel Watterson. He tells us, on February 1, 1912, that " From first to last I have been acting not only with Colonel Harvey's full knowledge and approval but upon his insistence; that from the beginning he was most im- patient of delay, sending a personal representative to me in Atlanta the 24th of December, and again the same representative to Richmond the 31st of December, urging me to take the initiative; that he was unqualified in in- dorsing my statement of the Manhattan Club incident, writing forthwith to declare it * perfect,' and he was with me in the New Willard in Washington up to last Sunday night, sharing all I did and had done." If Colonel Watterson gives us an accurate presentation AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 139 of facts here, what are we to think of the assurances of friendship which Colonel Harvey gave to Governor Wil- son through correspondence, as late as January 5, 1912? There can be but one conclusion, and it would be a waste of space to print it. It is passing strange that every discharge of lightning emanating from anti- Wilson sources serves to illuminate and make more brilliant the character of Woodrow Wil- son. Every knock proves to be a boost. His enemies criticised him because after twenty-five years of faithful service as a teacher, at a modest salary, he made an application for a teacher's pension. But this incident only proved the school-master-statesman to be " poor in purse." Then there is William Randolph Hearst, and "' men may come and men may go," but Willie Hearst " goes on forever." Probably the most exalted compli- ment that has yet been paid to Woodrow Wilson's statesmanship has been the opposition of the Hearst publications to Wilson's candidacy. And best of all the assaults of the Kentucky Colonel have established the fact that the special interests can not secure a mortgage on the New Jersey Governor. THE TIME, THE PLACE, THE MAN. Woodrow Wilson is the man. His record indicates as much. We can de- termine from it what policies he will adopt and what standards he will establish when he becomes President. He has been a fearless State spokeman. He would be equally as fearless as a " National voice." Does not the present chaos and confusion in our legis- lative system indicate that we need a modern Justinian, who will take on the responsibilities of leadership with- out flinching; who will stand to his guns and never hedge? You know what Justinian did. There were two thousand volumes of statutes when he came into power. 140 WOODROW WILSON They were honeycombed with the influence of the favored classes. Justinian led the way, and substituted for these two thousand volumes a compact little library of fifty pamphlets. They contain' the germ of all our modern law. What we need is a new Justinian to do the stunt all over again. In Governor Wilson's message to the 1912 New Jersey Legislature he said: " It is imperative, as it seems to me, that the use of the courts of .justice by the people should be simplified and facilitated. Our legal procedure is too technical, too complicated, too expensive, too little adapted to the use of the poor and unschooled. . . . We are proud of our bench : why should we not put ourselves in a position to be equally proud of our administration of justice as based upon the best reformed models ? " " We are clamoring for leadership." Who is best fitted to lead? The time has produced a man, a profound scholar, a persuasive and convincing orator, a keen thinker, a prudent practitioner, an energetic leader, a Tilden Democrat, who began with his own State and carried out numerous reforms in an "intelligently radical " manner. His " luminous record," his age fifty-five, his tempera- ment, his political purposes and tendencies, and his char- acter and convictions point to the conclusion that Woodrow Wilson is the only Democratic Presidential candidate. He is a Southern-Northerner and a Northern- Southerner; a national favorite son, a Yankee-Doodle- Dixie candidate, your Joline letters, your cocked hats, your Harvey-Wilson-Watterson controversies, and the New York Sun to the contrary notwithstanding! Public sentiment will demand his nomination. The people will recognize his peculiar fitness for leader- Copyright, Underwood, New York. WOODROW WILSON IN HIS STUDY. "The man of intellect at the top of affairs. This is the aim of all constitutions and revolutions if they have any aim. For the man of true intellect is the noble-hearted man withal, the true, just, humane, and valiant man. Get him for Governor, all is got. Fail to get him, though you had constitutions plentiful as black-berries and a Parliament in every village, there is nothing yet got!" Thomas Carlyle. AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 141 ship. Woodrow Wilson will be President of the United States. We return to Carlyle. "The man of intellect at the top of affairs. This is the aim of all constitutions and revolutions, if they have any aim. For the man of true intellect is the noble-hearted man withal, the true, just, humane, and valiant man. Get him for Governor all is got. Fail to get him, though you had constitutions plentiful as blackberries, and a Parliament in every village, there is nothing yet got! We shall either learn to know a hero, a true Governor and Captain, some- what better, when we see him, or else go on to be for- ever governed by the unheroic; had we ballot-boxes clattering at every street-corner there were no remedy in these!" May we be pardoned for drawing a picture of the future ? May we not imagine Woodrow Wilson, the ideal citizen, ex-President, in private life, devoting himself to literature which shall forever conserve the interests of the American people? P.S. If Woodrow Wilson is elected President of the United States, the author invites to a feast the Hon. James Smith, Jr., the Hon. James Nugent, the Hon. James C. Dahlman, the Hon. A. H. Joline, " for he is an honor- able man ; so are they all honorable men," Colonel Henry Watterson, Colonel George Harvey, William Randolph Hearst, William F. McCombs, and President Woodrow Wilson. The Hon. James Smith, Jr., may name the time, the place, the food, and the caterer, the only con- dition imposed is that Mr. Smith shall act as toast- master. 142 WOODROW WILSON AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES James Smith, Jr. " Is this a dagger that I see before me, The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." James Nugent (dreaming of the Neptune Heights in- cident) " That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold ; What hath quenched them hath given me fire." James Dahlman " Merciful powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that Nature gives way to in repose ! " Adrian H. Joline, reading a letter: " I have lost my hopes." Colonel Watterson " The table 's full." First Apparition. A cocked hat. Second Apparition. New York Journal and New York Sun draped in mourning. Third Apparition. A Kentucky Colonel with a bottle of Lithia water in his hand. Colonel Harvey " Which of you have done this? AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 143 William Randolph Hearst " Thou canst not say I did it, Never shake thy gory looks at me." Colonel Watterson " Then comes my fit again." A show of eight Democratic Presidents and William Jennings Bryan last, with the Declaration of Independ- ence in his hand. President Wilson " What I am truly is my poor country's to command." William F. McCombs " Such welcome and unwelcome things at once 'T is hard to reconcile." SUPPLEMENT " We count it no exaggeration to declare our opinion that no other American has approached more nearly to Jefferson and Lincoln in wonderful facility and felicity of stating the problems and their solution, which touch real Americanism from every angle." From an editorial on WOODROW WILSON, in the Philadelphia North American. u A conservative with a move on." Kansas City Times. " Present indications are that Governor Wilson could carry the United States by a safe majority in the elec- toral college, without the aid of New York or Connecticut. He is exceedingly popular in the old Republican States of the upper Mississippi Valley, and in the Eocky Moun- tain and Pacific Coast regions. One of the commonest remarks in that section of the country invariably begins : ' If the Democrats nominate Woodrow Wilson. . . .' Men- tion the name of the Governor of New Jersey to an in- surgent Republican and he beams with ready response to the suggestion. As one studies the map Governor Wilson could probably carry every State west of the Mississippi River and east of it. He would sweep in enough electoral votes north of the Ohio River to make some of the strength of the old Solid South superfluous." Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican. " Governor Woodrow Wilson is the strongest Demo- cratic probability now in the field." Seattle, Washington, Post Intelligencer. " One after another Republicans in Washington, D. C., remark that if the Democrats shall nominate Governor 144 NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 145 Woodrow Wilson for President Mr. Taft will find it difficult to secure a re-election." Dubuque, Iowa, Herald. " Where did the Wilson boom start? It started in the hearts of the people who want a man who will stand with and for them." Duluth, Minnesota, Herald. "We can win with Wilson." Augusta, Georgia, Herald. " I regard Governor Wilson as a great conservative force because he is neither a radical, a standpatter, nor an extremist. He is the embodiment of safe, sound, and progressive policy." WILLIAM G. McADoo. " Cleveland was loved for the enemies that he made. Woodrow Wilson is loved for the friends he has refused to make." Columbia, South Carolina State. "President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton may soon be President Woodrow Wilson of the U. S. A." Boston Globe. "If you are a Progressive do something for Wilson. Don't let the political footpads sandbag him. Organize a Wilson club; give the Wilson sentiment a chance to express itself." Boston Common. "The people, East and West, have met Dr. Wilson face to face. They have heard him talk and have taken his measure as a man of sincerity, honesty, and capacity in political thinking. They have his record as Governor of New Jersey as an earnest of what he can do in po- litical action. So far as Democracy will suit at all, his particular brand rings true, and he gains strength rather than weakness by the criticism and opposition of his party brethren who stand in reactionary ranks." Port- land, Oregon, Telegram. " I am supporting Governor Wilson, because I believe he is the strongest man the Democrats can get for the 146 WOODROW WILSON office of President. I regard him as a better man for the place than Harmon because I believe he will be better able to control the radical element in the party." Judge JAMES G. TUCKER of Mt. Ctemens Michigan. " I believe that we ought to nominate Woodrow Wilson, and I believe that we can elect him." United States Senator JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS. Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, who has been campaign- ing in his State in behalf of Governor Wilson, criticises the opponents of the New Jersey governor in the follow- ing statement, following the Harvey-Wilson-Watterson affair : " This whole incident is a bubble, not a billow. It is not surprising, however, that the opponents of Wilson, being the friends of other candidates should mistake the one for the other. It seems that the head and heart of the Governor's offending is that he told the truth. " No honest man can accept an office, least of all, the presidency, with a lie upon his conscience or his conduct. No one has plenary power to select either his friends or his opponents in politics. To decline tendered aid and alliance is a most difficult and delicate task. Few men have the courage and candor to do this when battle is joined. Peradventure, the Governor may have learned by experience that there are men who would undertake to capitalize gratitude and then commercialize influence. He may have thought it just and timely to foreclose the possibility of such an attempt hereafter. " The critics of Governor Wilson should tell the public frankly whether their candidates would assume such an obligation as the Governor declines, and, if so, whether their candidate would disregard or would discharge such obligations. The American people have a right to know the text and terms of all the mortgages and deeds of trust, either expressed or implied, under which a can- didate for the Presidency may labor, and they have an equal right to know the names of all the mortgages and beneficiaries of the trust. I would rather see Governor 'AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 147 Wilson defeated and his heart an open book, ' that all who run may read,' than to see him triumphant with a skeleton in his political closet which had been concealed from the eyes of a confiding public." "Realizing the importance of solidifying the Demo- cratic sentiment in the West in favor of that candidate who best represents the Democratic conscience and who is most in sympathy with the Progressive policies for which the West stands, I have come to the conclusion to regard Woodrow Wilson as the man, who, above all other candidates, voices the convictions and the aspira- tions of the American Democracy. " It is evident that the big interests have isolated Wilson from all the other candidates and have made him the special object of attack. There is all the more reason, therefore, that the Democrats of Nevada and the West should recognize him as the true progressive leader and rally to his support." United States Senator Francis Newlands of Nevada. WILSON CLUB HEAD ATTACKS WATTERSON SAYS GOVERNOR MIGHT HAVE BEEN WARNED BY THE CLEVE- LAND-WATTERSON RUPTURE William Cabell Bruce, President of the Wilson Club of Baltimore, which numbers 700 members, said of the Watterson letter: "No reasonable man, it seems to me, can read this statement without harboring the thought too, that, if Governor Wilson had received letters from enemies of Colonel Watterson in Kentucky, warning Governor Wil- son against him, perhaps these letters would have been timely. " The caprice which marked the rupture that brought the class social as well as political intimacy between President Cleveland and Colonel Watterson to an end, might well have admonished Governor Wilson that, bril- liant as are, the literary and rhetorical bubbles thrown 148 WOODROW WILSON off from time to time by the vivid imagination of Colonel Watterson, he altogether lacks the solid and safe qualities which make up a trustworthy counsellor." The Kansas City Star, which has been a strong advo- cate of Governor Woodrow Wilson's candidacy, said, editorially : "Regarding the Wilson-Harvey incident these facts seem apparent: In view of the affiliations of Harper's Weekly, doubtless Governor Wilson felt that the support of the editor, his friend, Colonel Harvey, was putting him in a false light with the country. Doubtless, too, it might be wished that the Governor had not found it necessary to convey any such intimation to Colonel Harvey. A man may have well-meaning friends whose assistance he would like to get along without, but which he must simply accept as one of the handicaps to be carried as best he can. "Nevertheless, the American people are not inclined to be critical in dealing with effective public men whose purposes they believe to be right. "At Princeton, Woodrow Wilson took his life in his hands and struggled for Democracy within the University. As Governor of New Jersey he has made a fine record in wresting from a divided and reluctant Legislature a body of progressive laws. " In all his relations he has shown himself a strong fighter for progressive ideas. His energy, courage, and ability have made him a national leader in the forward movement." " At the beginning of his statement about the now fa- mous interview between himself and Col. Harvey and Governor Wilson, Colonel Watterson said : ' The con- ference between us in my apartment at the Manhattan Club was held to consider certain practical measures re- lating to Governor Wilson's candidacy.' Isn't it now time that we heard from Colonel Watterson as to what those practical measures were? Did they relate to the raising of campaign funds? Had they to do with the AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 149 desirability of Governor Wilson's making the acquaint- ance of certain financiers of influence in the past history of the Democratic party? Is it true that Colonel Wat- terson exclaimed that in the long run money and not patriotism wins campaigns? Upon all these questions we should have a little more light." New York Evening Post. "When Colonel Harvey, apparently overcome by Gov- ernor Wilson's austerity, put the direct question to Gov- ernor Wilson whether the support of Harper's Weekly was doing him an injury, and received from Governor Wilson the cold rejoinder that it was, I was both sur- prised and shocked." HENRY WATTERSON. " The World is surprised too. But we cannot bring ourselves to say that we are shocked. "For a Presidential candidate to tell an influential supporter more than five months before the nominating convention and over nine months before the election that his support is no longer desired is surprising. " For a man to tell an intimate friend that his loyal and long-continued work in his behalf is no longer a service but an injury is painfully unpleasant " But we can see nothing shocking in giving this frank answer to a plain question. Presumably Colonel Harvey wanted the truth when he asked the question. Presum- ably Governor Wilson believed he was telling the truth when he answered. " * Ingratitude ! ' arises the chorus of Governor Wilson's shocked opponents. We should be far from shocked even if we could discover ingratitude in Governor Wilson's position. " Ingratitude is one of the rarest virtues of public life. ' Gratitude ' is responsible for many of our worst political abuses. Upon ' gratitude ' is built every corrupt po- litical machine ; upon ' gratitude ' is founded the power of every ignorant and unscrupulous boss ; in ' gratitude ' is rooted the system of spoils, of log-rolling, of lobbying. Lorimer was elected by 'gratitude,' Payne- Aldrich bills are passed for ' gratitude,' Harriman campaign funds are 150 WOODROW WILSON raised for ' gratitude.' The great majority of the voices which are denouncing Wilson's ingratitude are the voices of machine politicians, chief among whose stock in trade is this < gratitude.' "New york World. " It is no time for Democrats to think of falling back on a weak or unknown man. Their strongest will be none too strong. For the country has not merely to be held to the Democracy, it has yet to be won over to it. The mid-way elections of 1910 furnished proof that the people are ready to be converted, but they are still look- ing for the man to do it. A mere humdrum Democrat, with nothing against him, perhaps, but nothing for him, ' icily regular, splendidly null,' ought not to be considered for a moment. What the Democratic opportunity calls for is a candidate of tempered courage and forth-putting energy. To draw back now, to hesitate, to refuse to put the best foot forward, to adopt a temporizing policy and put up with a compromising leader, would be to throw away the entire advantage of position. " Considerations like these are what make the appeal of Governor Wilson to his party so great at the present juncture. Timid men inevitably drop away from him, with many head-shakings, but the question is whether the party and the party situation do not demand a bold and positive man. Governor Wilson's independence and courage are beyond question. He has a singular power of expression. His voice is comparatively new to the mass of his countrymen, so that he has the better chance of a hearing for what he has to say. And that he has ideas, convictions, and definite purposes, he has abund- antly shown. He has seemed, also, to gather up in his own person the reasonably progressive and reformatory tendencies of his party. The indications are clear that, if he were to be put at the head of the Democratic cam- paign, he would not only raise it to a high level oratoric- ally, but would give it push and vigor from start to finish. His candidacy is admittedly distasteful to the ordinary run of politicians. He does not speak their language and they know in their hearts that they cannot AND NEW JERSEY MADE OVER 151 1 do business ' with him. Time-servers and over-cautious men are not drawn to Wilson. He irritates and alarms them. But there can be no question that there is a stronger popular movement for him than for any other candidate. If there is such a thing as a Democratic current, it to-day sets powerfully for Wilson. And the only question is whether the party managers will try to stop it by political manipulation, or whether they will have the sense to let it sweep on and give them a Presi- dential nominee who will be a true leader, with that bold- ness and force which the time requires and without which there can be nothing but failure." New York Evening Post. On January 29, 1912, Hon. William Jennings Bryan wrote the author as follows : " Dr. Woodrow Wilson combines to a larger extent than usual the qualities of an instructor with the tastes and public spirit of the statesman." In a recent issue of The Commoner, Mr. Bryan said editorially: " A realignment of political friends is necessary when- ever a fundamental change takes place on important questions. The most conspicuous Bible illustration of a fundamental change in life is found in the experience of Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul. He was as honest when he persecuted the Christians as he was afterward when he risked shipwreck, stripes, and even death to preach the gospel. He doubtless retained many of his personal friends, and some of them may have undergone, later, the same change of heart, but he would hardly have entrusted to an unrepentant persecutor of the Chris- tians the planning of one of his missionary tours. His epistles, after the change, were not to his early friends, but to the brethren of the church. Colonel Harvey has shown no signs of conversion ; if he communes with Ananiases it is not with any conscious- ness of blindness. He has seen no new light; and 152 WOODROW WILSON when he does, he will feel so ashamed of his life-long fight against progressive democracy that his first desire will be to bring forth fruits meet for repentance not to as- sume leadership. It must pain Governor Wilson to break with old friends, but the breaks must necessarily come unless he turns back or they go forward. 'A man is known by the company he keeps ' and he cannot keep company with those going in opposite directions. Gov- ernor Wilson must prepare himself for other desertions they will distress him but there is abundant consola- tion in the consciousness of duty done. It should matter little to him whether he reaches the White House or not that depends on circumstances which he can but par- tially control the joy that comes from the faithful rendition of service surpasses any satisfaction that one can derive from the gratification of political ambition a joy that makes one strong enough to endure even the severest of strains, namely, the breaking of the bonds of friendship." UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. JUN 1 1964 NUv REC'O ID-OKI JAN 15 1998 vnt> o ?nnt "" 'R-"* 7 1986 07. MAY 07 1986 Form L9-75m-7,'61(C1437s4)444 ii ill mill nil llll II II llll i||| II 3 1158 01099 32 BEN B. LINDSBY